Fang Jinhai had gone completely limp in his chair, his face drained of color as he gasped for breath.
Below the dais, the heads of more than a dozen branches were shouting at one another like a pot of boiling water.
“I told you from the start that Yang Bonian was an old fox who couldn’t be trusted! But you insisted on dragging the whole clan into a blood oath with him!”
The head of the third branch, Fang Yongchang, was red-faced with fury. He slammed his palm down on the rosewood tea table, making the teacups jump.
Pointing at Fang Jinhai’s nose, Fang Yongchang spat as he ranted, “And now look what we’ve got! The Yang family turned around and sold us out completely! They even told Xu Youde where our ancestral graves are hidden and how much illicit land we control!”
Fang Yongchang suddenly spun around and glared at everyone in the room.
“What are we still holding out for? Hurry back and open the ancestral hall. Gather up all the land deeds! Get them to the imperial commissioner’s headquarters before dawn! If we’re too late, our entire families will be thrown into the imperial prison!”
“What kind of nonsense are you spouting?” The head of the sixth branch, Fang Yongtai, shot to his feet and glared furiously.
He shoved aside a younger clansman blocking his path and strode over to Fang Yongchang, pointing at his forehead as he cursed.
“The Fang family has stood in Jiangning City for two hundred years. When have we ever been this spineless? Someone puts a knife to your throat, and you still crawl over to hand him your land?”
“The Yang family may be shameless, but the Fang family still has its dignity! If we go crawling to Xu Youde now, do you really think that mad dog Xu Youde will spare us? If we’re going to die, then we’ll take the other great families of Jiangnan down with us!”
“What are you going to fight with? The heads of our clans? Are you planning to fill the pit with our people’s lives?”
The two sides refused to yield. Their argument grew more heated by the second, and they began shoving one another, seemingly on the verge of coming to blows.
From his seat at the head of the hall, Fang Jinhai watched his clansmen descend into chaos.
In the past, he had only needed to clear his throat for every member of the clan to fall silent. But now, the Yang family’s sudden counterstrike had stabbed straight through the authority he had built as clan head.
All he could do was watch helplessly as these people tore into one another.
“Report—!”
A cry of alarm came from outside.
The steward, Fang Shun, came tumbling into the hall.
“Master! M-Master Chen is here! Chen Shichang has arrived!”
Fang Jinhai looked as though he had been granted a new lease on life. He sprang up from his chair.
“Quick! Hurry and invite him in!”
The words had barely left his mouth when Chen Shichang strode into the main hall.
The usual arrogance and haughty bearing of a scion of a great family were nowhere to be seen. His hair had been blown into disarray, his topknot sat crookedly to one side, and his face was so livid that it looked terrifying.
Fang Yongchang, Fang Yongtai, and the others were stunned by the murderous aura surrounding him. In an instant, the entire room fell silent.
Chen Shichang ignored everyone else and charged straight toward Fang Jinhai.
“Fang Jinhai!” Chen Shichang seized him by the collar and roared, his eyes bloodshot.
Spittle sprayed across Fang Jinhai’s face.
“That old bastard Yang Bonian! He was never ill!”
“He faked his death for ten whole days! During those ten days, he secretly investigated every detail of the Chen and Fang families! He even found out exactly where the weak points were in those prime plots of land south of the city!”
Chen Shichang’s grip was astonishingly strong. He actually lifted Fang Jinhai off the ground until only his toes touched the floor.
“Half an hour ago, he took two thousand three hundred mu of land deeds, along with that deadly dossier detailing the great families, and knocked on the gates of Xu Youde’s headquarters!”
“The blood we swore in the ancestral shrine, the life-and-death pledge we signed—in his eyes, it wasn’t worth more than toilet paper!”
The heads of the Fang family’s various branches turned pale with horror.
After a brief, deathly silence, the hall erupted in thunderous curses.
“That old dog! May his descendants be wiped out!”
“I curse the Yang family and every one of their ancestors!”
