Chapter 51: Brother Payne, I’ve Got Your Back!
Inside the quaint yet elegant villa, Kinson Wexford sat fuming, his face bruised and swollen as he applied medicine to his wounds.
The unprovoked assault and humiliation by Miu Tyanh had left him seething with rage. If not for Tyanh's wariness of Fairy Lith, Wexford might have been a corpse by now.
Over the past two days, he had sent his subordinates to the outer sect, desperate to uncover who had framed him and to piece together the full story. But with his pride battered and his spirit wounded, Wexford had holed up in Withered Orchid Villa under the guise of "cultivation," even barring his bloodline disciples from disturbing him unless it was a matter of life and death.
So when the knock came, his first reaction was a deep frown. Then a thought struck him: Could it be that the person who framed me has been found?
With a quick hand-seal, he deactivated the villa's defense formation and remotely opened the gate. "Come in," he called out in a deep, commanding voice.
"Senior Brother Wexford!" Lordi Payne, standing outside the door, breathed a sigh of relief. It was a good sign that Kinson Wexford was willing to see him.
Stepping inside, Lordi Payne clasped his fists and bowed respectfully. "Since joining the Holy Sect, I've been thinking of ways to repay Senior Brother Wexford's kindness. But my cultivation level is too low, and I have nothing to my name. It felt insincere to offer empty words of gratitude. Now that I've returned from a task mission, thanks to Senior Brother Wexford's great blessing, I've managed to scrape together a modest income. I've come here to express my sincere thanks."
As he spoke, Lordi Payne retrieved ten d-grade spirit stones from his storage pouch, holding them out with both hands in a gesture of deep respect.
On the way here, Lordi Payne had done the math. The rewards from his three tasks totaled 167 D$t, and with the inheritance money from Chen Haunt's crew, he barely had 200 D$t to his name. Against a fine of over 70,000 D$t, it was laughably insignificant.