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I have never liked you! I am the future head of the Fang family. How could I possibly marry a second daughter of the Jian family like you!

His words pierced Jian Xiaoyu's heart like a knife.

She looked at the handsome man before her in disbelief, her heart filled with regret. If only... if only back then...

Faced with their confrontation, Fang's Mother had a numb expression, merely shooting Jian Xiaoyu a cold glance. She now also felt that this Jian Xiaoyu was simply a jinx! The Fang family's downfall happened right after her reckless behavior.

You have no manners at all. Get back and pack your things! Fang's Mother scolded.

Jian Xiaoyu turned her gaze to Fang's Mother. Mother... she said, feeling deeply wronged.

However, Fang's Mother was provoked by this address. She instantly put her hands on her hips and rebuked, Who is your mother? Don't you have your own? You were originally nothing but the fiancée of that piece of trash, Fang Zhiyi, yet you cried and screamed to marry Congyun. What are you playing the victim for now! You jinx!

Jian Xiaoyu's mind went completely blank.

Enough! Fang Kui finally spoke. He glanced at his wife and son, hesitated for a moment, and said to Jian Xiaoyu, Don't take your mother's words to heart. With such a huge disaster befalling our family, you also bear some responsibility. Why don't you return to the Jian family and ask them for a little help, alright?

After all, he was the head of the family, and all he was thinking about now was how to rise back up. This was where the Jian family could be of use.

Jian Xiaoyu opened her mouth, glanced at her mother-in-law's harsh face, and finally said, I... I can't go back.

Why? Fang Kui was startled.

I...

This slut invested all her mother's money into Fang Zhiyi as well. How would she dare go back now? Fang Congyun sneered. Moreover, the Jian family sent someone with a message. They said that for the sake of the marriage tie between our two families, there is no rush to repay the money. We can just pay it back slowly in the future.

Fang Kui was thoroughly stunned. A moment later, he smiled bitterly. The fickleness of human nature and the coldness of the world were nothing more than this.

Noble families, after all, always put their own interests first.

However, the Fang family's troubles were not over yet.

A palace attendant brought the Emperor's decree.

As a father, Fang Kui actually laid murderous hands upon his own flesh and blood. Such conduct cannot be tolerated by the world! Even We could not save this child, and Our heart aches deeply. After the Fang family settles their debt issues, they are ordered to leave Shangjing immediately and are forbidden from lingering!

The sudden decree struck the Fang family like a bolt of lightning.

I... I really didn't kill him! Fang Kui had not expected that this matter was still not over. He felt as though an eternity had already passed.

The palace attendant rolled up the imperial edict in his hands and gradually straightened his back. Fang Kui, are you trying to defy an imperial decree?

Seeing the imperial guards standing on either side of the attendant, Fang Kui's legs instantly gave way. I wouldn't dare, I wouldn't dare!

The attendant suddenly leaned in close to Fang Kui's ear. His Majesty said, whether you killed your son or not is unimportant, but a world without your Fang family is very important.

Fang Kui stared blankly as they left.

The nonsense that Fang Zhiyi had spouted in front of the Emperor back then resurfaced in his mind.

For a moment, he could not figure out whether it was Fang Zhiyi who had dug a pit for the Fang family, or the Emperor who had dug their grave.

Remember this, in any dynasty, as long as there are social classes, it is impossible for the rulers to sit back and watch the noble families grow too powerful, Fang Zhiyi said to Little Hei.

That dog Emperor is extremely shrewd. What I said doesn't matter; the key is that the leverage I left him is very important. Despite how upside-down this world seems, with the noble families and the royal family forming something resembling an imperial court, its essence remains unchanged. In the original plot, Fang Congyun abducting the princess was the catalyst, and my indirect cursing of the Emperor on the spot was also a catalyst. It's just a difference in scale. What if you add my secret manipulation into the mix?

So you made the Fang family offend all the noble families, and then sent people to spread the rumor that you were murdered by him... Little Hei understood.

If they wanted to investigate whether I was dead, they could have just taken the bones for examination. Those two corpses were dug out from a mass grave; distinguishing the real from the fake would be simple. Fang Zhiyi stretched lazily. You're oversimplifying things. Neither that Emperor nor those noble families are stupid. They most likely believe that Fang Kui didn't kill me, but they had to say he did because the Emperor wanted that outcome. As for the noble families, they wanted to take advantage of the chaos to recoup their losses and snatch some extra benefits along the way. Therefore, absolutely no one is going to examine the bones. They might even help me destroy the evidence.

Dark. It's so damn dark, Little Hei said, shaking his head.

Along the journey, aside from the difficult roads, they did not encounter any other problems. The reason was that Fang Zhiyi had money. He used the simplest method: paving the way with wealth. Even martial cultivators needed money, so very few people made things difficult for them.

Peng Huan'er, on the other hand, had a face full of heartache. The young master seemed even more generous than when they were in Shangjing. He gave out money to complete strangers just like that. But it wasn't her place to say anything; after all, this money was entirely earned by the young master himself.

It was also because of this that by the time Fang Zhiyi's group approached the Southwest region, their original party of a few people had grown to dozens.

Like-minded companions aren't invited from the very beginning; they are encountered while marching toward the same goal... Fang Zhiyi muttered words that Peng Huan'er couldn't understand, but she just felt that the people behind them were somewhat dangerous.

Farmers who had lost their land, scoundrels who had failed in their extortion schemes, and old scholars who cursed the noble families after drinking—the common trait among these people was that they loved to criticize the current state of affairs, saying things like the Emperor lacked vision and the noble families were a plague. If this bunch were to appear in Shangjing, they would probably have to be beheaded in batches.

Fortunately, they were now close to the Southwest. The closer they got to the Southwest, the sparser the population became. The people were concentrated in a few small cities. The terrain here was treacherous, far less vast than the central and northern regions. Most of the residents were ordinary local commoners, and even if there were noble families, they were only there to open up trade routes for their caravans.

In Shangjing, if you stood on the street and cursed the Emperor, you would probably vanish from the face of the earth very quickly. Here, you could stand on the city walls and curse for three days and three nights, and you might only attract a few border folk looking for a spectacle.

A group of refugees entering Yicheng did not attract much attention. Yicheng frequently saw foreign merchants or refugees, so this was nothing unusual. The people who came here were either fleeing disaster or looking to do a little business.

The noble family managing this place was not large in scale.

Faced with Fang Zhiyi coming to pay a visit, the Gu family appeared very welcoming, which actually surprised Fang Zhiyi a little.

Fang Zhiyi proposed that he wanted to settle down here and rent a shop to do timber business. The head of the Gu family beamed with joy as he looked at the banknotes slipped to him, and immediately agreed to everything.

Fang Zhiyi didn't sit idle either. He immediately started recruiting people to go into the mountains to log timber. Quite a few people responded, and he turned no one away as long as they were willing to work for him. It was just that they found this young boss a bit strange; he was always scurrying about in the mountains and never listened to the advice of the locals.