11 No longer pawns!

Qing Shan was in the middle of thinking whether to show his full power when the spirit materialised in his son's hand. He was praying really hard that he could hold the spirit hall off long enough for his son to escape, so he didn't see the spirit. More like he didn't sense its materialisation. The next second, he heard a voice that diverted his attention from the prayer. "eh?", it was Bibi Dong's. Shan looked at her, and saw her standing there, with a look of confusion on her beautiful (but in a dark way) face. He then followed her gaze to the hand of his son, who was still standing in the golden ring. All he saw was a piece of wood. 'Eh? Why didn't I feel any spirit energy coming out of that thing?', wondered Shan, now with the same face as Bibi Dong.

Then moment Ryan walked into the ring, Ryan felt a void in his body. It was divided into two; the first one on his right hand and the second on his back. And as time progressed, he felt some warm energy slowly seeping into the void in his hand, but the one on his back was still empty. After a minute, the void on his hand was half full when the warmth entering suddenly stopped, and something started materialising in his hand. 'That's weird, but the voids still haven't been filled though, and.... What are those voids?', thought Ryan, completely clueless. But, as the thing forming in his hands started feeling more real, Ryan felt some pain, like the kind you'd get when lifting weights without cracking your knuckles. He groaned slightly, but it wasn't loud at all. Actually, to a normal person, the pain would have been like ripping the skin off your body. But, to Ryan, who had countless times already, it wasn't even worth a loud groan. 'What the fuck is causing me this pain?', he thought again, as he slowly opened his eyes to take a look at his spirit. It was a piece of wood. Well, it was a bow. Made of wood. Without a bowstring. He didn't feel any power radiating from it at all. As he kept staring at his spirit with a questioning look, the spirit master also looked at it weirdly and said, "oookay… lets move on to testing your spirit power little one". He brought out an orb and asked him to place his hand on it and focus his spirit power into it. Ryan did exactly as he was told. He tried to will all his spirit power into it, but, no matter how much he tried, he couldn't even feel a drop of it in his body. The transparent crystal ball remained transparent. No light emitted from it. No weird phenomena happened. It showed 0 as his spirit level. "Xiao Shun, Wooden bow, level 0 junk spirit", said the spirit master, after a sigh. Ryan was shocked out of his wits and at the verge of tears. Is this what it had come to? His second chance at having a full life? He wanted to become a God for Chrissakes. Now how was he supposed to achieve that, being a bona-fide trash? He turned back to look at his father, with eyes full of sorrow, as he knew his parents had high expectations of him.

Xiao Shan was at a loss for words. He had never imagined such an outcome. All the planning he had done was for the scenario where his son turned out to be a genius. He had even prepared a small letter and left it in his room to motivate him for future cultivation! All of those awesome emotional words were now useless. He was really shocked. After all, he was the son of two titled douluos who had reached Rank 97 and 98. At least something should have been passed down! Even if his wife had cheated on him with a trash guy, even her genes would have given him at least 6 or 7 levels of innate spirit power. Shan berated himself mentally for thinking that about his wife. But still, this situation was really unexpected and awkward! He didn't know whether to laugh or cry. On one hand, he felt happy as his son wont become a pawn in the hands of spirit hall, on the other, he was trash!, no, junk spirit master, he didn't wanna make fun of his own son that way. He looked at his son, who was about to cry, with a mixed expression full of helplessness. But, out of all the people in that room, neither the father nor the son was the one most affected by this result, it was Bibi Dong.

A lot of emotions filled her face, anger, disgust, sadness, shock and despair. Because of all this, her pretty face was twisted in a funny way. She would have made a heck of an actress. The Oscar awards' people would never have seen such flow of emotions on a face before. That look almost made Ryan recover from the impact of the last few seconds. Well, couldn't blame her. This plump boy was the last hope (trust the force Bibi Dong, lol) she had, to reel her 2 best friends in. She really missed them. So, she would have taken him in despite his looks (but, it wasn't that bad though, she was just a big bad meanie), even if his innate spirit power was like,1, as long as he was able to cultivate. But now, it turned out that this boy's spirit power was worse than his looks and she couldn't take him in. She suddenly let out her full spirit aura for a second to check if she was being tricked, causing Ryan to fall down on his knees, cough up blood and lose consciousness. Shan immediately reached at his side and caught him, with his aura released (still 95). Shan then gave her a death glare, as if saying, 'DONT. EVER. DO. THAT. AGAIN'. Bibi Dong was intimidated and immediately drew it back. After letting out a helpless sigh, she scoffed at the duo, now sitting on the floor, and said, "You should consider yourself lucky Xiao Shan, for you get to keep your trash son. I don't want him anymore". After this, she turned around and started walking slowly towards the door. Shan got up and said in a coarse voice, "With this, I presume all our connections with the spirit hall are cut. Please inform the grand priest that we will no longer be doing any more of your future bidding". Then he continued with a soft voice full of affection and a face full of pity, "But, if you ever feel like going back to yourself, we will always be there for you, Dong'er". Hearing this, Bibi Dong stopped and said without turning back, "I will.", although Ryan didn't understand which of the two sentences she was talking about. As she continued walking to the door, her steps got louder and more powerful, cracking the floor and scaring the shit out of the spirit masters in the branch. Two drops of tears found their way down her soft cheeks as she got back into her ostentatious carriage, but she instantly wiped them off so no one saw that.

After looking at Bibi Dong leave, Shan stood still for a few seconds, and let out a prolonged sigh, filled with relief (for him and his wife) and pity (for his son and BD). He then took the unconscious Ryan in his hands and left the building, running at high speed towards the direction of their house. But, what no one, including and especially Ryan, had noticed was that the voids in his body had absorbed some of the energy from Bibi Dong's aura, and the right hand void was now 75% full while the one on the back was filled by around 10%.

P.S:- Not related to chapter, but, author's notes doesn't have space so, if a girl says 'I'll think about it' when u ask her out, does it mean yes or no? or does it actually mean limbo? (not a rhetorical question guys)