Li Ban had never expected that a man as righteous-looking as Priest Chu Zhan would consider using a mirror to spy on people a "good thing"!
Even Priest Zhu Yao, aloof as a goddess, had joined in.
Chu Zhan openly produced his Self-Seeking Mirror and set it hovering in the air.
The mirror displayed the Realm Emperor they had just seen, along with a few of the people who had been waiting outside the hall.
Li Zhai was also there, though he stood at the very edge of the group, looking completely unnoticeable.
Li Ban shot Zhu Yao a bewildered look. Are we going to spy on them? his eyes seemed to ask.
Zhu Yao's cool voice rang out. "Chu Zhan is helping you temper your mind. Once you have seen enough, you won't easily panic."
Unsure of what expression to make, Li Ban simply turned his attention to Priest Chu Zhan's Self-Seeking Mirror alongside the other two.
The moment he focused on it, the Realm Emperor's voice drifted from the mirror.
His questioning did not panic the officials standing below.
The two officials at the front, in particular, remained entirely composed.
One of them replied, "Your Majesty, this is your second time crowning a Crown Prince. We understand your concern that if the ceremony lacks the proper rites, the Sixth Prince will lack legitimacy. However, the national treasury is currently strained. If Your Majesty wishes for this ceremony's scale to surpass the Second Prince's investiture, I am afraid it will be exceedingly difficult."
Seeing the Realm Emperor's expression darken further, the other official stepped forward. "Your Majesty, if the Ministry of Revenue truly cannot produce the funds, you could always draw from your private treasury."
Li Ban listened with wide eyes. These two officials were surprisingly bold when speaking to the Realm Emperor!
To put it simply, they were telling him there was no money for the investiture ceremony unless he paid for it himself.
The Realm Emperor was naturally unwilling to touch his private funds and argued with the officials a bit longer.
Eventually, the second official said the unthinkable: "The Second Prince's investiture already exceeded ancestral regulations. If the Sixth Prince's ceremony must now surpass the Second Prince's, what will happen the third time, or the fourth time—"
Those words truly enraged the Realm Emperor.
The old emperor slammed his palm against the golden armrest of his throne.
The air vibrated from the impact, spreading outward in rings like ripples across a lake.
The officials in the back row stumbled back, but the ones confronting the Realm Emperor did not budge an inch.
Li Ban observed their reactions. "Are those two officials 9th Tier as well?"
Priest Chu Zhan, who had watched the Realm Emperor get thoroughly talked down without any intention of intervening, stroked his beard and nodded. "Yes. The heads of the Ministry of Revenue and the Ministry of Rites. They are both 9th Tier."
"The heads of the Six Ministries are all 9th Tier. No wonder they can speak so... boldly."
Although the official hadn't finished his sentence, his meaning was obvious: the Realm Emperor would likely hold a third and a fourth investiture ceremony, so there was no need to make the second one too lavish.
It was blatant mockery to his face.
Li Ban looked at Chu Zhan. "It seems the emperor doesn't have all that much power."
Chu Zhan readily agreed. "The Wizard World doesn't belong to a single family. The Six Ministries perform their respective duties, and the imperial authority coordinates and leads them. It all serves to maintain the order of the world."
"Listen more and watch more," he told Li Ban. "It will help stabilize your state of mind."
Even someone as high and mighty as the emperor still had troubles and things he could not obtain.
Li Ban had never imagined that the two priests watched other people's drama to temper their minds.
The Self-Seeking Mirror showed that the Realm Emperor eventually won the argument.
However, he was forced to promise that if there was ever a third or fourth Crown Prince investiture, all expenses would come directly from his private treasury.
The Realm Emperor looked furious. The two ministers remained respectful but wore faint smiles; it seemed this had been their goal from the very beginning.
Yet, the moment all the officials left, the anger vanished completely from the Realm Emperor's face, as if he hadn't been genuinely furious at all.
Watching this unfold, Li Ban marveled. None of these people were simple.
