Sheep Amongst Wolves

Soon-to-be concubine.

This childish mention was surprisingly effective at making the other guests stare at Lei Mingxing in surprise. 

After all, in a group of 'merchants', 'mercenaries' and 'associates', a simple concubine was in no way qualified to attend this banquet, let alone when she wasn't even married to Suan Bian yet.

Like this, several doubtful gazes fell on Lei Mingxing, as well as some gloating ones, with the exception of one person, Chang Liuyun, who instead, glared at Suan Bi from behind his bangs.

But Suan Bi wasn't interested in Chang Liuyun at all, the other was just a means of possibly threatening Lei Mingxing, another leverage he held against her, in case she planned to retaliate when he started the true negotiations.

Right now, he was just using an intimidation and provocation strategy on Lei Mingxing, to make her act more impulsively, this way he would be able to deal with her much more easily later.

Unfortunately for Suan Bi, the target of his provocation didn't react at all how he hoped her to.

On the outside at least.

On the inside, Lei Mingxing felt a sense of wry amusement at Suan Bi's display of pettiness, while simultaneously quelling a tiny flame of disgust and anger that had ignited inside her chest.

But this wasn't because of Suan Bi's words, it had just become an instinctive reaction every time she thought about Suan Bian and his 'special' feelings towards her.

Still, Lei Mingxing didn't reveal any of this, glancing at the two 'mercenaries', who had been especially intense in their staring, for only a brief moment, before she opened her mouth.

"Oh, if I was only a future concubine, what am I doing at this banquet? This is a very bad look, not even the most mannerless nobles would let a random concubine attend an official banquet."

Lei Mingxing's sharp words mercilessly struck Suan Bi's most fragile part, immediately causing his gloating smile to freeze and disappear as he almost anxiously glanced around.

On the other hand, Lei Mingxing's lips stretched into a small satisfied smirk beneath her face veil.

Seemed like she had been right in her assessment of Suan Bi. He really cared very much about appearing dignified and high-class.

Anyhow, Lei Mingxing's words now made Suan Bi desperate to disprove her claim of mannerlessness forcing him to admit his true reason for bringing her here.

"Ahem, well, as mentioned before, you are also the apprentice of a rival forge and since I acknowledge your talent, I felt it would be appropriate to invite you to this banquet," Suan Bi begrudgingly admitted, with a rather sour expression on his face, trying his best to remain courteous, although he couldn't quite help himself in the end.

"I assumed you would appreciate my consideration for you since your current working environment isn't really ideal so to speak, but I'm not so sure anymore."

Saying this, despite Suan Bi putting considerate effort into appearing unbothered and calm, his farce couldn't fool any of the people sitting around the table who dealt with such tricks on the daily and only served to widen the gap between Suan Bi and them even further.

Happy with having humiliated her kidnapper in the middle of his ego-stroking session, Lei Mingxing didn't bother replying this time, she knew taking this any further would probably lead to some unwanted outcomes and instead only silently grinned beneath her face veil.

...Well, maybe Suan Bi had really succeeded in provoking her to some extent, but she would still not leave him any chance to exploit her temper. 

  But Suan Bi was much too preoccupied with taking Lei Mingxing's silence as an admittance of her inferiority before reverting to his hospitable host act with the knowledge that he had won this confrontation.

"Now that this is settled, let's really start the banquet."

Smiling warmly at his guests, Suan Bi clapped his hands, prompting the door to the hall to slide open once more and reveal several servants with trays of food in their hands, as well as two jugs of wine.

The servants swiftly entered the room.

They quietly set the trays in front of each guest, their movements orderly and careful, so as to not disturb the guests, or rather Suan Bi who would punish them severely for any mishaps.

In the end, the servants left just as quickly as they had appeared, with only two remaining in the room, one standing at the wall behind Lei Mingxing while the other stood behind the mercenary pair, in case the guests' wine glasses needed to be refilled.

"Now then, please enjoy. There is no need to hesitate, these dishes have been specially prepared for tonight."

Very satisfied with how smoothly everything went, Suan Bi generously announced the official start of the banquet.

Gradually, following Suan Bi's words, most of the guests started to poke at the dishes in front of them, with Huo Dong being the first to actually start eating and Lei Mingxing as well as Chang Liuyun refusing to even pick up their chopsticks.

The soft sound of eating echoed in the hall, along with the ever-continuing tune of the pipa in its center.

Lei Mingxing used this opportunity while the other guests were eating, to secretly glance around the room again, and Chang Liuyun did the same.

The dining hall was pretty big, with a few lighting artifacts standing around as well as several elegant vases and paintings that looked more expensive than actually appropriate for the room.

The only thing that seemed to not only exist for aesthetical purposes but for bragging as well, was a spear hanging on a wall that was clearly a very powerful artifact embedded with a fourth-rank Spirit Core. 

This should have been a pretty amazing find, weren't it for the hooks that held the spear in place, as they were also artifacts created to deter any overzealous thieves. 

And they had to be very strong artifacts if they were used to protect a fourth-rank artifact.

Although Lei Mingxing was pretty sure she could have melted the hooks if given the opportunity and time.

This assumption wasn't unfounded, after an entire month of training, Lei Mingxing had a pretty thorough understanding of her fire Qi and just how vicious it could be if she poured enough energy into it. This was probably also the only reason they had been able to escape the Dark Stone Clearing that day.

So Lei Mingxing felt deservedly confident in her ability to burn things.

Unfortunately, the chances of her freeing and subsequently using the spear for their escape were close to zero, since it hung on the wall right behind Suan Bi and there was no way he would just let her melt the hooks and take the spear right under his nose.

In other words, this plan was absolutely impossible.

It also meant that, in the end, Lei Mingxing and Chang Liuyun would have to think of some other way to prevent the other guests from overpowering them and get away as quickly as they could, just that there wasn't another thing in the room quite as effective as an artifact with a fourth-rank Spirit Core and that they couldn't communicate with each other beyond 'accidental' glances.

And even if they found a way, there was still the problem of actually getting out of the dining hall and fleeing the estate, before they made their escape back to Unyielding Branch Forge.

But that wasn't even the worst part, the worst part was the fact that there was only one way to get out of the dining hall.

The sliding door.

Directly next to Huo Dong.