When she heard the butler’s voice, Jiang Tong became even more panicked than before, Jiang Lian’s words echoing in her ear. That person outside would never let their family off the hook!
She only came here today because she knew that Jiang Shuxuan only rarely stepped into the Jiang Manor, and she only came to see Madam Jiang, but not only did the woman react in such a way, he came back at this timing too!
If Madam Jiang was still one to let people go based on past graces, but Jiang Shuxuan was truly cold-hearted, and he wouldn’t give anyone a second chance. This was something that Jiang Tong knew for sure.
“Where’s my mother?” The cold voice rang outside, but it seemed to penetrate through the walls. Even at home, he was still as cold as ever.
“Madam is in the kitchen…” The butler paused in his sentence for a moment, as if he wanted to say something.
Jiang Shuxuan took off his jacket and handed it to the butler, folding up the sleeves of his shirt as he walked towards the kitchen.
The moment he arrived at the door to the kitchen, he saw someone that didn’t belong here and he paused, his expression suddenly becoming colder and harsher.
Upon seeing Jiang Shuxuan come back, Madam Jiang glanced towards Jiang Tong before saying, “Butler, please see this visitor out.”
She had been quite happy about being able to cook for her son in such a long while, but she hadn’t expected the wet blanket in the form of Jiang Tong to dampen her spirits.
Who did she think she was, stretching her hands into their family. Did she think that she was dumb enough to be swayed by her words?!
Jiang Tong finally reacted, and Madam Jiang’s disdainful expression coupled with what happened that afternoon almost made her black out from regret and shock, but she bit her lips and forced herself to stay awake. She couldn’t just leave like this, she wouldn’t get another chance like this ever again!
“Young Master Jiang, my father was just too worried about me…” The more afraid she was, the clearer she was with her words, and just from her tone, it seemed as if she was suffering from a great injustice.
Jiang Shuxuan only raised his hand to stop her from continuing with what she was about to say. “Ignoring the secret order and bringing people into the trial tower, almost destroying the balance of the entire ancient martial arts world that has been kept for thousands of years… You should be thankful that your ancestors were the protectors of the tower, or else you would have been dead by now.”
“Butler, take her away and watch them move out of the core district. They are not allowed to ever set foot in this place ever again.” Jiang Shuxuan gave the butler a meaningful gaze, and the butler had the servants take Jiang Tong away from Jiang Manor.
Jiang Tong was as stunned as a wooden chicken, not fighting back or reacting at all for that matter as she was taken away.
After that, Madam Jiang picked up her vegetables again and glanced at Jiang Shuxuan. “Are you still with that girl from the outside world?”
Jiang Shuxuan walked into the kitchen and nodded without a second thought.
“Absurd!” Madam Jiang’s expression darkened and she slammed the innocent veggie back onto the kitchen counter.
She could keep her calm facade when it was in front of Jiang Tong because she was just an outsider and she would take Jiang Shuxuan’s side over hers any day, but now that he acknowledged it himself, she just couldn’t keep her anger down.
All of the servants nearby almost stopped breathing and made their way out quickly and silently, not daring to eavesdrop on family matters such as this.
“I’m not fooling around, Mother. I’m serious.” Jiang Shuxuan took some vegetables and started chopping them up rhythmically.
After the butler sent Jiang Tong away, he came back to the scene that was filled with the scent of gunpowder and didn’t know what to do for a moment.
“You’re serious? This is your way of being serious? Ever since you were little, I’ve always told you to not interact with anyone from the outside world!” Madam Jiang shouted, her expression as if she was about to have a heart attack. “Don’t you know that you can’t…”
“Madam!” The butler was shocked and immediately went over to support her, cutting off her words as he did. “Young Master has learned how to cook since the last time he came back, let him cook dinner for today, yes? Please calm yourself down, Madam.”
The butler helped her over to sit on the sofa in the living room, and all of a sudden she remembered what happened the last time and looked over at the butler. “Did you already know this since the last time I came back?”
The butler was silent, neither confirming nor denying her words.
