Chapter 3302 — Rejecting the Proposal

The two of them made their way to the reception hall of the Dark Night Palace. By then, Kang Jingming and Xiao Yi had also been invited inside, and Kang Jingming was sitting there sipping his tea at his leisure. When he saw the Grand Elder and Gu Mengyao arrive, he did not even rise to greet them!

Gu Mengyao felt nothing in particular at the sight of Kang Jingming, but the moment her eyes fell on Xiao Yi beside him, her expression changed at once! Others might not recognize Xiao Yi, but she did—this was the very man who had once wounded Wei Zhao. Wang Xinyan still had his photograph stored on her phone, and afterward she had warned Gu Mengyao to be careful of this man in the future!

But how had Kang Jingming come to be mixed up with such a person? What was the relationship between them? Kang Jingming alone, a man from the Xuandan Sect, was already difficult enough to deal with, and now he had brought along someone of such formidable strength. Gu Mengyao felt a headache coming on at once!

The grudge between Xiao Yi and Wei Zhao ran deep indeed—from their first clash over the matter of Han Jingyi to the second, over Sun Jingyan, when Wei Zhao had made off with Xiao Yi's Heaven Rank divine weapon. The two of them were now beyond even the description of being irreconcilable as fire and water.

"Elder Kang, the two of you certainly put on quite an air! You come to my Dark Night Palace, and when you see the Palace Mistress Chu and me arrive, you do not even rise to welcome us? Our Dark Night Palace does not welcome rude guests like you!" The conduct of Kang Jingming and Xiao Yi filled the Grand Elder with boundless fury. This was a slap in the face of the Dark Night Palace itself, and the Grand Elder cared for the reputation of the Dark Night Palace above all things. The behavior of these two had undoubtedly crossed her bottom line!

You might insult the Grand Elder herself, you might insult the disciples of the Dark Night Palace—but to insult the rules of the Dark Night Palace was absolutely impermissible!

"Is that so? I didn't notice. You two, have a seat!" Kang Jingming seemed not to have grasped the Grand Elder's meaning at all, and with the same casual swagger he gestured toward the chairs nearby.

"You—" The Grand Elder gave a cold snort, and the full force of her cultivation at the peak of the late Heaven Rank burst forth without reservation! In the Grand Elder's eyes, Kang Jingming was nothing but an alchemist of the early Heaven Rank, possessing no real strength. A good scare would teach him that this was the Dark Night Palace, not the Xuandan Sect!

"Hmph!" Xiao Yi snorted coldly as well, and suddenly unleashed his cultivation—the pinnacle of the late Heaven Rank, perfectly rounded and complete—which gave the Grand Elder a violent start. She stared in disbelief at this attendant standing beside Kang Jingming!

"You—" The Grand Elder was somewhat aghast. She had never imagined that the attendant Kang Jingming brought along would be so formidable. After all, throughout the entire Ancient Plane, masters who possessed the fully rounded peak of the late Heaven Rank could be counted on one hand. This man… who on earth was he?

Seeing the Grand Elder's astonished expression, Xiao Yi smiled smugly. This was precisely the effect he had wanted! We come to your house, and we have every right to hold our heads high!

Kang Jingming was equally delighted. Having such a bodyguard along was simply marvelous. Seeing the Grand Elder's pitiful state, he was overjoyed: "Grand Elder, just who are you trying to intimidate?"

"It's Xiao Yi, isn't it? Why don't you bring out your Heaven Rank divine weapon and show it off as well?" Gu Mengyao, however, was not afraid. She merely gave Xiao Yi a cold glance. The reason she dared to speak to Xiao Yi in such a manner was that her status was special—she was the inheritor of the Metal Element, and if Xiao Yi dared to harm her, he would be setting himself against every sect of the Ancient Plane!

Moreover, Gu Mengyao knew more of the inside story. She had long since learned from Wei Zhao that the Inheritor Plan and the Cloud Rank Island Plan were both spearheaded by Patriarch Xuanchen. That being so, Xiao Yi, as Patriarch Xuanchen's disciple, was all the less likely to harm Gu Mengyao—he would not even be able to account for himself when he returned!

This was why Gu Mengyao was so haughty and dared to mock and taunt him!

Sure enough, Xiao Yi's face stiffened and his old cheeks flushed red. His Heaven Rank divine weapon had been filched by Wei Zhao and still had not been returned—this was a wound in his heart—and Gu Mengyao's blunt mention of it made him unable to save face: "Enough, Junior Brother Kang, let's get to business!"

"Of the Five Luminaries Sect, Patriarch Xuanchen's eldest disciple." Gu Mengyao said this to the aghast Grand Elder at her side, laying bare Xiao Yi's identity outright!

Hearing this, the Grand Elder's expression shifted slightly, and she could not help but knit her brows: "A man of the Five Luminaries Sect? What business do you have here?"

"Nothing much. I merely came along with Junior Brother Kang!" Xiao Yi said, pointing at Kang Jingming.

"Kang Jingming? Aren't you an elder of the Xuandan Sect? Since when did you become Patriarch Xuanchen's disciple?" Gu Mengyao asked.

"Haha, I am not only Patriarch Xuanchen's disciple, I am also his son-in-law!" Kang Jingming laughed heartily. "Enough, let us not speak of that. Palace Mistress Gu Mengyao, I have come this time on behalf of the young sect master of our Xuandan Sect, Tian Canbian, to propose marriage to you!"

"Propose marriage? Propose what marriage?" Gu Mengyao was slightly taken aback.

"Our Young Sect Master Tian has taken a fancy to Miss Gu and intends to take her as a concubine. What do you say, Miss Gu? If you have no objections, we shall settle the matter here and now, and from then on you will belong to Young Sect Master Tian!" Kang Jingming rattled on as though the mere unilateral declaration by the Xuandan Sect were enough to make it so.

"Kang Jingming, what do you mean by this? Are you out of your mind?" Gu Mengyao's face darkened, and her gaze turned icy. So Kang Jingming had indeed come with ill intent, running over here to stir up trouble! Marry Tian Canbian? Did he not know that she was in love with Wei Zhao?

But surely he did know—and he had come here simply because he had seen that Wei Zhao's strength was no longer what it once was, and so had come to make trouble.

"Elder Kang, please go back. Your Xuandan Sect is a great house with vast estates, and our Dark Night Palace cannot hope to match you!" The Grand Elder held no small amount of resentment toward the Xuandan Sect as well. Though the affair of that year could be said to have begun with Ye Rou'er breaking off the engagement, in all the years since, the Xuandan Sect had been secretly suppressing the Dark Night Palace, and this had long since made the Grand Elder hate them. How could she possibly allow Gu Mengyao to be joined to them in marriage now?

Moreover, the reason the Grand Elder had originally wished for Ye Rou'er to marry the Xuandan Sect's Tianji Xing—Tian Canbian's father—was that the Dark Phoenix bloodline in Ye Rou'er's body was not particularly pure, and the odds of her receiving the inheritance were rather small. After she married Tianji Xing, the Xuandan Sect could use secret arts to draw out the fullest potential of the Dark Phoenix bloodline within her body and then preserve it within the body of their daughter! (To be continued) RT