Li Qingmu took three measured steps forward.
He stopped exactly where the ancestral hall's central array lines converged, hands still clasped behind his back as he kept his posture relaxed yet unyielding.
He said nothing.
The silence was longer than a piece of string.
Patriarch Zhen's face twisted.
"Do you even know your crime, boy?"
Li Qingmu's gaze went half-lidded.
The fierce stare didn't seem to bother him at all.
"What crime did this son-in-law commit?"
Tap. Tap. Tap.
The Patriarch's index finger drummed repeatedly against the golden armrest.
"You married into the Zhen family. Not the other way around. You were told—clearly, emphatically—that men who marry in have no authority to take wives or concubines. None. Zero. You have spat on the face of the entire Zhen lineage by daring to plan this farce of a wedding. You aren't even an immortal official yet you strut around collecting women like they're spirit herbs in a roadside stall!"
