Half an hour earlier.
At Qingya Pavilion, several finely dressed young noblemen held dancing girls in their arms as they drank and caroused.
They had booked the entire place, so theirs was the only table in the whole tavern.
The man seated at the head of the table was tall and burly. His bulging muscles strained against his silk robe, and the wine jug looked like a tiny medicine bottle in his hand.
Yan Linghu, son of the Ministry of Justice's Vice Minister.
A Sixth-Grade Martial Artist, he had trained his body to an almost supernatural level. Few at the same rank could break through his iron-hard defenses!
If he weren't already too old, he'd surely have earned a place on the Azure Cloud Ranking!
Glug, glug, glug. Yan Linghu tipped his head back and drained the jug.
"Excellent!"
"Yan, you're a true champion drinker!"
"You drink like a whale swallowing a hundred rivers. We can't match that kind of gusto!"
Everyone clapped and praised him.
Yan Linghu wiped the wine from the corner of his mouth, his expression dark. He was in a foul mood.
Lately, the court had been turbulent. His father, Yan Peizhi, had become embroiled in the turmoil and was one of the enemy faction's main targets. As a result, Yan Linghu's own days had grown difficult.
He had once been close to Yan Liang, and naturally, he'd been involved in the Barbarian Slave affair.
Yan Liang hadn't named him, but he'd still felt the repercussions.
"Damn that Chen fellow. This is all his doing!"
A cold glint flashed in Yan Linghu's eyes. Chen Mo had once been a mere Seventh-Grade Martial Artist, beneath his notice. Now he was stirring up trouble at court and making life miserable for the Yan Family!
"Just don't fall into