Choked by Chen Shichang’s grip, Fang Jinhai’s eyes rolled back in his head.
Only then did Chen Shichang release him in disgust, allowing Fang Jinhai to collapse back into his grand chair.
Chen Shichang swept his gaze across the roomful of furious and terrified faces, then laughed in a fit of rage.
“Go on! Keep cursing! Tomorrow morning, when the commissioners from the Three Judicial Offices come ashore, you’ll have plenty of time to curse in prison!”
At those words, everyone in the Fang family fell silent. Their faces turned ashen.
Chen Shichang forcibly suppressed the rage churning in his chest and compelled himself to calm down. He knew this was no time to lose his head. The Yang family had already escaped. He could not allow the Fang family to collapse along with it.
He bent down and stared into Fang Jinhai’s eyes.
“Listen carefully! The commissioners from the Three Judicial Offices will arrive in Jiangning tomorrow! Old Dog Yang has exposed everything about us. Xu Youde will certainly use this as an excuse to have the commissioners move against us first!”
“If our two families don’t join forces and strike back now, we can only wait to die!”
Fang Jinhai’s lips trembled.
“Brother Chen… How are we supposed to join forces? They have our weak points in their hands, and the commissioners are almost here. This is a dead end!”
Chen Shichang gave a cold laugh.
“A dead end? As long as the verdict hasn’t been passed, we can still turn the tables!”
Chen Shichang straightened and spoke in a frigid voice.
“I’ve already found out everything! The one leading this tribunal is Censor Zhou of the Censorate! Censor Zhou is a man of the First Prince!”
“We’ll gather a huge sum immediately—two million taels! No, three million! Send men by water tonight to intercept Censor Zhou’s official vessel at the Yangzhou relay station! Once he’s stuffed his pockets with silver, Censor Zhou will naturally favor us during the tribunal!”
Chen Shichang clenched both fists.
“That still won’t be enough! At daybreak tomorrow, our two families will send every servant and hired hand in the city into the streets! Have them stir up the peasants and the local gentry!”
“Have them cause a disturbance outside the prefectural government office! Block the gates of the commissioners’ headquarters! Make the whole affair impossible to contain! Before Xu Youde can produce that dossier, we must strike first and force the commissioners to hesitate before arresting anyone!”
Sweat poured down Fang Jinhai’s forehead.
Using ready cash to bribe an imperial commissioner and inciting a mob to surround the government offices—either crime was enough to bring execution and the destruction of the entire clan.
Fang Yongchang edged forward, his face filled with alarm.
“Master Chen, if… if someone dies, our entire clans will be executed! Perhaps we should—”
“Perhaps your father!” Chen Shichang slapped Fang Yongchang across the face.
The crisp crack echoed through the main hall.
Fang Yongchang spun halfway around from the force of the blow, blood immediately seeping from the corner of his mouth.
Chen Shichang turned back to Fang Jinhai and fixed him with a savage stare.
“Fang Jinhai! Are you even a man who pees standing up?”
Chen Shichang grabbed him by the collar of his cloak.
“Are you really going to stand by and watch the two-hundred-year foundation of the Fang family be crushed beneath the feet of That Old Brute Yang?”
Fang Jinhai’s entire body shuddered.
Images flashed through his mind: the fertile fields and shops accumulated by generations of the Fang family, and the women of the clan who would be sold into government brothels once their property was confiscated.
Suddenly, he shoved Chen Shichang’s hand away. He bit through his lower lip and tasted blood.
“Let’s do it!” Fang Jinhai slammed his hand against the armrest and rose to his feet, his eyes bloodshot.
“We’re going to die either way. We might as well fight for a chance!”
Fang Yongchang covered his face. Seeing that the clan head had made his decision, he did not dare say another word. Fang Yongtai, meanwhile, shouted his approval and immediately called for the heads of the various branches to withdraw silver from the clan treasury.
Just as they were preparing to act, a fresh burst of hurried footsteps sounded outside.
