Red-Rumped Yama spoke.
His voice was like a heavy hammer striking inside a bronze bell, making the entire tavern ceiling tremble.
Without greetings or pleasantries, he went straight to the point, his tone carrying the anger of someone offended, along with a trace of deep bewilderment.
"I caught your scent on that boy."
Red-Rumped Yama tapped his fingers lightly against the counter. Each tap left a deep fingerprint in the hard white bone.
"That figures."
Red-Rumped Yama sneered, his lips curling into a mocking smile.
"Anyone that madwoman Lingxu takes a fancy to can't be too shabby. How could the successor she chose be a useless wretch?"
"And..."
Red-Rumped Yama narrowed his eyes slightly. An exceedingly complicated gleam flashed through his scarlet pupils, even carrying a hint of wariness.
"He also comes from that Lineage..."
That forbidden Lineage which had once laid down a grand formation of hundreds of millions of broken weapons over the endless black sea, turning the entire Penglai Immortal Island into a Sword Mound prison.
That clan which left even Sage Patriarchs as mighty as those of the Upper Four Realms shaken whenever they mentioned it.
Red-Rumped Yama said no more.
The karmic entanglements of that Lineage were too weighty. Even as one of the Ten Great Yamas, he was unwilling to touch too deeply upon those dust-sealed years at this crucial moment before the great unification.
He merely stared at Old Ghost Ape, hoping to glimpse an answer on the face of this "brother of the same source."
Yet.
Old Ghost Ape merely raised his bowl and drained the Great Sage Wine within.
He shook his head. Not a ripple disturbed his walnut-wrinkled face, and he said not a word.
He neither admitted to placing his bet nor denied it.
To Red-Rumped Yama, this silence