"..."
Lady Wang's face paled slightly at his words, and then she instinctively retorted:
"This..."
"Is it really that serious?"
"She's only a young girl throwing a tantrum and running away from home. Surely she'll come to her senses in a few days and return on her own."
"How could it possibly come to the point where outsiders laugh at our Jia family?"
It was hard to tell whether she hadn't realized how serious the situation was, or whether she was trying to downplay it and cover things up to save face for the scheme they had plotted earlier.
In any case, that was what she had just said, and she wore an aggrieved expression.
"!!"
Jia Zheng abruptly turned his head at her words.
Holding up the letter, he stared straight at Lady Wang. His eyes, rarely so stern, held a trace of disappointment, and his voice suddenly grew several shades heavier:
"Not that serious?"
"How could it not be?!"
As he spoke, he shook the letter in his hand, written on delicate pink stationery patterned with bamboo, then continued in an angry voice:
"What do you take Daiyu for?"
"An ordinary, sheltered young girl?"
"Some ordinary girl who throws a little tantrum, cries and makes a scene, and then lets you coax her back?!"
"This is utterly absurd!"
He drew a deep breath and managed to rein in his anger a little.
After a pause, he saw that Lady Wang still looked somewhat resentful. His frustration only deepened, and he once again rebuked her, his voice tinged with indignation:
"Daiyu is one of the top four in this year's Immortal Selection!"
"She's a brilliant young woman whom even the Heavenly Emperor praised through the Imperial Consort, and whom that Heavenly Venerable of the Immortal Selection Bureau couldn't stop