Chapter 261: Chapter 133: The Deep, Dark Pool

That afternoon, when Wang Zhanshan returned from his outing, he heard about what had happened between Luo Min and Shen Xinzhu. He flew into a rage and immediately summoned the two women to the main hall.

No one knew what they argued about.

The two women came to blows again. Fortunately, Wang Zhanshan was quick to intervene, preventing them from tearing down the main hall of Mingcan Courtyard.

But the conflict between the two had become irreconcilable.

Wang Zhanshan had always acted as the team’s patriarch, and his management style was overly simplistic and crude. Trying to use his authority to suppress Luo Min at this point, however, was clearly no longer possible.

It didn’t just fail—it backfired.

It was unclear what the three of them argued about, but Luo Min angrily quit the team and refused to participate in any more of its activities.

Her Power had reached a point where she truly no longer needed the support of the Martial Arts Team.

Besides, she had already earned a respectable ranking in the National Martial Arts Tournament.

One could say her journey with the team was complete.

The other person at the heart of the conflict, Shen Xinzhu, chose to remain silent. She didn’t leave the team, nor did she admit any wrongdoing to Wang Zhanshan.

It was a protest in its own way.

After Luo Min left, she too walked out of the main hall.

After the two of them left, Wang Zhanshan slumped dejectedly into his chair, a look of vexation on his face.

Lost in thought, he didn’t leave the main hall of Mingcan Courtyard for a long time.

Meanwhile, Zhao Rui was slightly surprised to hear that Luo Min had quit. He hadn’t expected her to be so decisive.

But to each their own.

The Martial Arts Team was just a stepping stone on the path of the Martial Dao. It wasn’t just Luo Min; he too had grown weary of the regimented training.

Upon reaching the Grandmaster Realm, the focus shifted to things like Natural Daoist Skill and Refining Qi and Returning Void. The training methods used by the regular Martial Artists on the team were clearly no longer suitable for him.

This was also why no one supervised him after his promotion to Grandmaster.

That evening, Wang Zhanshan emerged from the main hall of Mingcan Courtyard. In a rare move, he carried two bottles of wine and a bag of food up the mountain, arriving before the Wall-Facing Chamber.

“Coach Wang? Don’t tell me these two bottles of wine are my payment for stepping in, are they?”

Zhao Rui smiled as he took the wine and food, then led Wang Zhanshan into the Wall-Facing Chamber.

“I haven’t been here in a long time!”

Wang Zhanshan said with a shake of his head, his eyes scanning the room.

“Well, it’s not like you’ve done anything wrong!”

Zhao Rui said with a laugh.

“Who doesn’t make mistakes?”

Wang Zhanshan replied with a wry smile, then sized up the room and said, “Let’s eat first!”

Once Zhao Rui had arranged the food and drinks, the two moved the table outside and started to have a drink in the cool night air.

Zhao Rui knew the man must have something on his mind, or he wouldn’t have come looking for him.

Truth be told, the two of them weren’t close. In fact, Zhao Rui had previously found the coach’s style quite irritating.

It was only later, as his own Martial Arts grew increasingly powerful and Elder Ge taught him a master technique, that the two started treating each other as equals.

“Sometimes I reflect on it myself. What am I guarding Mingcan Courtyard for?”

“The truth is, none of you like me. I know. I’m tired of it… year after year, sending off one group of team members after another…”

Zhao Rui listened in silence to Wang Zhanshan’s incessant rambling.

He felt that the Wang Zhanshan before him had completely lost the air of a Grandmaster; he was just like an ordinary, worldly coach.

Obsessed with fame and fortune, mired in worldly affairs.

He had even forgotten that he was a mighty Grandmaster Level expert.

’Will I end up like this in the future?’

Zhao Rui felt a surge of relief that he had refused Elder Ge’s request.

All the splendors of the world couldn’t compare to a single day of progress in one’s practice!

If he couldn’t witness the view from the very summit, then what was the point of all his training, of walking this path?

The night deepened, and the moon hung high.

Wang Zhanshan stumbled to his feet. Without using his Inner Strength to purge the alcohol, he simply staggered his way down the mountain.

The next day, Wang Zhanshan publicly announced that Luo Min was officially removed from the Martial Arts Team, and Shen Xinzhu was being placed on probation.

The news about the two sent the entire Martial Arts Team into an uproar.

The veteran members found it unbelievable. What kind of conflict could have driven the two to such an extreme?

The new members, on the other hand, were shocked by Wang Zhanshan’s drastic measures. He clearly didn’t treat a Grandmaster Realm expert and a Tenth Level Martial Artist like precious treasures.

He’d cast them aside without a second thought.

In an instant, every one of them was scared into silence.

The changes within the Martial Arts Team were of no consequence to Zhao Rui. He made a single appearance and never went back. Instead, he used Father Miao’s connections to set up a Martial Dao training class off-campus.

It followed the same model as his operation in Lin City: screen for suitable students and improve their strength in a short amount of time.

The incident with the Demon was clearly not an isolated case. The existence of the Crystal Stone had already been revealed back at Taishan, so the Court must have known about it for a long time.

It was probably only ordinary people, or common Martial Artists like them, who were left completely in the dark.

Regardless of whether chaos was coming or not, or what direction events might take, for a Martial Artist, improving one’s strength was the only principle that mattered.

For Zhao Rui, the best way to increase his strength was to focus on his system’s requirements.

On one hand, he could challenge powerful experts and copy their more profound Martial Arts.

On the other hand, he could interact with all sorts of Low-tier Martial Artists to collect a wide array of Martial Arts from across the land and quickly accumulate Advancement Points.

For now, opening a training class was the best initial move. He would start by copying the vast variety of Martial Arts readily available, and then figure out his next step.

With a goal in mind, Zhao Rui became a busy man.

Martial Arts Students had plenty of free time, so when Qin Rui, Li Xinran, and the others heard Zhao Rui was opening a training class, they all rushed over to help.

Miao Miaomiao went even further, using her father’s status to directly search the entire province’s registry of Martial Arts Students.

She compiled a list of all the student Martial Artists within the Jeju region who met their criteria.

Then, they contacted each of these students by phone, one by one.

Abusing public authority for personal matters might not have sounded nice, but it was undeniably effective.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep