At this time, Feng Xin, who was kneeling behind Xie Lian, said in a deep voice: "Your Highness did say that the day before yesterday."

Everyone looked at him, Feng Xin said: "Recently, Your Highness has been thinking hard about the arrangements for the Heavenly Sacrifice Tour. Yesterday, he suddenly had an idea and thought of jumping off the city wall and descending as a celestial being. Other arrangements do not need to be changed. But at that time, Your Highness was still reviewing the ritual procedures and could not get away, so he asked Mu Qing to tell the Imperial Master on his behalf and ask if this was feasible."

He raised his head, eyes slightly filled with anger, and said, "Mu Qing came back and told Your Highness that he had informed the Imperial Master, so Your Highness thought that the Imperial Master had given permission and did so today. Who would have thought that the Imperial Master knew nothing about it and almost ruined the whole thing?"

The Taoists looked at each other in bewilderment. The Imperial Master asked, "Has anyone heard of this?"

The other three deputy state masters shook their heads repeatedly, saying no. The state master turned to him, his face turning from gloomy to angry, and said, "Mu Qing, are you deliberately not reporting this?"

His words and expression clearly showed that he had already determined that Mu Qing was behind this. Xie Lian glanced at the thin young man who was kneeling beside him without saying a word, thought for a moment, and said, "Master, I think there must be some misunderstanding here."

Hearing this, Mu Qing glanced at him slowly, his eyes dark. Xie Lian said, “If they had concealed the truth on purpose, the conspiracy would have been exposed after a confrontation. No one would be able to escape responsibility. Mu Qing is definitely not a short-sighted fool, and would not resort to such a desperate measure. Besides, the absence of the Yueshen warrior would not benefit the demon warriors on the same stage. I hope the Imperial Master will listen to his explanation first before making a final judgment.”

After saying that, he tilted his head and said, "Mu Qing, tell me what's going on."

Mu Qing lowered his eyes and said softly, "I did say what Your Highness told me yesterday."

The Imperial Master frowned and asked, "Don't we know whether you said it or not? When did you say it?"

Mu Qing said, "Yesterday, half an hour after finishing the evening class, when the four state masters were resting in the Four Symbols Palace, the disciple reported it outside the window."

The Imperial Master turned to ask the other three colleagues, puzzled: "After the evening class yesterday? What were we doing at that time?"

As soon as he asked, he remembered, and his face turned a bit green with embarrassment. The three deputy state masters also coughed a few times and said vaguely: "I didn't do anything. It's nothing more than... resting, just resting."

Seeing several imperial masters hesitating, everyone immediately understood what was going on.

In Huangji Temple, everyone was in a state of quiet meditation and there was basically no room for any games. There were only a few small fun activities for entertainment. Among them, the most popular one was the card game.

That is to say, playing cards. Moreover, they can only play secretly, and no one else can see them. Several state masters have been suffocating in Huangji Temple for many years, and they are deeply addicted to it. As long as they play cards, they will be completely self-forgetful, intoxicated, and hysterical, and they will not hear any external sounds. If Mu Qing happened to report to the window at that time, how many words could he hear?

A deputy national master said: "Oh, then... maybe there were too many people and the voice was too soft, so I didn't hear it clearly. Well, I didn't hear it clearly."

The Imperial Master asked doubtfully, "Did you really go to the Four Elephants Palace yesterday?"

Mu Qing said, "It's absolutely true." To prove it, he described the clothes, appearance, and accent of the Taoist guarding the door, exactly. The Imperial Master had to believe it, and then frowned and said, "Since you went to the Four Symbols Palace, you could have asked the Taoist boy outside to report it, or go in and explain in detail. Why did you have to shout outside the window? And didn't you ask us to confirm whether we heard it?"

Mu Qing whispered, "It's not that I haven't tried. I begged the brother guarding the door with kind words, but for some reason, that brother was determined to make things difficult for me. He neither let me into the palace to report, nor helped me pass the message. He even... laughed at me and drove me away."

After a pause, he continued, "I had no other choice but to go around to the other side of the Four Symbols Palace and report to the Imperial Masters outside the window. After I finished speaking, I vaguely heard an Imperial Master shout, 'I understand, step down, step down.' I thought this meant he agreed with Your Highness's idea, so I went back."

