"I am pathetic," Yang Qing mumbled in utter dejection as he walked, shoulders slumped, through the desolate hallways of the Outer Palace Courts. Well, they weren't exactly desolate. Cultivators could still be spotted waiting in the hallways. Their numbers were barely even a third of what the hallways of the Core Courts saw on any given day and night, but still, pitiful as the numbers were by comparison, there were still cultivators in those hallways who, ordinarily, should have been preoccupied with whatever business had brought them there, but who instead found their attention drawn to a certain gloomy presence walking past.
He couldn't do it. Try as he might, Yang Qing couldn't do it. His tongue, filled with mutiny and cowardice, refused to move. He couldn't utter a single curse against Old Lei. He couldn't even breathe out a single syllable.
"Pathetic," Yang Qing whispered miserably, his insides churning with self-loathing and bubbling shame.
