Having made their decision, the two moved with incomparable speed. Once they had more or less tracked down the whereabouts of the Hell Path people, they hurried together to Meng Family Manor to seek an audience with Meng Zhao.
Within the octagonal pavilion, flames flickered beneath a brazier suspended at its center. The water bubbled away, warming a pot of clear wine, its fragrance wafting through the air.
Seven or eight plates of common drinking snacks sat around the stone table, accompanied by golden cups, jade bowls, and ivory chopsticks. It was not extravagance taken to the utmost, but neither did they wrong themselves in the quality of life.
Though no heavy snow fell at the moment, fine flakes drifted down from the sky, swaying and fluttering. They melted the instant they touched the pond, while piling up upon the cold, hard tiles and stone slabs, laying down a thin layer of white frost.
Outside the octagonal pavilion, Vermilion Bird Divine Guards with long sabers at their waists stood watch along the open passageways on all four sides. Every one of them had a cold, stern bearing and a fierce, powerful aura, clearly well-trained.
Zhu Kuan, the Weicao Hall Master, and Tu Liang, head of the Tu Family, who had been plotting in a secret chamber not long ago, now wore a green robe and a blue robe respectively. They stood half-bent at the waist, heads lowered to hide their gazes, quietly awaiting the words of the person in the pavilion.
Their posture was unexpectedly humble. They did not place themselves in the position of rulers over their own domains at all, but treated themselves as servants and retainers instead—afraid not that their etiquette might fall short, but that they might fail to observe every last formality.
Their patience, too,