Whew!
No matter how well she kept up appearances, Sheng Lanzhi was still uneasy inside.
When she had first learned that her father was gone,
Sheng Lanzhi had even expected Ye Liufeng to come to her at once with a letter of divorce.
Then the shops in her hands would be eyed by those wolves and tigers, carved up and devoured.
With no other choice, she could only leave the imperial capital and spend the rest of her life in some remote little town.
If luck was on her side, the money in her hands would probably still let her live comfortably for the rest of her days.
But if luck was not on her side, Sheng Lanzhi did not even dare imagine what would happen.
That was why,
when Sheng Lanzhi learned that Ye Liufeng was dead and the man before her was Ye Liuyun, her first thought had been to attach herself to him.
Bound by the limits of the times, it was ultimately difficult for a woman to survive alone when surrounded by a pack of wolves.
Brother must have wanted to see an ending like this too.
Seeing Sheng Lanzhi's expression ease, Ye Liuyun sighed quietly to himself.
Ye Liufeng surely would have wanted him to take good care of Sheng Lanzhi as well.
Meanwhile, Sheng Lanzhi thought,
That useless Ye Liufeng really died at just the right time.
Thinking about it now, it was fortunate that Ye Liufeng had died. Otherwise, in a situation like today's, Ye Liufeng would probably not only have wanted to divorce her, but also seize the shops in her hands.
Perhaps to ease the relationship between herself and Ye Liuyun,
Sheng Lanzhi poured wine for Ye Liuyun as she told him about her life from childhood onward.
She said that from a young age, her father had raised her to understand that one must stop at nothing to achieve one's ends.
It had not only been Sheng Lanzhi. Her other sisters had been raised the same way.
It could be said that from beginning to end, Sheng Li had treated his daughters as tools for gathering connections and influence for himself.
No one was born knowing every kind of scheme.
They were all influenced bit by bit.
Ye Liuyun merely listened from the side, nodding now and then.
It felt a little like company team-building before his transmigration—when the boss drank while dragging you into a long speech about how hard his life had been.
Seven parts drunk on wine, and the act had you weeping rivers of tears.
In any case, it was all about describing how difficult things had been for them, as if saying so would win everyone's sympathy.
That was what Ye Liuyun thought, but he had no intention of interrupting her. There was no other reason—Sheng Lanzhi was simply beautiful enough.
That was just reality.
If Sheng Lanzhi had been replaced by some burly brute, Ye Liuyun guaranteed he would have kicked him away immediately. Am I that idle? Do I have time to waste with you?
What was more, as Sheng Lanzhi spoke, she deliberately or inadvertently leaned closer to him.
The more she did so, the more Ye Liuyun sighed. Strength really was a good thing. As long as you were strong enough, perhaps the things you wanted would obediently come knocking at your door on their own.
"Hm?"
However, when Sheng Lanzhi spoke of how her father had died,
Ye Liuyun suddenly froze and looked over at her strangely.
"Your father was killed by a bandit of the martial world?"
From Sheng Lanzhi's account, Sheng Li had been killed by a bandit of the martial world who had escaped from the Heavenly Prison, not because of Chieftain Wan.
"What is it?"
Seeing Ye Liuyun's expression, Sheng Lanzhi found it strange as well.
"My father once held a high post in the Ministry of Justice and judged many criminals. In the process, he offended quite a few people. One of them was a bandit of the martial world called the Cloud-Turning Dragon. Because he had no money to bribe my father, I heard he was punished terribly.
After escaping from the Heavenly Prison, I heard he chose to take revenge on my father at the first opportunity."
No wonder all the maids and servants in the Sheng residence had been killed that day. It was plainly an act of vengeance.
"Tsk!"
Ye Liuyun suddenly realized something.
If Sheng Li's death had nothing to do with Chieftain Wan, then why had Lu Quan come hopping around in front of him?
Mm! He probably just liked courting death!
Tell me, what were you hopping around for when it had nothing to do with you? Now you had gotten yourself killed, hadn't you?
If Lu Quan had not come hopping around in front of him back then, Ye Liuyun truly would not have thought much of it, nor would he have connected Sheng Li's death with Lu Quan and Chieftain Wan.
"What is it?"
Seeing Ye Liuyun lost in thought and saying nothing, Sheng Lanzhi called out to him curiously.
"Nothing!"
Coming back to himself, Ye Liuyun shook his head with a laugh.
"I just didn't expect prisoners to be able to escape from a place like the Heavenly Prison."
Logically speaking, security in the Heavenly Prison should have been the strictest, even tighter than the Imperial Prison. Yet someone had still managed to escape. Tsk, tsk!
"The world is unpredictable."
Sheng Lanzhi sighed softly as well.
She did not dwell on it. The man was already dead, so there was no use thinking too much about it.
After talking for a while longer,
seeing that it was getting late and there was no need to continue,
Ye Liuyun saw that Sheng Lanzhi was somewhat drunk, so he had the maid beside them help her back to her room.
As for Ye Liuyun, he returned to the side courtyard.
On the way, he took out the lightness skill he had just received from Sheng Lanzhi.
Phantom Ninefold Body.
Once cultivated to great mastery, it allowed one to move like a ghost in a leap, difficult for others to detect. It could also leave behind nine phantom bodies, false and true intermingled, making it impossible to discern where the real body was.
As he walked back toward the side courtyard, he read the cultivation technique in his hand.
At the same time, Xing'er quietly followed at Ye Liuyun's side.
"Did you know all along?"
At that moment, Ye Liuyun suddenly spoke.
"?"
Xing'er, whose thoughts had drifted elsewhere, was clearly stunned by the abrupt question.
Still looking at the cultivation technique in his hand, Ye Liuyun continued without even raising his head.
"Did you know all along that I am not Ye Liufeng?"
Knowing what Ye Liuyun was asking,
Xing'er hesitated for a moment before lowering her head and answering softly.
"Yes, Master!"
Xing'er had indeed noticed something was wrong with Ye Liuyun a long time ago.
She simply had not told anyone.
"Is my acting really that bad?"
Closing the cultivation technique, Ye Liuyun was merely puzzled. Was his acting truly so poor? Why did it seem as though everyone could see through him?
She had originally been worried that Ye Liuyun might blame her over this matter.
But upon hearing Ye Liuyun's self-doubting tone, Xing'er could not help laughing.
"At first, this servant only found it strange. But later on, Master seemed to have no intention of hiding it anymore."
It had nothing to do with his acting.
Because he had not intended to act at all.
"So that was it!"
Now that she put it that way, it did seem true. As his strength had grown greater, Ye Liuyun had also become increasingly unrestrained.
He did whatever he wanted, with no intention at all of minding his identity.
Before you continue