"By then, I knew you, Zhou, had deceived me. At the time, I even tested you, asking you to show me the Earth Soul Talisman. You readily agreed, but kept putting it off, insisting I sign a Blood Oath first. That was when your wolfish ambitions finally came to light, and I turned against you. You threatened me, saying that as long as you, Zhou Zongshi, lived, I would never become a Yin Venerable, and my path of cultivation would be cut off. If I hadn't had another plan and been sure I could obtain the Earth Soul Talisman, I might have given in to you. I never imagined you'd be so utterly deranged that, just to strike at me, you'd bring this case all the way to the Prison Litigation Department, accusing me first and then turning the blame back on me!"
"You, you, you... I... I'm going to... swallow you whole..."
Zhou Zongshi was so furious he could barely think. He pointed at Xu Yi, his face twisted into a terrible grimace.
He had never imagined Xu Yi would exploit the wording of the Blood Oath in this way.
When he wrote the Blood Oath, he had deliberately made the terms lenient, precisely to lure Xu Yi into his trap.
Who could have known that those lenient terms would now become a flaw Xu Yi could use against him?
Worse still, the expressions of everyone present looked strange to him. Just as he was forcing himself to hold his emotions in check, Xu Yi spoke up clearly. "Honored officials, if you were in my place and faced with conditions like these, wouldn't you have grown suspicious? Would you really dare sign such a Blood Oath?"
No one answered. Chou Taichong knitted his brows, glancing from Xu Yi to