"It's… it's not what it looks like!"
Lan Yue's voice cracked as she lay pinned against the silk mattress. The words barely left her mouth before the room fell into a suffocating silence.
The spiritual lanterns flickered overhead, their soft golden glow casting long shadows across the chamber. The scent of burnt incense hung heavy in the air—too heavy, too sweet. Something was deeply wrong.
In the doorway, a crowd had gathered.
General Zhao's face had turned a terrifying shade of purple, veins bulging along his neck. His cultivation base trembled with barely suppressed rage, sending waves of pressure through the room that made the weaker servants collapse to their knees. This was the same man who had banished his own daughter for ten years without a second thought—and now, the daughter he had just summoned back was caught in *this*.
