Yang Qianxiang had assumed all along that Commander Shen had been sent by the War Temple to reinforce Song Prefecture.

But things were looking rather different from what he'd assumed.

These four Custodians had come over looking ready for a fight — and somehow they seemed to be under the impression that he owed them a person.

"Where is he!"

Wu Dao'an drew a deep breath and forced his anger down.

So the man had finally come back.

If he didn't give Shen Yi a proper lesson today, he'd spent all those years cultivating his divine spirit for nothing.

The other three Custodians could see the fury radiating off Senior Brother Wu, and said nothing to intervene.

What did a prodigy fear most?

Falling before they'd had the chance to grow into their potential.

Young people like this were full of pride and short on patience for advice — and now with Qingqiu sniffing around, a firm lesson really was in order. Even if it stung a little, it beat everyone sitting around in quiet regret after something genuinely went wrong.

"He... he came back."

Yang Qianxiang, wiry frame hemmed in from all sides, swallowed hard, and raised a finger toward the courtyard.

Before he'd even finished the sentence, a divine spirit seized him by the collar and carried him straight toward the Jia section.

The three other Custodians watched Senior Brother Wu send out his divine spirit directly, smiled with weary resignation, shook their heads, and followed on foot.

Was this really necessary? The Inspector had only just returned — he couldn't be planning to run off again quite so soon.

The Jia section.

Shen Yi sat on the bed with the Golden Wolf jade token in hand, doing his best impression of an inert block of wood.

He'd just opened the panel.

And then came a gentle knock at the door.

He opened his eyes and waved a ripple of qi to push the door open.

There stood Yang Qianxiang, looking somewhat meek, with a divine spirit behind him, hands clasped behind its back, two dense cloud-patterns coiling…