The imperial masters remained silent.

When playing cards, how can you listen to what others say outside? You will just say "I know" when you hear anything, but in fact, you may not even know where the sound comes from!

Xie Lian frowned and said, “How could this happen? Which Taoist boy is so arrogant? He is so rude to the people I sent. He is really brave.”

Although Xie Lian usually gets along very well with the Imperial Court and almost never puts on airs, he is after all the son of the Emperor and a prince. Although he is kneeling in front of the statue, he is not humble at all. He is serious for a moment, and he is intimidating without being angry. Everyone is silent, and the expressions of the Imperial Masters become a little subtle.

Xie Lian asked, “Why didn’t you tell me about this when you came back yesterday?”

Mu Qing knelt down, turned around, bowed to him, and said calmly: "Your Highness, please don't pursue that senior brother. I didn't mention this matter to you when I came back yesterday because I didn't want to make a big deal out of it. It's not a big deal in the first place. If you come forward for me, it will hurt the harmony among fellow disciples."

Xie Lian disagreed and said angrily, “What kind of harmony is this? Bullying a fellow disciple and venting anger?”

Hearing this, the expressions of the imperial masters beside him became even more subtle.

The reason why such a thing happened was, in the final analysis, because the imperial masters did not like love.

They were unhappy, and the Taoist children who served them naturally understood their feelings. In addition, Mu Qing himself was indeed not very likable, so it was normal for his fellow disciples to not give him any convenience and to make things difficult for him and criticize him. This precious disciple certainly did not mean to mock them, but he did prick them.

Mu Qing kept retreating during his speech, but Feng Xin couldn't listen any longer and suddenly said, "It really wasn't a big deal, but you made it so complicated. If you had directly told the gatekeeper that you were here to deliver a message from His Royal Highness the Crown Prince, would he have the guts to not report it? Also, before we set off today, the Imperial Master asked you where His Royal Highness the Crown Prince had been, why did you deliberately give an ambiguous answer? Couldn't you have directly said that His Royal Highness was waiting on the tower for the team to set off?"

Mu Qing immediately retorted clearly and steadily, "I thought the Imperial Master had already known about this, but I didn't expect him to ask me this question out of the blue, so I was stunned for a moment. But then I told him that His Royal Highness had told me not to worry, and that all procedures could be followed as usual, and His Royal Highness would be here soon. His Royal Highness was not there at the time, but many people heard it, so how could it be intentional? And how could it be ambiguous?"

Feng Xin glared at him. But thinking about it carefully, Mu Qing did say that at the time, but the Imperial Master was in a hurry and didn't dare to set off rashly. If he really wanted to pick a fight, he couldn't find a big mistake that could prove that he had ulterior motives. At this time, Xie Lian said, "Okay, okay. It was a misunderstanding due to a series of mistakes. It's just bad luck. Let's not argue about it."

Feng Xin looked very unhappy, but due to his status, he dared not make a noise in the Shenwu Hall and stopped talking. The Imperial Master did not want to dwell on this issue any longer. After all, if you really counted it, wouldn't their playing cards also delay the work? So he waved his hand and said, "Well, let's talk about it later! Let's discuss it and think of a way to remedy the situation. All three of you go down, take off your clothes, and do what you need to do."

Xie Lian bowed slightly and stood up immediately. Feng Xin and Mu Qing bowed politely again, then stood up and followed Xie Lian to leave. Xie Lian stepped out of the door and heard the Imperial Master say behind him, "Your Highness the Crown Prince."

Xie Lian turned around. The Imperial Master said, “Today, His Majesty the King and the Queen asked you a lot of questions. If you have time these days, go back and take a look.”

Xie Lian smiled and said, “Disciple understands.”

After leaving the Shenwu Hall, the three of them crossed a large area of ​​mountains and returned to the Taoist Xianle Palace, which was built specifically for His Royal Highness the Crown Prince. Only then did Xie Lian begin to remove the gorgeous clothes used for the ceremony.

