The mirror was a novel Law Treasure. She had given it to Qiaoqiao as a gift out of fondness for her, never expecting it to repay her with such an enormous surprise today!
"A-Yun, calm down first." Even with matters at this point, Sword Lord Qingyun could still stand steady. "This is complicated. Why not have everyone disperse first? I'll explain it to you slowly."
Everyone: What?! Have them disperse?
Impossible!
No one could stop them from eating melon!
"What's so complicated? Sword Lord, just let that Gu bite you too, and won't that prove your innocence?" Amid the crowd's discussion, Qiaoqiao's clear voice rang out especially distinctly.
Everyone chimed in: Exactly! One test would tell them what was true and what was false!
With the mirror there, surely Sword Lord Qingyun couldn't tamper with things again?
Qingyun's expression grew uglier still. He had never imagined that after painstakingly maintaining his disguise for over a century, he would be forced into this position by a little girl!
"Qiaoqiao, you have offended me time and again, and I have chosen not to hold it against you. Do not push me too far."
"She cannot offend you, but what about me, the sect master?" Mu Liuyun demanded coldly. At the same time, she raised her hand and struck with her palm, holding nothing back!
Caught off guard, Sword Lord Qingyun felt pain in his chest and coughed up a mouthful of blood.
Beads of blood splashed into the bronze basin, dyeing its water pale pink. Beside him, Mu Ye's feelings were tangled. He desperately wanted to know the answer. Whose child was he, exactly?
Even Uncle Yun had lied to him. Was there anyone in this world he could still trust?
"A-Ye, don't-"
Over Qingyun's cry to stop him, Mu Ye dripped his own blood into the basin.
Slowly, a red light shone atop the Blood-Drinking Gu's head.
Then Mu Liuyun dripped her blood in again, and the blue light on the Gu's tail lit up.
The truth was clear: Mu Ye was Sword Lord Qingyun's child, but not Mu Liuyun's.
Sword Lord Qingyun's face went deathly pale.
Mu Ye's lips trembled. "Father, who exactly is my mother?"
Sword Lord Qingyun fell silent.
"Father, say something! Father!"
"He won't tell you," Qiaoqiao said. "How could he tell you that he abandoned the female cultivator who gave birth to you long ago, and that he killed his own sworn elder brother just to make you the young sect master? If he told you, wouldn't it all be over?"
Mu Ye: !!!
Everyone: !!!
What had she said?!
Who had Sword Lord Qingyun killed?!
Hadn't the sect master's husband, Sword Lord Qingshuang, perished on his own?!
Everyone instinctively pressed a hand to their chest.
This melon really had one twist after another. Wasn't it far too exciting?!
Not only had Sword Lord Qingyun killed his elder brother, he had also switched his own child with his elder brother's, leaving the true young sect master stranded outside while his son occupied the magpie's nest like a cuckoo, enjoying the best treatment the Flowing Cloud Sect had to offer.
The beads of his calculating abacus really clattered loudly!
What gracious gentleman? Even a venomous snake or scorpion could be no worse!
"Enough!" Sword Lord Qingyun finally lost control of his expression. "You slander me, and you won't even leave my elder brother alone! My bond with my elder brother was deep. How dare you spread lies and smear us! A mere Foundation Establishment disciple dares spout such outrageous nonsense here! Where are the Law Enforcement Hall disciples?!"
No one answered him.
Elder Yao, who oversaw the Law Enforcement Hall, stood beside the sect master, watching him coldly.
"Sect Master, A-Yun," Sword Lord Qingyun said. "You've seen everything I've given to the Flowing Cloud Sect over all these years. Do you really distrust me so much?"
"Given to the Flowing Cloud Sect? You mean given to your son!" Mu Liuyun said. "Qingyun, I truly misjudged you all these years."
Hearing her say this, Qingyun's heart instantly went half cold. "What evidence is there that I killed my elder brother? Without any proof, this is nothing but slander!"
"The evidence is on Sword Lord Qingshuang's remains. The poison you used was-" Qiaoqiao answered swiftly. At these words, Sword Lord Qingyun's expression changed abruptly. A jet-black streak of Sword Qi shot from his palm, swift and precise, straight for Qiaoqiao's throat!
But before the Sword Qi could touch Qiaoqiao, Bai Fu acted. A white plum blossom petal flew out, shredding the Sword Qi in midair. Elder Yao and Mu Liuyun struck simultaneously, pinning Sword Lord Qingyun to the ground and sealing all his cultivation arts.
Sword Lord Qingyun's expression twisted. "Let me go!"
"Yes, I killed Qingshuang! So what?!"
"He kept saying he treated me as a brother, yet he wouldn't even nominate me to be an elder! He even said I was impatient and unsettled. He stood in my way, so he deserved to die!"
The resentment he had accumulated over many years poured out. "Mu Ye is my son, but didn't he acknowledge you as his mother too? Weren't you happy when he called you Mother?!"
"The only thing I did wrong was not killing that bastard!" Sword Lord Qingyun began cursing furiously. "Mu Liuyun, without my support, the Flowing Cloud Sect would have been ruined in your hands sooner or later! You don't deserve to be its sect master at all! You and that husband of yours were nothing but fools I led around by the nose!"
Watching Sword Lord Qingyun spew curses, everyone wore complicated expressions. Once that skin of a gentleman was torn away, this was his true face: a sinister petty man whose heart was filled with lust for power.
The sight was truly hideous and ugly to the extreme.
Mu Liuyun crouched down and looked at this man raging in helpless fury.
Having vented his anger, Qingyun dazedly raised his head to look at her. The floral adornment between her brows was breathtakingly beautiful. Through all these years, she had never changed, just as when he first met her in the peach blossom grove and fell for her at a glance.
Yet she had chosen that useless man, Qingshuang. He had chosen Qingyun as his Daoist name for the "Yun" in Mu Liuyun.
He had, in truth, loved her, but he had also hated her. His feelings toward her were extraordinarily complicated.
"A-Yun..." he began hoarsely.
"You killed my husband." Mu Liuyun's voice was cold, as though it had frozen into shards of ice.
"He failed to understand the times," Qingyun said. "I did it for you, A-Yun. I love you... A-Ye, he... he has always acknowledged you as his mother! Everything I did was to hand the Flowing Cloud Sect to our child! A-Yun, you-"