Rong Yuehong didn’t let out a pained scream, and neither did she spit out blood. Instead, she simply moaned and slumped over, falling to the ground in a heap.

The sudden shock had cleared her mind. She could feel the spiritual energy swiftly leaving her body, including the spiritual vortex swirling within her dantian, which she had built up over decades of effort.

Her eyes wide, she looked at the dark shadow in front of her. Only then did Rong Yuehong realize that the man who had been watching the show quietly was the legendary Slaughtering King, Li Mo.

As Li Mo motioned at Rong Yuehong, the silver needle flew out of her abdomen and into his hands once again.

Everyone in the garden continued to watch the scene unfolding in front of them with bated breath, even the empress and emperor himself. It was so silent that one could almost hear the sound of the silver needle landing in Li Mo’s palm.

“A high-grade concealed weapon, hmm?” The silver needle shone with an icy aura as Li Mo picked it up.

The crowd’s gaze naturally pivoted to the needle. High-grade weapons were already hard to come by, let alone high-grade concealed weapons.

The more delicate the weapon, the harder it was to forge. The silver needle in Li Mo’s hands was so thin and fine that it likely had no counterpart within the entire kingdom of Li.

The empress finally recovered from her daze: the events had unfolded so quickly that she hadn’t had the ability to react.

She quickly walked over to Rong Yuehong’s side and felt her pulse. As she did so, her face turned pale.

Rong Yuehong collapsed softly into the empress’s lap. “Aunt, please save me!”

But the empress let go, and Rong Yuehong’s lifeless hand fell to the ground. She could only sigh and say coldly, “You won’t die, but your cultivation’s gone!”

“Gone? Aunt, what do you mean?!” Rong Yuehong looked at the empress incredulously.

The empress stood up and flicked the dust off her robe. “Your dantian has been destroyed. From now on, live out your life in peace as a regular girl.”

“No, no…!” Rong Yuehong cried out bitterly. “Aunt, I’m the most talented scion of the Rong family! I became a third-rank blademaster at six, a fourth-rank at ten, and last month, I even broke through to sixth-rank! Aunt, you can’t discard me like this. Please, help me!”

The empress frowned. Her crying, unsightly niece left her with more and more of a headache. Because she had the lion’s share of the family’s resources, Rong Yuehong had indeed grown as a cultivator, but she still seemed to remain brainless.

The empress had long warned her brother not to coddle her niece too much, or her niece would get herself in trouble sooner or later.

But Rong Tianling didn’t take her words to heart: after all, who in the Li kingdom would dare to challenge the Rongs? Even the current emperor had to treat him politely; didn’t his daughter have the right to be arrogant?

But he had forgotten that there was one person that even their family couldn’t afford to offend. The empress looked toward Li Mo, perplexed.

This Slaughtering King rarely showed his face in the capital, and never cared about what went on in court. Why had he suddenly appeared at the flower-viewing party today?

It had been three years since the empress had last seen him. If he hadn’t struck at Rong Yuehong, the empress likely wouldn’t have noticed his presence at all.

“Now that the Slaughtering King himself has moved against you, no one can save you.” The empress spoke to Rong Yuehong even as she looked at Li Mo. “In fact, you should even thank the Slaughtering King for sparing your life.”

Li Mo continued playing with the needle in his palm until he realized that the empress was waiting for him to speak. “No need. I’ve never been lenient. The only reason I didn’t kill her was because I thought being handicapped would hurt her more than being dead.”

Everyone sucked in a breath, as if the garden had suddenly become five degrees more chilly.

If they couldn’t cultivate, the female scions of nobility were only tools to forge alliances between families. Furthermore, regardless of their status, such females could only be concubines, not full wifes.

Ever since Rong Yuehong’s birth, her talent had made her the pride and joy of the Rongs. She had grown up used to being above everyone else, and it was hard to imagine what she would be like squashed underfoot as a concubine.

“No, no!” As soon as Rong Yuehong thought of this, she collapsed. “Aunt, I don’t want to be a useless mortal. Please, kill me, kill me!” She cried and howled as she hugged the empress’s feet.

Tired of this entire fiasco, the empress called out to the four warriors, “Send the young miss back to the Rong manor! Don’t let her disgrace herself like this out here!”

Even as she was being towed outside, the gathered crowd could still hear her yell, “Yun Ruoyan, I’ll get revenge on you even if I become a ghost…!”

The empress looked at the soul-chasing needle in Li Mo’s hands and narrowed her eyes. That was a Rong family heirloom, and she couldn’t help but curse her brother once more. Did he give her access to all the family treasures so she could defile them?!

She was just considering how to retrieve the needle from Li Mo when he said coolly, “This is something that the Rongs handed to me directly, so I’ll consider it a gift.”

