Phoenix's Requiem

Chapter 276: Scapegoat

Everyone had seen Li Mo remove the pendant from Yi Qianying’s neck, so she wouldn’t be able to dispute that the pendant was hers even if she wanted to. Except for Yun Ruoyan, they all seemed confused by Li Mo’s sudden action.

“Master Mo, what are you doing? Please return my pendant to me,” Yi Qianying murmured pitifully, and the crowd’s flummoxed gaze turned to Li Mo.

“Senior Brother, can you explain yourself?” Rong Tianhai asked the question that was in everyone’s minds.

“Didn’t you want evidence?” Li Mo held the pendant out for everyone to see. “This is the evidence you’re looking for!”

“Isn’t this just Yi Qianying’s pendant? How could it be evidence of anything?” Rong Yueshan asked.

“It might look just like a normal pendant, but it’s actually an extradimensional storage device,” Li Mo explained.

“And so what?” Pei Ziao stepped forward. “I’m sure most of the students present have one of their own!”

“It naturally doesn’t mean anything by itself, but this isn’t a usual such device. This pendant can even store living creatures—for example, a spirit descendant.” Li Mo glanced at the second elder and Rong Tianhai as he spoke, noticing their shocked expressions.

However, the second elder was still more confused than shocked. “What spirit descendant? What does this have to do with my grandson’s death? Li Mo, explain yourself!”

On the other hand, Rong Tianhai gaped in shock as he turned to Yi Qianying, his face filled with disbelief.

Yun Ruoyan had attested to the fact that this wasn’t a plan that Yi Qianying could cook up, so she suspected that there was a mastermind behind her actions. Li Mo guessed that this mastermind was either the second elder himself or Rong Tianhai.

Neither of the two men would want to cause Guan Tianyu’s death, so Li Mo’s suspicions was that one of the two had prompted Rong Yueshan, Yi Qianying, and the others to make use of him to get rid of the wild vine demon, then to snatch up its treasure.

And once they obtained this treasure, Guan Tianyu would be responsible for its safekeeping. Yi Qianying, blinded by greed, had then attacked Guan Tianyu, inadvertently killing him in the process. To hide the murder, she had to attract a beast horde over and pretend that Guan Tianyu had been killed by wild beasts.

Rong Tianhai’s expression gave him away as the mastermind.

“Second Elder, as the instructor in charge of this expedition, I will take responsibility for uncovering the truth behind Guan Tianyu’s death.” Li Mo injected spiritual energy into the pendant, producing a red pouch on his palm. “Within this pouch is the wild vine demon’s spirit descendant.”

The moment the pouch appeared, Rong Yueshan and Pei Ziao both looked toward Yi Qianying. Rong Tianhai did the same, his rage almost palpable. Rong Yueshan and Pei Ziao had witnessed Guan Tianyu keeping the spirit descendant in this red pouch. The second elder was even more familiar with it: it was a spiritual device that he had made specifically for spirit descendants!

Yi Qianying’s heart thumped. Her legs were quivering, and it felt as though she would sink to the ground at any moment. She began to breathe rapidly, black spots appearing in front of her vision. The moment her deception was exposed, she would die a terrible death. Despair overwhelmed her, more acutely than she had ever felt before.

“Senior Brother, what can this spirit descendant prove?” Yi Qianying’s dark thoughts were interrupted by Rong Tianhai’s question. “All it shows is that Yi Qianying was lucky enough to obtain a spirit descendant while adventuring in the forest.”

Rong Tianhai looked toward Li Mo and deliberately continued casually, “Just like Yun Ruoyan was lucky enough to obtain a sage-grade amaranthine sun. As you know, Kongming Academy has a policy of allowing students to keep whatever spoils they find in these training grounds—Senior Brother, surely you’re not going to claim it for yourself, are you?”

Li Mo frowned as he stared at Rong Tianhai. Clearly, he was trying to fabricate a lie to protect Yi Qianying.

More accurately, Rong Tianhai was trying to protect himself. No matter how Yi Qianying had obtained the spirit descendant, one thing was clear: it had been in Guan Tianyu’s possession, and now it was in Yi Qianying’s.

Rong Tianhai didn’t know how Yi Qianying had managed to steal the spirit descendant without anyone else finding out, but based on his understanding of Guan Tianyu, he certainly wouldn’t have let the treasure go without a fight. Given Yi Qianying’s cultivation, she surely wouldn’t be able to beat him in a straight fight, but if she were to torture him…

Rong Tianhai didn’t dare follow that train of thought further.

“The presence of this spirit descendant doesn’t mean anything.” Li Mo’s sharp gaze seemed to scour Rong Tianhai. “I killed a wild vine spirit during the expedition, and this spirit descendant came from that spirit.”

Rong Tianhai opened his mouth as though he wanted to say something, but Li Mo didn’t give him the opportunity to do so. “The reason I entered this wild vine spirit’s territory was because it had trapped several of my students—and the reason they were trapped was because someone had schemed to lure them into the wild vine spirit’s nest.”

