Right after watching Li Wanruo leave, Ye Fan turned to Ronald and glared at him for a brief moment.
Even though Ronald had pretty much saved him just now, he wasn't thankful whatsoever.
In fact, it made him hate Ronald even more.
After all, it was already humiliating enough for him to appear overwhelmed by a woman so effortlessly, but for Ronald to then swoop in, tell that exact woman to back off, and have her actually comply?
That was beyond unbearable, and made him seem completely weak infront of these elites and martial artists!
Ye Fan wanted to storm out of this Pavilion just like he did back at the trade show yesterday, but since he needed to obtain this sword urgently, he decided to stay and endure it for now.
Besides, he needed to ask Iris what she was doing and why she didn't follow accordingly to his original plan while confirming that she hadn't actually betrayed him.
With that in mind, Ye Fan subtly signaled Iris to follow him while she was glaring at him, and then made his way to a section of the Pavilion where nobody was around.
"Iris, tell me what's going on here. Why did you defend Ronald and offer your loyalty to him all of a sudden, do you perhaps have a better plan in mind?" Ye Fan asked in a contemplative tone.
He was almost certain that Iris would never betray him, and so he had thought that she came up with a better plan for him and was willing to hear her out.
"Master, I believe that if I lurk by the side of the Young Master of the Kuangge family, I will be able to monitor the Kuangge family and obtain more valuable information for you." Iris tried her best to surpress the disgust that she had felt for Ye Fan and came up with a plausible excuse in order for Ye Fan to not get suspicious of her actions.
She knew how cruel Ye Fan can be to his subordinates, as long as he has even a slight bit of suspicion towards someone, he won't hesitate to eliminate them.
"I see... wow, I didn't even think about doing that until now. As expected of my right hand woman!" Ye Fan's mood did a complete 180 and he nodded in satisfaction, "Okay, I'll allow you to lurk besides him then, make sure to notify me about everything he does."
Ye Fan didn't doubt Iris at all, after all he also considered this western beauty to be his woman, but he hasn't laid his hands on her yet because he still wanted to maintain a boss-subordinate relationship with her until he was certain that she had fallen in love with him.
He also wanted to maintain his image as a great figure infront of all of his subordinates.
After confirming that Iris hasn't actually betrayed him yet, he quickly left the area, still completely oblivious to the intense killing intent that was being thrown at his way.
***
'I swear, would rather do anything else than complete this shitty plot right now.' Ronald couldn't help but inwardly complain to himself as he was waiting inside of his VIP booth scanning the venue.
Ronald had remembered that the original plot of the Pavilion could be categorized into two sections.
In the first section of the Pavilion plot, he was suppose to be slapped in the face by the protagonist Ye Fan after troubling Iris, the fake maid that Ye Fan had implanted.
Then on the second section, Ronald wanted to buy 'The Imperial Inkstone of Prosperity' for Luna.
Ye Fan, who eventually knew what Ronald originally came to the Pavilion for through Iris, had maliciously started a bidding war against Ronald for the Inkstone with no actual intentions of buying it after he saw the seller and Ronald conversing with each other.
And of course, Ronald, being the brainless dog licking villain he was, started placing bids much higher than its market value, making him eventually become the laughingstock amongst all of the elitists.
Afterwards, he starts complaining about how the Pavilion had scammed him, and threatens to take the entire Pavilion down, which causes Li Wanruo to intervene and beat him up after she had kicked him out of the Pavilion.
Clearly the first section of the Pavilion plot didn't develop properly accordingly to the original plot, so Ronald was determined to at least make a redemption and sucessfully complete the second section of the plot.
There's no way he won't be able to make a fool out of himself this time around, right?
Questioning the legitimacy of the Pavilion coupled with the fact that he had actually already technically offended Li Wanruo, even if she had no bottom line, there was no way she'd actually be able to keep a straight face after this.
Just as Ronald was think to himself about the plot, he heard footsteps headed towards his booth and saw Iris holding a teapot.
"Here's the tea you wanted, Young Master Kuangge." Iris then started to lean closer to Ronald and poured tea just like an obedient maid, while secretly huffing in Ronald's scent.
Every time Iris had sniffed in Ronald's scent, she couldn't help but get more and more addicted to his scent, and it had gotten to the point where she wasn't even trying to hide it anymore.
'Do you have a stuffy nose or something?' Ronald looked at Iris supiciously. He had noticed the sniffing from Iris ever since she came over to his booth, but he didn't think much about it at the time until the sniffing had sounded louder.
Nevertheless, that's not any of his concerns right now.
He just wants the plot to continue normally and then go home.
So Ronald ignored Iris's weird behavior for now and continued closely scanning the venue for the inkstone seller for the rest of the day.
***
As night begin to slowly approach and it was clear that the Pavilion was beginning to wrap things up for the day, Ronald was absolutely stunned and livid.
Why?
Because he couldn't find the inkstone seller anywhere despite scanning the entire venue from head to toe countless times!
'...'
'WHERE THE HELL IS THE GOD DAMN FUCKING INKSTONE?'
'JUST AS I THOUGHT THE PLOT DEVIATING FROM THE ORIGINAL PLOT WAS THE WORST IT COULD GET, THEY JUST HAD TO FUCK ME OVER AND REMOVE THIS PART OF THE PLOT COMPLETELY!'
'WHAT NEXT? I BECOME THE PROTAGONIST AND EVERY HEROINE ENDS UP FALLING IN LOVE FOR ME?'
'DAMN THIS PLOT.'