"The contest with Nine Huang is over, and you've joined the Scattered Society. The old business that needed settling is settled. Now it's time to talk about the Dragon Ascension Path."
Feng Jiu's voice was cold as iron, freezing the lively atmosphere in an instant.
Hu Chunyou and the others had no idea what this was about. They exchanged bewildered looks.
Xu Yi smiled. "That was just a jest. I never thought Young Master Feng Jiu would take it seriously."
Pfft!
Long Jingxiu spat out her drink.
Tu Min stared at Xu Yi as if he were a madman.
Feng Jiu's face began shimmering with colorful feather patterns again.
Everyone present exchanged glances. No one had expected Xu Yi to go back on his word.
Tu Min shouted, "A joke? Now you call it a joke? You're a mere demon commandant, yet you dare joke to Young Master Feng Jiu, the Legal System Court, and the prefect right to our faces. You've got some nerve!"
"Prefect Tu, that's quite out of line."
Long Jingxiu was just about to rebuke him when a deep voice cut in first. The speaker was none other than Niu Bodang.
"Though you, Prefect of Wuwei, lord it over your own territory, the people of my Scattered Society aren't yours to berate as you please. It was a harmless little joke. If Prefect Tu insults one of our members again, the Scattered Society will never let it go."
Niu Bodang's face darkened as he snapped.
In Xu Yi's earlier poem, he had praised the four of them with the line, "Hu and Lang write with Autumn Mourner's bones; Eight-Pronged's words are fresh and bright."
Hu and Lang referred to Hu Chunyou and Lang Suxin. "Autumn Mourner's bones" referred to Ji Mengliang, known as Autumn Mourner, while