Cai Xian: That little brat Cai Bing actually learned to visit brothels and got his leg broken! He's really shaming me.
"Is it like my second brother's case, where it was completely broken beyond healing?"
[Yes, just like Yu Boming's situation. Cai Xian's son was lured into going to the brothel for fun. He wanted to play the hero saving a beauty, fell into someone's trap, and that's how his leg got broken.]
"He didn't get the same script as my second brother, did he? Ended up raising someone else's child later?"
Yu Shuchun, who had just come to attend the court assembly, closed his eyes. Great, now a third of his colleagues here know that not only was his son's leg broken, but he was also cuckolded and raised another man's child!
Yu Zhongchun: Second brother, calm down, calm down. Didn't the matter about my Qingyu also become known to all our colleagues? In a few days, there will be more gossip, and who will remember this?
Cai Xian narrowed his phoenix eyes slightly, scanning his colleagues almost imperceptibly. Who wanted to harm his son?
That kid shouldn't have offended anyone that much. Most likely, they were coming for him!
[You mean Cai Bing? He didn't raise someone else's child because he passed away within two years. That's why the Cai family and the Huo family became mortal enemies.]
"Cai Bing (Vegetable Pancake)? Not as good as Roubing (Meat Pancake)!"
[That kid's nickname is indeed 'Vegetable Pancake'. The Cai family also has a 'Meat Pancake', a 'Jianbing', and a 'Spring Pancake'.]
"Does Minister Cai really like eating all kinds of pancakes? You mentioned the Huo family becoming mortal enemies, which Huo family is that? Huo Ying's family?"
Cai Xian: What's wrong with liking pancakes? Doesn't anyone think pancakes are tastier than steamed buns or rice?
[Master is so clever, it's indeed Huo Ying's family. It's almost New Year's, and the Imperial College, schools, and academies are all on holiday.
So these young masters, like birds freed from their cages, organized a gathering tonight at the Drunken Red Pavilion. With so many of them gathered, how could nothing happen?
First, they boasted about themselves. When that wasn't enough, they boasted about whose father was more powerful. Incited by someone with an agenda, Minister Cai versus Minister Huo ended in a draw!
Both were dissatisfied. Then, a young courtesan's first night came up for auction. 'Vegetable Pancake' and 'Troublemaker'—oh, that's Huo Ying's son, Huo Sui—both took a fancy to the girl.
Both wanted to win the bid to give her a 'home', each claiming to be the hero saving her from being ruined by the other!]
Huo Ying: That fool Huo Sui! After reading military strategy books with me for so long, he still couldn't see it was a chain of schemes?
Cai Xian: 'Vegetable Pancake' truly lives up to his name, not only falling for a chain of schemes but finally tripping over a beauty trap. If you're weak, practice more. Trying to play the hero saving a beauty? You need to be a hero first!
The two Ministers exchanged a glance across the room, both feeling the mastermind behind this was targeting them.
"So who won the beauty in the end?"
[Neither of them did. This courtesan is the famous 'Drunken Rakshasa' from the martial world. For men like them, she was just toying with them. Their fathers might have had a real chance!]
Cai Xian, Huo Ying: Drunken Rakshasa? Hard pass!
"A squabble over a courtesan even involved someone from the martial world? The person behind this is quite powerful!"
[Quite powerful indeed. Before their bidding war was even over, somehow a fight broke out. Someone mixed in the crowd struck 'Vegetable Pancake's' leg, causing a comminuted fracture. With the current medical conditions, he could only wait to become disabled.
Within two years, the young man died of depression. The Cai and Huo families became sworn enemies.
At court, they constantly set traps for each other. Later, Huo Sui went out once, his horse spooked, he fell off, and died within two days.
Huo Ying was sure it was the Cai family's doing because someone saw Cai's 'Meat Pancake'—'Vegetable Pancake's' older brother—having contact with 'Troublemaker's' coachman.
After 'Troublemaker' died, the coachman got drunk that very night and drowned in a lotus pond! The Cai and Huo families' mutual attacks weakened them both, and then someone with an agenda took advantage of the situation.]
"The person behind this seems to love using schemes, playing dirty, a real villain!"
[Exactly! There are many guesses about this person's identity in the history books, but no one ever found out who he truly was!]
"Little Pearl doesn't know either?"
[I have some guesses, but it's not important. Who he is has nothing to do with us. Master, the most important thing now is to ask Cai Xian clearly about why the four great families were discovered ahead of time.]
Emperor Mingxi and the other court officials: It might have nothing to do with you two ancestors, but it has everything to do with us!
Who knows if this person only targeted Cai and Huo, or if he targeted us too? If we don't find him, we won't have peace of mind!
Gu Yutong: Out of the four named families, why was I left out? Am I that unnoticeable?
He desperately wanted to know, before the Great Yan perished and he was trampled to death by horses, how exactly did his later years become so miserable?
Did his three brats abandon their old father, or did they die young like the sons of the Wu, Cai, and Huo families?
Gu Yutong was almost frantic with anxiety, but the two ancestors just wouldn't bring up his case!
"I'll go ask after the morning court session."
Hearing this, Cai Xian grew nervous again. He barely listened to the rest of the morning court, repeatedly drafting mental notes on how to respond to Junior Mentor Yue Fuguang's 'interrogation'.
Sure enough, as soon as Eunuch Qian announced the end of the court session, before Cai Xian could even deliberately linger to wait for Yue Fuguang, she took the initiative to walk over.
With a smiling face, looking 'kind and amiable', it made Cai Xian's eyelids twitch.
They respected, admired, and feared this person, mainly because her temperament was too hard to fathom, even more so than their Emperor's!
She had always been decent to them, and colleagues got along harmoniously. They ate the food prepared by the Junior Mentor and sent many gifts in return. This give-and-take relationship was fairly harmonious, right?
Yet, even so, from what they could tell, these two ancestors still hadn't fully decided to save Great Yan!
"Minister Cai."
Cai Xian turned and bowed. "Does the Junior Mentor have business with this official?"
Yue Fuguang walked side by side with him out of the hall, saying, "Nothing major, just curious about the matter of the four great families.
My second uncle used to serve in Yizhou. I heard from my grandfather that the Zhao family in Yizhou is very powerful. I imagine the other families are not much weaker.
To do something as treasonous as leading foreign tribes across the border to plunder, they must have operated very secretly. How did you manage to discover all four at once?"
She looked at Cai Xian with full curiosity.
Cai Xian, the old fox, remained unflustered, keeping his amiable smile. "That's a long story.
To make a long story short, it was because the people investigating Chonghua's disappearance case found it involved Bai Yu. They tracked the clues all the way to the Bai family in Jiaozhou.
At the Bai family, since they found no leads on Chonghua, the investigators didn't alert the Bai family for the time being, only investigating Bai Yu secretly.
This investigation revealed that Bai Yu was in frequent and close contact with people from the Zhao family in Jiaozhou, the Fan family in Liangzhou, and the Zhou family in Bingzhou."
"These families are all great aristocratic clans, said to have complex marital ties. Isn't it normal for them to have dealings?"
Cai Xian nodded. "Indeed, my Ministry of Justice officials thought the same. But later they discovered these meetings were held in secluded places with hidden identities.
Bai Yu even met privately with people from Nanzhao several times.
Later, they split up to follow these individuals back to their respective clans. They discovered that those from these clans—whether the clan leaders themselves or their sons—had all been secretly meeting with people from Beili and Qiang in the west.
