Li Hongzhao pondered. "The evil sect has put out bounties, telling its disciples to kill City Guard soldiers. What are they after?"
Chu Zhiyuan shook his head. "The evil fiends I encountered were only ordinary ones. I haven't come into contact with their upper ranks."
"You want to get to the bottom of this?"
"The appearance of the giant demons and the evil fiends' madness may only be a coincidence. But it may also be no coincidence at all."
"The Divine Artifact that guards the Imperial Court has gone wrong too, hasn't it?" Li Hongzhao said. "I heard Senior Sister Dong say that the imperial city has a Divine Artifact standing guard over it. Now that evil fiends are running rampant, the artifact must have developed a problem."
Chu Zhiyuan fell silent.
Li Hongzhao shot him a glare and snorted. "You still wanted to hide this from me!"
Chu Zhiyuan laughed. "I knew I couldn't hide it from you."
He had not said it outright, but merely by describing the evil sect's rampant behavior, then showing the slightest hesitation, Li Hongzhao's sharpness and intelligence would inevitably let her guess it.
That did not count as breaking his promise to Prince Zhuang.
"The giant demons' appearance, the evil fiends' rampage, and the Divine Artifact's failure—the latter two aren't a coincidence, are they?" Li Hongzhao said. "The evil sect must have learned that the Divine Artifact had failed before they dared act so brazenly, right?"
Chu Zhiyuan thought for a moment, then shook his head.
Under normal circumstances, that would indeed be the case. The evil sect would not want its own sect to weaken, so it would cherish its disciples' lives and not send them to their deaths.
But the evil sect could not be measured by ordinary reasoning.
Thus, whether