Li Mo turned to Guan Ruliu. “As the victim, please tell everyone what you experienced.”

Guan Ruliu nodded and stepped forward, describing how she and her two junior brothers had fallen prey to some sort of miasma and then ended up entrapped by the wild vine spirit. “After being poisoned, I seemed to hear Yi Qianying’s voice, so I suspect that our situation wasn’t a mere accident.”

“You—you’re lying! What does your plight have to do with me? That’s slander!” Yi Qianying exclaimed. For a few dire moments, she had thought herself dead, but Rong Tianhai actually spoke up for her! How could Yi Qianying not be excited upon seeing this beacon of salvation?

“It was I, Master Mo, and Zhuo Yifeng who entered the miasma and found Senior Sister Guan and her two juniors,” Yun Ruoyan jumped in, finally speaking for herself. As the key figure in this entire fiasco, her words instantly caught everyone’s attention.

“Based on Master Mo’s and my experience, that miasma was manmade!” Yun Ruoyan paused a few moments for emphasis. “Combining this observation with Senior Sister Guan’s eyewitness account, it’s not hard to deduce that Yi Qianying was the one who created this miasma and induced Senior Sister Guan and her teammates to enter the wild vine spirit’s nest!”

“You’re lying!” Yi Qianying shrieked. She turned toward Rong Yueshan and Pei Ziao, her gaze anxious. “Well? Say something! Tell everyone this isn’t the truth—after all, I was with you two all this time, wasn’t I? How could I have created this miasma and schemed against Guan Ruliu and her team?”

Rong Yueshan and Pei Ziao both chose to remain silent. Neither of them were fools, and the fact that Yi Qianying had stolen the spirit descendant had been a great blow to their trust. Furthermore, the only reason Rong Tianhai had spoken up for her was clearly to save his own hide! Why would they get involved if they didn’t have to?

“Not only that,” Yun Ruoyan continued, “While investigating the giant forest with Master Mo last night, we discovered that the beast horde that attacked everyone only did so because the treehouse had been dosed with a beast-attracting powder!”

Yun Ruoyan’s gaze turned to Yi Qianying, and the gathered crowd all looked toward her as well. Some of them had been wounded by the attack, and three students had even died! If that wasn’t just an accident, but had been deliberate…

“First Elder, before we began the training, Master Mo warned us not to fight with each other, but someone actually dared do so! You have to punish them on behalf of the students who died in this incident!”

“Yes, the culprit has to be severely punished!”

The affected students all began to holler.

“Silence.” The first elder turned toward Yun Ruoyan. “Was there anything else of note?”

“Yes, First Elder,” Yun Ruoyan continued. “I recall a similar incident involving a beast-attracting powder during the initial trial to get into Kongming Academy, the expedition into the imperial realm. Yi Qianying had once used such a powder to attract two high-rank beasts toward me, so I suspect that this incident was likewise caused by her!”

Yun Ruoyan and Li Mo were deliberately piling everything on Yi Qianying. If they had instead chosen to target Rong Yueshan, Pei Ziao, and even Rong Tianhai in public, it would surely be a big blow to the northern college’s reputation. Even the second elder, who grieved for his departed grandson, couldn’t accept such a conclusion.

If the second elder were to retaliate or defend his students, then Yun Ruoyan and Li Mo wouldn’t be able to accomplish their goal. On the other hand, if they were to blame Yi Qianying for everything, then it was likely that the second elder wouldn’t step in just on her behalf.

As expected, when Yun Ruoyan and Li Mo seemed as though they were trying to pin the blame on the entire series of events on Yi Qianying, even Rong Tianhai changed his tune.

“Yi Qianying!” Rong Tianhai pointed at her and yelled out, “Are Yun Ruoyan’s words true?!”

“I—I—” Yi Qianying was startled at Rong Tianhai’s sudden shout.

“If you’ve truly schemed against your fellow peers once and again, as the provost of the northern college, I surely won’t go easy on you.”

Rong Tianhai had initially expected Li Mo to try to pin the blame on him, but that didn’t seem to be his intent. In that case, Rong Tianhai was quite happy to have Yi Qianying shoulder the blame in his stead.

Given that Yi Qianying was the one who had killed Guan Tianyu, any punishment she received would be well deserved.

Yi Qianying was quite flummoxed by this sudden turn of events. She had killed Guan Tianyu because of her greed for the spirit descendant, a crime that would be immensely difficult to weasel out of by itself. However, from the look of things, it seemed as if Yun Ruoyan, Li Mo, and Rong Tianhai were all in cahoots—they were trying to blame everything on her!

She looked beseechingly toward Pei Ziao and Rong Yueshan, both of whom stared back with an icy gaze. Even her fellow students distanced herself from her, causing her to stand alone against a sea of hostile faces.

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