Meeting the Crew

"Yan Guo inherited most of his looks from his mother." Yan Shen stopped speaking there and the silence pervaded the entire room like a stench with a vengeance. Yan Shen cut through the awkward silence and moved to another topic. "How long have you been training under San Guo? It must be tiring to see that old man's face so often." He joked casually as if he wasn't afraid of offending San Guo.

Ye Xiu decided to answer his question and approached the subject with caution as he spoke carefully. "Sir is a wonderful mentor and I have learnt numerous things underneath his tutelage." Ye Xiu's answer was very neutral and only stated the good things about San Guo without even giving a chance for Yan Shen to say anything rude about his mentor. Yan Shen nodded with a satisfied smile on his face when he heard the answer that he had been looking for.

"If you don't mind me asking, how often will you be taking my son away for training? I do hope that whatever training your team is doing together will be beneficial for my son because I don't want him wasting his time on pointless endeavours. Yan Guo looked horrified when he heard his father speaking in such a depreciating tone to his friend but said nothing since his father did not like being interrupted.

Ye Xiu had suspicions that such a topic would come up eventually so he was well prepared with what he had to say to pacify the man's curiosity. "We haven't decided a schedule since we wanted to see Yan Guo's schedule so that we could plan accordingly so that nobody's priorities would clash with each others'. Our training shouldn't be pointless because we have our mentor helping us during those training sessions so you don't have to worry about it wasting Yan Guo's time."

With that being said, Yan Shen stopped asking Ye Xiu questions and continued to eat the prepared lunch that was slowly starting to cool down. The lunch ended in a peaceful manner without Yan Shen asking any more questions and he bid them farewell as they left the residence. Once they had left the general area and were heading back to Ye Xiu's residence, Ye Xiu sighed because he had finally left the house where he felt very stiff in his actions.

Yan Guo simply laughed at his friend's reactions. "Don't worry about my dad, he's really strict but once you get to know him, he's actually a big softie on the inside." Ye Xiu watched Yan Guo closely, he watched his actions and what he said carefully to try and see what Yan Guo saw in him to be so carefree in front of him. Yan Shen's words had remained stuck in his head when he talked about Yan Guo and was failing to see what he had to make somebody so relaxed in front of him.

The journey to Ye Xiu's residence seemed short to the pair as Ye Xiu was listening to Yan Guo talk about random things which amused him greatly. Ye Xiu opened the door to his residence and allowed Yan Guo in. Yan Guo was greeted by a flying body that pounced on him, knocking him to the floor. "You're not Ye Xiu." The body quickly got up from the ground and pouted.

Ye Xiu closed the door behind him as he looked at the pouting person. "Xiao Tu, you should be lucky that wasn't me that you jumped on. I'm not sure how Yan Guo will react to you now that you've managed to botch your first impression in barely a second of meeting him." Ye Xiu raised his eyebrows in a bemused manner as Xiao Tu shrunk down on himself to look younger than he actually was.

As he was berating Xiao Tu, Yan Guo had already taken the time to push himself off the floor before falling back down laughing like a maniac. He found the situation that he got hurled into and the small skit that had apparently been in play between Xiao Tu and Ye Xiu extremely funny. Ye Xiu simply looked at Yan Guo rolling on the floor as he continued to laugh for a few minutes.

Shi Die came down from upstairs when he finally noticed the noise that had reached a high level as Xiao Tu had joined in the laughter with Yan Guo. The two made enough racket to make Shi Die irritable as he noticed Ye Xiu watching with an exasperated expression. "What happened to Xiao Tu and who is that other person laughing with him?"

Ye Xiu simply stepped over the two bodies and approached Shi Die who was still confused about why they were laughing. He was irritated that the noise was loud enough to disturb him when he was reading but his irritation didn't last long as he continued to watch the two rolling messes that were on the floor.

"They were just being stupid and now they are laughing to the point that I think that we should just leave them here until they manage to stop their incessant noise." The moment Ye Xiu said that the two stopped their laughter and stood up straight as if they were never laughing in the first place. Shi Die was amused and let out a light chuckle as he gestured for Ye Xiu to follow him into the kitchen.

"Is that Yan Guo?" Shi Die whispered furiously into Ye Xiu's ears the moment he managed to drag him away from the living room. Ye Xiu was confused with his friend's strange behaviour and was trying his best not to ask what was plaguing his mind.

"Yes, that's Yan Guo. Why do you ask?" Ye Xiu asked since he was concerned that Shi Die had a problem with Yan Guo. Shi Die simply blushed for a moment.

