Chapter 812: The Royal Family’s Hidden Secret

"Dad, did you beat them up?" Ye Qianning asked.

"Beat them? They’re not worthy!"

"Then what did you do?"

"I had my men dump all the seafood they harvested right back into the sea."

"..."

"That’s truly wicked! Now Beili should be the one getting cursed at!" she thought.

"Li Mu has been getting very close to Old Prince Feng lately. I’m guessing that most of the seafood will be sold to Beili from now on. You mentioned the Huo family’s Beili merchant ships before, and I looked into it. The seafood from the Qingzhou area has essentially been sold to Beili for a few years now. This is the evidence I’ve collected; every transaction is clearly recorded." Zhan Chi had heard rumors before, but only after investigating did he realize that Nanyuan had broken the contract years ago.

Ye Qianning took the documents. The cities surrounding Qingzhou were quite brazen. With the local government providing cover, the seafood was transported to Beili, and it was all clearly recorded in the ledgers. Things would be much easier to handle with the account books in hand.

"I remember the contract Gu Shuo signed stipulated that a breach of contract would require compensation several times over. If we seize this opportunity, we can definitely make Old Prince Feng go bankrupt paying it off." Zhan Chi had made a rough estimate, and it was an astronomical sum.

"Dad, no matter what Li Mu does at the Four Nations Tournament, don’t interfere."

Hearing this, Zhan Chi lowered his eyes and clenched his fists. "If... if we had also renounced our citizenship back then, you wouldn’t be in such a difficult position."

"That’s not it, Dad. I never wanted you all to leave your homeland for my sake." Her master, the Qian family, and her father renouncing their citizenship had always left a knot in her heart. Being stateless caused them to be gossiped about, despised, and cursed. How could she bear to watch them endure such treatment?

"The current Beili is no longer the Beili of ten years ago. After resigning, many officials encountered bandits on their way back to their hometowns, and their entire families were killed. This has happened one after another, making officials who originally wanted to resign too afraid to even mention it." Many things remained unknown unless one was directly involved. He had only come to understand a lot after entering the military camp.

"Once you enter officialdom, it’s incredibly difficult to leave. I heard from my master that when they left Beili back then, they were also attacked on the road. If not for the help of an expert, they wouldn’t have made it out of Beili alive." Ye Qianning suddenly thought of something. "Dad, do you know of the Fu family from Songshan Mountain in Beili?"

"The Fu family of Songshan Mountain?" Zhan Chi thought for a moment and shook his head slightly. "Never heard of them. Why?"

"A while ago, the Fu family of Songshan Mountain was wiped out overnight. Only three children managed to escape. After many twists and turns, these children fled to Dayu City. I looked into the Fu family. The Family Head was a top-tier Hidden Guard by the late emperor’s side."

Zhan Chi was shocked. "Didn’t all the Hidden Guards by the late emperor’s side get entombed with him as sacrifices?"

"Back then, this Hidden Guard used some unknown condition to exchange for a chance to live. Years ago, when the Fu family faced a devastating disaster, an old Taoist priest passing by saved them. Since then, the Fu family relocated entirely, but even after all these years, they still couldn’t escape this calamity. Dad, when you return to Beili, ask Grandpa Zhan if he remembers the commander of the Hidden Guards."

The Zhan family had been court officials for generations and had the most contact with the royal family. They should have seen many of the late emperor’s Hidden Guards.

"Alright. How do you plan to deal with those children?" Taking in people with such identities would definitely be a huge source of trouble if discovered.

"The Fu family must be hiding some royal secret, but prying it out of the children’s mouths won’t be easy. I want them to choose for themselves." The late emperor’s secret was either about some treasure or about the next generation.

"Choose for themselves?"

"Yes. If they want to live, they must trade the secret for it. If they don’t, I have no reason to save them." One always had to pay a price to survive.

If they refused, she naturally wouldn’t risk being targeted just to save them.