Jiang Chen watched Long Yinye with an amused half-smile.
He didn't believe for a moment that Long Yinye had slapped him to come to his rescue. Clearly, Long Yinye simply hadn't wanted Hong Tiantong to charge over and throw his life away.
In truth, if Hong Tiantong had gotten within three feet of Jiang Chen, the personal guards at his side would have torn the man to shreds without hesitation.
So while Long Yinye appeared to have slapped Hong Tiantong, he had in fact saved the man's life.
Jiang Chen remained perfectly composed, offering only a faint, noncommittal smile at Long Yinye's actions. The eight personal guards retreated behind him.
After this exchange, the other marquis heirs who had been currying favor with the Long siblings were privately shaken, wondering whether they had any business getting involved in a clash between titans—and whether they could even afford to.
Setting everything else aside, Hong Tiantong was a bloody enough lesson for anyone.
Looking back further, when had the Long Teng Marquis ever truly gotten the upper hand in any of his campaigns against the Marquis Jianghan estate?
At the Long Teng Marquis Manor's banquet, everyone had ganged up to make things difficult for Jiang Chen—yet it only ended up making him a sensational name overnight.
They had propped up the Dan King Court to disrupt the pill market in the Royal Capital, only for the Medicine Hall to crush it spectacularly.
They had sent assassins after Marquis Jianghan, Jiang Feng, and the outside world had spread word of his death—only for Jiang Feng to suddenly appear, having broken through the shackles of martial cultivation and advanced to True Qi Grandmaster!
Then they had sent a powerful cultivator to ambush Jiang Chen, but Jiang Chen emerged completely unscathed, while the Long Teng Marquis Manor's own True Qi Grandmaster, Long San, had been crippled and sent back—dead before long.
And now, Hong Tiantong had served as the Long Teng Marquis Manor's weapon, only to end up like this.
True, there was no clear evidence linking Jiang Chen to Long San's death or to the Medicine Hall's destruction of the Dan King Court, but when all the rumors from every direction were added together, it was impossible to exclude him from the picture.
In other words, across all the Long Teng Marquis's covert and overt confrontations with the Marquis Jianghan estate, the man hailed as the kingdom's foremost marquis hadn't gained a single advantage. Instead, he had lost troops and generals—even Long San, ranked among the top five True Qi Grandmasters of the Long Teng Marquis Manor, had perished without anyone knowing exactly how.
Thinking it over carefully, many marquis heirs who had secretly been hoping to ally themselves with the Long Teng Marquis quietly resolved to wait and watch, choosing not to offend either side.
After all, judging by the current state of affairs, the aggressively surging Long Teng Marquis was far from guaranteed victory.
At the very least, the Marquis Jianghan estate was no soft persimmon to be squeezed at will.
Bai Zhanyun, heir to the White Tiger Marquis, had provoked Jiang Chen and been left humiliated on multiple occasions.
Yan Yiming, heir to the Yanmen Marquis, had challenged Jiang Chen several times and now ducked away whenever he caught sight of him.
Hong Tiantong, heir to the Vermilion Bird Marquis—everyone could now see how that had turned out.
The crowd watched the wailing, completely broken Hong Tiantong with a hint of secret schadenfreude. With Hong Tiantong having failed the assessment, that meant one fewer formidable competitor in the race for first-rank marquis!
Just then, the examiner in charge of the arena announced, "Assessment time is up! All contestants, enter your respective arenas!"
"Stay calm, perform well, and don't put any pressure on yourselves." Jiang Chen didn't offer much in the way of instructions. With Xue Tong, the composed captain, leading the way, and with the help of the Eight Desolations Spirit-Gathering Formation, the second assessment should pose no real problem.
Half a stick of incense to topple eight puppet men equivalent to the Sixth Meridian True Qi.
Jiang Chen was confident that this assessment would pose no real difficulty—assuming their mental state held up. The Eight Desolations Spirit-Gathering Formation had just been given a live combat trial in the fight against Hong Tiantong's team, which naturally boosted their odds significantly.
After all, whether a formation had real combat experience or not made a very important difference.
During the battle against Hong Tiantong's team, the formation had been clunky at the start, and Jiang Chen's team hadn't seized the upper hand quickly.
But once they grew accustomed to the formation, its terrifying offensive and defensive capabilities were on full display—practically steamrolling Hong Tiantong's team.
"Take a guess, everyone—will Little Lord Yinye's team finish the assessment first, or will it be Miss Juxue's team?"
On the scene, some people couldn't help but step up to curry favor.
"Hehe, both of Dragon Marquis's inheritors are outstanding talents among their peers, hard to tell apart. That's really a tough question to stump us all."
"Look at the time—a third has already passed."
"I just hope my personal guard unit can pass smoothly."
"Exactly. You have to envy the Four Great Marquises. Sure, Hong Tiantong's team collapsed, but each of the Four Great Marquises gets two challenge slots. Even if Hong Tiantong's team failed, as long as the other team succeeds, they're still in."
The Four Great Marquises enjoyed an enormous advantage.
Time ticked by, second by second. Those assessors with relatively weaker strength felt their nerves tightening with each passing moment.
They knew this round of the assessment was extremely difficult. Unless a personal guard unit contained an overwhelmingly powerful force, toppling eight Sixth Meridian True Qi puppet men within half a stick of incense was nearly impossible.
The only ones who seemed relatively at ease were the inheritors of the Four Great Marquises.
All the other marquis heirs were more or less worried to some degree.
As for Jiang Chen, his heart was as still as calm water.
Half a stick of incense passed, and quickly half of that was gone. Many marquis heirs' breathing had already grown ragged. Jiang Chen's Wind-listening Ear could even hear their rapid, labored breaths.
Just then, the arena gates swung open— That meant a team had completed the assessment and was coming out!
"Look, the gates are opening! A team is about to emerge! Is it Little Lord Yinye or Miss Juxue's team? The answer is about to be revealed!"
"What's there to guess? It's either Yinye or Juxue—no one else. In the Eastern Kingdom, the most outstanding heirs belong to the Dragon Marquis lineage. That's beyond dispute."
"Right. No matter which team finishes first, they both represent the Dragon family."
The gates opened wide, and footsteps echoed from within.
Before any figures appeared, a hearty laugh rang out: "Ha ha, this assessment wasn't so hard! I wonder—what position did we come out in?"