The Tournament's opening banquet was held in the central plaza's adjacent feast hall on the evening of the second day after the Su clan's arrival.
Eight hundred noble youth were present. Two thousand spectators sat in the upper galleries. Forty senior elders of the kingdom's principal clans sat at the inner-rank tables. The royal family — King Cang Yuan, Crown Prince Cang Hao, Princess Cang Xueyi, and three minor princes of the lateral lines — sat at the high dais.
Su Yan attended in his ordinary plain dark-blue clansman's outer robe with the small clan crest at the right cuff. He sat at the Su clan's third-rank table, where the noble youth of his own age sat. He did not bring any of his Voiceless Inheritance retainers to the banquet; the household's standing arrangement permitted only the formal household attendance for the noble youth.
He kept his thread at its lowest visible setting.
He let the substrate-sight run quietly.
The eleven kingdom prodigies were all present.
The four foreign guests were all present — Han Yifeng of Eastern Yan; *Princess Wu Lingyao* of the Northern Iron Cult, age eighteen, body cultivator, Foundation Late; *Young Master Liang Zhi* of the Western Verdant Alliance, age nineteen, formation cultivator, Foundation Mid with a deep formation-array foundation; *Lady Hua Wenxi* of the Southern Mistspring, age twenty, water-and-poison cultivator, Foundation Late.
Su Yan read each thread once, very briefly, and filed each under the appropriate column of his small private file.
The banquet's first round of toasts began. The careful preceding standing diplomatic etiquette ran by the small precise hour. Each foreign guest was introduced to the kingdom's elders by name and lineage. Each was offered the customary cup of *winter rose-bud* tea by the King's chief steward.
Han Yifeng, when his name was called, inclined his head — small, formal — and took his cup of tea. His eyes, in the small careful preceding small private courtesy of the moment, met Su Yan's across the hall.
He did not — by the careful preceding small private preference of one walking conversation in a wisteria-blooming garden two months ago — *acknowledge* the meeting beyond the small precise unhurried preceding angle of his head.
But the cold pale-red thread along his spine *warmed*, by the careful preceding small private hour of his own bookkeeping, *one further degree* — for the count of one breath — and *settled* back into the steady cold preceding rhythm of a Crown Prince of Eastern Yan at the small precise unhurried preceding small careful banquet of a foreign kingdom.
Su Yan filed the warming.
By the third hour past dusk, the banquet's first round of toasts had closed. The second round — by the standing preceding etiquette — was the round in which young clansmen of the host kingdom were given the small careful preceding opportunity to *introduce themselves* to the foreign honored guests.
The senior elder of the Su clan rose. He inclined his head to the King. He spoke a small careful preceding paragraph of preceding diplomatic introduction.
He named Su Yan.
Su Yan rose. He inclined his head to the King. He inclined his head to the King's table.
Princess Cang Xueyi did not, in the careful preceding small private hour of the introduction, look at him.
He inclined his head to the four foreign honored guests' table.
He spoke, in his ordinary calm voice, a small preceding paragraph.
"Honored Crown Prince Han. Honored Princess Wu. Honored Young Master Liang. Honored Lady Hua. By the careful preceding small private preference of the kingdom of Beicang's standing diplomatic exchange and the kingdom of my own house, I extend the careful preceding small private courtesy of one young clansman to four small careful preceding honored guests. I look forward — by the careful preceding small private preference of the kingdom's preceding standing arrangement — to the small careful preceding hour of the Tournament's preceding rounds."
He bowed.
The four honored guests inclined their heads — by the careful preceding standing diplomatic etiquette — in the same small precise unhurried beat.
The careful preceding small private bow exchange completed.
Su Yan sat down.
The hall — by the careful preceding small private hour of the past half-minute — was *paying close attention*.
The careful preceding small private read of every senior cultivator at the inner-rank tables and every noble youth at the third-rank tables had — by the careful preceding small private hour of one preceding paragraph — registered that *the young clansman of the Su clan's branch family* had, by the careful preceding small private hour of his preceding speech, *exchanged with the four foreign honored guests at the careful preceding small private precise calibration of their seniority, with no errors of etiquette, with the careful preceding small private bearing of a young man who had been — by some careful preceding small private preceding arrangement — coached for this preceding moment by someone above the standing reach of a branch family clansman's preceding etiquette training*.
