Wen Kexing set down the painting, carefully weighted it with paperweights, set it aside to dry, then turned to Lao Meng. Upon seeing him, the tender, warm smile he had immediately turned frigid. “Lead the way,” he ordered, terse.

Lao Meng lowered his head, agreed, then turned to go, concealing the fleeting, irrepressible smile at the corner of his mouth.

Chapter 73: The Rules

As soon as he saw Gu Xiang, Feng Xiaofeng went nuts, screeching and throwing himself forward. “Rotten girl! I’ll slaughter you!”

Gu Xiang went ouch, patting her chest with a fake smile. “You’ll scare me to death, Feng. No one’s teamed up with you today. To bully me, a lady — you have absolutely no lenience!”

“Brother Feng, calm down a bit!” Zhao Jing quickly shouted at Feng Xiaofeng. “So many of us are watching. If she really is a bad person, would she still be able to escape?”

Hearing their scrupulousness, Cao Weining knew that they were going to put on a show about her. With a strength he wasn’t sure where came from, he falteringly got up, then put out an arm to block Gu Xiang’s front, ignoring his dull chest pain and coughing. “Everyone, Ah-Xiang has always been naive, never able to hide the words of her mind, but she is still a junior. Even if she has misspoken in any way, I request that you seniors acknowledge that she’s still young and ignorant, and not stoop to her level.”

He turned to Feng Xiaofeng once more, enunciating his words. “As for you, Hero Feng, this Cao has something to say. That day, Hero Shen met with misfortune, the Lapis Armor was stolen, and the hearts of those in Dongting were panicked. Zhang Chengling had indeed been with us, but the one that brought him away was Brother Zhou, and he did so in Hero Zhao’s presence, who didn’t obstruct it at all. We had to take care of it for him. This Feng fellow cannot distinguish between right and wrong, as he had joined forces with a group of Poisonous Scorpions to hunt us down. Were we wrong to defend ourselves?”

Gu Xiang nimbly stuck out her head from behind him, pointing at Feng Xiaofeng. “It’s true! See how he conducts himself? He looks exactly like everyone else owes him eight hundred strings of coins, wanting to fight when nothing’s even been said! Who knows if he’s with that bunch of black-clothed villains?”