Rong Tian raised the black flute slightly. The note that emerged was extremely low, not a melody but a brief vibration that caused the smoke from the false seal to move back toward Lin Zhao. The smoke clung behind Lin Zhao’s shoulders and formed a pair of crooked, uneven wings. They resembled a damaged bat clearly enough for everyone to recognize the shape, yet looked defective enough to reveal that the seal had never touched the true core of the name it was using. A Hellfire Sect disciple standing behind Yan Mo failed to suppress his laughter. The small sound was immediately disguised as a cough, but everyone heard it, including Lin Zhao. Lin Zhao tried to keep his expression calm. However, the malformed smoke clinging behind his shoulders made him look like a man wearing wings made from funeral paper, and the harder he suppressed his anger, the more obvious it became that he was losing face. 

Rong Tian did not answer immediately. He could see that Hanim was not protecting Lin Zhao out of loyalty, but because the State Preceptor was still useful for moving pieces along the palace route. Hanim continued in the same gentle voice. “The deaths at the Fire God Temple were merely a small price in a greater game. Ordinary people always think their lives weigh more than a nation’s map, when the world does not stop simply because a few poor mouths are closed.” Yan Mo grinned, but An Ying did not smile. Her words reminded both of them that if the situation truly turned bad, Hanim might silence her allies in exactly the same way. “Daring to use a name is not the same as being able to bear its shadow,” Rong Tian finally said. Hanim raised one hand. A blood-red needle shot forward almost without sound, so thin that an ordinary disciple would have seen