The old Marquis tightly gripped Qi Zhen’s hand. Before Qi Zhen could answer, he asked first, “Ah Yuan, how confident are you?”
He looked deeply at Qi Yuan and, after a moment, added, “I mean, if the goal is to get rid of Qi Wang, how sure are you?”
Qi Zhen looked at Qi Yuan, a bit nervous.
This was truly a difficult question to answer. After all, getting rid of Qi Wang was no simple matter.
Even for Qi Yuan, it would surely involve using one power to counter another. How far she could go would not only depend on human effort but also on timing and circumstance.
But Qi Yuan immediately gave her answer, expressionless as she said, “A hundred percent.”
A hundred percent!
The old Marquis could no longer contain his emotions. He couldn’t help but ask, “How can you be so sure?”
“Because he must die.” Qi Yuan’s tone was incredibly calm, not a ripple in her voice. She raised her eyes and looked directly at Qi Zhen and the old Marquis. “I will personally kill him.”
Kill him, to avenge the Xie family.
To avenge Liu Wangfei and her son, the Lu father and son, and all the innocent lives lost to him.
She must kill this man.
Qi Zhen initially wanted to ask for more details, but the old Marquis had already shaken his head at him and then made his decision: “Very well! Ah Yuan, as long as you can do this, from now on, the entire Qi family will follow your lead!”
Qi Yuan lightly nodded, her expression indifferent.
Even after leaving Qi Yuan’s Mingyue Pavilion, Qi Zhen was still in a daze.
The old Marquis coughed and, seeing Qi Zhen’s absent-minded look, patted him on the shoulder. “Your daughter is not destined to remain in a small pond.”
Qi Zhen nodded, but still worried. “But… the way she’s so decisive, is that really the right path?”
Qi Yuan did everything without compromise, always charging straight toward her goal.
This meant she left no room for retreat.
That was one thing if it was just herself, but if the entire Qi family followed her, wasn’t it too risky?
The old Marquis stroked his beard and smiled. “You know, back when I was on the battlefield, it was exactly because I hesitated like you that I missed the chance to be the first to storm the capital. That’s why I’m where I am now.”
Fortune favors the bold.
Qi Yuan had already provided enough reasons to earn their trust. If they didn’t join the game now, there would be no other chance in the future.
After much thought, Qi Zhen, hearing the old Marquis speak this way, could only close his eyes and nod in agreement.
Just as he was preparing to sort out his thoughts and seek an audience with the Emperor to report this matter, he ran into Qi Yunting, who had just recovered from his injuries.
When Qi Yunting saw him, he stopped and respectfully called out, “Father.”
Seeing him, Qi Zhen had mixed feelings. He took a deep breath and asked, “Where are you off to?”
Qi Yunting hesitated.
Qi Zhen glared at him. “What, you’re not heading to the Mingyue Pavilion again, are you?!”
For some reason, whenever his father mentioned the Mingyue Pavilion, he would get extremely angry.
Qi Yunting felt both aggrieved and furious, but thinking about how often he’d been beaten recently, he could only lower his head and endure. “No, Father, I wouldn’t dare.”
Only after hearing this did Qi Zhen’s expression ease a bit. He coldly snorted and still sternly warned, “You’d better not! You’d better behave yourself, or I’ll break your legs!”
With that, he turned and stormed off.
Qi Yunting stood under the moon gate, looking at the Mingyue Pavilion in the distance.
Why did things turn out like this?
That worthless woman who came back from the countryside—she was supposed to be an insignificant nobody, living out her life quietly in some corner of the Marquis estate or on a distant manor.
Why was she now the one so favored in the Marquis household?
Qi Yunting gave Mingyue Pavilion a long, deep look, then quickly turned and rushed out the estate gates.
Ruisong anxiously followed behind. “Young Master, wait for me! Young Master, where exactly are you going?”
Where?
Qi Yunting lowered his voice. “I’m going out of the city!”
Out of the city?
Ruisong nearly fainted. “Young Master, you—you just barely recovered, and Madam is still sick! Please don’t make the Marquis angry again.”
“Shut up!” Qi Yunting suddenly kicked him hard. “Since when do you have the right to speak here? If you don’t want to follow me, leave now!”
Ruisong was kicked so hard he curled up like a shrimp and almost fainted on the spot.
But Qi Yunting paid him no mind, turning to mount his horse.
Seeing this, Ruisong could only grit his teeth and scramble up to follow, quickly riding after him.
For servants like them, they might not get credit when things went well, but if something went wrong, they would definitely be the ones to suffer.
Qi Yunting circled around one of the family’s manors outside the city, asking many of the maids and servants about Qi Jin’s whereabouts.
But the manor staff had long since been replaced, and he couldn’t get any useful information.
Ruisong, trembling as he followed, tried to persuade him repeatedly, “Young Master, the Marquis and Madam have strictly forbidden anyone to mention… the Second Miss again. You really should let this go—there won’t be any results.”
Qi Yunting wouldn’t listen. After asking around the entire manor, he even went to the Daxing County Office to check the missing persons records.
But he still found nothing.
Instead, he learned that several unidentified corpses had been discovered last month.
Qi Yunting’s face instantly went pale.
He remembered his parents repeatedly stressing that Qi Jin would never appear again.
Could it be…
He returned to the Marquis estate in a daze.
At this time, the estate was bustling.
Someone from the Zhou family had come.
Second Master Zhou personally came to persuade Qi Fangyun to return to the Zhou family to handle Old Madam Zhou’s funeral.
But Qi Fangyun remained unmoved. She coldly pointed to the wound on her forehead. “It’s still being treated. Second Uncle, you can still say this with a straight face?”
She had figured it out.
She had used her dowry to support the Zhou family all these years, yet she never received any respect, only orders and humiliation, even public disgrace.
Her husband even wanted to take a misstress from a merchant family to humiliate her further.
What was there to be attached to anymore?
Not to mention, the Zhou family was now on the brink of collapse—just an empty shell, ready to fall at the slightest breeze.
Second Master Zhou could only force a bitter smile, cursing the Zhou family mother and son in his heart for being utterly insane.
They had a good life, but they just had to stir up trouble. Now, they had torn the family apart and completely ruined their reputation.
Here, they were given no face at all. The words were spoken so harshly that Second Master Zhou had no choice but to leave empty-handed.
When he got home, he happened to run into Zhou Ping heading out, and quickly asked, “Where are you going?”
He instinctively covered his nose, feeling that Zhou Ping looked quite disheveled.
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