The needle vanished into his robes.

The empress’ eyes twitched, but she didn’t say anything.

“Fourth brother, I didn’t expect you to join the party as well,” Li Xiu greeted Li Mo before turning to the eunuch beside him. “Announce the start of the banquet.”

The eunuch immediately straightened up and shrilly announced, “Hence begins the start of the banquet! Young masters, young misses, please have a seat.”

“Empress, it’s time to start the banquet.” Li Xiu smiled at his consort, who was still standing and staring at Li Mo.

Unwilling to give up a family heirloom, but equally unable to perturb Li Mo, the empress could only follow silently behind the emperor.

The scions of the nobility immediately tidied themselves and sat back in their seats, as if nothing had just happened.

On the other hand, Yun Ruoyao stared at the empty seat next to her in alarm. If Rong Yuehong was a sixth-rank blademaster, then what about Yun Ruoyan, who was playing with her during the duel?! How could someone cultivate so quickly? Had she somehow broken through to seventh rank in the two weeks after entering the imperial territory? Was Yun Ruoyan indeed a demon?!

She looked all around her. Not finding any sign of Yi Qianying or Pei Ziao, she became even more frantic.

Yun Ruoyan sat by Li Mo’s side. Just as she was about to get up, a hand reached in front of her.

She was a little dazed. It was this hand which had caught a high-grade concealed weapon right in front of her. How strong did his cultivation be to achieve such a feat?

Li Mo reached out, grabbed her wrist, and pulled her to his lap.

This left the crowd, which had just quieted down, gasping for breath once more. The Slaughtering King, pulling that ugly girl into his lap… Although Yun Ruoyan didn’t look quite so pathetic as before, but… was she really the Slaughtering King’s type?

Li Qianhan had found a seat elsewhere in order to leave the two of them with plenty of space.

Faced with the crowd’s alarmed gaze, Yun Ruoyan began to blush. Although she’d lived two lives and wasn’t the inexperienced maiden she appeared to be, she was still naturally a private, conservative woman.

Even when the aphrodisiac had all but taken control of her body, she had escaped the need for sex. How could she stand to let someone take advantage of her now? Of course, what she didn’t realize was that, in the crowd’s eyes, she was the one taking advantage of Li Mo, not the other way around.

“Let go of me,” Yun Ruoyan murmured, pushing against Li Mo’s chest.

“Be obedient,” he whispered back. “Isn’t it nice to be able to rely on others? You did very well just now.”

Just now? Yun Ruoyan hesitated for a moment. My goodness, that was a matter of life and death! How could it compare to the present moment?!

“I’m honored to be able to ask for protection from you, Slaughtering King, but I can’t be so irresponsible as to latch onto you like a leech,” Yun Ruoyan replied eloquently, still trying to break free from his grasp.

Li Mo didn’t seem to be using any strength. He wasn’t hurting Yun Ruoyan at all, but she couldn’t get him to release his hold. Even after what seemed like half a day’s worth of struggling, Yun Ruoyan couldn’t free herself. She turned to look at him in anger, but only saw his dark eyes twinkling. It made her even more furious, but she stopped resisting.

After all, she wasn’t the type of person who would try to break a rock with an egg; if the opponent really was far too strong for her to handle, then she simply had to find some other means of getting back at him.

Only when the lass in his lap stopped struggling did Li Mo relax and look around him. As if it were a razor-sharp weapon, his gaze caused all those who landed in it to squirm and turn away.

“Brother, isn’t the banquet going to begin?” In the end, he looked to Li Xiu and asked coolly.

“Right, right, it’s time to begin. As always, the banquet is hosted by the empress.” After Li Xiu finished speaking, he couldn’t help but glance at Li Mo and Yun Ruoyan, still in his lap.

I’ve never seen Li Mo care about anything, so why’s he standing up for a girl now?!

A few days ago, when the Yue emperor sent an envoy to complain about how Li Mo had killed his own nephew on account of a female slave, Li Xiu had thought that his brother had finally found the love of his life. However, Li Mo had apparently released the slave as soon as he’d rescued her.

Upon further investigation, Li Xiu’s confusion was resolved when it turned out that the female slave was a beastkin.

But what was going on today? Was his brother truly interested in that Yun girl?

When Li Xiu smiled, his eyes turned into thin crescents, and no one could tell where he was looking when he did so. As he sat smiling at the head of the table, his pupils, like tadpoles, swam to the corner of his eyes and focused on Yun Ruoyan. He was in just the right position to see Yun Ruoyan’s birthmark, which was such a dark red that it was almost black.

Li Xiu couldn’t help but twitch. Could this ugly girl really be to his brother’s liking?