The two elders charged out with their walking sticks—
Their backs no longer bent, their legs no longer weak, even their years of rheumatism seemed to have gained strength.
Their canes came down relentlessly upon the three brothers, blow after blow raining on their heads and faces.
They wished they could beat the three to death on the spot.
Before Lu Xiao, Lu Yue, and Lu Chuan could even process what was happening, they had already suffered over a dozen strikes.
The pain made them grimace and bare their teeth.
“Elders?” The fourth son, Lu Chuan, indignant, jumped up and shouted, “Why are you hitting us?”
“Why?” The two elders’ beards quivered with rage. “Digging up your own father’s grave—beating you to death wouldn’t be excessive!”
“Beasts! How dare you ask why?”
The fourth son froze for a moment.
Digging up the grave?
Right, they were currently digging up a grave. Lu Chuan, always slow on the uptake, finally realized the gravity of their actions, the color draining from his face in an instant.
Lu Yue and Lu Xiao covered their heads without uttering a word. This situation was beyond their expectations.
Who would have thought these two old men would bring people to the cemetery in the middle of the night?
Catching them red-handed?
Ultimately, age had taken its toll. After a while, the two elders ran out of steam and stopped, panting heavily.
The clansmen helped the elders to a large rock to sit down.
No one spoke, yet each person’s chest heaved violently, as if a dozen hearts were about to leap from their ribcages—such was the intensity of their fury.
Their gazes shot like daggers toward the three brothers, wishing they could slice them to pieces. Undermining the Lu clan’s fortune meant declaring war on the entire Lu lineage!
If not for Song Jinyao seeking them out in the middle of the night, claiming she dreamed of Lu Xiuyuan weeping about losing his way, they wouldn’t have risen at midnight to visit the Lu family cemetery, and thus would never have discovered the vile deeds of these three wretched sons.
Truly, truly, a disgrace to the family!
Caught in the act.
Just then.
“Wahh—”
From the eerie cemetery came another wave of weeping, rising and falling in pitch. The two elders shuddered violently.
Their faces filled with terror!
No, could something else have gone wrong?
Heavens above!
Just strike me dead with a bolt of lightning, this old bones of mine!
Following the sound of crying, they saw Song Jinyao and her daughter Lu Wenhui prostrated over the grave, weeping bitterly.
“Elders, the… the burial silver in Xiuyuan’s grave… it’s gone.”
“No wonder he came to me in a dream, crying about losing his way.”
“What are we to do? The Lu family’s fortune won’t—” Song Jinyao left the rest unsaid, stopping at just the right point. She trusted the two highly superstitious elders, deeply concerned with feng shui, would fill in the blanks themselves.
Sure enough.
Upon hearing this, the two elders glared at the three brothers with towering rage. “Did you do this?”
Digging up the grave to steal your own father’s burial silver?
These three sons—must not be allowed to remain!
The elders’ eyes turned icy cold. “The crimes you’ve committed warrant execution by caning according to clan rules.”
At the mention of execution, the second and fourth sons were so terrified their minds went blank.
“E-elders, we didn’t take the burial silver, truly not.”
“That’s right, after we dug open the grave, there was nothing inside except the corpse. Someone must have stolen the burial silver before us.”
“We intended to take it, but the coffin was empty. We didn’t succeed. Elders, you mustn’t wrongfully accuse us.”
The second and fourth sons desperately tried to explain, unaware that in their panic, they had blurted out their true purpose for digging up the grave.
Only the third son, Lu Yue, remained silent throughout. He didn’t believe the clan elders would dare to kill them—taking a life was too grave a matter for them to go that far—but severe punishment was unavoidable.
They might even be expelled from the clan.
Yet, given the circumstances, even if they hadn’t stolen the burial silver, the mere act of digging up the grave meant the Lu family would no longer tolerate them.
Explaining further was useless.
At this moment, he felt the stifling frustration of being wrongly accused with no way to clear his name—like a mute tasting bitter herbs, unable to speak of the pain.
If he revealed the truth now—that his father had faked his death—the grave offense of desecrating their own father’s tomb would vanish.
If his father wasn’t dead, the claim that they had ruined the Lu family’s fortune would collapse, and the elders would have no grounds to punish them.
But—
Should he really expose the truth?
Wouldn’t Father and Aunt Tao resent them bitterly for it?
The theft of the corpse from the charitable mortuary would also come to light, and Mother would be utterly disappointed in them.
What would the outside world say?
That the sons conspired with their father and his mistress to seize their mother’s property?
If such rumors spread, not only would he face public scorn, but his path to the imperial examinations would likely be ruined.
That Lu Yue could think this way showed he understood how shameful his actions were.
In a short span, his mind raced through countless twists and turns, each path seeming like a dead end. His heart tossed and turned, anxiety gripping him tightly.
The situation felt like being roasted over a fire—no matter what he did, he would be condemned.
Song Jinyao hid half her face behind a handkerchief, a cold smirk flickering at the corner of her mouth.
Fool!
Suddenly, Lu Yue looked up, his gaze suspiciously fixed on Song Jinyao.
“Mother, you dreamed of Father?” He had overheard this mentioned earlier, hence the question.
His eyes were deep and unreadable, lost in thought.
“Yes.”
Song Jinyao did not evade the question. Dreams were beyond verification—even if she claimed to have seen Lu Xiuyuan boiling in hell, no one could challenge her.
“Your father and I shared a deep bond. I constantly worry about how he’s faring in the afterlife. It’s no surprise that my thoughts by day become dreams by night.”
