“Lord Gu.” Qian Dai completely ignored Fen Yao’s shouting, her beautiful eyes directly looking at Gu Mu as she asked, “Was it you who told me that all those you captured were assassins?”
Gu Mu gave an awkward laugh and replied, “Yes.”
“When I acted to cripple the cultivation of those so-called ‘assassins’ you mentioned, did even you fail to recognize that the so-called ‘assassins’ you caught were actually Fen Yao and her companions from the Grand Elder’s side?”
“Uh… yes!” Gu Mu hesitated slightly but still gave an affirmative answer.
“Then, before I took action, what did I say? Could Lord Gu repeat it for me?”
“Miss Qian Dai said… ‘Why bother troubling the Grand Elder to judge those who dare to assassinate the Flower King? Just kill them directly.’ I didn’t agree, and then Miss Qian Dai suggested that I should be wary of the assassins becoming desperate and turning violent. I thought it made sense and believed that crippling their cultivation was indeed a good idea… Huh?”
As he spoke, Gu Mu suddenly widened his eyes, pointed at his own nose, and said incredulously, “Did I also participate in crippling the cultivation of Miss Fen Yao and her companions?”
Lan Xin: “…”
Tong Yun: “…!”
Qian Dai turned her beautiful eyes to Tong Yun and Lan Xin, neither submissive nor overbearing, and said, “Grand Elder, Second Elder, I have said all I needed to say. If the Grand Elder insists on crippling my cultivation, then I ask that the principal offender’s cultivation be crippled as well, to ensure fairness!”
“Ah! You girl, what principal offender or accomplice? If we’re talking about the root of this misunderstanding, it should be blamed on Miss Fen Yao and her companions!” Gu Mu jumped to his feet to defend himself.
“My sisters and I are the victims here, with a thousand years of cultivation destroyed in an instant. How can Lord Gu have the nerve to slander us?!” Fen Yao shouted angrily.
“Exactly!”
Liang Yue and Ye Xiang glared at Gu Mu and quickly chimed in.
“I’m just stating the facts. When I arrived at the Flower King’s Hall, I saw from the window that Miss Fen Yao’s gaze at the Flower King was practically murderous! If your gaze hadn’t been so venomous and hateful, how could I have mistaken you for an assassin? If I hadn’t mistaken you for an assassin, how could this chain of events have happened? Ah~”
At the end, Gu Mu shook his head with a pained sigh.
“Lord Gu, even if you rarely visit my Golden Phoenix Palace, you’ve surely seen my attendants before, haven’t you? Could you really not recognize Fen Yao and the others? Hmph!” Tong Yun clenched her fists under her sleeves. She was now certain that Gu Mu had been involved in the incident with Fen Yao and the others. What infuriated her even more was that Gu Mu was now playing dumb, trying to make a fool out of her.
Just thinking about how she had just inflicted punishment on Fen Yao and the others made Tong Yun feel as if a fire were burning inside her. Gu Mu must have been laughing his head off in secret when he saw her ruthlessly attacking her own people!
Disgusting! Absolutely despicable!
“Grand Elder, how can you say such a thing?”
Gu Mu, a grown man, put on an expression of extreme grievance, but it vanished as quickly as it appeared. In the blink of an eye, he transformed into a righteous and upright gentleman, bowing to Tong Yun and Lan Xin.
“Grand Elder, Second Elder, as the sages taught, ‘Do not look at what is contrary to propriety!’ As a man, how could I possibly stare at the Grand Elder’s attendants? What kind of person would that make me? So… I truly didn’t recognize that the ‘assassins’ I caught were actually the Grand Elder’s people.”
“What assassins? Lord Gu, stop talking nonsense! I have worked diligently for the Flower and Wood Clan—would I ever send someone to assassinate the Flower King?!” Tong Yun roared in anger.
Gu Mu chuckled and bowed again to Tong Yun. “A slip of the tongue, purely a slip of the tongue! Grand Elder, please don’t take offense!”
“Grand Elder.” Fen Yao, tears in her eyes, came forward and kowtowed to Tong Yun. “Grand Elder, even if Lord Gu didn’t remember our appearances due to propriety between men and women, Qian Dai certainly recognized us. She knew it was us, yet she still struck so ruthlessly…”
“Sister Fen Yao, stop slandering me!” Qian Dai cut her off sharply, her voice cold. “At the time, you were all so disheveled that your original appearances were unrecognizable. How can you accuse me of doing it on purpose?”
“You did it on purpose!”
Fen Yao glared at Qian Dai and argued.
“Bad person!”
Yun Qingxue suddenly rushed at Fen Yao, holding an inkstone she had somehow gotten hold of, and smashed it squarely on Fen Yao’s head.
Without her protective magic, Fen Yao immediately fainted from the blow. A pink mist rose around her as she reverted to her original form—a peach blossom tree—right there in the Golden Phoenix Palace.
Yun Qingxue sneered inwardly. So Fen Yao’s true form was a peach blossom tree? Then she might as well pluck a few blossoms to play with, as repayment for all the “care” Fen Yao had shown her since she arrived in this strange world.
Following her thoughts, Yun Qingxue reached out, grabbed a slender branch of the peach tree, and yanked hard, tearing off a whole branch of blossoms.
“Ah!” A shrill scream came from the tree as the peach blossoms trembled violently. Blood oozed from the broken branch.
“Flower King, what are you doing?!” Tong Yun glared furiously at Yun Qingxue and demanded.
Lan Xin also looked at Yun Qingxue disapprovingly, though unlike Tong Yun, she didn’t question Yun Qingxue directly. Instead, she turned her anger on Qian Dai.
“Qian Dai, is this how you take care of the Flower King?”
Qian Dai lowered her head, but Yun Qingxue giggled and chanted, “Fun, fun!”
As she spoke, she reached out to break another branch.
“Your Majesty, my ancestor!” Gu Mu cried out dramatically, rushing to Yun Qingxue’s side. He rolled up his sleeves, bowed deeply, and said, “Your Majesty, this subordinate must offend!”
With that, he reached out to stop Yun Qingxue.
Yun Qingxue turned her head unhappily toward Gu Mu, pouted, and suddenly burst into loud sobs.
Her crying left Gu Mu at a loss…
The Flower King was crying—and it was because of him! He had made the Flower King cry?!
Oh no, this was a disaster! He had actually made the Flower King cry—a grave crime of insubordination!
*Thud!*
Without another word, Gu Mu dropped to his knees before Yun Qingxue, his face twisted in misery as he begged for mercy. “Your Majesty, forgive me! Your Majesty, forgive me!”
Yun Qingxue sniffled as she looked at Gu Mu’s pitiful expression. If the situation hadn’t been so serious, she might have burst out laughing. From the moment he appeared, Gu Mu had acted like a clown from the modern world—utterly ridiculous.
Yun Qingxue tossed aside the broken branch and pinched Gu Mu’s cheeks with both hands, pulling them outward as she scolded, “You bad person!”
“Your Majesty, I’m not a bad person,” Gu Mu mumbled through his stretched cheeks, still trying to defend himself.
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