The fawning smiles and vicious expressions on Liu Chengshuang and the youths' faces froze in an instant. Their eyes nearly bulged from their sockets, their mouths hanging wide open, yet no sound came out.
The scar-faced man's ferocity was replaced by terror. He instinctively staggered back, the hand gripping his blade trembling like a sieve.
For the first time, the ever-indifferent face of Steward Liu cracked.
The goateed man shuddered violently, his pupils contracting. Rather than looking first at the headless corpse on the ground, he abruptly turned and stared fixedly beside Yue Lingxi—
At some point, two figures had appeared.
They were none other than Chu Jiang and Fu Yunxuan.
One clad in deep black, the other in plain white.
Chu Jiang stood with his hands behind his back, his expression calm, but his eyes held the frozen abyss of ages. Fu Yunxuan's gaze was cool and clear, a faint purple aura curling around her body, silently scattering and vaporizing the splattered droplets of blood.
Yue Lingxi was the first to recover. Overwhelming shock and the wild joy of surviving a calamity crushed her fear. Tears surged forth as her voice choked, "Lord Chu, Sister Fu! You... you're back!"
She had thought everything from last night—including the pair's sudden disappearance after her grandfather handed over the military token—had merely been a dying dream, or a fleeting mercy from the heavens. Yet at this most desperate moment, they had truly appeared again!
Yue Songlin's body trembled violently. Tears streamed down his aged face as he bowed toward Chu Jiang, only to be steadily supported by a gentle force.
Steward Liu stared at Chu Jiang, the shock and uncertainty in his eyes replaced by gloom and deep wariness.
Forcibly suppressing the storm in his heart, he resumed that repulsive, icy tone,