Mulan Qingqing fell silent. She knew she had been overthinking things; there were many things her fiancé's reputation could not accomplish for her.
Tang Zhen asked about something else. "I heard your side has already gathered more than sixty thousand insect core crystals. Is that true?"
The question left Mai Zhanchang inwardly uneasy, but he still nodded politely. "That's certainly true. They were seized through one bloody battle after another, at the cost of nearly a thousand lives. Everyone saw the spoils from every battle and counted them with their own hands. There's no faking that. Surely all the opponents who fought us and were slaughtered by us couldn't have helped us fake it?"
Wan Daoxuan, who had planted this mole, nodded in support. "Indeed. There's no need to doubt whether the insect core crystals are genuine."
Tang Zhen rubbed his chin, looking disgruntled. "I know it's hard to fake. I'm just puzzled. Last time, we boasted about getting more than sixty thousand insect core crystals, and then they really did get that many. It seems a little too coincidental. Remember when we first started? We had so many people and put in so much effort, yet only got a few thousand. They, on the other hand, got more than sixty thousand in a dozen days."
Li Shanshan sighed. "That's not hard to understand. There are plenty of insect core crystals in the Moon Sea, and many people have risked their lives to retrieve them. The quantities circulating now are certainly on a different scale from before. Some of the sects still prowling around the Moon Sea have absorbed quite a few other groups' holdings. They've all fattened up."
That made sense, and the others nodded slightly.
Mai Zhanchang added, "Exactly. I think that's the reason too."
Mulan Qingqing was