The Ancestor's Last Words
With a muffled thud, the delicate teacup was violently smashed onto the carpet.
The beautiful woman tapped her daughter's forehead with a look of exasperation, and scolded her sharply, "How could you be so useless? It's bad enough you couldn't even get away with trying to cause trouble, but now you've managed to get Fu Yinqiu to ground us all?!"
The woman who spoke was quite old, but one could still see the stunning beauty she had possessed in her youth.
Beside her were her three children and an elderly woman sitting in the main seat.
"Mother, it's not my fault. Aunt just wants to protect that wild girl. No matter what I say, she won't listen to me." Jimo Qunfang rubbed her forehead, which had been poked, her voice full of grievance.
She always did the thankless and arduous tasks, while her brother or younger brother would take on the more rewarding ones.
Her mother was clever, but she never used that cleverness to do anything for her daughter.
"How dare you talk back! If you weren't so disliked, why would Fu Yinqiu choose an outsider as her daughter instead of the girl she's watched grow up?!" The woman grew angrier as she spoke.
Mentioning this matter made everyone in the room look rather grim.
After all, they lived in the Jimo Household, so they naturally knew exactly how many children Fu Yinqiu had.
After Jimo Qing was born in her early years, the couple always regretted not having a daughter. So when Jimo Qunfang was born, the people in the West Courtyard immediately had an idea.
They approached the head of the household and his wife, intending to give their daughter away as an adopted child.
Fu Yinqiu had considered it at first, but the head of the Jimo Household had been with the people of the West Courtyard for many years and knew their nature well. So he advised his dao companion to wait and see what kind of character the child would have in the future before considering whether to adopt him.
Sure enough, when Jimo Qunfang was five or six years old, even though Fu Yinqiu often brought her to his side to teach her, she inevitably became more and more like the people from the West Courtyard.
Not only does she often present herself as the legitimate daughter of the Jimo Household in public, but she also occasionally plots against Jimo Qing.
Finally, unable to bear it any longer, Jimo Qing went to his parents and made it clear that if they continued to claim to be his sister, he would not be polite.
Fu Yinqiu finally saw through the true nature of the family in the West Courtyard. From then on, she not only refused to adopt Jimo Qunfang, but she also refused to let Jimo Qunfang get close to Jimo Qing, fearing that one day her son might lose his temper and take action.
The adoption became a complete pipe dream, and even the privilege of freely entering and leaving the main courtyard was revoked for the Jimo Qunfang.
The group's hopes were shattered in an instant, and they couldn't help but feel resentment towards the young girl Jimo Qunfang, thinking that she was not likable or well-behaved enough, which was why she had attracted Fu Yinqiu's dislike.
She felt completely unaware that there was anything wrong with her encouraging her daughter to deal with Jimo Qing.
Jimo Qunfang was already unhappy about being kicked out of the main courtyard, and now that her mother had brought it up again, she became even angrier. "Is this all my fault? Isn't it because you are my mother that my aunt doesn't want me!"
Upon hearing this, Madam Zhang Huizhen was immediately furious with her daughter.
Seeing that the room was about to erupt into chaos again, the young man, who had remained silent until now, couldn't help but scold, "Enough! What kind of behavior is this, making such a racket? Father will be back soon. All he has to do is go and 'complain' to the elders, and this confinement will be lifted."
Instead of our own family arguing here, we should figure out a way to get rid of that outsider!
The young man's face was cold. He couldn't defeat Jimo Qing, but could he really be defeated by a wild girl who had appeared out of nowhere?!
Completely unaware that someone harbored ill intentions towards her, Sang Ying was currently searching through books about Myriad Phenomena Mountain.
When she went to see Fu Yinqiu today, she mentioned to him that she wanted to see the extensive book collection of the Jimo Household. Fu Yinqiu immediately agreed and even instructed the steward to personally take Sang Ying there.
This trust made Sang Ying feel somewhat guilty. After all, she was secretly investigating the Jimo Clan.
"Do you think this was done by the Jimo Household?" Jiang Zhuoxue was no longer on Sang Ying's head; he had transformed into a small snake and was turning the pages of a book one by one with his tail.
Sang Ying shook her head upon hearing this. "I don't think it's him. No one would leave such a hidden danger near their own clan's territory, especially since he is the clan head. I'm more inclined to believe it's someone who wants to see the clan head make a mistake."
Take the West Wing, for example.
These past few days have been enough for Sang Ying to slowly learn about the old stories of the West Courtyard.
Even Sang Ying, an outsider, could clearly see the ambitions of this family, let alone the head of the Jimo Household and his wife.
Although Sang Ying suspected that the people from the West Courtyard had tampered with things, she had no concrete evidence. To avoid alerting them, Sang Ying decided to investigate privately first, and then slowly inform Jimo Qing about the matter once she had figured out the origin of those Tuyao Flower.
She believed that the person who could forge the Floating River Sword could not be a truly wicked or evil person.
Fortunately, the Jimo Household's historical records were well preserved, Sang Ying soon found some of the contents of Myriad Phenomena Mountain.
The text states that the strangeness of Myriad Phenomena Mountain is due to a certain family head who specially set up an array there. However, few people know why the other party set up the array.
As for the Tuyao Flower, it didn't originally grow on the mountain. One day, a seed fell from somewhere and slowly grew into so many.
At first, the Jimo Household sent people to investigate, but after finding nothing unusual, they put the matter aside, thinking it was just a normal thing.
The person sent to investigate was named Jimo Hong —he was the adopted son of the previous family head and the current head of the West Courtyard.
"Therefore, he must have been the one who caused the Tuyao Flower incident. He wanted to plant flowers that could easily cause Spiritual Qi disturbances all over Myriad Phenomena Mountain, and then one day detonate them, destroying the entire Rizhao City and then pinning all the blame on the Jimo Household head!"
Gu Shu analysis, which at first glance seemed quite reasonable, but Sang Ying and Jiang Zhuoxue both laughed.
"What's wrong? Did I say something wrong?" Gu Shu asked, puzzled, seeing the two of them laugh at the same time.
Sang Ying: "The second half is somewhat reasonable, but the first half is not quite right. Jimo Hong only wants the position of family head, but destroying Rizhao City would do more harm than good to him. There are many ways to make the family head step down; there's no need to cause such a huge loss."
"I suspect he discovered something but couldn't say it for some reason, and was even forced to become an accomplice. The real mastermind behind it all is probably the one who promised him the position of family head, turning him into someone else's lackey."
Upon reaching this conclusion, Sang Ying had to admit she breathed a sigh of relief. After all, she really didn't want the family that had been so eager to treat her to be the ones who wanted to destroy the city.
"So what do we do next? Continue flipping through the book looking for clues?" Gu Shu bumped into Floating River Sword, who was engrossed in flipping through the book, causing him to stumble and fall back down.
Sang Ying steadied the Floating River Sword and casually replied, "We won't find anything further if we search any deeper. But we can ask the woman from that day."