Elder Fa felt even more reassured at that. She had been worried about Mei Chao Bing if she was honest. Having your Master betray your sect and you as their disciple in the same breath wasn’t easy.

It had to be even harder to continue living in the same sect. People would always look at you with some doubt, wondering if maybe you had been left behind in that sect as a spy and would soon turn against them as well, adding even more problems to the ones they already had because of your Master’s actions.

After it had happened and the dust had settled, with the conclusion of the investigation finally coming out, she had actually wondered if she should go to the Teng Yong Sect and ask to take Mei Chao Bing with her.

Even though the people in their Zhen Yan Sect had also heard of what his Master had done, they weren’t privy to most of the details. To them, it was just a faraway story that didn’t concern them too much. So maybe things would have been easier for him if he became her disciple.

At the very least, the other disciples might have treated him better there. As for the Elders … it was difficult to say. Maybe it wouldn’t have been any better in the Zhen Yan Sect than it was in the Teng Yong Sect. But then again, for the first few years, he would’ve interacted more with the disciples and she had thought that it might still be easier overall.

It was a pity that when she asked Sect Master Zhang about it, he had refused categorically, telling her that Mei Chao Bing was a person of the Teng Yong Sect and wouldn’t be made to leave under any circumstances. If he asked to, things might be different but he wouldn’t propose that to him.

Unfortunately, at that time, Mei Chao Bing had been in closed-door cultivation so there was no way for her to ask him directly. And when he finally came out of closed-door cultivation, there was once again nothing she could do because she didn’t hear of it until after he had already returned behind those closed doors.

Well, looking back now, it seemed that things had been destined that way. Maybe Mei Chao Bing just wasn’t meant to be her disciple. Maybe he wasn’t meant to come to the Zhen Yan Sect and was instead supposed to stay in the Teng Yong Sect because there was still something waiting there for him.

In a sense, she could probably be happy that she hadn’t actually managed to make him leave there and follow her. If she had succeeded, he might’ve never found that fiance of his, and the happiness he had now might never have been possible. Maybe the guilt and self-blame over his Master’s betrayal would have been too strong to combat without somebody of the Teng Yong Sect at his side.

This boy … he had likely saved Mei Chao Bing from the worst possible fate. Something she never would have been able to do. She owed him her gratitude. "If you have the time, you should bring him over here so I can get to know him. He sounds like a lovely person."

Mei Chao Bing nodded, even though he wasn’t quite sure yet if that would actually be possible. "Well, I don’t mind bringing him over but there’s still the matter of going to inform the Jian Chu Sect.

"Since it was their symbol that was used in one of those places, it is especially important that they are informed soon. Originally, we were supposed to be two groups with one traveling to the Zhen Yan Sect and the other one continuing on toward the Jian Chu Sect. But with two people leaving …" He shook his head, indicating that it wouldn’t be possible like that anymore.

Naturally, he could just send two people together with Song Mu but he felt that it would be best if they didn’t split up too much. Staying together would be beneficial. If they didn’t … he couldn’t say for sure but he was afraid that his Master would somehow make use of that. After all, smaller groups were easier to attack.

Who knew if Yang Wu Huang and the other four would actually manage to make it back to the town? And what about the other disciples that had been in Yang Wu Huang’s group before? Had they all made it back to safety? Or had the demonic practitioners actually managed to kill them off one by one? Was this the plan? Slowly decimating the disciples of the four big righteous sects after alarming them with a few hints?

It was a possible plan but it sounded too easy. He didn’t think that his Master would go to this kind of length to just get rid of some people. He was pretty sure that there would be easier ways to achieve that. No need for a convoluted plan like this. Especially since he couldn’t say for sure how everybody would react.

Elder Fa was thinking about what he said but noticed that his expression was a little strange. "What’s the matter? You know you can talk openly with me."

Mei Chao Bing pulled himself out of his thoughts and sighed. "You knew my Master quite well. What do you think is his plan? There has to be some reason behind all of this but no matter much I think about it, I can’t come up with a possible end goal.

"What does he want to achieve? Just to kill the disciples? That doesn’t make any sense. The ones sent over were those of the slightly younger generation. Some of them are actually of a low level and only a few would be worth killing.

"And they definitely can’t compare to the older disciples. There are many in the core formation stage or even at the nascent soul stage. Wouldn’t it be better to kill those if he wants to cripple the power of the big righteous sects?"

This was something he really couldn’t get behind. Naturally, as the biggest righteous sects, none of them would lack strong disciples. While he could be counted as a talent with having reached the nascent soul stage at only twenty-eight years old, this naturally wasn’t the highest stage a disciple had reached in the Teng Yong Sect.

If he remembered correctly, even Yun Bei Fen’s first senior martial brother had already managed to reach that stage. It was just that he was of an earlier generation of disciples and was thus significantly older so this didn’t come as much of a surprise to anyone.

But anyway, these disciples had never been sent out. For one, they had their own missions and also needed to focus on cultivation, and second, Sect Master Zhang wasn’t stupid enough to let the people most capable of defending their sect all go out at once. That would just be asking for the demonic practitioners to take advantage of the situation.

No, it could not be that his Master just wanted to weaken the sect. There had to be more behind this. There just had to be.