Tong Anying shot her third brother a meaningful look. Tong Fengye lunged forward in a flash, seizing the manservant by the collar.
“Whose household are you from?” Fengye demanded, his face dark with fury. “Broad daylight, and you dare try to assault me?”
Drenched in cold sweat, the servant forced himself to stammer out an excuse: “Young master, you’ve got it all wrong! Why would I ever assault you? I, I was just trying to catch crickets.”
Feng Chu chimed in, “What sensible person catches crickets with a wooden club?”
Tong Anying backed him up at once: “Exactly! If you’re going to lie, at least throw the club away before opening your mouth, will you?”
The servant was at a complete loss for words.
The trouble was, he hadn’t even had time to toss it aside.
Hadn’t his young master assured him that Tong Fengye was a good-for-nothing, Tong Anying a fool, and Feng Chu a reckless layabout—that the plan was practically foolproof?
The servant glanced desperately toward his master, but Fang Ji had already turned his back. Fang Ji had calculated every angle, never imagining his own servant would prove this utterly useless.
Expecting me to save you now? Dream on!
“Fine. If you won’t talk, we’re taking this to the Jingzhao Prefecture,” Fengye snapped.
Hearing that he was about to be dragged before the magistrate, the servant struggled frantically, but Fengye’s grip was surprisingly ironclad.
“Don’t take me to court! Young Master Tong, I’ll tell you! I’ll tell you everything!”
Tong Fengye released him. “Speak.”
“Actually, the truth is.”
Fang Ji shot the servant a venomous, threatening glare. The servant’s knees shook violently, and the words caught in his throat.
Fengye’s temper flared again. “You dare play games with me?”
No matter what, this scoundrel was going straight to the magistrate.
Cen Yu, the Jingzhao Prefect, was just about to head home for the day when he was forced to convene court once more.
Taking his seat on the dais, Cen Yu peered down at the parties involved.
Just wonderful. This dispute managed to implicate two marquis households and the son of the Minister of War. If he had any say in the matter, he wouldn’t touch this scalding potato with a ten-foot pole.
Yet the case was already in front of him; there was no backing out now.
Having heard the full account of the incident, Cen Yu roared in reprimand: “At the very feet of the Son of Heaven, how dare a lowly rogue like you commit violence? If you do not confess the whole truth at once, this court will proceed with torture!”
In truth, Cen Yu put little stock in confessions extracted by torture. Threatening it right off the bat was merely a tactic to scare the servant, whom he could see was as timid as a mouse.
Sure enough, the moment the servant laid eyes on the instruments of torture, his vision went black. Weeping and sniffling, he blurted out: “I confess! I confess, I’ll tell everything! My lord, please spare me!”
“Then out with it!”
Trembling, the servant pointed a finger at Fang Ji, who stood aloof in the crowd. “It was our young master who ordered me to do it!”
Fang Ji’s eyes went wide. “Nonsense! Stop your slander!”
Turning to Cen Yu with clasped hands, Fang Ji pleaded, “Your Honor, see reason! I don’t even know this man!”
Cen Yu couldn’t tell whether the servant was dragging someone down with him or speaking the truth. He replied calmly, “Rest assured, Young Master Fang, this court knows what it is doing.”
He turned back to the servant. “Do you have any proof?”
The servant nodded frantically. “Yes, yes! The young master holds my indenture contract in his own hands!”
The matter had just grown significantly thornier.
Steeling himself, Cen Yu ordered Fang Ji forward to face the servant.
Fang Ji protested, “Fengye and I are bosom friends. Why on earth would I have someone harm him?”
Cowering, the servant retorted, “Stop putting on an act, Young Master! You said you hated Tong Fengye. You were jealous of him, and you wanted to see him crippled for life!”
A collective gasp rippled through the onlookers. This young nobleman has a venomous heart.
Tong Anying let out an enlightened “Oh.” “Third Brother, you truly have terrible taste in friends.”
Tong Fengye rubbed his nose awkwardly. “Won’t happen next time.”
By then, Su Zhouyue and Tong Baibo had also arrived. Su Zhouyue looked her son over from head to toe, letting out a quiet breath of relief upon seeing he was unharmed.
Tong Baibo stepped forward and said, “I trust Magistrate Cen will handle this with impartial justice.”
Cen Yu dabbed the sweat from his brow. “Naturally, naturally. Please rest assured, Marquis.”
Stung to the core by the warm, harmonious sight of the Tong family gathered together, Fang Ji’s eyes reddened with malice. “That’s right, it was me! I wanted Tong Fengye crippled! Tong Fengye, you good-for-nothing straw bag, what right do you have to be loved by so many people?”
“Because my third brother is handsome, kind-hearted, and responsible, of course,” Anying shot back.
“And what are you gloating for, Tong Anying? You useless little idiot!”
Tong Anying froze. “Huh?”
“What did you just call me?”
“You useless little idiot!”
Fuming, Tong Anying lunged forward, ready to kick him into next week.
Three pairs of hands caught her at the same time. Tong Fengye pleaded hastily, “Let it go, Fourth Sister, let it go. We don’t stoop to his level, he’s completely mad.”
To think she had just been called an idiot by a madman!
