Don't Neglect the Sect

My thoughts were interrupted as I felt the incoming presence of my disciples. The nearby leaves rustled as they appeared from behind it.

Three people stepped out and turned to greet me by cupping their fists with a bow. I noticed an odd expression appear for a moment on Ye Chen's face as he looked at the three. Before I could think much more it disappeared from his face.

""Welcome back Master!""

"Hey! You all seem like you're doing well! Listen up, Master has a new disciple now, alright? This young man here will be your new Junior Brother, alright? Take him around the sect and show him around. Oh and don't bully him because of his low cultivation. Now introduce yourselves!"

The three proceeded to introduce themselves to Ye Chen, my disciples consisted of a woman and two men. The woman and the older of the two disciples are together most if not all the time. It's quite clear the two are lovers, but I as the master won't pry into my disciples' personal lives.

The other man doesn't seem to be involved, which was best as a love triangle would be horrible and destroy their relationship, but out of the three he helps me out the most. Whenever he even thinks I'm having trouble he would offer to help, but I'm hoping that it doesn't mean what I think it means.

"This Junior's name is Ye Chen, I hope we'll have a good time together."

***

(MC POV)

When Ye Chen left most of the crowd which had gathered quickly started to go back about their business. Hao Fang had quickly left as if his only goal in coming here was to cause some trouble for Ye Chen, but before he did he took a final glance at his sister as if he wanted to speak a few comforting words before stopping himself.

As for Jinzi, ever since that old man stopped her fist she had stood aside and watched the rest of the action. When Hao Lin ran out she must have noticed how she was still standing so close to those people and started to slowly move herself out of the area.

Eventually she made her way back over to Ying'er and I, but didn't sit down instead standing just next to the couch. She looked down like she was ashamed of what had just happened as she tightly gripped onto her own skirt.

Meanwhile, Hao Lin stood staring at the already closed doorways. She stood there quietly sobbing while clutching the ring that Ye Chen had given her. A dozen seconds had already passed as she still stood there watching the door, perhaps finally unable to watch her daughter stand there like that Hao Wang went up to speak to her.

His hand landed on her shoulder as he started speaking a few words to try and cheer her up, but there only seemed to be a blank look in her eyes. Eventually he managed to get her to turn towards him, but midway through his turn her gaze happened to land upon me.

Her body froze up as her eyes went wide and she began to clutch the ring in her hands even further until her knuckles started to turn white. Using her other hand which only supported the ring hand she pointed at me even though her entire arm was already shaking.

"F-F-Father! T-That's him! That's the man I was talking to you about! Quickly! Capture him, toss him into the dungeon!"

"What? Lin'er what do you mean by this?"

Just when the crowd of guests were just about to settle back down, Hao Lin started to raise her voice which started to once again attract others' attention.

"Father! Don't you remember what I said to you about a horrendous man?! It's him, Brother Chen told me as such! He's the one who has been forcing women to be his wives! That girl over there, she was only a disciple not too long ago when he met her, look at her now! She's standing near him with that sad look! It's clear she's being forced into it!"

'So, he was the one causing me these problems? I guess I should take note of that. He's still young and full of potential though, I'll give him one more chance to get away scot-free. The next time I see him, if he doesn't try anything I'll let him go, but if he does I suppose I'll have to teach him a lesson. A broken arm should suffice, a leg would simply be too cruel in this kind world. He would simply have to lay in bed all the time then. Hmm, that could be the second straw.'

By this point the whole banquet was once again quietly whispering to each other the new information she's disseminating. Of course Hao Wang had noticed as well, he glared at everyone around and their whispers stopped at once.

"Hao Lin! How dare you throw out such accusations!"

"I-"

"I've known Brother Jiang for centuries! Since we were children! I know he would never do that! He has no need to do any of that! If he really were such a person then I know for a fact that he would have many more than just two by his side at this point!

The Madame has been with him for around 10 years and although I know much about that other girl, have you ever asked her how she feels about it? Assumptions like these would get you killed!"

"..."

The girl was shocked at his reaction, from what I could tell it seems she doesn't get much discipline. This might have been the first time that her father actually yelled at her and her blank expression says it all. But this one was a little different from her earlier one, there were clear hints of surprise and a small bit of fear.

"Well!? Have you asked her?"

"Ah, um T-this S-sister, are you being forced to… be his wife?"

Jinzi Stepped up a bit once again and looked at her with a bit of pity.

"No, I'm not."

"I-I…"

"Hao Lin, come with me. Excuse me Brother Jiang."

