"Didn't you say you would send me to the Demon Realm, and leave me there once I had a foothold with you?"
"Are you no longer going to care about me?"
Li Geyue threw out a series of questions, which gave Ji Mofan a headache.
He couldn't help but raise his hand to press his temple, and patiently spoke to Li Geyue, "Junior brother, after going through so much, how come you still haven't grown up?"
“You always keep calling out ‘Senior Brother, Senior Brother’ whenever something happens. You need to know that although I am your senior brother, I am not obligated to take care of every little thing about you.”
"If you can't grow up, then don't grow up at all."
Li Geyue was stunned by his words and stood there frozen in place.
The words "never grow up" spoken by Ji Mofan were like a thunderbolt, followed by a storm that plunged Li Geyue's heart into water.
He thought he had worked hard enough, striving to be able to stand next to his senior brother, and now he had finally gained some recognition.
But Ji Mofan's few words easily plunged him back into despair.
It turns out that in his senior brother's eyes, he was still just the junior brother who would cause him trouble.
"...So, did Senior Brother really have something happen with the Demon Lord that day?" Li Geyue remained silent for a long time before suddenly standing up.
He knocked over the stool behind him, and it landed with a loud crash.
As the demonic aura emanating from him gradually dissipated, the restaurant owner's gaze swept over. At his signal, a waiter was about to step forward to inquire, but Li Jinchu stepped in first with a smile and smoothed things over.
"I'm sorry to have troubled the shopkeeper." He casually picked up the chair from the ground, straightened it, and tossed a silver ingot over with a smile.
"Please calm down, everyone."
The shopkeeper immediately turned his gaze away.
What a joke! That one silver ingot was enough to buy all the tables and chairs in his restaurant. Even if the customers just knocked them over, or even chopped them all up with an axe and stuffed them into the stove as firewood, he wouldn't mind.
With the money in place, everything is negotiable.
Most demonic cultivators have unstable tempers, and similar incidents have happened many times before. Moreover, no one in the main city dares to renege on their promises and refuse to pay compensation.
After all, the Demon Palace where the Venerable One resides is right next door.
Li Geyue ignored all the noise around her, staring intently at Ji Mofan in front of her. Her already dim eyes were now even bloodshot.
"Do you know what you're saying?" Ji Mofan lifted his eyelids and asked coldly.
Li Geyue suddenly laughed.
“Young Master, Ji Mofan has been in the Demon Palace for so long, yet he hasn’t been killed by the Demon Lord for his amusement. Don’t you find that strange?” He pointed at Ji Mofan, his bloodshot eyes turning to Li Jinchu.
Just a few days ago, he was still a little uncomfortable about calling Ji Mo Fan by his full name, but now he called him by it with perfect fluency.
"Many shocking things have happened to him." Li Jinchu's words lacked a clear emotional tone, and the smile on his face seemed to remain unchanged even if the sky were to fall and the earth were to shatter.
"There is definitely some filthy deal between him and the Demon Lord!" Almost disregarding whether loudly discussing the Demon Lord in this place would attract the attention of other demon cultivators, Li Geyue's voice cracked as if he wanted to increase the credibility of his words.
The shopkeeper had already led his staff to hide in the kitchen.
His shop was never doing very well, and now only Ji Mofan's table of customers remained in the entire lobby.
“You can’t make accusations without evidence; that’s slander,” Li Jinchu said.
“That day I broke into the Demon Palace to find Ji Mofan, and was caught red-handed by the Demon Lord.” Li Geyue read clearly, word by word, “Ji Mofan begged the Demon Lord to spare my life. The condition the Demon Lord demanded was that Ji Mofan give himself to him.”
Li Jinchu's gaze swept towards Ji Mofan.
The latter remained unmoved and poured himself another cup of tea.
Sigh, I thought I'd be able to go back soon, but with Li Geyue's nonsense messing things up, I'm afraid I'll have to waste another cup of tea's time.
Fortunately, Li Jinchu's tea was really good, so it wasn't too bad.
"Why don't you offer any explanation?" Li Jinchu became interested in his reaction.
"This is baseless accusation. Where do you expect me to begin my defense?" Ji Mofan shrugged.
"I saw it with my own eyes!" Li Ge pressed closer.
"Really? Did you see it while hiding under my bed, or did the Demon Lord send you to see it while you were standing nearby?" Ji Mofan chuckled softly, but there was no smile in his arched eyebrows.
"If I remember correctly, you should have been grabbed and thrown out of the Demon Palace by the Demon Lord right then, right?"
Li Geyue's voice choked for a moment.
"The Demon Lord clearly pointed at you, and you nodded." He still insisted on his unfounded accusation.
Ji Mo Fan sighed.
"Junior brother, do you think that since you've fallen into a quagmire and can't climb out, you can stand shoulder to shoulder with me if you just drag me down with you?" he asked.
With her most secret thoughts exposed, Li Geyue's face immediately turned red, whether from embarrassment or anger, it was hard to tell.
"I'm just stating the facts!" He even turned red in the neck.
“You don’t understand, and I don’t blame you.” Ji Mo Fan shook his head gently, looking like a caring senior brother. “The thing the Demon Lord was referring to that day wasn’t me at all, but the spirit stones I possessed.”
Li Geyue was already at a loss because of Ji Mofan's ambiguous attitude. When she heard the excuse he came up with, she subconsciously felt that he must have made it up.
Ji Mofan didn't give him a chance to continue questioning him, and directly resolved his doubts, "The Demon Lord has acquired a new Xuan Bird cub. This demon beast feeds on spiritual energy, and the main city located in the heart of the Demon Realm is most lacking in spiritual energy."
"In order to feed the little black bird, the Demon Lord requires me to provide it with spirit stones at fixed times and in fixed quantities every day."
“The black bird has been by my side all this time, and everyone knows that I am now raising it.”
"How could you..." Before he could finish his question, Li Geyue's gaze slid to the seemingly ordinary hen that he hadn't paid attention to since he entered the room, but which had actually been lying at Ji Mofan's feet the whole time.
Seemingly sensing that Li Geyue didn't believe in his abilities, the black bird clucked and jumped up to bump into his knee.
Li Geyue was hit squarely, and his body, already covered in old and new injuries, started bleeding again.
His actions startled the black bird, which, like a child who had done something wrong and realized it had accidentally caused a huge disaster, cooed and hid under the table.
Ji Mofan casually tossed a spirit stone under the table, just to soothe the bird's fragile little heart.
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