Ghost-Crying Field.
Gou Fengying stood with Xun Bin and another trusted follower, looking at the five withered vines at the edge of the field, a savage grin plastered across his face.
Nearby, Yuan Jingtu looked grim. Cui Zhong and Elder Zhu said nothing, while Wang Qiuru looked considerably more relaxed.
She firmly believed that Lin Mo had a special constitution. The sect's higher-ups surely had other arrangements and would never let Gou Fengying run wild.
"You've all seen it with your own eyes. This isn't me deliberately making things difficult for Lin Mo."
Gou Fengying turned toward Yuan Jingtu and the others with a low chuckle. "I gave him ten seeds back then. Only five of them were Death Seeds. The other five had just sprouted, and he killed every last one of those, too."
"Under sect rules, deliberately damaging spirit plants means he probably won't be able to keep his status as an outer sect disciple!"
Failing to cultivate spirit plants and deliberately damaging them were two entirely different matters.
The former was an unintentional mistake, for which the sect naturally would not be too harsh. The latter was knowingly breaking the rules and would certainly be punished without mercy.
"This shouldn't have happened. Spiritheart vine isn't that hard to grow. Four survived in my spirit field. How did all of Senior Brother Lin's die...?"
"Exactly. Two survived in mine, too. Everyone's seen Senior Brother Lin's skill at cultivating spirit plants. At least half of his should have survived."
"The spirit rice Senior Brother Lin grows is far better than ours in both yield and quality. There's no way all these spiritheart vines could have withered..."
"Could that old dog have tampered with them behind the scenes? Senior Brother Lin must have been framed..."
Nearby, many outer sect disciples