Sun Mingyu looked at Ming Er, the guard arranged by her mother and a subordinate she highly valued.
She had always treated him generously and trusted him, yet he had suddenly betrayed her on the way back, not only severely injuring the students escorting them but also insisting on taking her life.
"Why? Ming Er, this county princess has never mistreated you! Why do you want to kill me?"
Knowing she couldn't escape, Sun Mingyu felt despair but also greater anger.
Anger at Ming Er, the traitorous wretch, for his heartlessness and disloyalty! And anger at her mother for placing an ungrateful wolf by her side...
She didn't really want an answer; it was just that before death, she felt unwilling and resentful.
"Bah!" Ming Er spat on the ground and retorted with a cold laugh, "Your 'not mistreating' meant us brothers doing free labor for your favorite pretty boy? And casually cursing and humiliating us?"
"I've wanted to kill you for a long time! If your mother wasn't the Grand Princess, do you think with your talent that's worse than trash, and your arrogant, domineering personality that everyone despises, I would be willing to serve you?"
"To tell you the truth, you blocked someone's path in the illusion realm in Qianlian City. They offered a hundred top-grade spirit stones and a middle-grade Profound tier spirit artifact to buy your life."
"Who!" Sun Mingyu was furious, "I..."
But before she could finish speaking, Ming Er had already pierced her chest with a sword. Her eyes widened, and the words left unspoken would never be uttered.
Ming Er withdrew his sword, threw Sun Mingyu off a cliff, and then left with his sword, leaving behind a jade pendant with the character "Yi" amidst the bloodstains.
Beneath the cliff, where no one was watching, a figure shrouded in a black robe drifted by like a ghost.
"Hmm? I didn't expect there to be a naturally born Profound Yin Physique in this small, broken place. This is a natural seedling for a ghost cultivator. Let me see, is your soul still intact..."
The academy's escort team had been attacked, and one of her most valued disciples was implicated. Yun Ying was unwilling to let the matter be resolved trivially and insisted that the academy temporarily suspend the assessment.
"Jiang Ye said that the person who attacked him was one of the students eliminated in the assessment. He hadn't come into contact with anyone else along the way. Other than being instructed by someone else in Qianlian City, what else could it be?" Yun Ying was very agitated.
She had only two disciples: Jin Lingyun, the eldest prince of the Golden Sparrow Kingdom, and Jiang Ye, the heir of the Jiang family. Jin Lingyun being punished had already cost her face, and now Jiang Ye was seriously injured, how could she tolerate this!
As the most talented artifact refiner on the continent, didn't she have her pride?
"Anyway, I don't care. I want to thoroughly investigate all the students in the assessment immediately and find out who is so dark-hearted and causing trouble!"
She had been making a scene all day, and despite Hua Ye and Wen Jiuyin's attempts to persuade her, she wouldn't listen.
Even the good-natured Wen Jiuyin's words carried a spark of anger.
"Junior Sister Yun Ying, why were the other escorts not attacked, only Jiang Ye? Could it be that Jiang Ye himself has a problem? And what if that attacker was instructed by someone else before the assessment? The urgent matter now is to find out how Sun Mingyu and that other candidate are doing!"
Wen Jiuyin frowned tightly. Speaking of Jiang Ye made him furious. Not only did he fail to report the attack promptly, but he also fled, abandoning the students he was escorting, and he had been concealing the situation all along.
If it weren't for Junior Sister Yun Ying's fury and disturbance upon seeing her disciple injured, they wouldn't even have known about this matter.
Strictly speaking, the academy could hold Jiang Ye accountable for dereliction of duty, but somehow Junior Sister Yun Ying was being unreasonable and insisted on protecting Jiang Ye.
Now, several of them, the elders, hadn't even met Jiang Ye.
But Yun Ying stubbornly demanded an explanation. As they spoke, she started arguing with Wen Jiuyin again.
"What does that have to do with us? My disciple is injured and hasn't been dealt with yet, why should I care about these irrelevant people! If the mastermind behind this isn't found, I won't participate in this assessment!"
"Then get out!"
Qin Si, exuding an aura of annoyance and impatience, strode in from outside and said sternly, "If you're not participating, then get out!"
The repeated use of the word "get out" completely trampled Yun Ying's pride into the dust.
"Vice Dean..."
Wen Jiuyin had calmed down by now and wanted to persuade Qin Si, giving Yun Ying a way down, but before he could form his words, he saw Yun Ying sweep everything in the room to the floor with a palm, making a "crackling" sound.
"Fine! Get out, then! I don't believe you, Vice Dean, can get away with anything if I leave Shenqi Academy! Will the academy let you off?"
Without hiding her threat, she flicked her sleeves and was about to leave.
"Thump!"
But she had only taken two steps, not even reaching the threshold, when she suddenly knelt on the ground.
Qin Si: "Are you reminding this Venerable that I should kill you right now?"
His cold tone carried an absolute disregard for Yun Ying's life, as if Yun Ying were merely an insignificant ant in his eyes.
"Vice Dean, calm down. Junior Sister Yun Ying is just momentarily agitated and speaking out of turn; this is not her intention." Wen Jiuyin was startled, never expecting things to escalate to this point. He quickly interjected, and at the same time, gestured for Yun Ying to quickly appease the Vice Dean.
But how could Yun Ying listen to him?
Yun Ying now hated Qin Si to the core.
She was an extremely proud and strong person. After being humiliated by Qin Si time and again, and now being forced to her knees in public by Qin Si's oppressive aura, she wished she could use all her connections to teach Qin Si a harsh lesson.
Asking her to back down now was worse than asking her to die.
Yun Ying sneered, "If you have the ability, kill me, and I'll see if you dare... ugh..."
Before Yun Ying could finish speaking, she found herself suddenly unable to speak. A stifling and powerful pressure, like an invisible giant hand, tightly gripped her throat.
She could clearly feel the air becoming thinner and thinner, and she couldn't help but struggle fiercely, letting out "mm-mm" sounds.
Seeing this, not only Wen Jiuyin but even Hua Ye, who usually didn't interfere much, couldn't help but speak up, "Vice Dean, please be magnanimous and show mercy, Junior Sister Yun Ying..."
Qin Si couldn't hear their voices because, for some reason, looking at Yun Ying's movements, the face of that woman suddenly appeared in his mind.
It was pale, serene, as if she didn't care about life or death, no, perhaps she just didn't care about him...
"Vice Dean! Sun Mingyu of the Great Ning Dynasty fell off a cliff and went missing, but our people found this 'Yi' character jade pendant at the scene!"
Just as Yun Ying thought she was surely going to die today, Mu Xing walked in quickly and handed a jade pendant to Qin Si.
He said to Qin Si, "Your subordinate believes this jade pendant should belong to the murderer, or it was deliberately planted to frame our students."