And Tao Doudou, too.
"Of course we investigated." Sword Venerable Jinglin might not have thought to suspect Elder Jiang at first, but Yan Qingsui followed his instincts. He had a feeling Elder Jiang was no good, so he had pushed Sword Venerable Jinglin to look into him. "But the old man probably didn't take it seriously. He wasn't thorough." Sword Venerable Jinglin had only made a cursory inquiry because Yan Qingsui had threatened to do it himself if he refused.
If Yan Qingsui had gone himself, the matter would surely have blown up, and that would have been troublesome. But if Elder Jiang had truly buried his secrets deep, a cursory inquiry would never reach the heart of them. Yan Qingsui wasn't satisfied, but there was nothing he could do. He couldn't just walk into Elder Jiang's territory.
"But Elder Jiang doesn't strike me as someone who's hiding much."
"That's because you already have a fixed impression of him, so your thinking's still skewed. The Jiang Family's roots run deep in the Heavenly Evolution Sword Sect, and he holds an honored position. He has no reason to do anything that would harm the sect, so nobody would believe he's a bad person, would they?"
"A bad person?" Qiao Ranran smiled. "Good and bad depend on where you stand. The people you call bad are probably Demonic Cultivators. But Elder Jiang represents the orthodox Righteous Path. Whatever he does, it's just a textbook case of Cultivators following the law of the strong devouring the weak. As a high-ranking Cultivator, he can't exactly talk about such things in public, so he does them in secret. And everyone tacitly accepts that sort of behavior, so they don't see anything wrong with what Elder Jiang does... wouldn't you agree?"
Qiao Ranran looked at Yan