Inside Yao Light Hall.
Li Lingyue wore a wide-sleeved palace gown of rich purple, embroidered with Luan Bird motifs in gathered gold thread. Her cloudlike hair was piled high, adorned with the Nine-Phoenix Pearl-Suspending Hairpin, and a red-gold floral ornament graced her forehead. Incomparable in her splendor, she reclined languidly on a couch spread with snow-white fox fur, propping her chin on one hand while idly toying with a Jade Ruyi in the other. Her phoenix eyes were half closed, as though she were dozing-or lost in thought.
Only after the footsteps approached from outside and stopped within the hall did she slowly lift her eyelids. She lightly tapped the low table beside her with the Jade Ruyi. "Minister Lu, thank you for your efforts on the journey. But your return seems to be somewhat later than This Palace expected... by three days."
She paused, the end of her sentence rising slightly. "What punishment does such a delay deserve?"
Lu Changfeng wore an odd expression and chuckled softly. "A delay? Your Highness, forgive my dullness, but I don't believe we agreed on a specific date for my return to the capital to report. Without an agreed date, how could there be a delay?"
"You..."
His brazenly reasonable retort left Li Lingyue choking on her words, the pent-up frustration in her chest nearly catching her breath.
Her composure began to crack. Her phoenix eyes narrowed, a dangerous gleam flashing through them, and she sat a little straighter. Staring at Lu Changfeng, she all but snarled through clenched teeth, "If This Palace says you were delayed, then you were delayed! What? Minister Lu... do you object?"
Had this been an ordinary Fifth Realm cultivator, he really would have objected. But against someone at the peak of the Fifth Realm, he had no