“You shouldn’t have treated your father this way—it’s the height of filial impiety.”
As she spoke, the chili water hidden in her sleeves came in handy again. She dabbed her eyes twice, and teardrops as large as beans rolled down like broken strings of pearls.
Song Jinyao wept bitterly, nearly choking on her sobs.
But Lu Yue harbored doubts.
If ghosts truly existed, how could his father—alive and well—appear in Song Jinyao’s dreams?
Had Mother discovered something?
Was she deliberately luring the elders here?
No sooner had this thought surfaced than Lu Yue dismissed it himself.
Impossible. If Mother had truly found out, given her usual temperament, she would never have endured this long without an outburst. Moreover, her grief seemed genuine—her eyes were red from crying, truly mourning Father’s “passing.”
Perhaps it was all a coincidence—one that had tripped him up badly.
Under the ink-black moonlight, a pair of eyes watched the farce with keen interest. After the Lu brothers were taken away by their clansmen, the shadowy figure swayed and vanished into the night.
Soon, the horizon lightened to the pale hue of a fish’s belly.
Inside the room, the candle had long burned out. Lord Pei lay awake, unable to sleep.
His fingers ceaselessly rubbed a jade pendant, his eyes clouded with complex emotions.
“Lord Yan, what a masterful deception.” Just wait until I return to deal with you!
“Heh…”
Then, he chuckled again, the laughter inexplicably tinged with excitement.
That woman was still alive.
Yan Beichen, you’ve got some nerve! I treated you like a brother, and you dared to deceive me!
“Creak—”
Suddenly, a soft sound came from the room, and a dark figure landed silently on the floor.
“My lord.”
Yan Qing cupped his hands in salute, his tone barely suppressing a hint of excitement at the spectacle. “The Lu family—”
“Has something happened?” Pei Jingzhe’s fingers curled instinctively, and his thin lips pressed into a tight line.
Even he himself hadn’t noticed the slight tremor in his voice.
Yan Qing, oblivious, grinned and rambled, “Something did happen, quite unexpectedly. My lord, let me tell you, it was quite a scene just now. You wouldn’t believe it, tsk tsk—”
“Stop babbling.” Pei Jingzhe snorted through his nose, signaling his displeasure.
Yan Qing tensed up and got straight to the point. “Tonight, Madam Lu’s husband’s grave was dug up—by their own sons, no less. The burial silver is also missing—”
“Right now, the three boys have been taken back to the ancestral hall, but they still refuse to admit they stole the burial silver.”
Pei Jingzhe narrowed his eyes. “And her?”
“Who?”
“Nonsense!”
“Oh, oh, my lord means Madam Lu?” Yan Qing clicked his tongue. “She’s crying pitifully, constantly wiping her tears with her sleeve.”
Her sleeve?
“Heh—”
Pei Jingzhe tapped the table with his knuckles, a dark glint flickering in his eyes. Rubbing chili water in her eyes—this woman was ruthless, not even afraid of going blind.
“But—”
“Hmm?”
“This subordinate believes the burial silver probably wasn’t stolen by those three brothers.” Yan Qing spoke with certainty.
Having assisted his lord in investigating countless cases, he had developed a keen eye for such things.
If the silver were truly in their hands, those three little brats wouldn’t be beating their chests and stomping their feet, looking as if they were choking with frustration.
“Did they report it to the authorities?”
“No, this is a family matter. They’ll probably try to resolve it behind closed doors.”
“Go and report it for them.”
Yan Qing stared wide-eyed. “Huh? But this case—”
“I will personally oversee the trial.”
“Huh?” Yan Qing was dumbfounded and tried to dissuade him. “But, my lord, we haven’t even cleared up the major case at hand. There’s no need for us to bother with this trivial matter, is there?”
The esteemed Minister of the Court of Judicial Review, meddling in a family’s missing burial silver?
Besides, the grave was dug up by their own sons. If they wanted to dig it up, so be it—it wasn’t his lord’s grave, and the family hadn’t even intended to report it.
Had his lord lost his mind?
This was like a dog chasing rats—meddling in others’ business.
But he wouldn’t dare say any of this out loud, even if beaten to death. He could only grumble silently in his heart.
Pei Jingzhe shot him a cold glance. “Any other questions?”
“No, none!” Yan Qing shrank his neck and was about to retreat when he was called back.
“From now on,” Pei Jingzhe’s voice was icy, “refer to her as Madam Song.”
Yan Qing: “…”
Lu Family Ancestral Hall
The six elders had all arrived one after another.
They had barely slept all night, interrogating until dawn, but the three brothers remained tight-lipped, and the whereabouts of the burial silver had yet to be uncovered.
Infuriated, the elders ordered a whipping.
“Crack!” The whip lashed fiercely across the backs of the three brothers. The second elder roared, “You wretched scoundrels! Why won’t you confess?”
Lu Xiao cried out in grievance, “Elders, we truly don’t have the burial silver. We’ve said it many times. Why won’t you believe us?”
“Then you must have moved it! Tell us, where did you hide the burial silver?”
Move his mother’s ass!
They hadn’t even caught a glimpse of it, for goodness’ sake.
Lu Xiao felt utterly wronged, craning his neck as he shouted: “I told you we don’t have it!”
But the more he acted this way, the more the elders became convinced of his stubbornness.
The grave had been dug open—how could these three little brats escape responsibility for the missing burial silver?
Ridiculous!
Did they really think the elders were blind and senile?