Chapter 206: Rivals (1)
Since we had rejected this offer, there was no longer a reason for us to stay.
The others in the room looked like they wanted to chase us out as soon as possible, but they didn't dare make a sound.
It wasn't because they were afraid of offending me, but rather they were afraid of offending Long Shui Ling.
Now that they knew her identity, there was no way that they would treat her as just a normal member of Elementia anymore.
They were all going to try to curry favour with her since she was the young miss of the Long Family.
But before we left, Long Shui Ling suddenly turned around and said, "I hope that you will not treat me any differently because of this."
The people sitting around the table couldn't help being shocked when they heard this.
After all, that was exactly what they had been planning on doing all this time.
But now that she had said this, it wasn't as if they could do it anymore.
Bing Lan was the only one who wasn't surprised by this. She just calmly said with a smile, "Of course not. We never had any intentions of doing so." She swept her eyes across the table before saying, "From the very beginning, we promised your family that you would be nothing more than a normal member of our guild and we intend to keep that promise."
After she said this, all of the people sitting at the table looked down.
Whether it was out of embarrassment or something else, they all seemed like they had been suppressed.
But that was the point of Bing Lan saying all of this.
If she hadn't, she was certain that these people would have taken advantage of learning Long Shui Ling's identity to do something.
Long Shui Ling looked at Bing Lan, looking right into her eyes.
After a moment of silence, she said with a smile, "Thank you."
Then she turned around and pulled me away. She didn't seem to care about the rest of our group who just stared at her in a daze, but they eventually followed us out.
Once we left the room, Bing Lan suddenly said, "Alright, let's get to the main topic now. Let's talk about the Tower of Heaven."
When they heard this, all of the people at the table became serious.
This was what they had thought they had gathered here for, but they had been caught off guard by the matter of Long Shui Ling.
Still, it seemed like the guild master was still planning on talking about this.
So they started their conversation.
But as they discussed this, Bing Lan couldn't help looking at the entrance to this room once more before giving a small sigh.
"Guild master, is something wrong?"
Bing Lan shook her head and said, "No, let's focus on this meeting."
…
After we left the room, we didn't get into the elevator right away.
Everyone stopped and looked at Long Shui Ling with inquisitive looks, as if they wanted to ask something, but were hesitant to ask. But in this situation, there was only one thing that they could ask.
Long Shui Ling also knew this, so she looked at them and said with a sigh, "Yes, it's as the guild master said, I am the young miss of the Long Family."
The moment that she said this, all of them looked like they wanted to say something.
But before they could say anything, she raised her hand to stop them before saying, "I know that there's a lot that you want to ask, but there's something that I want to say before that."
She took a deep breath before saying, "I'm not just the young miss of the Long Family, I am myself. What my family is doesn't have anything to do with me."
As soon as her voice fell, the four of them opened and closed their mouths a few times before revealing looks like they were constipated.
There were many different thoughts that were racing through their minds, but it wasn't as if they could say anything after what Long Shui Ling had said.
So they turned to look at me for help.
I just gave a shrug and said, "It's her choice, so you should respect it."
As soon as I said this, they all looked at me with gazes that were filled with blame.
It seemed that they had realized that I knew this all along and were now blaming me for not telling them about this earlier.
But I didn't say a thing.
I didn't even feel any guilt since I had done it on purpose.
Since both of us had said all of this, there wasn't anything that they could do.
In the end, they just dropped this matter and treated Long Shui Ling like they did before which made Long Shui Ling secretly let out a sigh of relief. At the same time, she secretly moved to my side and grabbed my sleeve to pinch it a bit for morale support.
After accepting this, we moved over to the elevator to take it down to the lobby.
There was a lot that had happened today, so we were all heading home to digest this and then gather tomorrow morning to come up with a plan for the competition.
Or at least that was the plan.
But when we came out of the elevator, we found that there were people waiting there for us.
I didn't recognize a single one of these people, but it was clear that they were waiting for us since they were surrounding the elevator exit when the doors opened.
It was clear that they weren't planning on letting us go anywhere.
We still stepped out of the elevator since we didn't want to inconvenience anyone else, even though they blocked the elevator itself.
After coming out, I asked, "Who are you?"
One of them, a black haired young man with jet black eyes came forward as their representative and asked back, "Who are we?"