"..." Zheng Dong stood frozen, his face turning white. "I, I didn't-"
Li Piaoqing looked over in surprise.
"-Whatever the fuck I said, what-business is it of yours?!" Zheng Dong's face suddenly flushed red. "Why do you care... so much?"
His tone was both belligerent and cowardly. Pei Ye frowned and was about to speak when Xiao Qiu said beside him, "Zheng Dong didn't say anything too excessive, Young Hero Pei."
"I didn't even curse... curse her to her face!" Zheng Dong straightened. "Can't I tell the truth?"
"What truth did you tell?"
"...I asked her... out of dog food again? Who are you planning to bite this time..." Seeing Pei Ye's expression turn cold, he shouted in some panic, "She's an ungrateful wolf you could never tame! She can do it, but I can't say it?"
Perhaps his voice was a little too loud. Zhang Junxue, who had already begun moving by the doorway, stopped again.
"Xiao Qiu, that wasn't excessive?" Pei Ye turned his eyes toward Xiao Qiu.
"No," Xiao Qiu replied, calmly meeting his gaze.
Only then did understanding dawn on Li Piaoqing. She smiled and beckoned. "Zheng Dong, come sit over here."
At those words, Zheng Dong's feet moved at least three beats faster than his brain. His face red as a persimmon, he hurried over like a victorious rooster.
Suddenly, a scholar in Confucian robes stood beside them, leaning forward to look tentatively at Li Piaoqing. "Might you be... Miss Li of the Jade Feather Sword Sect?"
Pei Ye turned his head. He had seen those robes before; they were the academy's style. The scholar showed no signs of martial training and had been looking around all this time. Clearly, he was one of those people Li Piaoqing had said were here to "watch the