Chapter 105: Martial Arts Tournament - The Lantern
Xing wondered what Lord Ran was planning. He obviously wanted his family to conduct the ceremony as he had brought only his son with him. But why did he suddenly change his mind? And he just lost his daughter yesterday and was wearing plain clothes but Xing could not get any emotions from his face.
Is that a side-effect of being in the politics?
Then it dawned on her that Lord Chu was talking to him and everyone in the Heavenly Flowers Palace knew that Lord Táng never does archery. Could that be the reason? By humiliating Lord Táng, the Huang family can be humiliated and if she failed in successfully burning the evil dragon , they can blame the empire’s doom was brought upon by the Huang family and all those nasty conclusions that they usually arrive at and ostracise the Huang family in the future!
Geez! Way to put stress on me!
Xing just rolled her eyes and walked to her father who was diplomatically arguing with Lord Ran. Lord Ran even mentioned that the as his family is grieving, it is inappropriate for his family to participate in this event but as the Huang family had already have a hired bodyguard with them, Lord Táng can do the ceremony this year on behalf of them.
That had provoked AoTian but Rijun interfered, "Lord Táng is not hired but adopted by our family. He does not receive salary but allowance like me, evident from the family token we both have", he pointed at the Eagle Emblem both of them were hanging in their belts. He spoke in a tone as if the one who was listening is actually stupid and Lord Ran had nothing to retort.
"Father, it’s fine", Xing whispered to her father and he accepted the offer.
Xing never did archery publicly or in competing not because she didn’t know archery but because Haru was a better archer than her. That doesn’t mean she sucked, she was pretty decent. Also anyone can shoot a twenty foot tall dragon from a certain distance, right?
So the Emperor gave her the ceremonial arrow and he cannot hide the smirk on his face as if saying she won’t be left alone and Xing had to restrain hard not to punch him in the face.
So Xing was brought to the side of the stage and everyone’s eyes were on her.
"Brat, let’s see if you could solve the puzzle", Lord Zhong patted her back and Xing looked at the setup in the distance.
Two big dragons were facing each other and there was a big golden pearl in between the dragons. Xing saw a lantern was being hoisted just above the ball and the lantern had the character ’Divine’ written on it. Weird!