“Stolen frost-lotus medicine?”
The words rolled out of a hundred floating spirit-cameras and across the Imperial Colosseum of Blazing-Flame City. A hundred thousand people in the stone stands turned to look at each other.
Down by the picket fence of the [Gu Family Flying Courtyard], Xiao Huo felt his heart skip.
His left thumb twitched toward the black iron ring on his hand. He stopped it halfway.
“Don’t panic, you idiot,” Poison-Elder Wu hissed inside his head. *“I helped you melt that lotus into your fire three years ago.
No alchemist alive can smell it unless they cut open your dantian. Play the victim. Turn the crowd before they look at the boy.”*
Xiao Huo let out a slow breath.
He wiped cabbage mud off his cheek with a torn white sleeve. Then he bowed to the stands, and a sad, brave little smile crossed his handsome face. He had practiced that smile in a bronze mirror for three years.
