Man Gu had only told Dai Bufan about Lu Yang visiting the Moon Laurel Immortal Palace, mentioning it to no one else.
Tao Yaoye had rushed to the Immortal Palace only after receiving an urgent message sent across a thousand li from Lan Ting.
Getting to see Senior Brother Lu Yang so small was already well worth the trip.
Lan Ting gave a cold snort. "I was merely short-handed."
With Lu Yang locked away in the Hall of Sinners, the Immortal Palace disciples coming to visit him were practically an endless stream. Lan Ting could not hold the line alone, leaving her no choice but to call Tao Yaoye for backup.
"I didn't expect you to have grown so small too, Junior Sister Lan." As an adult, Tao Yaoye held a natural sense of superiority, not deigning to bicker with a little tot like Lan Ting.
Lan Ting replied unhurriedly, "Being small has its advantages too. For instance, Senior Brother Lu and I can be childhood sweethearts, innocent playmates—an experience you probably won't ever get to taste, Junior Sister Tao."
The two stared fixedly at each other, each trying to find a flaw in the other's expression.
Unfortunately, neither budged.
"Forget it. Why am I arguing with a little tot like you? Tell me what the situation is."
Lan Ting's brow stayed furrowed. "Not very optimistic. Who knows how many disciples across the Immortal Palace harbor little designs on Senior Brother Lu Yang. In any case, quite a few came yesterday under the guise of visiting.
"And after this incident, even when Senior Brother Lu Yang gets out, they'll still be able to find excuses to visit him."
"That truly is troublesome." Having Lan Ting alone vying with her for Senior Brother Lu was already headache enough; if the Immortal Palace's potential rivals got close to him and turned into active contenders, winning him over would become even harder.
"It seems what we must resolve right now is how to stop them from entering the Hall of Sinners to visit Senior Brother Lu Yang."
"What if we simply say Senior Brother Lu Yang is in closed-door cultivation and cannot be disturbed?"
"That won't work. Once Senior Brother Lu Yang comes out, a single question will blow the lie wide open. Besides, if others can't enter the Hall of Sinners to visit on that pretext, it means we won't be able to go in either."
A rare chance to interact with Lu Yang in a setting as unusual as the Hall of Sinners was a golden opportunity to cultivate affection. In the future, reminiscing about it would be an exclusive topic shared only between them, followed by meaningful smiles. Neither was willing to forfeit that chance easily.
They needed a solution that offered the best of both worlds.
"Senior Sister Lan Ting, why are you standing here? And who is this...?" A voice broke into their thoughts.
Lan Ting turned around to look. It was Junior Sister He Miao from the Artifact Refining Room.
"Ah, Junior Sister He Miao. Are you here to visit Senior Brother Lu Yang again? Let me introduce her: this is Tao Yaoye from the Dao Seeking Sect. She is the one who developed the wildly popular Dream Bubble."
Tao Yaoye raised a hand to cut off Lan Ting's introduction. "Dream Bubble wasn't my achievement alone. Senior Brother Lu Yang helped me a great deal and expended a lot of thought on it; even the name 'Dream Bubble' was coined by him."
"Greetings, Senior Sister Tao." He Miao hadn't expected this to be the renowned Tao Yaoye, and from the sound of it, her relationship with Senior Brother Lu was anything but ordinary.
"I'm not here for anything in particular," Tao Yaoye said. "I just heard Senior Brother Lu Yang was put into your Hall of Sinners, so I came to pay a visit."
She sighed. "I just visited Senior Brother Lu Yang and found his cell packed with fruit baskets everywhere—he barely has room to put down his feet. With so many spiritual fruits, how could he possibly finish them alone?
"Furthermore, Senior Brother Lu has to receive your Immortal Palace's sisters non-stop throughout the day, leaving him physically and mentally exhausted. To make matters worse, the prisoner locked up to his right suffers from who-knows-what ailment, writhing on the ground continuously while snickering under his breath—it's utterly chilling. I could tell he didn't rest well at all last night; when I saw him this morning, he was completely drained of energy."
After He Miao, more Immortal Palace disciples arrived one after another: An Qiuxia, Xia Tang, Huang Shan, Bu Lianxin...
