The price of loyalty (1)

Reading through Liu Ying's slip, Yang Qing found nothing that pointed to her as a suspect, much to his relief. Her relationships with Bai Chen and the others were impeccable—one even hinted at being more than just friendship—and nothing in her dossier suggested any connections that could implicate the rest.

The few feathers she had ruffled over the years, especially during her time as a rogue cultivator, were not significant enough to pose a threat to Bai Chen. The only potential concern would have been her paternal clan, the Shi clan. However, with the clan now reformed and those she had grievances against long banished, any meaningful grudges in her life had been effectively neutralized.