"Mm-hm!"
"A puppy opened it."
"..." The girl glared at him, cheeks puffed out. "You're so annoying. I peeked at it, all right?"
Pei Ye chuckled. "Then hurry up and apologize."
The girl rolled her eyes at him, carefully folded the papers on her lap, and put them back in the cloth bag. As for the question she had left unasked earlier, she now found a more suitable way to phrase it. "This friend of yours... is she someone very important to you?"
"...Very important." Pei Ye paused. "She saved my life."
"Ah." Li Piaoqing was genuinely surprised.
She was about to ask more when she turned and saw that Kuang Rong had come up beside her again.
"Young Sect Master, word just came in. That gentleman has landed on Egret Isle."
Li Piaoqing started abruptly, broke off, and immediately turned to gaze far back along the way they had come.
Naturally, however, there was no sign of him yet.
Pei Ye instinctively looked that way too. He knew whom they meant. According to the information Bai Sibing had given him today, the man was an elderly gentleman with graying hair.
He was unquestionably the most exalted person in all of Bowang City at present. He had overseen the Lesser Long Circuit's Sword Cultivation Academy for nearly ten years and also held an important post in the prefectural administration. The powers and duties he exercised without formal titles were even more bewildering in their profusion. He was a personage for whom Shaolong Prefecture had sent a special letter formally instructing the Prefectural Office to make arrangements for his reception.
Even in the prefectural capital of Shaolong, where the powerful gathered as thickly as hedgehog spines, this lord ranked among the top ten, and by no means barely made the count.