Chapter 4375 — It Was All a Misunderstanding
The Blossom Guardian · Page 2 of 3
"Martial nieces, why did the two of you go to the Hong Clan Merchant Guild last night? Would you tell us?" However little Ling Yuanqing intended to punish the two women, he was the Chancellor after all, and he had to at least get the facts straight, lest some unforeseen turn later leave them on the back foot.
The Holy Nun of the Eastern Sea glanced at him, then nodded to Wang Xinyan and Huang Xiaotao. Protective as she was—she would never let the two women come to harm—the particulars still had to be explained to everyone present.
"To report to our martial uncle: last night your disciples went to the Hong Clan Merchant Guild to rid the world of Wei Zhaotong, a cunning, treacherous villain steeped in wickedness. He once laid a trap to ruin the Sky-Bearing Escort Agency. Not only did he collude with pirates to seize back his own goods, he even forced the agency to pay him three hundred thousand spirit jade in compensation!" Wang Xinyan explained.
"Oh? Is there really such a thing?" The three magnates of the Sect-Founding stage were somewhat astonished. They all knew something of Wei Zhaotong, but a man's face is not his heart, and they had never known the fellow to be so devious and shameless.
That the steward of a Hong Clan Merchant Guild branch, a man of no small standing, should collude with pirates to swallow his own goods and then turn around and extort the Sky-Bearing Escort Agency into the bargain—such an outlandish tale was simply unheard of.
"Chancellors all, there is a misunderstanding here," Qin Deli hastened to argue. "It's true that the Sky-Bearing Escort Agency made such claims at the time, trumpeting them far and wide and even bringing men to the Hong Clan Merchant Guild, but the outcome proved they had no credible evidence whatsoever. It was all fabricated out of thin air to cover up their failure to protect the shipment and salvage the agency's reputation."
"Are you saying that we twisted the facts and deliberately framed Wei Zhaotong?" Wang Xinyan and Huang Xiaotao said with cold smiles, fixing their eyes on Qin Deli.
"Qin Deli, to speak ill of my disciples to my face—you have no small amount of nerve," the Holy Nun of the Eastern Sea said, her gaze equally unfriendly. She had never much cared for Qin Deli, and now the wretch dared to claim that Wang Xinyan and Huang Xiaotao had framed Wei Zhaotong. If that was not courting death, what was?
A pressure like a mountain descended upon Qin Deli in an instant. With a thud, he was forced to his knees on the spot, terror flooding his heart, his eyes bulging as though they might burst with blood. The very same thing had happened at the Sky-Bearing Escort Agency the night before—only then it was Cheng Qitian who died, and now it was his turn.
Ling Yuanqing and Wei Hebei exchanged a glance and looked the other way. In their eyes, Qin Deli might be a purchasing steward of some middling consequence, but he was a nobody all the same—and one with not a shred of self-awareness. They had yet to settle accounts with him for falsely reporting the situation the day before, and now he had gone out of his way to provoke the Holy Nun of the Eastern Sea. What did he take a magnate of the Sect-Founding stage for?
An ant like that could die and it would be no loss; they would not spare him a second glance.
Qin Deli was scared witless, soiling himself in his panic. If he were given a chance to do it all over again, he would flee to the ends of the earth rather than dare come in and carry tales. At this very moment he wished he could give himself twenty-eight thousand slaps across the face. He must have been kicked in the head by a donkey to think the three magnates would believe him...
And now look—far from turning the situation around, he had thrown his own little life away for nothing. He could not even cry if he wanted to.