Inside the great tent.
The furnishings were simple: a long table of polished black stone, with several fur-covered chairs on either side.
Chi Kui and Tian Feng sat side by side at the head of the table.
Ji Yuan sat on a stone stool at the far end, back straight and expression calm, perfectly imitating Qing Mu's deferential manner.
The silence in the tent lasted only a moment.
Tian Feng broke it first. He turned toward Ji Yuan, a playful smile on his face.
"I never expected Fellow Daoist Qing Mu to be interested in that inheritance too. I thought you simply wanted to follow Fellow Daoist Chi Kui."
The mockery in his words could not have been plainer.
Before Ji Yuan could reply, Chi Kui cast him a cool glance from the head of the table.
His dark-gold eyes held undisguised derision. "If you truly admired me and wanted to enter my service, why didn't you come sooner? Why wait until now?"
"Don't think I can't see what you're after. In the end, you came for the Inheritance Secret Realm, didn't you?"
Chi Kui sneered, picked up the beast-bone wine bowl on the stone table, and took a long drink.
As his throat bobbed, the baleful aura around him grew heavier.
He saw the situation as clearly as if it were reflected in a mirror.
When Ji Yuan had invoked his name on the hill to defy Shui Tian, Chi Kui had already sensed something was wrong.
Qing Mu was merely a minor cultivator at the Nascent Soul Early Stage. He had spent years guarding the mines of the Sky-Ring Mountain Range, unnoticed in the City of the Celestial God, always cautious and never daring to stir up trouble.
Defying Elder Shui Tian, who stood at Nascent Soul Peak,