Chapter 58: Twenty Wicks

Night had fallen over the residence by the time the small celebration broke up.

Lin Xuan walked the inner corridor with Lin Zhen behind him, the rest of the household already dispersed to their rooms. The dinner had been quiet, intimate, half a dozen plates and three bottles of plum wine. Lian had cried twice. Wei had bowed three times. Lin Kai had eaten in another wing, by his own choice, and nobody had pressed him.

Winning the tournament had meant a great deal. To the sect, it was a step forward after the two years Skyedge had spent watching its mines drain and its disciples leave. Lin Zhen had calculated, privately, that the family had two more years of bleeding before the books would no longer balance. The Crown of Yuncheng had bought them air to breathe.

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