"It's just some minor injuries," Ji Wuye replied, his voice strained as he winced through a pained smile.

Lian Rougang's delicate features twisted with concern, her brow furrowing as she gently dabbed at the crimson streak trickling from Ji Wuye's eye socket. Her lips parted, teeth worrying her lower lip, the subtle tremble of her hands betraying her calm facade.

"J-Junior..." Lian Rougang stammered, turmoil flickering across her porcelain features as she struggled to process the grizzly scene laid bare before them.

Before another word could emerge, the sharp staccato of hurried footsteps heralded the arrival of another group. A chorus of gasps and dismayed cries shattered the tense silence as their eyes fell upon Ji Wuye's form, their own disheveled appearances and hastily-applied bandages hanging askew.

"Wh-what happened? H-how?!" Qiu Xia's tremulous voice cracked like a whip as she surged forward, the first to react. With shaking hands, she tore at the linen wrappings encasing her lithe frame, the others following her lead in a flurry of unraveling cloth.

Her eyes, gleaming with unshed tears, raked over every grisly detail as her delicate brows knitted together in a mask of anguished disbelief. Tremors wracked her slender form as she hovered, desperate to assess the extent of his injuries.

On the other hand, a snarl ripped from Shen Bi's throat, the diminutive Senior Sister's aura flaring with the scorching intensity of her outrage. "WHO DARES?!" she roared, petite frame quivering as dfactured fury rolled off her in waves. Her piercing glare whipped around the area, daring anyone to meet her blazing eyes. "WHO DARES to hurt my Junior?!"

"Shh...Senior," Ji Wuye hushed, the faint rasp of pain lacing his words as he reached out to gently pat her head in a placating gesture. But the motion only served to shower her upturned face with a fresh spatter of crimson, marring her twisted expression of wrath with macabre streaks. Shen Bi's breath stalled in her chest as her heart galloped, the sight of his blood igniting her rage into an inferno.

But eventually...

Tears sprang unbidden, spilling in glistening rivulets down her cheeks as a strangled cry tore its way past the lump in her throat. All around, the martial artists could only stare silent and indifferently.

A heartbeat of ringing silence stretched endlessly before Shen Bi's composure finally shattered. A guttural sob wrenched free as she lifted her anguished gaze to Ji Wuye's pale, blood-smeared visage, his faint, pained smile cleaving her heart asunder.

"J-Junior, yo-you..." Shen Bi's words withered on her tongue as she drank in the battered state of the man before her. Her petite frame quivered, awash in the visceral torrent of anger and anguish warring within.

Ji Wuye's calloused palm found her tear-stained cheek, his touch featherlight in a wordless attempt to soothe her roiling tempest of emotion. Before he could give voice to the reassurances poised on his bloodied lips, Lian Rougang and Qiu Xia shifted into motion.

In a deft tandem, the two Senior Sisters slipped in to brace Ji Wuye's flanks, lending him the support of their wiry frames.

"No ne-" He tensed, a fleeting protest flickering behind his eyes before resignedly acquiescing to their silent insistence. The grim set of their jaws and the shadows haunting their gazes smothered any objection before it could fully form.

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Unlike the blazing beacon of Shen Bi's fury, a palpable pall settled over Lian Rougang and Qiu Xia, weighing heavily upon their composed exteriors.

Though silent, the occasional furtive glance and flickering of their down-turned eyes betrayed the undercurrent of guilt lapping insistently beneath their stoic facades as they meticulously catalogued each wound, each insult scored into Ji Wuye's battered flesh.

"Don't cry, Junior. It's no use," Lian Rougang's soft murmur finally punctured the laden silence, her words stripped of their customary warmth. Her steely regard remained fixed on Shen Bi, the flinty edge of her tone forcing the younger woman's sobs into a strangled hush.

"But, Se--" Shen Bi's objection withered beneath the Arctic chill of Qiu Xia's warning glare, her lips forming a taut line as she swallowed the retort. Without asking him where they would go, the two Senior Sisters turned in unison, guiding his halting steps towards the entrance to the lower sect grounds.

Meanwhile, Li Rong, Su Xinyi, and Wei Xun could only watch in muted witness, their expressions inscrutable masks fractured by the hairline cracks of conflicted emotion, lips parted in silent dismay.

