Shen Tang was panicking.
Panicking very, very, very badly!
What could she possibly say to convince these three old foxes, each more cunning than the last, that she had no idea where her National Seal was, let alone how to use the thing? Shen Tang nervously swallowed twice.
"Uh, um—why are you all looking at me like that?"
Shen Tang tactically cowered and decided to play dumb, though she knew perfectly well what was going on.
Qi Shan and she had almost no rapport. Ignoring her guilty conscience, he asked with a faint smile, "What do you think of my proposal, You Li?"
Shen Tang: "..."
This was bad!!!
Every hair on her body was standing on end!!!
Qi Shan kept calling her "You Li" and referring to himself as "I" in that obsequious way. For some reason, it sent a chill up her tailbone and straight to the crown of her head. Fighting her guilty conscience, she replied awkwardly, "Brilliant! Absolutely brilliant! A spiraling, invincible, sky-piercing kind of brilliant!"
Calling her Young Master Shen or Shen Tang was fine, but calling her "You Li" gave her the bizarre impression of Pan Jinlian calling Wu Dalang by name.
_(:з)∠)_
Qi Shan: "..."
Though he had no idea what the strange phrase "spiraling, invincible, sky-piercing" meant, his instincts told him Young Master Shen's answer was utterly perfunctory.
Qi Shan turned to Gongshu Wu.
"Half-Step, can you rest easy now?"
Gongshu Wu hesitated. He didn't really trust Qi Shan's nonsense, but he couldn't stand by and watch tens of thousands of Xiaocheng's people suffer a fate worse than death in despair. He was torn between two sides, his thoughts tangled and his expression conflicted.
At last—
He let out a long sigh. "The Xin Country Old Lord entrusted me with the National