The hall, by its careful preceding small private read, *filed* the careful preceding small private observation under *unusual*.
Su Yan continued his preceding plain meal.
By the fifth hour past dusk, the banquet had closed.
The Su clan's traveling party returned to the noble-district embassy.
In the careful preceding lantern-light of the embassy's second-floor room, Cousin Su Lin — who had, by Cousin Su Lin's preceding small private preceding standing arrangement, attended the banquet at the third-rank table opposite Su Yan's — laid her notebook open on the writing table beside him and reported.
"The four guests," she said, in her low even voice. "Princess Wu Lingyao is, by my read, *not* a strategic threat. She is a body cultivator. She has, by every preceding read of her substrate this evening, no preceding interest in the careful preceding small private politics of the Tournament. She is here, by her own preceding preference, to *fight*. She will, in the Tournament's preceding rounds, defeat opponents in clean Foundation Late exchanges and will, by her own preceding preference, retire to her kingdom by the third day after the Tournament's closing. She will not, by my preceding read, *plot*."
"Filed."
"Liang Zhi. Formation cultivator. Foundation Mid. By my preceding read of his preceding preceding preceding small private substrate, he is *here to study*. He will, in the Tournament's preceding rounds, *lose early*, on his own preceding preference, to a careful preceding small private opponent of his choosing. He will then spend the rest of the Tournament observing the other matches and recording his preceding observations in his preceding small private notebook. He will, by my preceding read, *publish a small careful preceding paper* on the Tournament's preceding rounds within six months of his return. He will, by my preceding preference, be *useful* to your Frost Lotus exchange line. I would, by my own preceding preference, recommend that you arrange — by Cousin Su Wenfu's external operations branch — *one small private courtesy meeting* with Liang Zhi during the Tournament's third day, on the careful preceding small private courtesy of substrate-scholarship exchange."
"Acceptable. Cousin Su Wenfu will arrange."
"Lady Hua Wenxi. Water-and-poison cultivator. Foundation Late. By my preceding read, *she is here to recruit*. She has, by her own preceding preference, identified — at the preceding preceding small private hour of three months ago — *four* of the kingdom's noble youth as potential recruits for the Southern Mistspring's preceding small private cultivation lineage. The four, by her preceding small private preference, do *not* include you. She has — by my preceding read — *deliberately* excluded you, on the small careful preceding small private read of her own bookkeeping that you are *not* available to her recruitment by any preceding standing arrangement she could afford to compete with."
"Filed. We will be polite at her preceding small private courtesy visits and offer no preceding small private opening."
"Crown Prince Han Yifeng." Cousin Su Lin paused. "By my preceding small private read of this evening's banquet, he is — *as you have already calibrated* — by my preceding preference, *the only one of the four whose preceding small private interest in the Tournament's preceding rounds is, by his own preceding preference, *aligned* with yours*. The careful preceding hour of the careful preceding fourth meal at the small writing room two days ago — which you have, by your own preceding preference, *not* shared with me except in the small careful preceding general column of your column-keeping that I am, by my preceding preference, not asking about — has — by my preceding read of his thread at this evening's banquet — *carried* into his careful preceding small private preceding bookkeeping. He warmed when he saw you. He warmed *one further degree*. He will, in the Tournament's preceding final, by my preceding read, *honor* the careful preceding small private agreement you and he have reached. He will not, by my preceding read, *betray*."
She inclined her head.
"By my preceding read, Cousin," she said quietly, "*all four* of the foreign guests have, in this evening's preceding banquet, *registered* that the kingdom of Beicang's preceding noble youth in this generation are — by the careful preceding small private accident of one Heaven Spirit Root cultivator's preceding emergence — *more substantial than the kingdoms of Eastern Yan, Northern Iron, Western Verdant, and Southern Mistspring had been preceding-time prepared for*. The careful preceding small private weight of the kingdom's preceding standing diplomatic position will — by every preceding small private preceding read of every standing senior elder at the inner-rank tables — *shift* in the careful preceding small private hour of the next twelve months."
Su Yan inclined his head.
"On schedule."
Cousin Su Lin closed her notebook.
By the seventh hour past dusk, the embassy's preceding evening had — by the careful preceding small private hour of the preceding banquet's preceding small private filing — *closed*.
The Tournament's first day of matches was, by the careful preceding standing arrangement, *thirty-six hours* away.
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