Dan Ding Pavilion
The moment Zhao Sheng left, Manager Liu's face darkened.
He turned and went back into the pavilion, barging into a sunlit room on the second floor, where he found Manager Shen from earlier.
The instant they met, Manager Liu demanded harshly, "Shen Zhongze, you must give me an explanation!"
Manager Shen, who had been looking out the window, turned around with a calm expression. "Brother Liu, what explanation? I don't even know what you're talking about."
"Pah, still putting on an act with me. Have you already forgotten the dirty business you just did?"
As he spoke, Manager Liu added viciously, "Your Shen Family has some nerve. You even dared to intercept an invitation issued by the sect's Elder Hall! Do you think that even if this matter is exposed in the end, Manager Shen of the Merit Hall can protect your Shen Family? Heh heh, before doing something so underhanded, did you ask our Liu Family?"
Manager Shen's expression changed drastically upon hearing this. He hurriedly forced a smile and said ingratiatingly, "Brother Liu, let's talk things over properly. Why hurt the harmony between our own people over an unrelated outsider?
"You also know that our Shen Family has long awaited the Centennial Token. What had originally been a sure thing has suddenly gained another competitor. A somewhat intense reaction was unavoidable."
As he spoke, Manager Shen deftly slipped a jade pendant blazing with spiritual light into Manager Liu's hand. Manager Liu's expression eased somewhat at the sight, and he could not help complaining, "Even for the family's future, you can't resort to every conceivable means. I had thought quite highly of that young man. So young, yet already so perceptive and tactful. Such people are rare in the Cultivation World these days."
Just as Zhao