bayedsolid Chapter 314: Dance of Good and Evil
Chapter 314: Dance of Good and Evil
When he saw the words "Xiyuan", Yi Chi knew he had come to the right place.
She heard the housekeeper mention it yesterday when Jane was embarrassed and making a fuss.
You should still be sleeping at this hour?
However, Yi Chi searched the entire West Garden but couldn't find the person. According to the sleepy guards during the conversation, the person was with Master Jian.
Hiss, don’t these people sleep at night?
When Yi Chi climbed to the roof of Master Jian's house again, he touched the glazed tiles and thought to himself that she was really rich and had a lot of guards, but they couldn't stop her.
The voices of Jian Xiurong and Master Jian were heard from the study. When Yi Chi listened carefully, he heard the latter angrily smashing an expensive teacup, slamming the desk and pointing at Jian Xiurong.
"Asshole, as a businessman's son, you are so soft-hearted and kind-hearted."
"You think I am being so mean? You know, if I weren't there, how could the Jian's Tea House, which was once bullied by everyone, be revived?"
"Without my decades of hard work, how could you, Master Jian, be so arrogant and domineering outside and yet everyone would be in awe and dare not say anything?"
"You still have the reputation of Jian's Tea House to protect you! But you pick up the bowl to eat, and put it down to curse your mother!"
"You said I was a profiteer who assisted the evil, then what are you? An ungrateful and rebellious son!"
The teacup broke at her feet, and the scalding tea splashed on her feet. Jian Xiurong did not move a step, her posture was upright, and her expression was not as arrogant as yesterday.
But his madness had not diminished, and there was even a hint of pain in his half-closed eyes.
"But if Dad hadn't been so stubborn and refused to listen to advice, doing such evil and unscrupulous things, why would I have to be so 'domineering'?"
"Dad called it 'arrogance', but I thought it was to accumulate merit for Dad. Now it seems that it is just a drop in the bucket."
As soon as she finished these two sentences, Jane Xiurong was slapped hard in the face.
Master Jian was not as tall as him, but he grabbed him by the collar and stared at him, with a mixture of anger and sadness on his face that had experienced years.
Veins on his forehead throbbed. After twenty years of quarreling, he was exhausted and powerless. "Jian Xiurong, I'm your father! Is this what you should say to me? Huh?"
"I just want to live well until the day I die. Is that so difficult? Why do you have to go against me?"
"I know you don't like these dirty business affairs, so I never let you get involved and let you study and take the imperial examination."
"One day in the future, if I go to hell, you can take your wealth to the Yueyao Imperial Capital to make a living. Your life will be ten thousand times easier. Do you know that?"
Master Jian tapped his chest, his eyes still fixed on Jian's shy face.
"I am the one who bears all the sins. You just need to close your eyes and pretend you don't know, and you will be able to succeed and rise to the top. Is that difficult?"
Jane shyly met his cloudy and sad eyes, looking at his half-white hair, and felt a pain in her heart like a needle.
His Adam's apple throbbed, tears suddenly fell, and he said with trembling lips: "But Daddy, if this path needs to be exchanged in this way, I would rather not have it."
"A bright future cannot be bought with the future of others or paved with the blood of others. What you brought to me was only complete darkness."
"Baizhen was in disaster, with tens of millions of casualties. You were the one behind it, right?"
"Just like Jingshang Village five years ago, Mojia Tea House thirteen years ago, and Fengtiangang seventeen years ago... for land, technology, and cheap population."
"Dad, those are all human lives! Are our lives lives, but other people's lives are not lives?"
Master Jian was stunned, slowly loosened his hands, and the moment he bent down, his old and decadent features finally revealed under his delicate clothes.
After a while, he rolled up the sleeve of his right arm, leaving a deep scar on his arm, embedded in it like an ugly armband.
"Do you know where this came from?"
He didn't wait for Jian Xirong to answer, and continued talking to himself with a distracted look.
"You were not yet born that year. There was a severe drought in the area. Jian's Tea House was just a small workshop where I had to pick tea leaves myself. We didn't get any harvest for the whole year and our vitality was severely damaged."
"But I did not fire the workers. I responded to the call from Yaocheng and donated half of my grain reserves to help the surrounding poor villages."
Master Jian said this with a sneer.
"But the facts prove that human nature is unfathomable. They showed their gratitude during the day, but at night they joined forces to rob the tea house. All the valuables and edibles were looted."
"I knelt on the ground and begged them, but they beat me and kicked me, and one of my arms was cut off. Your mother was severely injured and later passed away due to a recurrence of her old injury."
