"Do you have any evidence?" Hong Qingyuan pressed, his voice low and grave.

"Many people know of this. During the Grand Tournament of the Ancient Trials, Wei Zhao and his men pinpointed the vital weakness of every single technique in our Snow Sword Sect's arsenal. That was no coincidence. Anyone with half a brain could work out that someone must have leaked our core methods and martial techniques to them. And that someone can only be Leng Leng, who has always been on the closest terms with Wei Zhao. There is no other possibility." Xue Jianming spoke with the ring of righteous certainty.

The air in the council hall turned heavy at once. From Hong Qingyuan, the sect master, down to the most ordinary Golden Core elders, every face drew into a frown, and a collective silence fell.

"That is nothing but your word against hers!" Xu Xiaoshuang retorted. She had not yet heard Leng Leng speak of this matter and so did not know the particulars. Struck all at once by Xue Jianming's words, her heart was in turmoil; all she had was the instinctive belief that her disciple would never betray the sect—nothing more.

"My word alone? Heh. My words are backed by a living witness. Our own disciple Luo Shasheng is the victim here. Shall I call him in so we can confront them face to face?" Xue Jianming was utterly self-assured. Apart from himself, no one present knew a thing about this affair, and those Snow Sword Sect disciples who had taken part in the secular-world trials, Luo Shasheng among them, would surely follow his lead in all things. Naturally, the matter would be exactly as he said it was.

"You—!" Xu Xiaoshuang faltered at once. She believed Leng Leng innocent, but the other side had actually produced a witness—they meant to nail this down as an ironclad case!

"This is no small matter. Since there is a witness, then bring him here and question him face to face. That will be best for everyone." Hong Qingyuan made the decision on the spot.

"Good." Xue Jianming raised both hands in support and at once sent for Luo Shasheng.

Faced with the questioning of this assembly of dignitaries, Luo Shasheng was so frightened he scarcely dared breathe. Stammering, he recounted the circumstances of the Grand Tournament of the Ancient Trials. At such a moment he did not dare deceive them in the slightest—and in truth, Xue Jianming had no need of any deliberate deception from him. With Xue Jianming present, all Luo Shasheng had to do was report truthfully and refrain from any superfluous nonsense.

When Luo Shasheng had finished, Hong Qingyuan and the others exchanged glances, their expressions growing all the more grave.

Clearly, Luo Shasheng had not lied; otherwise he could never have escaped their eyes. And that was precisely what made them so grave. By the look of things, the charge that Leng Leng had leaked the sect's core methods could almost be considered proven!

"Now there is nothing left to say, is there?" Xue Jianming looked smugly about the assembly, and did not neglect to spare a glance for Xu Xiaoshuang. Ordinarily he would never have given such an inconsequential candidate elder a second thought—but who told her to be Leng Leng's master?

Xu Xiaoshuang had no answer. She wanted to refute him, but did not know how. After all, the man had produced a living witness, and she herself carried so little weight—how was she to refute him?

"Grand Elder, what do you make of it?" Hong Qingyuan looked to Chi Qianqiu.

Chi Qianqiu glanced at Xue Jianming and said slowly, "It sounds plausible enough, but in my view we cannot rush to a conclusion. Be that as it may, we must at least bring Leng Leng here to confront the accusation face to face. What does the sect master think?"

"Quite so. That is my own view as well." Hong Qingyuan nodded. Though the sect had suddenly gained two Golden Core consummate experts, no one ever complained of having too many genius disciples of boundless potential. A top-tier talent like Leng Leng, blessed with such extraordinary gifts, would be coveted by any sect under heaven—even the four great family-sects at the very pinnacle of the Ancient Little Jianghu would count her a treasure beyond price. Unless there was absolutely no other way, why would anyone tear down their own Great Wall?

"A confrontation?" Xue Jianming frowned. He knew perfectly well that once Leng Leng herself was summoned, the next step would inevitably be endless back-and-forth wrangling. He was just about to think up some pretext to veto it when Xu Xiaoshuang, on the other side, was the first to lose her composure.

"No!" Xu Xiaoshuang cried out hastily.

"Why not?" Hong Qingyuan and Chi Qianqiu exchanged a look with the others.

"Leng Leng is in seclusion right now, striving to break through to the Golden Core stage. If she is interrupted, the consequences would be unimaginable!" Xu Xiaoshuang said anxiously.

"She is already attempting the Golden Core breakthrough?" Everyone was startled to hear it. To shoot from the early Foundation Establishment stage all the way up to Foundation Establishment consummation in the space of a single year was a miracle in itself. Judging by any normal person's reckoning, someone in Leng Leng's position ought to consolidate for several years, waiting until her realm was fully stabilized before even beginning her preparations—how could she possibly be attempting the Golden Core so soon? Where had she found such confidence and certainty?

At these words, however, Xue Jianming's eyes lit up. As a Golden Core consummate himself, he had long since ceased to regard Leng Leng as a threat—but now, since this was the critical period of her Golden Core breakthrough, there was room to make something of it!

Everyone knew that a breakthrough in seclusion at any stage depended on gathering one's momentum in a single sustained effort, and that a major threshold like the Golden Core was all the more so—especially for a prodigy of Leng Leng's transcendent talent.

One had to understand: what mattered most in a so-called genius was that unstoppable self-confidence and pride. It was precisely that confidence and pride that let them draw out their inborn gifts to the utmost, becoming beings ordinary disciples could never hope to match. But it was also a double-edged sword.

Once they met a setback at a crucial juncture, once that long-held confidence and pride took a blow, such so-called geniuses might well never recover, and might even sink into mediocrity forever after. There were far too many precedents for this in the Ancient Little Jianghu to count.

And at the very least—even if Leng Leng, the genius, could not be strangled here and now, even if her breakthrough rhythm was merely disrupted, leaving her stuck at the Golden Core bottleneck for a few more years or decades, that would still be a welcome bonus.

"So what if she is attempting the Golden Core? Does that give her the right to ignore a summons from the elders' council? Does it give her leave to brush aside even the grave crime of betraying the sect? Since when does the world work that way?" Xue Jianming sneered, eyeing them sidelong.

"But—" Xu Xiaoshuang still wanted to argue her case.

"But nothing! When the son of Heaven breaks the law, he is judged the same as a commoner. She, Leng Leng, is nothing but an ordinary disciple, and she would set herself apart as a special case? Have we any sect rules left in this Snow Sword Sect at all?" Xue Jianming glared, his tone stern and righteous.

"Sect Master, Grand Elder, it is still uncertain whether Leng Leng has leaked our core methods to outsiders at all, and right now is the most critical moment of her Golden Core breakthrough. Everyone knows that once the first attempt fails, the second will be many times harder. If we force an interruption now, we will be all but strangling a top-tier genius. For the sake of the sect, I beg you both to weigh this carefully!" Xu Xiaoshuang could only plead with the two of them.