A fleeting glimpse.
The younger generation might have found that face unfamiliar, but to these clan elders, it was one they would likely never forget for the rest of their lives.
She had once been the household's heaven-blessed prodigy, and the clan's eternal sorrow.
Yet after all these years, that hidden corner had been exposed once more.
"Isn't she..."
Shang Qingzheng turned to look, and the speaker swiftly lowered his head.
Someone beside him secretly tugged his sleeve, signaling him to keep quiet, but there was no stopping all those mouths. After all, more than one person had recognized her.
Then another blunt voice rang out from the crowd:
"Could she be the third young lady's..."
"Oh, then she's one of our own!"
The clansmen had been about to disperse, but at this, they hastily gathered again, nodding as they spoke:
"If we really worked out the generations, she'd have to call me Great-Uncle!"
"Exactly."
"Hey, perhaps she's come back to acknowledge her ancestors, rejoin the clan, and enter the ancestral hall!"
Up ahead, Shang Sibai could bear to listen no longer. He cautiously glanced at Jiang Yang, then immediately turned and rebuked them:
"Silence! Stop talking nonsense and disperse at once!"
"Ahem."
The clan elders Shang Chaozhou, Shang Chaoyi, and Shang Chaojin nearly collapsed in fright upon hearing this. They flicked their sleeves and coughed twice. These direct-line descendants had been spoiled at home until they were nothing but trouble. They truly dared to say anything.
Standing closest, Shang Chaohua kept his expression under control and smiled at Jiang Yang as though nothing had happened:
"This way, please, True Person."
The clan head's heart was in his throat. Though the woman before him carried herself like an entirely different person, he could still discern traces of the woman from