Chapter 309: With What Identity Do You Ask for My Help

Yuan Muyu instinctively glanced at Ye Tinglan.

Ye Tinglan returned to her podium with a stern face, focusing all her attention on her good disciple's battle.

The opponent was one who would kill without hesitation; at this moment, no fish was more important than her own good disciple. Besides, Lu Xingzhou originally had no desire to communicate with Yuan Muyu; if he suddenly wanted to talk, there must be a reason. Just leave it to him.

Seeing Ye Tinglan ignore her, Yuan Muyu said coolly, "Then come over."

Lu Xingzhou followed her to the edge of the high platform; from this angle, he could still see the arena, but Ye Tinglan up there could not see here.

Lu Xingzhou sometimes felt that Sister Fish's childishness was quite severe.

Ye Tinglan was at the peak of the Super Grade; her spiritual sense strength had long been able to replace her eyes. What was the point of choosing such an angle... Perhaps Yuan Muyu hadn't been Super Grade for long enough and wasn't used to it? Or was it purely self-deception...

"What do you want to say to me?" Yuan Muyu spoke with a strained voice: "Tell me how far you've gone with my sister?"

Lu Xingzhou simply couldn't be bothered to respond to that remark and glanced back at the arena. Little Bai Mao wasn't rushing to attack this time; he was confronting the opponent, seemingly analyzing the flaws in their technique.

"I truly underestimated you, Lu Xingzhou," Yuan Muyu said expressionlessly: "You didn't accept my confession, then turned around and found my sister..."

Lu Xingzhou finally cut in: "When I had feelings for her, she was masked. I didn't know her relationship with you; I only discovered the resemblance when her mask came off. Stop imagining substitute literature."

Yuan Muyu suppressed her anger: "So it was lust that clouded your mind, making you fancy even a masked woman? Is that the kind of person you are!"

Lu Xingzhou fell silent for a moment, then said slowly, "I originally didn't have to be."

Yuan Muyu instantly fell silent, her chest heaving slightly.

Unfortunately, no matter how much her chest heaved, there was no ripple.

"I didn't want to talk about these things with you. Times have changed; talking about these matters is meaningless," Lu Xingzhou said. "What I want to say is, regarding the incident at Golden Wind Island this time, how much do you know?"

Yuan Muyu felt extremely awkward.

What was this...

Was he coming to hold her accountable for Ye Tinglan's sake?

Her heart felt so awkward it was almost cracking, but on her face she could only say coldly, "What does the matter of Golden Wind Island have to do with me? My goal is Nujiao Island, continuing the grand alliance strategy you proposed back then. Nujiao Island originally only intended to make a name for itself; as long as I could secretly guide them to secure a top spot in the tournament, they would be willing to establish this alliance. Rubbing Tianyao Holy Land's face was just a side effect."

Lu Xingzhou said, "The tournament format has a losers' bracket; there is still a chance to fight back, designed to avoid being eliminated immediately upon meeting top-tier powerful sects, which would be unfair. Nujiao Island still has a chance; the alliance can still proceed."

This sentence felt more habitual; Yuan Muyu almost responded by reflex: "Only you understand~"

Only after the words left her mouth did she suddenly realize the tone at the end was wrong; it quickly got stuck in her throat, and she closed her mouth.

Lu Xingzhou's expression was also a bit strange; he quickly composed himself and asked seriously, "So, your appearance here was not a pre-arranged action with Golden Wind Island; you were just each doing your own thing, and both ended up here?"

Yuan Muyu said coldly, "The Great Sea Tournament is happening at this time; it's not strange that they coincided."

Lu Xingzhou fell silent; he believed Yuan Muyu wasn't lying.

Since very early on, Yuan Muyu's attitude toward Tianyao Holy Land had been oppositional but never lethal, completely different from her attitude toward Golden Wind Island. He just needed Yuan Muyu's personal confirmation.

If it was confirmed to be unrelated, some judgments could still be made.

Apart from the public desire to rub Tianyao Holy Land's face, the only forces with real strength to cause trouble for Tianyao Holy Land were a few: Yuan Muyu, Gu Zhanting, the Demon Clan, and the Ancient Realm.

Things like the Heavenly Net Umbrella and the God-Piercing Whip sound very much like Ancient Realm artifacts, but one cannot rule out someone deliberately using these items to mislead people into guessing the Ancient Realm. At least Tianyao Holy Land possesses similar items; Ye Tinglan recognized them at a glance. Similarly, the Great Qian Imperial Family and the Demon Clan have collections spanning thousands of years; pulling out a few items to mislead isn't too difficult.

The demonic qi of the Demon Clan is unlikely to be hidden under such circumstances, so they can be basically ruled out.

If it were Gu Zhanting, his style of action often involves many connections, with a high probability of linking to Yuan Muyu, but there was no such link. Furthermore, Gu Zhanting probably couldn't find so many young powerful experts.

Eliminating them one by one, it can finally be judged that it is most likely the Ancient Realm, not a misdirection.

If this matter involves Gu Zhanting, at most he is just providing the Ancient Realm with such a tournament background, using the Ancient Realm to do the work; the intersection between the two parties should be Zhao En.

Zhao En was defeated and injured by Ye Tinglan in the Frost Country; he probably discovered the superficial unity but underlying discord between Tianyao Holy Land and the Great Qian from the interaction between Ye Tinglan and Si Han, so he approached Gu Zhanting to form an alliance?

With the Qian Emperor's support, allowing people from the Ancient Realm to appear in large numbers? That seems to make sense.

Then, besides these young disciples, how strong have others appeared? What is the Ancient Realm's demand? Is it just to kill people?

Lu Xingzhou was deep in thought; over there, Dugu Qingli was also fighting, so his gaze instinctively fell on the arena, watching in a daze, speechless for a long time.

Yuan Muyu stood silently beside him for a few breaths, feeling she couldn't hold on anymore: "You said you wanted to talk to me, and this is all?"

Lu Xingzhou hummed: "Yes. I must find out the opponent's origin and judge the measures they might take."

Yuan Muyu closed her eyes.

Lu Xingzhou was exhausting his mind and spirit planning for others, while she was merely an object being questioned and even guarded against; no matter how she thought about it, this feeling was unbearable.

Yuan Muyu suddenly felt she shouldn't have come here; the whole process felt like skinning and dismantling her, then throwing her all at once into a pill furnace to be boiled into medicine.

She spoke as if in a dream: "Between you and me, is this all that remains? Even though you clearly know I have matters too."

"What else?" Lu Xingzhou was actually a bit strange: "Now, in public, you are the Yan Lord, and I am merely a former subordinate; I am no longer fit to speak on behalf of the Yan Luo Hall. Even just now, when you listed a string of titles for me, none of them contained anything related to the Yan Luo Hall; I can understand the meaning. In private, you can still allow me to call you sister; I am relying on this private friendship to ask you..."

Yuan Muyu's heart felt very painful.

How could this be the kind of conversation, how could this be the kind of attitude...

It shouldn't be.

The Xingzhou in her dreams wouldn't speak like this, yet it happened vividly in reality.

She took a deep breath: "That string of titles has nothing to do with the Yan Luo Hall; I just didn't want the history of the Yan Luo Hall exposed to others, which would be disadvantageous to you."