"You don't need to care what anyone else thinks. As long as it helps you, Father, I don't mind!"
As she spoke, Cui Yanyu forced a smile onto her lovely face, as if to ease her father's guilt.
But though she wore that strained smile, her other hand, hidden in her sleeve, trembled even more violently than Cui Hao's had earlier.
She ignored the jeers that kept reaching her ears until she returned to her own room in the Commandery Office and slammed the door shut, cutting herself off from the outside world.
Two streams of tears spilled from her eyes, and she curled into a ball without thinking.
Cui Yanyu had grown up in Azure Underworld Cloud City after her father became one of its commanders.
At most, Cui Yanyu had visited the city's outer district with soldiers under her father's command.
She could not imagine what lonely horrors lurked beneath the Endless Sea, whose waters stretched beyond sight.
She would leave the familiar city where she had spent her entire life and live among demons and monsters from then on.
Her last hope was for Lu Kexun to report the matter to the Sunshine Sect, so the sect could refuse the Southern Sea Dragon Palace on her behalf.
But she had underestimated the temptation the Dao-Merging Grounds held for cultivators at Great Vehicle Perfection. She had also underestimated the greed in people's hearts!
Though it was only a suspicion, Cui Yanyu thought it highly likely.
That nominal Uncle Lu of hers had probably never reported the matter to the Sunshine Sect. He had merely found an excuse to brush her off.
After all, the Nine Sons of the Endless Sea and the Southern Sea Dragon Palace were as incompatible as fire and water.
It would be fortunate if