The boy who once practiced under their very guidance.
The youth they had continuously scolded for sneaking into restricted baths only meant for females.
The young man who once bowed low and called them "Elder" with bright, eager eyes.
And now he stood there, calm and composed yet impossibly distant, like a mountain that had grown too tall to see the peak of.
Shock gave way to awe.
And awe to something dangerously close to reverence.
What use were worries of life and death, of war and survival when the boy they had watched grow now walked with the weight of legend?
He wasn't just changing their clan's future.
He was rewriting the kingdom's history.
Right before their eyes.
An almost suffocating silence lingered, thick with reverence and distant awe, as if Fang Yuan no longer stood among them but upon some celestial peak, untouchable.
Then, like sunlight cracking through a stormcloud, Fang Jingyi let out a soft chuckle and placed a delicate hand over her chest.
