Since ancient times, the people of Xianle had believed that the spiritual qi of a person gathered upon the five facial features; the spirit of a person was on their face, and the best must be offered to the heavens. Thus, while performing the ceremony, the Martial Warrior must wear a golden mask to hide his face, because his face could only be appreciated by the gods, and mortals had no right to see it.
The State Preceptor was both furious and disappointed. “The God-Pleasing Martial Warriors of the past circled the capital at least five times, at most fifteen or sixteen times. You? You could do fifty with your eyes closed! A hundred even! But you killed yourself dead at three—why didn’t you just kill me, your shifu, first? Now look at you. Our dear Highness the Crown Prince is going to go down in history, dragging me along with you!”
No one dared speak in the great hall, and yet Xie Lian still looked at ease and responded calmly.
“Perhaps the State Preceptor should look at it this way. If that child had fallen to his death with no one to catch him, spilling blood on the path of the procession, wouldn’t that be equally ominous? Wouldn’t the parade still have to come to a stop? At the very least, the ceremony ended fairly respectably, which was the best-case scenario. Let’s just call what happened an accident.”
For a moment, the State Preceptor’s words were stuck in his throat, but then he blew up. “You child! With so many royal guards at the scene, anyone could’ve caught him! Even if the catch was off and he broke his arm, he wouldn’t have died. You could’ve just marched forward a few steps, performed a little flashier, and everyone would’ve forgotten whatever had fallen and moved on.”
Xie Lian raised his brows, however. “State Preceptor, you understand as well as I do. Under those circumstances, no one else but me could have reacted as fast, and there was no second person who could’ve caught him without being injured. Let him fall, there’d be one dead. Catch him, and there’d be two dead.”
His tone was matter-of-fact and confident. The State Preceptor also knew that what he said was true and couldn’t refute him. Seeing him kneel before the divine statue, looking like all was well and nothing was the matter, made the State Preceptor angry, amused, and proud all at once. Before his precious, darling disciple, he just couldn’t get angry, and could only pull at his own hair and use the pain of his scalp to relieve the worry in his heart.
After a pause, the State Preceptor spoke again. “Another thing!”
Xie Lian inclined his head. “This disciple is listening.”
“You did well on stage today,” the State Preceptor said. “But no matter how well you perform, you can’t just suddenly change things up right before the start without a word of warning. Both majesties were terrified by your act today. Do you know what would have happened if we missed the fortuitous hour?”
Xie Lian raised his brows, looking puzzled. “State Preceptor, hadn’t I already asked for your permission in regard to this before today?”
The State Preceptor was taken aback too. “You asked already? Before today? When?”
Hearing this, Xie Lian turned his head to the side, his brows furrowed. “Mu Qing?”
Chapter 26:
Lost Red Pearl, Inadvertently Luring the Red-Eyed15
JUST THEN, Feng Xin, who was kneeling behind Xie Lian, spoke up grimly. “His Highness did indeed mention it yesterday.”
All eyes moved to him, and Feng Xin continued.
“Recently, His Highness has been putting a lot of thought into the Heavenly Procession, and yesterday he suddenly came up with the extraordinary idea of jumping off the tower to simulate celestial descent without changing anything else in the programming. At the time, His Highness was in the middle of rehearsals and couldn’t excuse himself, so he sent Mu Qing to pass on word to the State Preceptor and request the go-ahead.”
He raised his head, slight anger in his eyes.
“Mu Qing returned and told His Highness that the State Preceptors had been informed, so His Highness performed today under the impression that he had permission. Who knew that the State Preceptor was never told and that we almost ruined the event!”
The cultivators all looked at each other in dismay.
The State Preceptor asked, “Who knew of this?”
The three Deputy State Preceptors shook their heads, all denying that they knew anything. The State Preceptor turned to Mu Qing, his stormy expression turning into one of indignant anger.
“Mu Qing, you intentionally withheld this communication?”