Yan Chongzhang's cupped hands froze in the air, and he looked at the several Nanhong Dao-sons in some puzzlement.

For some reason he had heard an odd flavor in the young friend Shen's words.

It was that this young cultivator did not seem to know this crowd of Dao-sons very well.

Could they all have guessed wrong?

A bold conjecture suddenly crossed Yan Chongzhang's mind. Because the several of them had come to call on the sect together, he had taken Shen Yi for a cultivator of the Nanhong Seven without thinking about it.

Was it possible… that this was all a view he and the rest had formed in advance?

That in fact the young friend Shen had only some connection with the Nanhong Seven, and traveled with them on that account, and was not of the same sect at all?

At the thought Yan Chongzhang shook his head. However it stood, this business was absolutely not to be allowed.

Hongze was vast and dangerous. Never mind a prodigy — even a Dao-merging colossus fully grown would not dare claim he could go anywhere he pleased.

There were so many demons, and more perilous places than anyone could count; one moment's inattention and a man went down into one of them.

Cultivators like themselves, raised in Xihong from childhood, still found a few sect brothers to travel with, so that they could look after one another; and if something did happen, there was at least a chance of word getting out and time for the power behind them to react.

All the more so for a young man as newly arrived as the young friend Shen.

To put it less kindly, he could not even read the roads. It was entirely possible he would put a foot straight into some pit.

Still, Yan Chongzhang said nothing further. This was not a thing for outsiders of the Mountain-Moving Sect to manage, and the several Nanhong Dao-sons all looked to be men of considerable experience; they would certainly not stand and watch the young friend Shen make a mess of it.