Did they know that the priests were secretly observing their words and actions from behind the scenes?
Once the Realm Emperor and the Six Ministries reached an agreement regarding the Crown Prince's investiture, the entire Imperial Palace sprang into frantic activity.
Priest Zhu Yao began preparing for Li Ban's robe conferment ceremony.
Li Ban himself was required to bathe and fast for three days.
Before the ceremony started, however, he accompanied Priest Chu Zhan to see Yan Jiu—or rather, Li Yan.
Priest Chu Zhan stayed in the Imperial Palace's Heavenly Pavilion year-round, so he was intimately familiar with the palace personnel and the layout of its courtyards.
They soon arrived at the Second Prince's palace.
It was an incredibly remote palace. The plaque hanging in the center read "Shunyi Palace."
The palace was small and rather old, resembling a rural cottage amidst the otherwise magnificent Imperial Palace.
Numerous soldiers stood guard outside the palace, including quite a few 4th Tier and 5th Tier intermediate Spirit Practitioners.
This turned the rural cottage into a heavily guarded prison.
Naturally, these guards could not stop a Priest.
Priest Chu Zhan brought Li Ban directly into the inner courtyard.
The maids in the courtyard hurriedly bowed in greeting upon seeing the two men, then immediately rushed into the inner hall to fetch their master.
Moments later, Li Ban laid eyes on the wildly unassuming Second Prince.
The Second Prince looked even more weather-beaten than the First Prince.
He wasn't even wearing brocade robes, favoring a plain but comfortable cotton outfit instead.
Upon seeing Priest Chu Zhan, he hurriedly bowed in greeting. "Li Fu pays his respects to Priest Zhan."
Chu Zhan's expression remained entirely unchanged as he faced the gloomy Second Prince, Li Fu.
"Is Li Yan here?"
"Yes. Does Priest Zhan wish to see Little Jiu? I will lead the way."
Only as he turned around did he notice Li Ban standing behind Chu Zhan.
Li Ban was dressed plainly, looking neither like an official nor the scion of a wealthy family. In fact, he looked remarkably similar to Li Fu.
"This is Priest Ban," Chu Zhan introduced. "He is the one who has questions for Li Yan today."
Li Fu had never met Li Ban before. Upon learning his status, the prince simply offered a respectful bow, his expression entirely devoid of emotion.
The three walked into the building and entered the inner chamber, where Li Ban immediately spotted Li Yan sitting at a round table.
She was dressed much more luxuriously than she had been during her time as the master of the Assassin Hall, but she also looked far frailer.
Because Li Yan was facing sideways when they entered, Li Ban noticed a massive, fresh scar behind her ear.
The deep red, almost black scabs were glaringly obvious. They made her movements stiff, rendering the simple act of lowering her head incredibly awkward.
It was as if her muscles were too painfully tight to move freely.
Hearing them enter, Li Yan didn't turn her head; instead, she turned her entire body around.
When she saw the three men—and specifically Priest Chu Zhan—she hurriedly stood to bow.
However, the moment she saw Li Ban, she froze completely.
Her dumbfounded stare as she looked at Li Ban was nearly identical to the expression Li Zhai had worn earlier.
Stripped of her disguises, Li Yan revealed a face of truly breathtaking beauty.
Li Fu immediately noticed that this new Priest Ban knew his sister. "Have you met Li Yan before, Lord Priest?"
"Priest?" Li Yan wasn't as composed as the Sixth Prince, Li Zhai. Hearing her second brother's words, she let out a sharp gasp of shock.
"Little Jiu," the Second Prince, Li Fu, snapped in a low voice to remind her of herself.
Li Yan finally remembered herself. Realizing she hadn't yet greeted the two Priests, she hurriedly bowed in the deepest, most respectful salute.
With two Priests present, neither she nor her brother had the right to sit.
Chu Zhan and Li Ban took seats at the table, while the siblings Li Fu and Li Yan stood opposite them.
