Wu Chengzong swallowed hard. He raised his eyes and met Zhang Bingyi's pleading gaze for an instant.
Then he immediately looked away.
It was useless.
At this point, no amount of sophistry could help.
Since Instructor Chen had come to hold them accountable, it meant he had already investigated everything thoroughly.
"...Yes."
Wu Chengzong admitted it.
At once, Zhang Bingyi's face turned ashen.
Chen Yan, seated in the place of honor, also fell into a brief silence.
He seemed to have deliberately left this stretch of silence for the clan heads of the various families present to bear the pressure and reflect on themselves.
"I know that the six families and eight clans—the fourteen great houses—have always been Forgotten River City's tradition. Yet though these 'eight clans' appear to stand alongside the 'six families,' in truth, they are more than a level beneath them."
Chen Yan spoke slowly.
Just like a few years ago, when Zhao Yuanren, head of the Zhao Family, celebrated his twelve-hundredth birthday.
The heads of all eight great families in Forgotten River City had hurried to the Zhao Residence to attend Zhao Yuanren's birthday banquet and present their gifts.
But what if it had been the birthday banquet of one of the heads of those eight great families?
Zhao Yuanren certainly would not have come, nor would the heads of the other five great Cultivation Families.
Even having someone of Zhao Yuanhua's generation—the Zhao Family's thirteenth-generation descendant—attend the banquet would already count as the six great Cultivation Families showing the eight great families of Forgotten River City some face.
And that was merely a matter of face.
In truth, over all these years, the eight great families had suffered far too many hidden losses at the hands of those Cultivation Families.
"Since City Lord Wei is