Bai Xiaochun was instantly on guard.
“Don’t tell me he got caught?” Considering what Bai Xiaochun knew about the little turtle, he didn’t have any confidence that he could keep a secret. Surprisingly, though, the Saint-Emperor never came knocking. A few days later, the banquets came to an end, and the turtle still was not back. Bai Xiaochun was extremely nervous at this point.
Ironically, there was one person who was even more nervous than Bai Xiaochun, and that was Heavenly Marquis Liu, who was still on watch outside of his blessed land.
“Dammit! What’s going on here? Why has Bai Xiaochun been so calm and quiet? My intuition can’t be wrong! He definitely has a secret master plan!!”
As the two of them sat there anxiously, the last formalities to end the banquets occurred.
Bells rang out from the imperial palace, drawing all of the officials for a final meeting in the palace hall. It would be the last distribution of lotus seeds by the Saint-Emperor, and would also involve a ceremonial expression of thanks by the citizens.
As people gathered, Bai Xiaochun was much quieter than everyone around him. He was in quite a perturbed state of mind, and was constantly glancing around at the expressions of the people around him, hoping to notice if anyone was looking at him strangely.
Eventually, the Saint-Emperor strode out and took his place in front of everyone. After looking around briefly, he smiled warmly.
“My dear subjects, I have already distributed 800 lotus seeds. Now, we will give all cultivators under the heavens a chance to acquire one of the final 200, by distributing them to the open market.
“It is my wish that our Saint-Emperor Dynasty will be just like lotus seeds that slowly grow into mature, beautiful lotuses that exist for all eternity!”
In response, the gathered officials all clasped hands formally and joined their voices to respond.
“May the Saint-Emperor Dynasty exist for all eternity!”
Despite how nervous he was, Bai Xiaochun joined in with them.
The Saint-Emperor’s smile grew even warmer when he heard the voices of the hosts of officials. Then he waved his hand, unleashing the power of his archaean cultivation base. Instantly, a holy aura swept out, causing an enormous hand to appear high above. The water in the heavenly pond rippled, and numerous lotus pods floated up to the surface.
The hand descended, sweeping over the pond to harvest the lotus seeds. However, this time… when the hand swept over the pods, no seeds came out!!
The pods opened to reveal… empty holes where the seeds should have been!!
The huge hand suddenly stopped moving.
“……..” The Saint-Emperor was stunned, as were all of the court officials. Eyes went wide, and numerous streams of divine sense suddenly sprang out to check the situation.
Chen Su, Gu Tianjun, and the scholarly celestial were all flabbergasted.
Bai Xiaochun’s heart was already pounding as he sent his divine sense out. When he saw all of the numerous empty seed pods, he immediately plastered a look of shock onto his face.
The Saint-Emperor’s expression slowly sank into something very grim. Waving his hand again, he caused more of the seed pods to rise to the surface and open up.
Yet again, almost no seeds could be seen, only empty holes…. The court officials all gasped, and a moment later, devolved into a hubbub.
“This… this….”
“Where are the lotus seeds?”
“How could this be happening. Why are there no lotus seeds?!?!” All of a sudden, Bai Xiaochun’s voice rang out in extremely loud and exaggerated fashion.
“Heavens! How could this be happening!? Don't tell me the heavenly dragonfish ate them all!?!?!?”
Amid the cacophony of shocked exclamations, the Saint-Emperor’s expression turned even grimmer. Then, he performed an incantation gesture and waved his finger at the heavenly pond, sending a shocking stream of divine sense into the water. The sky went dim, and a huge wind kicked up as the water seethed and all of the lotus pods in its depths rose to the surface!
Whether they were mature or not didn’t matter. All of them rose up and then opened, over 10,000 in total. When the crowd saw the result, they were stunned.
Everyone was shaken to the core as they saw… that every single seed pod, without exception, was almost completely empty!
If that were all there were to it, it might not be a big deal. But the Saint-Emperor, the three celestials, all of the demigods, and even the devas saw… that on one of the lotus pods was little turtle, munching away at a fist-sized lotus seed.
When Bai Xiaochun saw the little turtle, his eyes went wide, and his heart began to pound even harder. He had assumed the little turtle had secretly eaten a few thousand seeds. Never could he have imagined that he would have eaten this many.
“Dammit! What kind of turtle is that!? How dare he secretly eat the Saint-Emperor Dynasty’s immortal lotus seeds!!”
“Look at how many of the pods are empty! He must have eaten tens of thousands of seeds!”
“Dammit, I’m gonna turn him into turtle soup!!”
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Chapter
1070: Bai Xiaochun Made Me Do It!
The anger in the shouting of the crowd couldn’t have been more apparent, and the Saint-Emperor’s expression continued to turn grimmer. Suddenly, he reached out with his right hand. The little turtle was incredibly fast, and usually was able to vanish without a trace, but in this case, he was no match for the Saint-Emperor.
Even as the little turtle prepared to teleport away, a magical sealing settled down in the area surrounding him. He struggled, but to no avail. A moment passed, and then a powerful force grabbed onto him and sent him flying into the imperial palace in a beam of light, right into the outstretched hand of the Saint-Emperor!
The turtle was clearly frightened, and fought back with all four of his legs, but it did no good. As soon as he realized he had been captured by such a terrifying figure, he shrieked, “I was forced to do it! It was Bai Xiaochun! Bai Xiaochun made me do it! He's the ringleader in this whole thing! You people have no idea! He’s a walking disaster! He forced me to steal the lotus seeds! I'm completely innocent! I'm the victim!!”
When the cultivators in the infuriated crowd heard the little turtle’s words, they slowly turned to look at Bai Xiaochun.
To have so many people staring at him caused Bai Xiaochun to break out into a cold sweat. Although he knew that the little turtle was a scoundrel who wasn’t exactly the trustworthy type, he had never imagined that it would immediately sell him out.
What was worse was that the little turtle had personally taken what was likely tens of thousands of lotus seeds, and had only given a thousand to Bai Xiaochun. Inwardly, Bai Xiaochun was cursing up a storm, but on the outside, he simply looked startled. Then he leaped to his feet and pointed an accusatory finger at the little turtle.
“Who are you? And how do you know my name?! Your Majesty, this is a conspiracy! Somebody is definitely framing me!!” From the rage that seemed to echo in his voice, he was clearly furious at being unjustly accused.
If it weren’t for the matter of the heavenly dragonfish, the surrounding cultivators would likely have been convinced. But now, it seemed obvious that this little turtle was working together with Bai Xiaochun!
The turtle was accusing Bai Xiaochun, whereas Bai Xiaochun was accusing the turtle. Obviously, they were the seed-thieves, and now, they had been caught red-handed!