Chapter Eighty-Two: “Story”
Outside the mine entrance, a circle of miners on break had gathered, all blocking the way to watch the spectacle.
Only when Jiang Chen brought his people over did they make room.
This was Jiang Chen’s third meeting with Xi Zichu. This time, the young master had fewer girls around him.
Even the most dissolute man would know better than to bring a bevy of beauties into a mining district. It was hardly a pleasant place for an outing.
But after noticing the green-capped page behind Xi Zichu, the one without an Adam’s apple, Jiang Chen realized he was still rather naïve.
Did this fellow study the art of essence-absorption at Dongwang Valley?
Ignoring whatever wild conjectures Jiang Chen was spinning in his head, Xi Zichu came straight to the point. “Last time, I went out of my way to tell you that I wasn’t a fool.”
He shook his head. “I didn’t expect other people to think otherwise.”
Jiang Chen glanced at the five men kneeling in front of Xi Zichu. Each was dressed in finery and clearly had some standing. Their hands were bound behind their backs. All knelt in silence, faces ashen.
“Who are these men?”
“The five families of Jia City. They were apparently unhappy with our Xi family governing Jia City. They actually bribed one of our stewards and secretly joined in, hollowing out this mineral vein. They wanted to provoke a conflict between the Chongxuan family and my Xi family, using the Chongxuan family as a blade to cut off our heads. After you came here representing the Chongxuan family, they bribed assassins to attack you, hoping to inflame the conflict in one stroke. Fortunately, Brother Jiang, your strength is extraordinary.”
Xi Zichu spoke unhurriedly. “The cultivator who was stealing ore from the Hu clan mine earlier was placed there through the hands of that Xi family traitor. Given Brother Jiang’s intelligence, you would have uncovered this connection sooner or later. But since I happened to return to Jia City, as the local host I couldn’t keep making a guest who had traveled so far do all the work. The heads of these five families are all here. You can question them first, Brother Jiang, or deal with them directly. As you wish.”
“You’re too kind, Young Master Xi. If we’re speaking of the host’s hospitality, I should be the one extending it, since this is the Chongxuan family’s property. Here, Young Master Xi, you’re the guest who came from afar.” Jiang Chen’s reply was neither soft nor hard. “Why don’t we go over there and find somewhere to sit while we talk?”
“That won’t be necessary. I came here many times as a child. I know the place well.”
Xi Zichu had positioned himself as the host the moment he arrived. When Jiang Chen emphasized who owned the place, Xi Zichu began emphasizing history instead.
From their earlier encounters, Jiang Chen had already seen that Xi Zichu was accustomed to taking the initiative. He wasn’t surprised.
He only asked, “Then what about the Xi family steward who handled this?”
“I’ve dealt with him.” Xi Zichu’s tone was indifferent. “Since he was one of the Xi family, there’s no need for the Chongxuan family to trouble themselves.”
He had gone to such lengths to bind the men and bring them to the mining district precisely because he didn’t want any conflict with the Chongxuan family. Yet when it came to his own authority, he guarded the line without the slightest compromise.
Jiang Chen neither agreed nor disagreed. “He may be one of the Xi family, but the matter involved the Chongxuan family.”
“The Chongxuan family’s losses this time were caused purely by these men’s conspiracy and have nothing to do with my Xi family. At most, the Xi family is guilty of failing to notice it. But to demonstrate our sincerity, my Xi family is willing to compensate the Chongxuan family for ten percent of its losses.”
That was an extremely generous figure. The sincerity was plain to see.
A mineral vein was an industry built on a steady trickle of returns and required time to develop. For a vein of Azureite like this one, the initial estimate for exhausting it was measured in decades.
With the Xi family’s compensation, the Chongxuan family would receive a large amount of resources right away instead. No one could find fault with that.
The resources might not mean much to the Chongxuan family itself, but they were highly significant to Chongxuan Sheng. He was developing at a frantic pace and desperately needed all kinds of resources, hungry for them as a starving man was for food.
Jiang Chen nodded. “Very well. I’ll keep the men. Young Master Xi, if there’s nothing else, you may return.”
Xi Zichu gave Jiang Chen a long, searching look. “I trust Brother Jiang will make an accurate judgment about right and wrong in this matter.”
With that, he strode away.
He had arrived escorting the heads of five families, driving them along like cattle and sheep. When he left, he took only the green-capped page with him, his steps light, as though he were heading out for a spring excursion.
For Dongwang Valley to remain independent on the borders of the State of Qi, it was naturally no simple force.