"Don't worry I was just thinking about leaving actually."

"Oh, in that case let me escort you all out."

"No need, Brother Wang. We can go by ourselves, I'll talk to you later Brother Wang."

"Ah, goodbye Brother Jiang, Madame Jing, and Miss Xue. I hope you all enjoyed your stay."

We went out to the courtyard before I began to carry Jinzi and we started to lift up into the air together. We flew a short distance out of the city before landing to take out our flying weapons to travel back home on.

From the time the banquet started to when we left approximately two and a half hours had passed to get to where we were now.

We landed right at the entrance to our home, I dropped off Jinzi who wanted to change her clothing and Ying'er went in to accompany her. I went in with them, but only to change into a set of Inner Disciple robes, after that I said a short farewell to them as I decided to check on my sect's situation.

Ever since Jinzi came she had really been the focal point of this little interval, especially since nothing else substantial had occurred. My fifth disciple, Liao Rong, who was basically my assistant, hadn't notified me about anything important nor about any upcoming events. Most of the time when she contacts me it's for fairly important occasions such as deals with other sects or major events, but the little competition from before must've been an exception since she had personally seen me bring in some mortal girl just starting on her path of cultivation. Perhaps in the upcoming future she'll talk about other events on the scale of Jinzi's cultivation.

'It's been quite a while since I've done this haven't I? I wonder what the latest news is about the sect, is there some event that everyone is excited about perhaps, or maybe I'll only hear a little gossip here and there.

Where should I go first? Oh, I've got it, it has to be my little disciples. It's been a while since I've seen those three, I wonder how they have been?

Is my 3rd disciple, Li Jiahao, still being a sloth? As a Core Elder he teaches the Core Disciples, at least he should. Most of the time he's out relaxing somewhere or sleeping. Whenever he does teach, people rush to learn since even if he doesn't do it often and in fact skips a number of the days he should, the advice he gives is usually concise, to the point, and actually would help them improve some.

Is my 8th, Lang Gang, still training as always? Well at least he "teaches" consistently. The poor disciples there are usually beat up like punching bags since he's a body cultivator even when he holds back, it's usually a bit much for those who aren't body cultivators. But since their only other teacher most of the time is Liao Rong, a ranged combatant, this is their only option.

As for Liao Rong she's usually diligently working if not being a fairly good teacher for those wishing to learn more about archery. Since her expertise was in archery the only guidance she could give to the close ranged fighters was about how to combat other ranged fighters and give practice to avoid their shots.

Of course these sessions were only available if they were a Core Disciple.'

Walked down a long way passing by my disciple's quarters since this point in time should have been time to train the core disciples if they so wished to go.

Normally if an Inner Sect Disciple came up to the Core section then they would be escorted out, but I basically designated myself as Li Jiahao's assistant, at least in the Core Disciple's eyes I was. I couldn't do it as Liao Rang's assistant since she has a few admirers and if I were they might give me a hard time. Lang Gang on the other hand is known for being hard working and as such people would probably question me if I wasn't being asked to do anything.

As such my 3rd disciple was perfect, if anyone asked about me he would of course say yes and that was it, if they asked more than that he would probably play his lazy card.

Walking down the stairs I could see the training grounds from above and with a large amount of ground between the two, Lang Gang and Liao Rong each had their own ongoing classes at the moment.

The grounds designated as the Core Disciple Teaching grounds were originally the training grounds for when all 10 of my disciples wanted to train and as such the combined land was quite large. If I had to take a guess as to how far they were from each other I would probably say 300 meters or so.

I walked through the archway as I began to spectate their little teaching sessions.

I started with watching Liao Rong; there were about 32 disciples and about 5 of them were actually melee fighters. She ran around nimbly and drew her bow with elegance. She was using a normal bow with normal arrows as well, but each arrow had a few strands of Qi to enhance the speed a few notches above mortal archers by increasing the aerodynamics of the arrow. The bow was also similarly enhanced a little to perhaps increase draw speed yet maintain the draw strength or perhaps the other way around.

Her arrows flew out at a moderate speed and the disciples had few options when an arrow was heading towards them: deflect it, block it, or dodge it. The melee disciples could choose, but the ranged ones chose mostly to dodge instead of deflect or block.

The arrows whizzed by and several of the disciples got hit and fell to the ground playing dead, luckily the arrows were duds else they would have been, as for the few who didn't they didn't celebrate and instead kept trying to pursue her to get a lucky hit.

Of course that would never happen for any of my disciples unless they truly got careless, after all their face as a Core Elder and as one of My Disciples were on the line.