Fang Shun stumbled into the hall once more, panic evident in his voice.
“Master! Master Chen! The tide outside has turned!”
Chen Shichang’s heart lurched. He lunged forward, seized Fang Shun by the hair, and dragged him bodily off the ground.
“Get your tongue straight and speak clearly! What do you mean, the tide has turned?”
Fang Shun sucked in a pained breath and stammered,
“The… the shopkeepers of those major firms in the eastern part of the city have all hung out ‘closed’ signs just now. They’ve shut their doors and refuse to see anyone!”
Fang Shun swallowed hard, trembling all over.
“And those several gentry lords we’ve always been close with… They just sent their stewards over with invitations. They say… they say they’re feeling unwell tomorrow and won’t be able to attend the tea gathering at Taibai Pavilion as planned.”
Upon hearing this, Chen Shichang’s mind exploded with a roar.
A bunch of fence-sitters!
On ordinary holidays, they ate the Chen and Fang families’ food and took the Chen and Fang families’ money, each of them thumping his chest and swearing they were brothers.
But now that the Yang family had defected and Xu Youde had revealed his trump card, these bastards had immediately followed the wind and run faster than rabbits!
Chen Shichang flew into a rage.
“A bunch of treacherous bastards!”
“They want to wash their hands of this and sit back to watch the show? Dream on!”
Chen Shichang halted and turned to look at Fang Jinhai. His eyes gleamed with reckless madness.
“Brother Fang! If the soft approach won’t work, then we’ll use force!”
“The situation may be against us right now, but nothing has been decided yet! We’ll use silver to smash the tide back in our favor!”
Chen Shichang ground his back teeth, forcing out each word.
“Withdraw every last bit of ready cash from the clan! Send men to the printing shops and teahouses in the western part of the city. Pay double—no, triple! Make them work through the night!”
“Then send men to contact those examination candidates who’ve taken our money. Tell them they must gather outside the prefectural office and build momentum first thing tomorrow morning! Anyone who dares claim to be ill and stay away—I’ll have his hamstrings cut tomorrow!”
Fang Jinhai was infected by Chen Shichang’s frenzy. Knowing there was no turning back, he swept out his large hand, then paused and said solemnly:
“Brother Chen, you and I will personally lead people to handle it. Even if we have to turn Jiangning City upside down tonight, we must keep this fire burning strong!”
The night deepened, and the cold wind howled through the streets and alleys of Jiangning City.
…
At that moment.
The entire city of Jiangning appeared silent on the surface, but beneath it, hidden currents were surging.
East District.
Longsheng Trading House.
The portly shopkeeper knelt on a prayer mat, repeatedly kowtowing to the God of Wealth on the altar. His voice trembled.
“God of Wealth, Bodhisattvas, please protect us… Tomorrow, blood may well be spilled across the city. I beg all the gods in Heaven—please, don’t let this fire reach Longsheng Trading House.”
“If the Chen and Fang families insist on courting death, we absolutely cannot let ourselves be dragged down and buried with them.”
He seemed to think of something else. His eyes darted around.
“But if the Fang and Chen families survive, then please bless me with even greater prosperity!”
The shopkeeper pressed his forehead to the floor.
…
The Xiaguan Wharf.
Several laborers who had just finished their shifts huddled around a charcoal brazier to warm themselves.
“Have you heard? The Yang family patriarch personally handed over the land deeds!”
One of the men lowered his voice.
“What do you mean, treacherous? This is called obeying Heaven’s will! The Emperor wants to move the capital—that’s a heaven-sent opportunity.”
“Old Master Yang understands the bigger picture and knows how to put the greater good first.”
“And what are the Chen and Fang families supposed to be? Do they really think they can defy the imperial edict?”
“Exactly. If the Chen and Fang families had any sense, they would have offered up their land long ago. But no, they had to make trouble. Once the imperial envoy arrives tomorrow, I’m afraid their entire households will be seized!”
