One Pill a Night to Keep the War God Alive novel · Chapter 19 of 24

Chapter 19: The Public Hearing

By noon the Great Courtyard held a thousand disciples, and the elders of every peak.

Zhiyi stood alone on the flagstones in front of the dais, still in her kennel apron, smelling of ginseng and straw.

Lei Juehan stood ten paces behind her with his arms folded.

He had given his word to stay there.

Kuang Shiyuan came forward in a fresh plum robe, and the nephew walked at his shoulder.

Behind them, apprentices of the Hundred Herbs Hall led two hundred and twenty beasts into the courtyard on ropes.

Tigers and wolves, cranes and bears, the fox and the eagles, all walking with their heads low and their eyes half shut.

"Sect Master," said Kuang Shiyuan, and his voice carried to the back wall. "Elders. Disciples."

"Three hundred beasts knelt to a junior alchemist. You were afraid, and you were right to be."

"She feeds them a secret ash. She has bewitched the sect's animals into forgetting their master."

"And who is their master?" said Qi Wanli.

"The one the seal names." Kuang Shiyuan lifted a hand. "Watch."

He held out his palm to the line of beasts.

"Come."

The beasts came, in a stumbling crowd, and stopped around him with their heads hanging.

He turned in a slow circle, smiling.

"They obey the Hall. They always did. The girl has only borrowed them."

"Hundred Beasts," said Juehan, loud and level behind Zhiyi. "To me."

Not one of them looked up.

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