"When you were in the Hundred Flowers Pavilion, you were taken away by a black-robed priest. Why did he take you? And how did you return?" Li Ban asked, skipping the pleasantries.
Forced to confront those painful memories, Li Yan swayed on her feet. Her face went deathly pale, giving her a heartbreakingly pitiful appearance.
But at a time like this, no one cared about her feelings, regardless of her beauty or her status.
Xiao Suo had been making major moves lately. It wasn't just Li Ban who harbored lingering fear toward the man; even Priest Chu Zhan was deeply wary of his actions.
Li Yan had seen Li Ban in the water dungeon beneath the Hundred Flowers Pavilion. Given his inexplicable disappearance afterward, she had assumed he had long since fled.
But seeing him now as a Priest, his bizarre array of abilities was no longer so surprising.
If her second brother hadn't been standing right there, alongside the Priest Zhan she had respected and feared since childhood, Li Yan would have loved nothing more than to mock Li Ban.
Priest Ban, you've certainly worked hard bearing such humiliation.
It wasn't as if she had anything left to lose.
For the sake of the second brother who had always taken care of her, however, Li Yan kept her head slightly bowed. "After the black-robed priest took me away," she answered honestly, her voice utterly lifeless, "he immediately stripped away all the external traits of my beast blood."
She reached up to touch the horrific scar behind her ear.
A deep chunk of flesh had been dug out. Even with her healing abilities, the wound would leave a permanent scar.
"After that, he extracted my blood. He filtered it through a special vessel before cycling it back into my body. Every drop of blood in my veins was filtered three times—"
"When I woke up again, I realized that the beast blood in my body was almost entirely gone."
"I used to hate my beast blood, but the moment I lost it, I knew I was finished."
The trauma of her experiences had worn away much of her caution in the presence of Priests, but she remained entirely submissive. That ingrained obedience was likely a product of growing up in the Imperial Palace.
Seeing Li Yan like this, Li Ban hesitated, pausing his interrogation. But someone else remained completely unmoved and continued the questioning.
"Describe the tools the black-robed priest used on you in detail," Priest Chu Zhan demanded sternly.
"I... I was dizzy..."
"Then describe what you can remember."
Priest Chu Zhan was incredibly harsh with Li Yan. Even Li Fu, who was watching his sister with deep concern, didn't dare to interject.
Li Yan stumbled through recounting her ordeal over the last month. Whenever her descriptions grew vague, Chu Zhan pressed her on the details, forcing her to try and remember.
By the time the interrogation finished, Li Yan was drenched in sweat. Her face was beyond simply pale; it was ashen.
She gasped for breath, acting less like a woman standing in a room and more like someone drowning.
To Black Robe Xiao Suo, Li Yan hadn't been a beautiful woman, merely an experimental subject. And from the white-robed priests here, the treatment she received wasn't much better.
Li Ban listened quietly, carefully committing the details to memory.
This was no time to pity a beautiful girl. Even though he had not yet formally received his robes, Zhu Yao and Chu Zhan's grave attitudes made it perfectly clear just how dangerous a black-robed priest truly was.
Once the interrogation concluded, Chu Zhan stood up. "Priest Ban, I have made some discoveries," he said. "I will take my leave first. You may stay here and look around, or you may return to the Heavenly Pavilion."
Chu Zhan, whose face had been stern the entire time, suddenly offered Li Ban a smile. Then, his figure simply vanished from the room.
Li Ban stood up as well.
He had originally intended to have a long talk with Li Yan about all her past schemes against him. But looking at the agony the Ninth Princess was in now, Li Ban felt those past grudges had lost their meaning.
With that, he prepared to leave.
Just then, the Second Prince, Li Fu, suddenly called out to stop him.
"Priest Ban—" Li Fu's face was flushed red. He looked deeply embarrassed, clearly ashamed of what he was about to ask, but he said it anyway.
"Would you—would you be willing to take Little Jiu in?"