After hearing this, Xin Xue stared blankly at Sun Qing. My shameless remarks had left the two of them utterly at a loss for words. Sun Qing, however, was a virtuous wife who was very good at making decisions. With a bitter smile, she said, "Sect Master Xia, you're joking. We never intended to wash our hands of this matter. We merely thought it would bring us some extra trouble. Why would we want to end our cooperation? Fellow Daoist Xin means that this matter can actually be resolved in a better way..."
"Is that so? If you truly intended to resolve this properly, you should have come sooner. Coming only now means you're late, doesn't it?" I chuckled. That old man Mo knew perfectly well that refusing the three elders from Cangtian Luanhai would certainly offend Cangtian Luanhai, so he had lured the three elders over to my side. He would rather offend me, giving himself a way out. Once the three elders and I started fighting, he could step in afterward, and I would be indebted to him. In the end, that flawless move had gone spectacularly wrong. The people he sent arrived just a little too late, and I had already wiped out all three elders!
With the three elders dead, the problem had become serious. If he had merely passed the matter from one hand to the other, there would have been no trouble at all, and he would even have earned a reputation for mediation. He could either have saved us and made us endlessly grateful, or saved the three elders and made them retreat in the face of difficulty. Who could have expected him to fumble the handoff so badly that everything lay shattered across the floor? So now both sides were in an