Unraveling the Threads

Gongyang Family:

The young Head of the House looked utterly calm, even smiling as he comforted the elders and stewards.

"It's fine. Didn't only a few people die?"

"Our Gongyang Family may not have much else, but we have plenty of people!"

"They were merely twenty-seven knights; they are not our true foundation."

"We have thousands of knights like them."

"If we unleash our real foundation, crushing that murderer will be as easy as turning over a hand!"

Only then did the many elders and stewards calm down from their panic.

They began chatting and laughing, discussing how to find the murderer and then beat him to death.

Only the smiling Head of the Gongyang Family carried a heavy heart.

Because:

Members of the Gongyang Family had been killed.

Though he said it was nothing.

He knew that Gongyang Zhige had been killed, and the Gongyang Knights had been slaughtered at the city gates.

The actual damage this dealt to the Gongyang Family was negligible.

But the consequences it brought were exceedingly grave.

The Gongyang Family had always stood high above all others.

Sacred and inviolable!

Yet Chu Qing's move this time had torn their sacred, inviolable outer garment.

It would let the world know:

The Gongyang Family was actually nothing more than this.

Today, an outsider dared to kill their people.

Then tomorrow, there would be others.

The day after tomorrow, even their dogs might suddenly bare their fangs and bite their masters.

That was the true crisis.

It was simply that... many elders and stewards could not see this at all.

The Lineage had, amid its long years of glory... fallen into decay.

The Head of the Gongyang Family sighed.

After a long while, he dismissed some of the stewards and elders, leaving behind only his trusted confidants