"I still don't quite understand!"
Chen Wu and Zhongcheng bade Gao Xiwen farewell and set off eastward. Unable to hold it in any longer, Monk Zhongcheng asked again about Qiao Jisheng.
"What don't you understand?"
"You said the bounty on Qiao Weisheng was posted by Qiao Jisheng."
"Yes. It was Qiao Jisheng's reward that I accepted."
"Why?"
"Only a few days after Qiao Weisheng died, I ran into Qiao Jisheng. I thought it was a coincidence, that he had merely happened to arrive in Jincheng Prefecture. But now that I've seen how this Young Master Qiao toys with people's hearts, it certainly wasn't a coincidence. He must have been waiting nearby for news, which was how he arrived so quickly."
"We all underestimated Qiao Jisheng." Chen Wu sighed. "The moment Qiao Weisheng died, he immediately threw in with the Crown Prince's Mansion to stabilize the situation. Then he won over Shopkeeper Wu and had him control the banking-house business for him. In secret, he also maintained an on-again, off-again connection with Sea-Pacifying Palace, preparing a way out. And while he was at it, he borrowed strength from both sides to have Fan Dacheng, an important shareholder, killed, firmly seizing the banking house in his grasp."
"Step by step, link by link. That means he had long anticipated his father's death. He could only have been the one who posted the bounty."
"Amitabha!" Monk Zhongcheng felt as though his eyes had been opened.
"The only thing I don't know now is why he wanted to kill his father. We can only wait for him to say it himself; otherwise, we'd just be blindly guessing." Chen Wu shook his head again. "With someone as calculating as him, unless I can get hold of solid evidence, don't expect to get a single truthful