What appeared before Chu Junlin's eyes was a conference room.
The meeting hall was enormous—it was as if the walls of the entire floor had been knocked down to create one single space. It was filled with chairs, enough to accommodate two to three thousand people.
And at this moment, those rows upon rows of chairs were already packed with people, each one dressed in identical black suits, with a dragon-shaped emblem pinned to their chests—an emblem Chu Junlin recognized all too well.
Especially when thousands of icy-cold gazes simultaneously fixed on a single person, the sheer pressure bearing down on you was enough to break even the strongest of nerves.
Under this weight, beads of sweat began to form on Chu Junlin's forehead.
As a young master raised in the imperial capital since childhood, he felt true fear for the first time in his life.
Not the fear of being beaten, but the fear of suddenly coming face-to-face with something so vast and overwhelming that he couldn't even begin to comprehend it.
It was as though he were nothing more than an ant in comparison.
"Young Master Chu, this way, please."
A man in black led him through that sea of darkness, toward the very front of the banquet hall.
Chu Junlin's legs had gone weak, but he forced himself to hold it together and hide it, following stiffly behind the man.
None of the men in black spoke; they simply stared silently at this unfamiliar intruder.
Chu Junlin was guided to one of the chairs in the very front row and seated.
The entire row he was sitting in was almost completely empty, which meant many important people had yet to arrive—important figures, no less.
"The young lady will be here shortly. Please wait a moment," the man in black said, then turned and walked away.
Chu Junlin sat in his chair, shifting uncomfortably from time to time. It wasn't that the chair was uncomfortable—it was that he felt completely out of place.
Within just a few minutes, he had turned his head more than once to glance back at the thousands of men in black behind him, each time only daring to steal a quick look before snapping his head back around.
Just how many men like this did that woman, Liu Yutong, actually have?
And these were only the ones he could see.
Earlier, his father had said Liu Yutong had several thousand such men under her command, and he had thought it was an exaggeration. Now, it seemed his father had undersold it.
Just as his mind was wandering, the doors to the banquet hall were pushed open once more.
This time, it wasn't one person—it was a whole group.
Leading the way was a row of young men in black suits, each radiating an extraordinary air.
Behind them followed several young men and women.
Chu Junlin recognized a few of them—Shangguan Ling'er, Shen Cheng, and others he had seen at the Imperial Capital Club.
As for those striking young men in black, aside from recognizing one infuriating fellow who wore gold-rimmed glasses, he didn't know a single one of them.
But these people weren't the main event.
After they entered, they automatically stepped aside to the two sides, as if waiting for someone else to appear.
Chu Junlin's heart began to race.
Then he heard it—the sound of high heels clicking on the floor, drawing closer from outside.
Click. Click. Click.
In an instant, the thousands of people in the banquet hall fell utterly silent.
Chu Junlin found himself rising to his feet involuntarily, his eyes locked on the doors.
Soon, at the entrance of the conference room, a striking figure in black appeared.
—Liu Yutong!
Today, Liu Yutong wore a black long dress with a stand-up collar that elegantly revealed her slender neck and delicate collarbones. A wide belt of the same color cinched her waist, accentuating her graceful figure to perfection.
Her long, jet-black hair was swept up into a high bun, secured with a dragon-shaped hairpin, revealing her smooth forehead and a face so cold and breathtaking it was almost blinding.
Her makeup was minimal—almost nonexistent—yet it was that kind of pristine, unadorned beauty that made people afraid to even look at her directly.
What drew the most attention, however, was the emblem on her chest—a golden dragon-shaped badge, gleaming brilliantly.
That was the highest-ranking symbol of the Ten Thousand Dragons Society. Only one person in the world had the right to wear it.
That person was Liu Yutong herself.
The instant Liu Yutong stepped into the banquet hall—
Whoosh!!!
Thousands of men in black rose to their feet simultaneously.
The sight was enough to make one's scalp tingle.
And then...
"Greetings to the young lady!" Thousands of voices in unison.
The wave of sound rolled through the room!
Chu Junlin was so startled by that thunderous greeting that he nearly jumped out of his skin. He even noticed the chandeliers overhead swaying from the force of the noise.
At the same time, seeing this scene, he realized just how wrong he had been.
When he had left the imperial capital, he had only planned to offer a half-hearted apology and be done with it—there was no way he was going to be intimidated by some twenty-year-old woman.
It wasn't until this very moment that he understood how utterly mistaken he was.
In that instant, he genuinely considered dropping to the ground and prostrating himself before her.
Liu Yutong walked up to the podium, step by step.
Chu Junlin's gaze followed her movements, and only then did he notice that on the wall behind her hung a large banner with four massive characters—"Ten Thousand Dragons, Return to One!"
Liu Yutong's gaze swept calmly across the entire hall, including the members of the Cloud Mountain Society and the high-ranking leaders of the Ten Thousand Dragons Society seated in the front rows.
"Sit."
Whoosh!
Everyone sat down at once.
With only one exception—Chu Junlin, who was standing in the front row, still dazed and frozen in place, having not yet processed what was happening.
Liu Yutong finally turned her eyes toward him, a faint smile curling at the corner of her lips.
"Young Master Chu, welcome to the Ten Thousand Dragons Society!"
