Jun Ziyi pouted, speaking with some disbelief. "Mentor, are you saying Qin Tianliang knew my purpose from the very beginning? And those treasures were deliberately brought out just to fob me off?"
"He did not know your purpose, nor did he know you had come to 'extort wealth,'" Lu Feng said gravely.
"Then why..." Jun Ziyi blinked, even more confused.
"Because he was afraid," Lu Feng said with a long laugh.
Meanwhile, in the Qin Family's reception hall.
Not long after Qin Tianliang had seen Jun Ziyi and the other off, Yu Ruyan emerged from the rear hall, accompanied by a white-bearded old man.
"Sister Ruyan, you heard everything?"
Qin Tianliang sat down in a chair to one side, his face dark.
Yu Ruyan nodded. From the inner room, through the old man at her side's perception and recounting, she had already clearly learned what had happened in the hall.
"You do not blame me for squandering resources like this?" Qin Tianliang's eyes carried a questioning look, yet his words held not the slightest trace of guilt or self-reproach.
Yu Ruyan smiled reassuringly and praised, "There was nothing wrong with handling it this way."
Qin Tianliang looked at her pointedly. "Sister Ruyan also thinks Jun Ziyi was merely a pawn Jun Zi Shuo sent to deliver a message?"
Yu Ruyan nodded and said frankly, "Beyond delivering a message, the Jun Family's move was likely more about testing our Qin Family's attitude. If they truly meant to hold us accountable, they would not have chosen to come to this estate to find a junior like you. They should have gone straight to our Qin Family Ancestral Mountain."
Qin Tianliang nodded in agreement, then asked somewhat painfully, "Sister Ruyan, do you think the resources I gave away this time—worth no less