The last time Jiang Shuxuan came back, he could see that the young man was extremely serious about his relationship judging from his attitude and rare tenderness, so he lied to Madam Jiang.
“Madam, you know how Young Master is. He can’t be swayed from any decision he makes, not even the elder council. In any case, his position and power are high enough that he doesn’t need the help of anyone in that regard…” The butler said with a low and steady tone.
In response to this, Madam Jiang only shook her head with a somewhat blanked out expression. “It would be fine if that were the only problem, but the legacy of the Jiang family cannot be tainted. The heavenly will…”
The butler couldn’t hear what she was saying because she was muttering at that point, but Jiang Shuxuan was already done with the first dish so he immediately went over to help serve it on the dinner table. As he did, he discreetly leaned towards Jiang Shuxuan and said, “Don’t distress Madam any further, Young Master.”
Jiang Shuxuan stood there for a moment, his fingers touching the jade pendant that was handing on his neck before he walked towards Madam Jiang and crouched down in front of her. “Don’t worry, Mother, I’ve already gone against it twice.” He pointed towards the sky.
Madam Jiang was shocked greatly as she stared at him in disbelief, before getting up from the couch and checking up and down on her son with trembling fingers. “Let me see if you have any injuries, you brat, did you think it was easy to raise you? You’ve never worried me at all in all these years, and the one time you do it’s with something as big as this…”
“I’m fine, please don’t be worried.” Jiang Shuxuan held Madam Jiang’s hand and looked at her with a steady gaze. “I won’t let anything happen to me.”
“What about her…?” Madam Jiang muttered as she sniffled. The girl that he liked was just a normal person, how could she deal with it…
Jiang Shuxuan only smiled, a rare gentle expression blooming on his face along with a tint of pride. “Her? I think the natural laws of the world are more afraid of her than the other way around.”
“Huh?” Madam Jiang evidently hadn’t expected such an answer, and she couldn’t react for quite a while.
Jiang Shuxuan didn’t explain any further and only smiled at her before going back into the kitchen.
He had really changed…
Her son had always been as cold as ice, and had never smiled like that before, not to mention cook? What kind of girl was it that brought such change in him?
But this was the heavenly law they were talking about, and after some thinking, she called Jiang Han that was currently in some unknown corner of the world.
How wonderful would it be if they were born in a regular family? If they were, her son wouldn’t have to carry such a burden at such a young age, and not even have freedom of choice for such an important thing in his life.
The members of the Jiang family couldn’t do as they pleased.
At the moment, Madam Jiang didn’t know how much of a cheat character her future daughter-in-law was.
In the kitchen, Murong Feiye rubbed his chin as he looked at Jiang Shuxuan cook. “You started doing these things, how unbelievable!”
“There’s more than just cooking,” Jiang Shuxuan replied. Feeding dogs and feeding birds… And giving dogs baths, he learned a lot!
Murong Feiye: “… You weren’t possessed, by anything, right?”
Jiang Shuxuan only turned around and fixed him with an unamused stare.
“What, do you want to fight? I’m not afraid of you you know!”
Jiang Shuxuan didn’t even want to spare another word with this person, focusing on the last steps of his current dish and tasting it.
Not bad, he should make this for Gu Xiqiao sometime.
There were still some dishes left, but Jiang Shuxuan seemed to have lost the motivation to cook, leaving the rest to the helpers as he walked upstairs with his phone in hand, holding the jade pendant tightly.
He had been extremely busy with the matters of the ancient martial arts world these few days, and after the confrontation with Madam Jiang he couldn’t help but feel down. That was until the phone call connected, and the familiar cool yet warm voice spoke to him from the other side of the line, sending warmth to the bottom of his heart.
***
“Brother Jiang, please don’t burn yourself out.” Gu Xiqiao could discern the fatigue in the young man’s voice. This was the first time he had called him while he was busy instead of after everything was done with at the quickest speed, so something must have happened.
For him to call her out of the blue tonight, something must have happened, and Gu Xiqiao felt her heart ached slightly at the thought. After she hung up on the call, she stood there by the window and stared outside worriedly for a long while.
