"Speak!"
Xie Zongxun waved a hand, parting the mist shrouding the distant mountains.
Xu Yi said, "I can prove it, but there has to be a price. It can't be based on someone's guesswork. I need an explanation for the way I've been treated. After all, I'm a Golden Hall Elder, and one of the few people eligible to attend meetings at Gongtian Hall. If a mere suspicion is enough to subject me to such humiliation, tell me, Demon Lords and Elders, is that fair?"
"Unfair. Of course it's unfair. Golden Hall Elders are appointed by the Imperial Venerate, and they have the authority to assist the Demon Lords in taking turns handling affairs. Their rank is second only to the Demon Lords. If Elder Xu can be investigated today on the basis of suspicion, then tomorrow any of us could be investigated on a whim. The ancestral court cannot overturn its own laws and order."
Facing Han Qi's icy glare, the hot-tempered Elder Lin spoke up with impassioned conviction.
Xie Zongxun seized the opportunity to say, "That is indeed the principle. Demon Lord Han, what do you think?"
Han Qi said coldly, "I'd like to hear what he has to say."
He was certain that the terms Xu Yi was about to propose would be extremely harsh—so harsh, perhaps, that he would have no choice but to reject them. Only then could he stop himself from examining Xu Yi's Ruyi Pearl.
Sure enough, Xu Yi said, "I have only one request. If the examination proves me innocent, I ask Demon Lord Han to go into seclusion for a hundred years."
A collective gasp rippled through the crowd.
Even for someone at Han Qi's level of cultivation, a hundred years was nothing much. But to spend a hundred years in