Chapter 367

Chapter 367: What a Grand Scheme

At that time, everyone gathered in one room: Jiang Yu Wei and his brothers, the fifth brother Jiang Liu Ting, the two sisters-in-law including Lin Jing Xuan, and Jiang Si Ying. This was Yu Zhi Yi’s idea. She didn’t like it when men tried to “protect” the family by carrying every storm alone while leaving the women in the dark. That only made the women look foolish and left them unable to handle danger. If the Jiang Clan ever angered a powerful group that seemed friendly on the surface, the men might hide the truth to avoid alerting the enemy. Maybe the women wouldn’t leak anything because they knew nothing, but that ignorance would turn into a fatal weakness. If the enemy struck through the women, they would likely hit the mark on the first try.

She had seen cases like this in the files she handled. Zhang San’s family and Li Si’s family had been neighbors for four generations and were as close as kin. Later, both men went into the same line of work. Zhang San had real talent and grew his trade. Li Si didn’t have the same skill. If he had just kept to small business, he wouldn’t get rich, but he could still feed his family. But he wouldn’t face the truth. Seeing Zhang San flipping ready-made clothes for big profit, he tried to copy him. His mind wasn’t quick enough. He paid a lot for hundreds of garments but could only earn one or two copper coins per piece. After moving hundreds of items over half a month, he made just a little more than one or two taels of silver. Zhang San, with a similar batch, could make five or six taels. If Li Si had kept earning two taels a month, that would have been okay. But one time both tried fresh vegetables and fruit. Zhang San was sweet-tongued and sharp. He had already opened channels to several rich households. He sold each batch to those clients and finished within an hour-saving time and earning more, since rich houses paid fast and well. Each batch gave him at least two taels. Two taels a day meant sixty to seventy taels a month.

Li Si had no channels. He just bought and sold in the open market, in summer no less. He could sell, but his day’s earnings weren’t even a fraction of Zhang San’s. Over time, his jealousy grew into hate, and he finally did something evil to Zhang San. Zhang San never expected harm from his friend and paid dearly. Later, Li Si cried and begged for forgiveness. Zhang San forgave him for the sake of their long friendship. For several reasons, he didn’t tell either family what had happened. He told his own family nothing. So when Li Si came the next day with a bag of poison and asked to help in the kitchen, Zhang San’s family felt no need to guard against him. More than a dozen people from four generations died at their own dinner table. Zhang San lived only because he had gone out to talk business and didn’t eat at home. When he saw his family’s bodies, he went mad.

Yu Zhi Yi didn’t want to judge from the sidelines, but she didn’t want the people around her to become deaf and blind like the Zhang Clan. As members of the family, they had the right to know where they stood.

She first had Jiang Liu Yi explain the Hidden Realm and the Gao Clan. Then she began to talk about the Chen father and daughter: “If these birth charts are real, then the two of them lied to you back then.”

Jiang Yu Wei was stunned and blurted out: “That’s impossible.” It wasn’t that he doubted Yu Zhi Yi’s skill. It was that what she said overturned what he had believed for more than twenty years. Most of all, he had seen it himself when Chen Tie Sheng took a blade for his father.

Jiang Yu Chuan was also puzzled-he had been there too. He asked, “Jin’er, could there be a misunderstanding? Several of us were present. We saw Chen Tie Sheng breathe his last.”

Yu Zhi Yi said calmly: “He didn’t die right away after he was hurt, did he?”

The Jiang brothers looked at each other and nodded: “Right. He held on for a while-about an hour-and then died when the treatment failed.”

Yu Zhi Yi nodded: “That fits. Before he ‘died,’ did he find an excuse to send all of you out and keep only Chen Ruo Lan with him to ‘hear his last words’?”

Jiang Yu Wei stared, surprised. Even though he had seen her skill many times, he was still shocked each time she showed more. “That’s exactly what happened,” he said.

He remembered it clearly because he’d wanted to compete with Jiang Yu Chuan back then. He waited by the door, hoping to catch Chen Ruo Lan when she came out, so the first person she saw would be him. Maybe then she’d forget his brother and fall for him instead. In the end, none of that mattered. And it didn’t matter now.

Seeing him nod, Yu Zhi Yi continued: “The wound wasn’t that serious. He used to carry a Heart-Guard Mirror with him. Also-his heart wasn’t on the left like most people’s; it was on the right. That strike broke the Heart-Guard Mirror and went through his chest, but it didn’t go deep, and it missed the vital spot. He wasn’t going to die. He knew his own condition. Calling Chen Ruo Lan in wasn’t to leave final words. It was to fake his death and set a trap.”

The truth hit so hard that even the steady Jiang Yu Chuan was stunned. This was the first time Jiang Si Ying had ever sat in a meeting like this. In the past, she only heard bits and pieces from her brothers and had to work hard to learn the whole story. Now, inside the family’s core circle, she had the same right to know-and to speak: “What kind of trap?”

Yu Zhi Yi said, “A trap aimed at the entire Martial Alliance. In Chen Tie Sheng’s plan, his daughter was smart and beautiful. She would charm the two young masters until they lost their heads. The elder young master was good and favored by the old alliance leader, but the second young master had the brighter future and was more likely to take the alliance leader’s seat. So Chen Tie Sheng used the debt of saving a life to push for an engagement between the second young master and Chen Ruo Lan. Once they married and had an heir, he could then cut the father out and keep the child. By controlling the child, he could control the entire Martial Alliance.”

The Jiang family fell silent. At last someone muttered what everyone was thinking: “What a grand scheme.”