“Beauty Qiao, do you want me to help you see what Big Jiang is doing?” The system spirit asked, feeling quite sad upon seeing its host in such low spirits.
Gu Xiqiao breathed deeply. There was nothing she could do right now except improve herself as much as she could.
After getting herself out of her funk, another phone call rang, but from Cheng Zhou this time.
“Gu!” Cheng Zhou’s voice was tinged with excitement. “‘Empire Under Siege’ has passed preliminary censorship, and it’ll be premiering the day after tomorrow!”
“That quickly?” Gu Xiqiao was quite surprised. Wouldn’t it be at least half a month after this?
“The distributors were so swept off their feet by the movie that they gave us their a reserved position! I already posted about it on Weibo, go look?” Cheng Zhou seemed to have been busy, so he hung up after telling her the news.
Gu Xiqiao sat on the sofa and tapped on Weibo, reposting Cheng Zhou’s post of the movie premiere.
For A Millennium: //@(Verified) ChengZhou: Empire Under Siege will premiere tomorrow midnight. [link]
Then came Li Yu’s repost, Song Guanjing’s repost, and the reposts of the staff and cast.
Most movies started promotions at least one week earlier, but even though this one only started promoting the day before, it still caused a great buzz.
The next day, every movie theater was filled to the brim with people waiting to see ‘Empire Under Siege’. Most of these people were fans of Li Yu and Song Guanjing, some were fans of the original novels, and there were even a few fans of Gu Xiqiao’s.
At the same time, four-dimensional glasses were provided at every large cinema.
This sort of technology was immensely interesting for the youngsters, and another interesting point was the danmaku comments that could be toggled on and off.
“AAAA LI YU IS SO HANDSOME!!!”
“Who’s this actress that plays Princess Qixia? Can someone tell me?”
“Her Weibo @ is For A Millenium, join our beauty’s harem!”
All the comments, in the beginning, were talking about the actors’ pretty faces, until the first climax of the film came.
The unparalleled beauty Princess Qixia jumped off the city walls with a smile that made it seem as if she had let go of all her ties in the mortal world, and everyone’s eyes were attracted to that beautiful last hurrah of the princess.
Everyone thought back to the lively beauty at the beginning of the movie, and that princess was lying in the snow quietly as if she were asleep.
In the large snowy fields, she was alone.
Because of the virtual glasses, this scene was even more realistic, and the audience felt as if it had happened right in front of their eyes.
“B*stard crown prince, the princess is dead!!!”
“Why didn’t you come back sooner? She didn’t need to die!”
“…”
At that moment, they all seemed to have forgotten that the crown prince was their favorite Li Yu.
The last emotional point was when Concubine Zuo Qiuxiang died, and many people even cried.
The movie played until two past midnight, but many people didn’t even want to leave, instead buying tickets for the next viewing as they sniffled. Some girls even bought large packs of tissues and popcorn, inviting all of their besties to come to see this movie together with them.
All of the screenings were packed to a brim, and after a single night, the movie was a smashing success!
The two leads for the movie became even more popular, but the ones that got the most attention were two side characters!
Haters and keyboard warriors existed everywhere, and upon seeing them become popular because of this one movie, they all started spreading hate comments out of nowhere.
“Not even one movie critic has given a solid review yet, they definitely had bots and bought tickets themselves!”
“I heard that those two went in through the back door, I’m jealous that beautiful people can have it so easy…”
“How disgusting! Let’s not give in to the dark side of the industry!”
At this moment, a renowned movie critic posted on Weibo.
“I’m sorry for posting this review late, but this movie was too alluring that I watched it three times…In all honesty, I just wanted to see a movie directed by Director Cheng and purely went there because of Li Yu and Song Guanjing’s popularity, but I never expected the one that surprised me the most was a rookie—The actress of Princess Qixia. It has been a long time since I’ve last seen such impactful acting, she’s truly a god-given talent… In conclusion, she’s a beauty like jade, with a smile that could turn cities upside down.”
After that came pages upon pages of posts from critics all over China that suddenly remembered they had a job to do.
After so many good reviews on the movie, all of the haters’ faces were smacked hard, yet none of them dared to say anything more.