Seeing that no one was entering the Hall of Sinners, and noticing Tao Yaoye and Lan Ting standing by the entrance speaking in all seriousness, they felt too awkward to brush past them to go inside.
"Who is that?"
"That's Tao Yaoye, the one who invented Dream Bubble. She's Senior Brother Lu's fellow disciple and came to visit him."
"She's Tao Yaoye?"
Inventing Dream Bubble meant an endless torrent of spirit stones pouring into Tao Yaoye's pockets. Her financial resources were far beyond what peers could ever compare to; hardly anyone even at the Body Integration stage could rival her.
Learning her identity as the inventor, and hearing about her extraordinary bond with Senior Brother Lu Yang, the Immortal Palace disciples naturally felt a head shorter before Tao Yaoye.
"Seeing that Senior Brother's time in the Hall of Sinners is truly miserable, I plan to speak with Palace Master Luo to see if we can temporarily halt visits to Senior Brother Lu Yang. That way, everyone will be spared the trouble."
"You cannot!" Lan Ting called out in haste to stop her, voicing the exact sentiments of the surrounding Immortal Palace disciples.
If visits to Lu Yang were barred outright, wouldn't they lose every reason to interact with him?
Tao Yaoye watched Lan Ting with keen interest. "I wonder in what capacity you are stopping me, Junior Sister Lan? Is it because you are the closest to him in the entire Immortal Palace? Or because you completed missions with him, braving mortal danger to defeat a Branch Master of the Immortal Cult together?"
Lan Ting sighed. "I have no grand status worth boasting of. It's just that Senior Brother Lu Yang is a guest I invited, after all; if something goes wrong with him, I ought to be held responsible.
"Yesterday, sisters kept visiting Senior Brother Lu Yang and disrupted his rest, yet I failed to stop them. That was our Immortal Palace's fault, so I hope our Immortal Palace can promptly make amends for this mistake.
"Since Junior Sister Tao feels too many people visited Senior Brother Lu Yang yesterday, why don't we reduce the number of visitors starting today?
"I ask Junior Sister Tao to supervise me."
Tao Yaoye stared at Lan Ting for a long moment, deciding whether to trust her. In the end, she let out a sigh. "Very well, then. I'll believe you this once."
Seeing that Tao Yaoye wouldn't go complain to the Palace Master, Lan Ting and the Immortal Palace disciples all breathed a sigh of relief.
Lan Ting stepped onto a large rock and waved her small hand to draw everyone's attention.
"Sisters, I am sure you all heard the agreement between Junior Sister Tao and me just now."
Everyone recognized Lan Ting's role. Lu Yang had been invited by her, she had forged a life-and-death bond with him, and she had just stopped Tao Yaoye from going to the Palace Master; she had the standing to represent them in striking an agreement with Tao Yaoye.
"Senior Brother Lu Yang already knows our Immortal Palace is hospitable and polite, but the uninterrupted visits have indeed caused him great inconvenience. I bear primary responsibility for this.
"To ensure Senior Brother Lu Yang gets proper rest, I believe the best approach is for you sisters to prepare meals, and I will personally deliver the food to visit Senior Brother Lu Yang on everyone's behalf.
"So that Senior Brother Lu Yang knows of everyone's kind intentions, I will inform him who prepared each meal brought to him."
The disciples whispered among themselves. If they could get Lu Yang to eat the meals they cooked and leave a deep impression, that was an acceptable compromise.
Tao Yaoye frowned and stepped forward. "Senior Brother Lu Yang has a limited appetite. Preparing too much food will only go to waste; three meals a day is plenty."
"Then how do we select who prepares them? Draw lots?"
Lan Ting hurriedly said, "Our purpose in visiting Senior Brother Lu Yang is so he can rest well and eat well.
"Since that's the case, why not screen by culinary skill? Whoever cooks best gets to visit Senior Brother Lu Yang and deliver his meals."
Lan Ting had caught Tao Yaoye's drift. By staging a cooking competition, the crowd would no longer scramble against her for the right to visit Senior Brother Lu. Instead, their rivalry would turn inward, contending over whose cooking tasted better and whose dishes could leave the deepest impression on Senior Brother Lu.
Chapter 1034