A man's reputation was like a tree's shadow. Xiang Yuan was no longer some obscure nobody; he had so many titles they would not fit in a single room, and his notoriety in Southern Jin was considerable as well.
Mainly because he had gone too far before. White Cloud Manor, Forget Sword Manor, and Great Awakening Temple had suffered disaster one after another merely for refusing to comply. The two manors had even been razed to the ground, their assets seized by the Heavenly Sect.
And in Southern Jin, Xiang Yuan also bore the infamy of forcibly taking the Water-Subduing Iron Sword and bringing down the Hundred Rivers Alliance. There was basically no washing it clean.
Though it was all a misunderstanding, most people in the world feared power rather than virtue. Infamy often worked better, so the Heavenly Sect casually explained it once, then let the rumors run wild without bothering further.
Besides, they had already taken all that abuse. If they cleared up the misunderstanding only afterward, would not all that previous abuse have been for nothing?!
Xiang Yuan believed Wang Daoyan had listened to petty slander and formed some misconceptions about his character. Wang Daoyan did not see it that way. She had eyes and could see; she had ears and could hear. In her understanding, Xiang Yuan was first a kinsman of the Liu Clan, and only afterward the Overlord of Western Chu who supported King Zhao Residence.
In other words, Western Chu's current emperor was a puppet of Northern Qi, a mouthpiece for the Heavenly Sect, while the Shendu Xiao Clan had declined into dogs beneath the Heavenly Sect's crotch.
Xiang Yuan's arrival in Southern Jin plainly meant to take advantage of the chaos in its court and extend his demonic claws to firmly seize