Only after the two Ji Clan figures vanished from sight did Yun Jinglei emerge from the void, bewilderment written all over his face. "Eldest Brother, what exactly did those Ji siblings come here for? To say a couple of empty words and leave? I thought the two of them were going to take on all two thousand of us!"
The wariness in Yun Tianluo's eyes had yet to fade. Waving his folding fan, he said slowly, "They've always wanted to invite His Majesty to Great Zhou. Last time, that old bastard Ji Wen sent Grandpa an invitation to the Jade Capital Banquet two hundred years in advance. Now it's an ancestral ceremony. Their wicked ambitions just won't die."
Yun Zui scoffed. "An ancestral ceremony? I think it's our ancestor they're after."
Yun Baojian said coldly, "Wishful thinking."
"Delusional," Yun Ruyi added, her voice soft but her tone exceptionally earnest.
Everyone nodded in wholehearted agreement.
Utterly shameless.
After collectively denouncing the Ji Clan's wolfish ambitions, everyone turned back, only to discover that Eldest Brother had yet to join in. Puzzled, they craned their heads toward him.
Yun Qing was looking down at the Purple-Gold Silk Scroll in his hand, his fingertip gently brushing an almost imperceptible bump beneath it.
A piece of jade as thin as a cicada's wing lay there, fitted so seamlessly against the scroll that its presence would have been impossible to detect without deliberately feeling for it.
Ji Shuyue had slipped it to him with an exceptionally subtle technique in the instant he handed over the invitation.
Ji Shuyue... had that fellow thrown his dignity aside and made such a fuss just to conceal that final, crucial instant?
"Eldest Brother?"
Yun Qing looked up to find a circle of curious heads surrounding him. Without betraying anything, he