"No reason. I was just wondering who it was." Ye Xiu dropped the matter as there was no point in pursuing it any further since Shi Die had given a satisfactory answer. Shi Die whistled to get the attention of the two boys in the kitchen, beckoning them into the kitchen. "You haven't eaten, right? I'll make some lunch right now." Yan Guo was about to protest but stopped when he realised that Shi Die would probably ignore him as he moved into his own personal bubble as he cooked.

As Shi Die was cooking, Ye Xiu was dragged into helping him with the cooking as well simply because Shi Die didn't feel like cooking alone. Whilst they were busy cooking, Xiao Tu had taken Yan Guo out into the training grounds where Shang Yang was slowly moving through the katas of her fighting style. They didn't disturb her as her eyes were still closed and it looked like she was concentrating deeply.

Xiao Tu whispered to Yan Guo since he knew bits and pieces of his previous abilities from the fights that he had watched years ago. "Let's try to fight as quietly as we possibly can since you move like an assassin with absolute silence it should be simple for you. I'm going to try to learn how to move silently with my weapons since both of them cause too much wind to be generated every time I swing them."

Yan Guo nodded since silence was something he had learnt from the very beginning before he even started cultivation. He would give tips to the boy since they were likely going to be a team from what Ye Xiu had told him. He had guessed from the number of people he had seen in the residence, they were most likely his team members. It would do good for him to get along with those that he would have to fight together with in the future.

Though Yan Guo was not as talkative with Xiao Tu, he still made an effort to speak up to correct Xiao Tu's movements so that he could improve. Xiao Tu noticed that Yan Guo was not as talkative as before and reasoned that it was simply because they were concentrating on silence so he was also trying his best to keep down his urge to speak.

This continued on for thirty minutes until Xiao Tu was tired from his efforts of trying to stay quiet as he motioned to Yan Guo to stop what they were doing. They were walking back into the house when Shang Yang opened her eyes to see the pair. She ignored the pair and continued with what she was doing.

The pair was greeted with scents that lured them closer towards the kitchen. They sat down close to the kitchen table to watch the pair make their finishing touches on the food that they had prepared. Yan Guo rubbed his stomach and was surprised that he was so hungry when he had barely eaten an hour ago. Ye Xiu noticed the movement and smirked. 'Anyone who joins us literally becomes a glutton even if they don't show it.'

That statement was very true as even San Guo and Liu Fan was affected by their huge appetite and they had learnt to roll with it as their own appetite grew. Qi infused foods and beverage usually could sate the appetite of a cultivator easily but it seemed as if long-term interaction with the group produced cultivators with stomachs that were essentially black holes that consumed food with no intention of stopping.

It was by coincidence that four stomachs rumbling at the same time could be heard. Yan Guo was bewildered since it was simply night impossible for something like that to happen. "That's like a one in an impossibility chance for that to happen!" Yan Guo shouted out in disbelief. The other three snickered at his reaction.

Ye Xiu coughed lightly to stop the snickering. "Don't worry about it, it happens often to us. If you have meals with us, sooner or later you'll get used to the number of times our stomachs growl at the same time when the food is finished."

Yan Guo seemed slight miffed at the fact but left the matter as it was since it wasn't a big deal. They started to gorge themselves on the food that had been made, and to Yan Guo's wonder, Ye Xiu and Shi Die had managed to produce enough food dozens of people in less than thirty minutes. It was surprising since he had definitely never seen anybody do that before.

Their food devouring stopped for a moment as they saw Shang Yang walk in on them. She simply raised an eyebrow before leaving a few words. "Leave some food for me. I need to wash myself up before I indulge myself on food." Xiao Tu grinned mischievously as she turned her back to head upstairs.

"How much food do you think we should leave her?" He spoke to Xiao Tu in a stage whisper. He was whacked on the head with a wooden spoon which left him rubbing the sore spot in a mock disgruntled manner.

"That's not a nice way to treat Shang Yang. I know you love your pranks and tricks but food is food. Don't mess with each other when it comes to food. How would you like it if I messed with your food?" Ye Xiu berated Xiao Tu once again though Xiao Tu didn't look very chastised as he was still grinning his face off.

Yan Guo continued to eat without caring about much else as he savoured the tastes. The food that the Mess Hall usually made definitely wasn't as exquisite as this. He had tasted Uncle Jin Yuan's food and though the taste of the food now was slightly below what he could make it didn't matter much to him.

They passed the time talking about training and other miscellaneous things, waiting for Shang Yang to come down before they started to talk about anything to do with plans that concerned the team that they were forming.