Li Luo's question took Yu Hongxi by surprise. She rolled her eyes at him. "Yes, it's yours, with my compliments."

Li Luo gave her a big thumbs up. "President Yu is the best. Under your steady captaincy, the Xia Kingdom's Golden Dragon Bank will be steered into bountiful seas and bonanzas of treasure."

"That silver tongue," Yu Hongxi muttered to herself, shaking her head. This kid was not at all like his father, a proud and almost careless man. He rarely paid attention to anything, seeing everything as below him. Getting a kind word out of him was harder than pulling teeth. Whereas Li Luo was all too eager to pour on the honey for a gold piece.

Still, Yu Hongxi was in a good mood since Lin Suo's hiccup had not affected the outcome. Lu Qing'er had won back the Golden Dragon Qi and a Golden Dragon Mountain Writ to boot. An ideal result.

"Mother, Lin Suo hid his powers really well. He was a Third Changing. We only managed to beat him and get the Golden Dragon Qi back thanks to Li Luo," Lu Qing'er said to her mother with a winsome smile.

"Well? I chose right, didn't I?" Yu Hongxi looked down at her daughter, who was trying to hide her pride, and smiled affectionately at her. Was this girl trying to rub it in? She just wanted the win over her mother for doubting her choice of Li Luo as a teammate.

Still, Yu Hongxi had no complaints with Li Luo's performance. Just as Lu Qing'er had said, the three Pattern Genesis cultivators taking down the Evolving Resonance third tier Lin Suo was a remarkable achievement.

Although she had not seen the fight herself, as a Duke she could clearly tell who had done the bulk of the work.

Li Luo was truly Li Taixuan's son.

Even without the overweening pride of his father, he had the same ostentatious flair to his work.

"I must thank you deeply for helping Qing'er secure both the Golden Dragon Qi and a Golden Dragon Mountain Writ," Yu Hongxi said to Li Luo and Qin Zhulu. She was not ungracious with her praise at a time like this.

Li Luo and Qin Zhulu shook their heads. "No need to be so courteous, President Yu," Li Luo said brightly. "We got a lot of treasure in the Golden Dragon Dao Fields too. We're very grateful to you for the opportunity to enter as well."

Yu Hongxi inclined her head. She did not continue with meaningless pleasantry, wrapping up the conversation deftly before seeing them out with Lu Qing'er.

"You have worked hard in the Golden Dragon Dao Fields, and I'm sure you must be tired. Please return and rest well. If you ever need help, you can find me here at the Golden Dragon Bank. I will do my best with whatever I can," she said to the pair.

Both Li Luo and Qin Zhulu acknowledged her offer gratefully, then they waved goodbye to Lu Qing'er and departed. They had been in the Golden Dragon Dao Fields for close to a month. Although it was not as harsh an environment as the Umbra Cave, it had still been tiring. They were eager to get some rest.

Lu Qing'er watched Li Luo go, her smile fading away with his figure in the distance. She turned back to her mother. "Mom, the Golden Dragon Dao Fields were strange from start to finish."

"Lin Suo must have been a planted martyr, ready to give his life for a cause. His skills might not even have been properly trained, but perhaps he was planted here with some forbidden art at the cost of his lifespan. I was in error not to check him properly before. I should have been able to detect it." Yu Hongxi frowned.

She had sensed a glimpse of Lin Suo's strange power when she attacked him previously. 

"Who planted him?" Lu Qing'er demanded.

Yu Hongxi was silent for a moment. "That is hard to say. I will go back and expel the entire upper management of the Tiancang Province branch. But not before I hang them up by their feet and find out what they know."

"Maybe they don't know anything?" Lu Qing'er offered.

"If they knew, then they have failed me. And if they do not know, still they have failed us," Yu Hongxi stated flatly.

Lu Qing'er nodded, then she asked another question that had been on her mind. "And the Golden Dragon Qi. Why was it with me?"

Yu Hongxi smiled. "It is bestowed to someone who is directly affiliated with the Golden Dragon Bank. And it wasn't only you who received it. Surely it's not that odd."

"But why did Lin Suo know that I would get it? Why did he want to take it from me?" Lu Qing'er pressed.

Yu Hongxi shook her head to show that she did not know.

"Mother, do you know how breaking the Golden Dragon Qi would have affected me in the future?"

Yu Hongxi sighed softly. "It would have stunted your future. Holders of the Golden Dragon Qi will enjoy great gains if they set foot on Golden Dragon Mountain. If the Golden Dragon Qi were spoiled, you would have lost a chance at a blessed fate."

"So... someone wanted to stop me from going to Golden Dragon Mountain?"

"It could be the work of my enemies," Yu Hongxi said angrily. "The position of the Xia Kingdom Golden Dragon Bank leader attracts much envy, both from within and out..."

"Mom, you might be the president here, but in the larger scale of things, surely that doesn't count for much," Lu Qing'er said half-teasingly. "Everything seemed off in the Golden Dragon Dao Fields.

"It seemed like there were people helping me from the shadows as well. That's something that not even you could do, right? And for the final dao-gold cultivation breakthrough, the three of us managed two breakthroughs each. But from what I know, that seems a little stronger than what we should have had...

"Moreover, for someone to have trained a martyr like Lin Suo and hidden him even from you for all these years... it speaks of something big. I think we are facing opponents that might even be beyond you."

Yu Hongxi glared at Lu Qing'er. Was her daughter belittling her?

"Mother, I'm not looking down on you!" Lu Qing'er hastily clarified. "I'm just analyzing things objectively."

"And what else have you deduced?" Yu Hongxi asked, curbing her pride.

"I think," Lu Qing'er said carefully, "that this might have something to do with my dad.

"Is Lin Suo's superior an enemy of my father?"

Yu Hongxi looked down at the floor in silence and continued walking on.

"Perhaps not an enemy, but even kin?" she asked softly.