A Thought Stirred, and Objects Moved from Afar

At the man's words,

Zhou Dasheng, standing below, immediately looked away. "Uh... no... nothing."

"Nothing?! Are you joking?"

"Didn't we bribe some people beforehand?"

"Where are they? What are they doing?!"

At his words,

Zhou Dasheng continued, "It wouldn't work. With that warrior named Zhao Tian backing Madam Ma, those people all had their reservations."

"On top of that, Madam Ma brought the Zhou Family a huge profit when she returned from this trip."

"With both of those things in play, everyone we'd bribed chose to wait and see. No one wanted to be the bird that stuck its head out."

"So they stayed silent the whole time..."

At Zhou Dasheng's words,

A vein bulged on the forehead of the man seated in the main seat, and anger burned in his eyes.

"So you let that woman get through the entire meeting without a single hitch? You even let her steal the show?!"

"Do you realize she'd already returned with a great achievement to her name? Now she's established her authority as well."

"Do you know how much harder it'll be to pull her down from now on? Several times harder than it is today!"

The man in the main seat was practically roaring by the end!

Hearing this, Zhou Dasheng and the others

All fell silent without thinking.

At the sight before him,

The man's anger swelled further.

But he did not continue venting it on them.

After all, he knew

That raging at these people now would only waste time.

After taking a moment to compose himself,

He calmed down.

Then he lowered his voice and asked Zhou Dasheng, "So what is the story with this Zhao Tian?"

"Where did he come from?"

"And how did he end up with Ma Yourong?"

At his questions,

Zhou Dasheng and