The weight of unvoiced guilt hunched their shoulders as their eyes trailed the trio's retreating forms, thrown into stark silhouette by the dying amber rays of the late afternoon sun.

"Sister Su, was it the right choice to tell them the truth?" Wei Xun exhaled a weary sigh, her plump, attractive figure cupping her hands as she sought answers in Su Xinyi's impassive profile.

Su Xinyi's attention remained transfixed on Ji Wuye's faltering gait, on the red smears of spilled blood in their wake. Her slender fingers drifted from her rosebud lips, a study in sublime poise. "Indeed, Sister Wei. Though mere blossoms amongst the sect, are we not women grown?" Her gentle tones shivered with a crystalline edge, belying the tumult simmering beneath her serene facade.

"Junior Sister Lian speaks truly; they have a right to the truth's harsh petals, cruel though the thorns may be." A tremulous breath fluttered from her as her jaw tensed against the anguished tremors threatening to shatter her elegant mask. Only when the storm had passed did she murmur once more, "They deserved to know the full bloom of it."

All around them, a miasma of tension hung thick in the air as Inner Disciples lingered, their reactions a kaleidoscope of furtive glances and open disdain. Some looks of smoldering resentment at Ji Wuye's bloodied figure.

"We need to make it clear to them - they're as stubborn as rocks," Su Xinyi continued, her cultured tone edged with thinly-veiled exasperation. For reasons inscrutable to the observing disciples, the Elders had withdrawn to confer in hushed tones just out of earshot, caused only serving to stoke the embers of confusion and escalate the tensions simmering through them.

On the other hand, the guests from other factions regarded the unfolding tableau with studied disinterest, their impassive masks belying the maelstrom they had silently witnessed from its incipient stirrings.

...

Amidst the roiling tide of discord, Mu Lan Rou remained an implacable island unto herself, her father's scathing diatribe washing over her like the merest ripple on a placid lake.

Raven tresses spilled like liquid silk over ivory shoulders as she steadfastly refused to gift her sire the solace of her regard, crimson eyes boring into Ji Wuye's battered figure with an intensity that bordered on obsession.

Every calloused palm cradling Shen Bi's porcelain cheek, each tender ministration beneath the fractured mask of his stoic composure - it was all silently catalogued, seared into Mu Lan Rou's consciousness with an almost predatory fascination.

Where others saw only violence and baseless cruelty, she perceived an ember of righteousness burning beneath the ashen veneer of Ji Wuye's disheveled facade.

"He's evil, Rou'er! Why do you defend the indefensible?" Elder Mu Lan Jiang bellowed, his words lashing like a whip as he thrust an accusing finger towards the object of his ire. Unlike the other Elders, he refused to listen that beggar story, clinging to his own convictions.

Now, seeing his beloved daughter's focus wander, her attention straying from his impassioned tirade, Mu Lan Jiang gentled his tone, a tremulous entreaty edging his gruff timbre. "My daughter, please... Please just follow my advice. That boy--"

His words withered in his throat as Mu Lan Rou's piercing regard at last found his, the weight of her stare driving the air from his lungs. Gone were the sweet innocence and timid obedience that had once danced in her emerald depths, banished beneath a veil of icy disdain that lanced straight through to his core.

In that fractured moment, he saw not the cherished girl clinging to his robes, but a stranger, aloof and untouchable, her eyes devoid of the warmth that had once been his solace.

The icy veil shattered in an instant, Mu Lan Rou's tightly leashed composure exploding in a tempest of raw emotion.

"YOU ARE TOO MUCH, FATHER!"

The words detonated like a thunderclap, her trembling frame quaking with the seismic force of her outburst.

For the first time in his life, Mu Lan Jiang found himself recoiling from the inferno blazing in his daughter's eyes - eyes that had never before regarded him with anything less than dutiful deference. Now, they bored into him with a ferocity that stole the breath from his lungs, molten with vicious defiance.

"I TOLD YOU, I'M JUST FINE WITH HIM! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE NOW?" Each sentence launched like a white-hot dagger, edged with the ragged desperation of unshed tears.

Mu Lan Rou's voice cracked and warped under the strain, shattering on the final accusation as the floodgates burst. Fat droplets traced glistening trails down her flushed cheeks, her shoulders heaving with the force of her convulsive sobs.

Realizing the attention they were drawing, Mu Lan Jiang quickly moved to diffuse the situation, dragging the conversation to a more private setting.