Even after returning to the marquis estate, Tong Anying was still fuming.
Tong Siyuan returned home to find her fourth sister brooding. With a gentle chuckle, she asked, “What troubles our Fourth Sister?”
Anying threw herself into Siyuan’s embrace, aggrieved: “Second Sister, someone called me an idiot.”
“Who dared say such a thing?” Siyuan brushed the corner of Anying’s eye affectionately. “Our Anying is clever as can be.”
Anying whimpered into her shoulder. “Second Sister, what did you do today?”
“I had nothing better to occupy my time, so Mother handed the management of the marquisate’s shops over to me.”
“Are they hard to manage?”
Only moments ago, Anying had been sulking over an insult, yet now her eyes shone with curiosity. Her moods truly came and went like the wind.
Both amused and softened, Tong Siyuan stroked Anying’s cheek. “They are easy enough. Anying doesn’t need to worry.”
Anying’s eyes curved into crescent moons. “That’s good, then.”
After dinner, Minister of War Fang Wenrui arrived with his wife, Fan Siyun.
Tong Baibo and Su Zhouyue sat in the seats of honor, while Tong Fengye and Tong Anying hid curiously behind the folding screen.
Fang Wenrui remarked dismissively, “It was merely children fooling around. Why make such a fuss and drag it to the Jingzhao Prefecture?”
Su Zhouyue gave a cold sneer. “If the Minister considers hiring a thug to break my son’s legs and openly cursing him to be crippled as ‘children fooling around,’ then I have nothing more to say.”
Fang Wenrui’s expression darkened. That useless brat, stirring up such a massive scandal!
He glanced at Fan Siyun, who dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief and sobbed, “It is indeed our fault for neglecting Ji’er’s upbringing. But didn’t Ji’er fail in the end? We ask that the Marquis and Madam show magnanimity and forgive—”
Tong Baibo cut her off: “This Marquis possesses no such magnanimity.”
To indulge and tolerate such malice would only invite others to walk all over them. If he let it slide today, wouldn’t his wife and children become targets tomorrow?
His wife and children were a line Tong Baibo would never permit anyone to cross.
Fan Siyun turned to her husband. “We should return home.”
Fang Wenrui nodded. “Very well.”
The couple rose to take their leave.
Behind the screen, Tong Fengye scratched his head and whispered, “They’re just leaving like that?”
It felt as though the pair hadn’t come to plead for Fang Ji at all, they were merely going through the motions.
Sigh, Fang Ji really is pitiful. Fang Wenrui and Fan Siyun only came here to put on a show so the world wouldn’t call them cold-blooded and talk behind their backs.
Tong Fengye came to a sudden realization.
Host, Host! Fun fact: Fang Ji is actually Fang Wenrui’s only biological child.
Wait, what? Doesn’t Fang Wenrui have three children? The other two aren’t his?
Nope! The eldest son was already conceived before Fan Siyun ever married into the Fang household. As for the second son, that old flame kept visiting Fan Siyun after her marriage, and one thing led to another until she was pregnant again.
Good grief! Carrying on an affair right under Fang Wenrui’s nose! Fang Ji isn’t just neglected, his own mother has been icing him out!
“Master, what’s wrong?”
Fan Siyun’s shriek echoed from out in the courtyard. Su Zhouyue and Tong Baibo hurried outside, with Anying and Fengye hot on their heels.
The four of them stepped out just in time to see Fang Wenrui collapse face-first onto the ground.
What happened to him?
Host, I have no idea! Fang Wenrui has been kept in the dark the entire time. Even now, Fan Siyun is still secretly corresponding with that man. I even have their letters right here. Host, want to take a look?
Yes! Of course I do!
The letters unfolded before Anying’s eyes. Only she could see them, leaving the rest of the onlookers itching with curiosity.
Tong Anying was awestruck. Tsk, tsk, tsk. “Would that I were a star and you the moon, shining upon each other night after night.” “Fifth Brother, take me away! I am willing to roam the ends of the earth with you.” “Yun Niang, you have suffered so. I wish never to be parted from you again.”
If she were Fang Wenrui, she would have fainted from sheer rage by now.
Right on cue, Fang Wenrui who had just been hoisted up by Fan Siyun rolled his eyes back and collapsed stiff as a board once more.
Tong Anying: !
Su Zhouyue ordered briskly, “What are you all standing around for? Carry the Minister into the guest room, and fetch a physician at once to examine him!”
The courtyard descended into chaos. Fan Siyun wailed dramatically, weeping that her husband mustn’t leave her behind.
Leave you behind so you can fly off into the sunset with your ‘Fifth Brother’?
Su Zhouyue chose to ignore her theatrics.
Before long, the physician arrived.
The Tong family stepped back to make room.
Host, this is bad!
What is it, System? Is this doctor a quack?
Worse than a quack, he is the ‘Fifth Brother’ from the letters!
Hiss, he won’t deliberately botch the treatment and kill Lord Fang, will he?
Just as “Fifth Brother” raised his acupuncture needle to strike, the unconscious Fang Wenrui bolted upright.
Fan Siyun gasped, “A miracle worker! Truly a miracle worker!”