Hearing Jin Lu say this, Fang Qianyuan immediately understood how the whole affair had come about.
"This Rong Household really has no scruples. They targeted me over something that hasn't even materialized. Don't they understand that even if they succeeded in blackening my name, their young master might still not rise to the top?" Fang Qianyuan said indignantly.
"Well, this might have something to do with our past practices." Hearing this, Jin Lu could no longer maintain his solemn expression. He gave a dry cough.
"What practices?" Fang Qianyuan asked, bewildered.
"In the past, we also... never mind. These are all muddled accounts anyway. However much you tally them up, they never come out clear," Jin Lu said evasively.
"You mean the sect has smeared other people's geniuses before?" Fang Qianyuan was taken aback.
Jin Lu began hemming and hawing, looking this way and that and changing the subject.
Although these matters were sect secrets, Fang Qianyuan was a True Disciple, not some ordinary member. If he learned about them, so be it.
Jin Lu had no intention of denying it, tacitly confirming Fang Qianyuan's guess instead.
"This really is..." Fang Qianyuan's anger immediately faded, leaving him unsure whether to laugh or cry.
On reflection, though, it made sense. The sect was no gathering of pious, harmless souls. If its own geniuses failed to measure up while another sect's geniuses were rising, it might well have to suppress them a little.
Ultimately, these were petty tricks that allowed them to contend without openly breaking relations, nothing fit to be brought out into the light.
"This time, we wiped out one of their branch estates, but we only killed ordinary servants and people recruited from outside. Everyone who surrendered was captured alive. We can perhaps exchange them and demand an end