“Thank you all again for this delightful evening. I enjoyed myself quite thoroughly,” Master Rou declared. Bai Huizhong watched the man from one of the arena openings, his eyes drooping. He was kept awake only by copious amounts of tea, for the hour was very late. It was perhaps four hours until sunrise. Master Rou had taken a while—but the man had spoken with any and all who had come up to him, including multiple independent cultivators. Yeah, it was nice for all the cultivators, even the weakest, to be noticed, but it was no fun for the mortals. Every one of them had bags under their eyes. “We are glad that you enjoyed yourself, Master Rou,” the Grand Marshal said, standing at the head of the group of cultivators who were seeing him off for the evening. “My thanks to all who performed, and to all the mortal support crew—you all worked long hours, performed admirably, and made it a memorable night.” The cultivators of course preened, but there was a bit of stunned silence from beneath the stage. The man had been concerned with mortal livelihoods when he had visited last, but that… well, that sounded genuine. Huizhong found himself smiling at the acknowledgement. Cai Xiulan and the rest of the Azure Heroes were similarly kind, but to hear it from this old monster? To hear a cultivator understand that they had worked hard on this, and appreciated it? It was gratifying. (...)