As mentioned earlier, during the Lantern Festival, the uniforms and hats worn by the warriors are strictly regulated, and almost everything they wear has a meaning, and they cannot be messed up. For example, the outer garment is white, which symbolizes "purity and holiness"; the inner garment is red, which symbolizes "orthodoxy"; the golden crown tied to the hair symbolizes "royal power" and "wealth"; the white feather hidden in the bosom symbolizes "reaching the sky with wings"; the ribbons on the sleeves symbolize "carrying all living beings". And so on.

As you can imagine, this outfit, whether putting it on or taking it off, must be extremely complicated. However, Xie Lian was a prince, so he naturally didn't need to do everything himself. He only had to open his arms in the cool and fragrant air in the room, talk to Feng Xin, and wait for Mu Qing, who was his attendant, to help him take off the layers of Yueshen clothes. That was all.

The white clothing of the God-pleasing Clothes was of excellent quality, with delicate textures and extremely delicate light golden patterns embroidered on the edges. It was gorgeous but not extravagant, and it was completely different from the black martial arts clothing of the demon. Mu Qing had not yet taken off his own black martial arts clothing, and he was holding the God-pleasing Clothes that Xie Lian had taken off. His knuckles twitched, and he stroked the white clothing a few times, almost imperceptibly.

On the side, Xie Lian took off the golden crown that bound his hair, let his long hair down, sat down on the sandalwood bed, kicked his feet twice, threw off his snow-white boots, and waited for someone to put new clothes on him. After waiting for a while, he saw that Mu Qing did not move. He tilted his head and asked, "What's wrong?"

Mu Qing quickly came to his senses and said, "Your Highness, this God-pleasing suit seems to be dirty somewhere."

Xie Lian let out an “ah” and said, “Bring it here so I can see it?”

As expected, there were two small black handprints on the snow-white martial arts uniform. Xie Lian took a look and said, "Is it the kid who fell from the sky that day who did it? I remember he grabbed my clothes and refused to let go. The kid had a bandage on his face, I don't know if he fell or something. Feng Xin, have you helped him check it?"

Feng Xin was wrapping up the sword and saber used to please the gods, and said depressedly: "I didn't see it. I took him out of the palace and helped him to see his face as you said, but he kicked me in the knee. It hurt a lot."

Xie Lian laughed and fell on the bed, pointing at him and said, “It must be because you were mean to him. Otherwise, why did he kick you instead of me?”

Feng Xin said, "No! This little brat seems to be possessed by a ghost and will run away in a moment. Otherwise, I would have picked him upside down and swung him around to scare him until he cried."

Mu Qing flipped through the God-pleasing clothes and said, "That child must be a beggar. He is too dirty. He became so black after being scratched. Your Highness, the God-pleasing clothes must not be dirty. I heard that it is a bad omen."

Xie Lian lay down on the sandalwood bed, picked up a book from the bedside, covered the lower half of his face, and said, "Walking around the city three times, and being remembered in history, is already a very good omen. It's dirty, so what? Just wash it."

After a pause, Mu Qing said calmly: "Well, I will try to be more careful when I wash it."

Xie Lian flipped through the book and happened to come across a page with a picture of sword techniques. Thinking of the fierce fight on the stage today, he smiled and said, “Mu Qing, you fought well on the stage today.”

Mu Qing’s shoulders stiffened slightly.

Xie Lian added, “I just discovered today that you are much better at using this knife than you are at using a sword.”

Mu Qing's expression relaxed, and he turned around, with a smile on his face, and asked, "Really?"

Xie Lian said, “Yes! But, I’m afraid you’re a little hasty. Using a knife and using a sword are completely different. You see…”

As soon as they talked about martial arts, Xie Lian became very excited, even more absorbed in it than the imperial masters playing cards. He jumped off the bed without even putting on his shoes, and demonstrated on the spot using his hands as swords. At first, Mu Qing's expression was a bit complicated, but after Xie Lian demonstrated for a while, he started to watch seriously. Feng Xin, however, waved his wrapped saber and drove Xie Lian onto the bed, shouting, "If you want to fight, put on your shoes! You are the Crown Prince, what does it look like to be barefoot with your hair disheveled!"

Xie Lian was just acting out his feelings when he was forced back to bed by him. He said angrily, "I know!" Then he gathered his hair with both hands and prepared to tie it up before telling Mu Qing in detail. Suddenly, he frowned and said, "Strange."

Feng Xin said, "What's wrong?"