Several pavilions had been erected in front of the ancestral hall.
The clan patriarch stood before the hall, gazing at the people gathered in these pavilions. His palms were slick with sweat, and his face was drained of color.
The first to arrive had been the Yun family. When Madam Yun swept in with a large entourage and took her seat in silence, a sense of dread had gripped him. Though she was his junior and a woman at that, he did not dare utter a single harsh word to her. Beyond the line of guards at the rear stood Yun Jingzhou. The patriarch had hurried over with a deferential smile to greet them, terrified of saying anything out of place that might earn the Yun family's resentment. He had racked his brain, determined that the carefully prepared speech he had rehearsed must be delivered with the utmost decorum; he could not afford a single misstep.
Chapter 141