"You're all laughing so happily. How about letting me join in?"
Sunlight streamed through the doorway, casting Yang Ming in a radiant, majestic glow, like a god descending into the mortal world.
Yang Ming was smiling broadly, and his tone sounded as though he were chatting with old friends. Yet everyone inside the mansion felt as though they had been plunged into an ice cellar. A bone-piercing chill raced up their spines, instantly leaving their hands and feet icy cold, as if they had lost all sensation.
Nobody moved.
No, rather than saying they did not move, it would be more accurate to say they had already been frightened into immobility.
Inside the mansion, they had talked grandly, acting as though Yang Ming were beneath their notice, calling him a little brat with every other breath. But when Yang Ming actually appeared before them, whether it was the An Clan, which had inherited its ducal title for generations; the Liu Clan, which controlled maritime trade throughout the empire; the Li Clan, which controlled sixty percent of the empire's grain trade; the Yu Clan of the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan; or the Hua Clan, known for playing social butterfly among the rich and powerful...
These great clans could make the entire Star Luo Empire tremble three times with a stamp of their feet, or send a comfortably well-off middle-class family into decline with a single cough. Now, however, it was as though the god of death had seized them by the throat. In an instant, they all fell silent.
A man had his reputation, just as a tree cast its shadow.
No matter how angry they were, how deeply they hated him, or how badly they wanted to kill Yang Ming, they had to admit that they lacked the strength