107

Su Yun was momentarily stunned. That direct?

Ellie wore a face full of gossip, utterly unlike her shrewd work persona. She looked a little childish, almost disarmingly cute.

“I don’t know him,” Su Yun said.

“Oh.” Ellie remained half-convinced. From the way President Wei had looked at Su Yun, there was clearly something going on.

...

“Come here. Do not make this king say it a third time.” Clearly, Xiao Tianyao and Lin Chujiu were not thinking along the same lines. Xiao Tianyao cared about her injuries, while Lin Chujiu cared about her own chastity.

“Ah Yan... you can’t!” Zhou Yi immediately thought of how Gao Yan had taken another Gu worm for Changge. If the poison in Changge’s body were removed, Gao Yan would die. Not to mention that he himself would never agree, Changge would be even less likely to consent. He was someone dearer to her than her own brother.

The two had not taken part in the Dong family’s worldly affairs for many years, having long since gone into quiet cultivation and worked hard to improve their strength, hoping to ascend another level.

Even the people in Lianyun City saw the two streaks of light; likewise, the Zhong sisters and Yunxiao, who were chasing toward the western mountain, also saw those two golden beams. The dragon’s roar reached them even more clearly.

Prime Minister Lin had accepted a debt of gratitude from Lin Chujiu, but he also did not want to grow too close to her, so he repaid her with a favor of his own.

However, unlike Li Jiuzhen and Qi Baichuan, he did not use the fact that he knew martial arts to chase after women.

With a loud bang, a blaze of fire burst across the masked man’s face, and the force of the blow sent his upper body lurching backward.

“Brother Huang, you’re here too?” Old Wei got down from his motorcycle and raised a hand in greeting to Huang Ao.

Master Hou was already gravely injured. Though he managed to struggle upright, he had neither the strength nor the means to withstand the countless flying needles. Several steel needles pierced his body, and his whole frame shook.

Old Master Zhang had been tortured under harsh interrogation, and his health never recovered. In the end, he could bear it no longer and died in prison.

Then the stubborn heir spent every day quarreling with the prince over the new maid who had been brought into the prince’s household. Even though the prince cursed him as unfilial every time, the heir still refused to give up. As a result, neither the prince nor the heir’s servants had any good days left.

So this place ought to be where we rise again. When we first chose it, it was precisely because of the chaos here, and now it seems to match our expectations perfectly.

In any case, so long as it did not threaten her child’s life for the time being, Dai Jin was unwilling to spare much thought for it.

The great doors of Han Yuan Hall opened from within, and a eunuch came out carrying a fly whisk, a cloth, and other such items. The moment he stepped over the threshold, he felt a faint pain in his back, and then his whole body went weak and limp, leaving him unable to speak.

“Xue’er.”

Softly, someone took hold of the hand she had raised. The broad palm was warm in a familiar way, and the voice, too, was one she knew well and liked.

Sun Quan gave a bitter smile inwardly. It was easy to speak when one did not bear the burden of a household. No matter how large the warships were, the supplies they could carry were still finite. More than three thousand men consumed astonishing amounts each day; once those provisions were gone, how were they to be replenished? And with summer approaching, storms at sea would become frequent. By the time those three thousand men reached the Bering Strait, who knew how many would still remain?

Xiahou Sheng showed no surprise at all, his expression calm and unruffled, as he left the marquis’s residence. Han Zeng called Pipa over. “Pipa, there is no need to investigate Zhang Yunrou anymore. It turns out that what followed that so-called coincidence was not accidental at all. Someone had planned it deliberately.”

Wang Yan very much wanted to point at Bai Gongsha’s forehead and curse, “Why are you so vicious?” But after thinking it over, he still did not say it aloud. The person was already dead; what use was there in saying such things now? Yet whenever he thought of Ghost Concubine having her throat slit by a blade, his heart ached unbearably.

Before long, another man came up onto the stage. This time it was not a swordsman, but a towering fellow who leaped up with a mighty air, carrying a steel spear more than a zhang long. Yet after fewer than twenty exchanges, he was knocked off the platform, performing far worse than Wang Sheng.