Xia Fei was assigned a small room on the tenth floor. There were three bungalows standing side by side and even a courtyard at their doorstep; in it were many carnations that had been specially bred. These flowers were highly suited to the cold weather and would fully bloom even if the entire mountain was covered in snow.
After assigning Xia Fei his room, the Deathguards quickly retreated as though they were not afraid that Xia Fei would try to escape.
Phantom had finally calmed down after the initial excitement. The sect was still the same except for him, who was no longer alive and could only observe everything from afar. He also managed to see his highly respected master one last time, but Moonshadow never approached them again.
Right now, the thing highest on his list of priorities was helping Xia Fei escape this situation. After all, going to the training grounds to find the six-leaf rain lotus had been Phantom’s idea. Although Xia Fei did not blame him, Phantom could just not live that down.
Phantom also knew how strict the sect was. First of all, there was the bunch of Deathguards who, after being brainwashed by mental abilities, were almost like machines. They hid in the mountains and observed the movements of every single disciple, immediately reporting to Darkshadow, who was in charge of them, if anything out of the ordinary happened.
Avoiding them was the first step to escaping. Once the warship was parked in the spaceport, it would be locked in by the strong magnet. The magnet must be disabled in order for them to leave. As it was managed by the Deathguards, barging into the control center and destroying the system would be no easy feat.
There were other defense systems as well, so it was almost impossible to leave the planet without being ordered to do so, and because of these barriers, they were okay with leaving Xia Fei on the mountain, not fearing that he might escape.
Phantom told everything about the sect’s defense system to Xia Fei. After analyzing the requirements, Xia Fei concluded that he had no chance of escaping alone.
Therefore, he started living in the courtyard. He would train every day and would walk around in the yard if he was feeling bored, taking in the flowers and moon; it was quite relaxing to say the least.
Three days passed by just like that. During the afternoon, Manatee would be over with a cart filled with four dishes and a soup as well as fruits and snacks.
The food in the sect was not bad at all; at least, the portions were enough to satisfy Xia Fei. As Xia Fei could not leave, he was not as active as he was before and did not need absurd quantities of food to replenish his energy, yet he still insisted on finishing all the food sent to him.
After arranging the plates and dishes, Manatee stood at the side with his head lowered as he waited for Xia Fei to finish so he could bring all the dishes back while asking if the latter had any requests.
Xia Fei quickly finished all the food on the table while checking the disciple out constantly.
Xia Fei knew through some small talk that Manatee was not even fourteen, yet he was over 1.9 meters tall. He had slightly dark skin, solid muscles, and scruffy beard; none of which fit his age.
Because of a lack of talent, Manatee was only doing chores in the sect and had no chance of working under a master to learn martial arts.
In the sect, only official disciples who had gone through an assessment were designated a name, such as Windshadow or Moonshadow. Everyone else got a random codename. Apparently, Manatees had incredible strength and were quite quick in the water, and that was how he got his name.
Xia Fei pointed at a stool and said, “Take a seat; you can’t just stand there while I eat.”
Manatee shook his head honestly. “The master forbid me from sitting anywhere else other than my room; I need to stay standing wherever I go.”
His so-called master was just a head chef responsible for cooking around here. As for a master who taught him martial arts, he had no rights to go anywhere close to one.
Xia Fei poured himself a bowl of cuttlefish soup before drinking all of it. At this moment, a rumble was heard from Manatee’s stomach. He scratched his head in embarrassment on his simple face.
“What’s up? Haven’t you eaten yet?” asked Xia Fei.
“I accidentally dropped something when I was delivering food to the elder master yesterday, and I’m being punished with three days of no food,” said Manatee.
Xia Fei nodded and gestured at the food on the table with one hand. “I can’t finish all this food, anyway, so how about you accompany me?”
“I’ll be punished if the masters finds out.” Manatee quickly refused.
Xia Fei smiled. “Your master isn’t here. Either way, what’s wrong with me inviting you to eat?”
The feeling of an empty stomach was something one would only understand through experience. Although Manatee was afraid of being punished, his empty stomach was constantly protesting. He carefully grabbed a chicken leg that Xia Fei handed over and ate a third of it in one bite. He even chewed and swallowed the bones; evidently, he was extremely hungry.
Xia Fei lit a cigarette as he watched him eat with a smile on his face. “Manatee, you got injured again today.”
Ever since the first day, Xia Fei realized that Manatee’s face was always filled with bruises, and the injury seemed to be growing continuously, too. His left eye was bruised the day before yesterday. It was slightly better yesterday, but his right eye was swollen, instead. It was even worse today, for there were blood stains on his nose that had not even dried yet, and there was a newly stitched wound on his forehead.