Xi Zichu alone offered a glimpse of that. He was on an entirely different level from Ge Heng of that ridiculous Greenwood Immortal Sect.
Su Xiuxing, Zhang Hai, and Forward were all present. Of the transcendent cultivators at the Hu clan mine, only Zhu Biqiong was still in the courtyard, forbidden to come out.
Jiang Chen said to Forward, “Interrogate these five men and see whether their story differs from what Xi Zichu said.”
Since Xi Zichu had sent them all over, it meant the facts were surely true. He wasn’t afraid of an interrogation.
But the process could not be skipped.
It would also give Forward something to do and provide him with a little guidance.
Jiang Chen was short-handed. So even a dispirited, utterly unmotivated middle-aged man like this could only be given a trial run while Jiang pinched his nose and put up with it.
Forward had no reason to refuse his superior. With his dead-fish eyes drooping, he shuffled to the first man on the left as though life itself had become a burden.
“Is what Xi Zichu said true?”
The head of that minor family froze for a moment. He had already prepared himself for brutal torture and hadn’t expected such a casual question.
“…Yes.”
Forward moved to the second man. “Is what Xi Zichu said true?”
“Yes, yes, yes.”
Then came the third…
Jiang Chen said nothing, silently waiting for him to finish asking.
After questioning all five men, Forward seemed to feel that he had been too perfunctory, so he asked one more thing. “You’re not lying to me, are you?”
After receiving an affirmative answer, he seemed to find a little courage.
He looked toward Jiang Chen. “What Xi Zichu said is true.”
Su Xiuxing’s eyelid twitched repeatedly from the side. To be so blatantly perfunctory right in front of them—was this Roaming Meridian-realm middle-aged man truly tired of living, or what? After experiencing that Heaven-Cursing Earth-Destroying Death-People Pill, Jiang Chen’s level of terror in his mind had already risen to the maximum.
Su Xiuxing had little sympathy, but he still couldn’t help silently mourning this unfamiliar middle-aged man in advance.
Zhang Hai remained silent, but the flicker in his eyes revealed his nervousness.
Everyone present was waiting for Jiang Chen’s response.
This was power and standing.
There was the borrowed momentum of the Chongxuan family, and there was also what Jiang Chen himself had built.
In the transcendent world, authority was power, and power was authority.
Contrary to everyone’s expectations, Jiang Chen did nothing to Forward.
Looking at Forward’s innocent dead-fish eyes, he merely sighed. “You shouldn’t be called Forward. Backward would suit you better.”
Forward let out another long sigh. “Backward would be tiring too. I should’ve been called Downward. Lying down is the easiest thing. When you fall, just sleep right there.”
“All right, all right. Go back and sleep.”
Jiang Chen couldn’t be bothered to sigh back and compete with him over whose breath lasted longer.
Instead, he instructed Su Xiuxing, “I’ll leave it to you. This kind of work should be your specialty. Bring me a complete report afterward.”
Forward simply didn’t want to work for him. It wasn’t even personal; he just didn’t want to work, period. Jiang Chen wasn’t about to fly into a rage over it. At most, he would dismiss him at the end of the month.
…
As an assassin, Su Xiuxing naturally had no shortage of methods.
The report he eventually submitted was extremely detailed, and it did indeed confirm Xi Zichu’s account.
The Xi family was the sole dominant force in Jia City, leaving no room for any other family to survive.
These minor families had long harbored resentment, but they had dared neither to speak nor to act. The Chongxuan family’s opening of a mineral vein here gave them an opportunity.
The families joined forces, taking the mineral vein as their starting point to frame the Xi family.
Throughout the incident, Hu Shaomeng had probably only given things a push in the right direction. After all, the Hu family could also be counted among the minor families of Jia City and lived under the Xi family’s pressure. They were more than happy to see something happen to the Xi family.
As soon as Xi Zichu returned to the city, he detected what was happening. He then struck back with thunderous force, killing the family traitor on the spot and even arresting all the heads of those families, handing them over to Jiang Chen, who represented the Chongxuan family.
This plot was perfectly reasonable. However one looked at it, it was reasonable.
It made far more logical sense than the simple plot in which Hu Shaomeng framed the Xi family.
And the evidence was conclusive.
A story like this, delivered right to his doorstep, should by all rights have left no questions.
But that was Jiang Chen’s greatest question.
Only a “story” could be so reasonable, with every thread fitting perfectly into place.
Real life was never perfect.
Yuewen