“It’s nothing, I fell when I was fooling around with the sect brothers,” said Manatee.
Xia Fei was left speechless. Anyone could tell that these were wounds from a beating, definitely not something from falling.
Xia Fei took a few moments to think. “It’s not good to lie; who hit you?”
Manatee was an honest person. His face turned bright red when Xia Fei called out his lie and he said abashedly, “They didn’t mean it.”
Xia Fei shook his head. “You’re big; why didn’t you retaliate?”
Manatee set down the chicken leg that was cleanly devoured as he stared at the rest of the leftovers on the table. Judging from his size, one chicken leg obviously was not enough to fill him.
Xia Fei passed him the dish filled with roast chicken, which Manatee grabbed and started devouring.
“I’m strong; I might hurt them if I do,” Manatee said as he ate.
Xia Fei fired another question at him. “Do you think they considered if they’re hurting you when they were doing that to you?”
The pure-hearted Manatee went silent. Xia Fei continued. “I know you’re trying to play nice, but not everyone deserves your kindness. It’s enough just to take care of the people you like and treat you well. As for the others that don’t matter, it doesn’t matter if they die.”
Manatee asked in a confused tone, “How will I know which ones are important and which ones aren’t?”
Xia Fei smiled. “Simple. The people who normally treat you well and will help you when you’re in trouble—they are the important ones.”
Manatee nodded. He cleared the leftovers on the table like a tornado before leaving in silence.
Phantom smiled. “You turned a good kid bad.”
Xia Fei could not care less. “Was there anything wrong with what I said? Why should you care about those who are irrelevant? Might as well treat the people who really care about you kindly rather than those who don’t.”
There was not a right or wrong with Xia Fei’s words, but Phantom felt that there was something off with the argument, and he could just not figure out what it was in such a short time.
At this moment, a disciple entered the room after knocking at the door. “Sect master and the three elders would like to speak to you.”
Xia Fei nodded, leaving through the courtyard after putting on a jacket.
There was a drizzle, which felt nice when they landed on the skin. The air was humid yet fresh.
They were still in that small meeting room. Craneshadow and his three sect juniors had not taken a moment’s rest for three straight days. Shadowless suggested a few changes to the sect to Craneshadow, who felt that it made sense after some contemplation; therefore, he came forward to Darkshadow and the others for a discussion.
There was always a difficulty when making changes to an old sect like this one. Even after a long discussion, the four of them never managed to reach a unanimous decision. Craneshadow and the more forward thinking Moonshadow both agreed to forego some of the more inhuman rules and pick up talents with no restriction. They also agreed to be more lax on their sect juniors, giving them more privacy.
The stubborn Silvershadow and Darkshadow were strongly against this. Silvershadow felt that the rules that had been in place for years on years should never be changed. Darkshadow, on the other hand, felt that once the restrictions were eased, a large number of members would leave immediately. People always sought freedom, and many of their sect juniors were only staying out of fear. Once they eased the restrictions and stopped punishing deserters, it would create a huge weakness in the sect in the short term.
Changes like this could not be decided in such a short time; therefore, Craneshadow suggested to deal with Xia Fei’s matter first. As he was not part of the sect, he could not stay here forever; Who knew what other incidents might even happen if he stayed here for long.
Craneshadow told everyone the results of his investigation. Nobody expected that Xia Fei could very well be a descendant of Bloodshadow. The three of them were skeptical as this did not entirely prove the relationship between Xia Fei and Bloodshadow.
When Craneshadow produced a picture of Bloodshadow, everyone was eighty percent convinced. Some things just could not be explained; an Assassin who had nothing to do with Xia Fei turned out to resemble him, and combining the last sighting not to be far from Earth, as well as the theory that Xia Fei’s abilities were passed down by his ancestors, it made them believe that there was indeed some relationship between Xia Fei and Bloodshadow.
As they were speaking, Xia Fei arrived. Craneshadow had Xia Fei sit down and said, “Xia Fei, how long has your family been on Earth?”
Xia Fei took a few moments, “I’m not too sure, probably a few thousand years.”
Craneshadow nodded, Bloodshadow left the discipleship three thousand or so years ago, matching up with Xia Fei’s timing, further cementing his beliefs.
“Alright. According to my research, it’s highly likely that you are a descendant of someone from the discipleship named Bloodshadow. He left us thousands of years ago for the Endaro Star Region,” Craneshadow said in a deep voice.
Xia Fie was left speechless. He said all that casually, but he did not expect for this bunch of old men to actually assign him some ancestors.
Nobody would enjoy casually having new ancestors. Xia Fei would have something to say about it if he was not pretending that everything was fine.
“Ancestors? The Assassin Sect?” Xia Fei muttered in his heart. All of a sudden, Xia Fei had an idea.