"When they were fighting for it, they knocked over the candlesticks, and the teahouse was engulfed in fire. Your mother and I were left kneeling alone in the empty yard, determined to die."
Manor Master Jian sat back at the table, the smile on his face turned strange and cold, "But isn't it a coincidence that it started to rain when the flames were licking us?"
“It’s pouring.”
"I knew then that if I survived, none of them would survive."
Jane stood there in a daze with shame on her face, her lowered eyes filled with pain.
Reliving the memory, he heard those words for the second time.
Master Jian looked at him and asked excitedly, "They want my life, so I can't take their lives?"
"Am I wrong?"
“I would rather betray the world than let the world betray me.”
“This is what they taught me personally.”
The air was dead silent for a moment, the lights were jumping in this quiet room, and the messy branches outside the window were imprinted on the ground by the moonlight, like Jane's shy and shattered heart.
He raised his head, his eyes red, and said in a hoarse voice: "Dad, there are tens of millions of innocent people among them, and you were the one who had no one to turn to for help back then."
Master Jian waved his hand and swept the papers and inkstones off the table. His voice was deafening. He stared at him and said, "If you have the guts, go to Yaocheng and report me! Why don't you go?"
"What's the point of pretending to be crazy and stupid to save a few people and punish a few villains? Or are you too soft-hearted to see your father die?"
The dispute has reached a fever pitch.
When the two pairs of stubborn and determined eyes collided, it was clear that neither could convince the other, just like the countless conversations they had had in the past.
Jian Xiurong cannot reconcile between her father and her conscience, so she can only destroy the evil deeds of Master Jian by being "arrogant and domineering", such as what she did to the refugees yesterday.
He just wanted to get rid of them.
Master Jian knew this very well, and took advantage of the situation to create a reputation for himself as being reasonable and kind.
When Yi Chi heard this, he sighed, but still had a question in his mind.
Bai Town has a large population, but there are only more than a hundred refugees. It doesn't make sense that Master Jian would go to war and destroy the entire town with no grudges against him just for these one hundred cheap laborers.
When Yi Chi thought of this, Jian Xiurong had already expressed this doubt, and then asked Master Jian a question.
"Dad, they all say that you have someone behind you who can ignore even the city lord."
"Who is that person?"
Master Jian's expression darkened, and he turned away with his back to the master. "This is not something you should know. If you have nothing else, go back."
Jane's face was expressionless as she spoke a few words in a cold voice, which were like the sound of beads dropping in a room where you could hear a pin drop, shocking people to the point of trembling with fear.
"It's City Lord Yao himself, right?"
A very confident tone.
Master Jian turned around and stared at Jian's shy face in surprise and suspicion.
Jian lowered her eyes in shame and said, "Outsiders say that you two are not on good terms, but that is just an illusion. Most of the benefits of what you have done over the years have been contributed to the city lord."
"In other words, the reason why the tea shop was able to hold on despite the catastrophe was because you met the city lord who came to provide disaster relief. You became his money-making tool and underground hand, helping him to eliminate people and things he didn't like."
"The city lord coveted Baizhen's wealth in the name of fundraising, but the latter failed to satisfy the city lord, so you took advantage of the monks' actions to bring disaster to Baizhen."
"Now that the town has been taken over by the city lord after the disaster, all the financial resources that cannot be taken away naturally belong to him. The city lord deliberately did not accept the 100 tea pickers and asked you to bring them back."
"It is a way to divide the spoils and balance the situation, and it is also one of the small benefits."
When Jian Xiurong finished speaking, Master Jian's face had already turned as gloomy as water.
The air was filled with solemnity.
"Where did you know that?" asked Master Jian with dark eyes.
Jian's eyes flickered with shyness, and he pursed his lips and said, "I am your son. You have done a lot for the city lord over the years. After the incident in Baizhen, if you pay attention to the ultimate beneficiary, you will always be able to see the clues."
Today, Master Jian can no longer remain immune.
Bitterness flashed across Master Jian's eyes, but soon turned into relief. "You are so sharp and intelligent. I will feel relieved in the future."
Jian said shyly: "If you try to get the skin of a tiger, you will end up feeding it with your own body."
"I know." Master Jian smiled coldly.
"But let me ask you, on that rainy night, with the teahouse on fire, and your wife seriously injured and dying, if someone said he could help you, would you have refused?"
Jane was too embarrassed to speak.
"No one can refuse." Master Jian said indifferently.
"All the righteous accusations are only because the person standing there was not him."
"I really don't know how you could have such a personality when you grew up in a teahouse."
Master Jian looked at him coldly: "You advised me to give away all my wealth and turn myself in before. Now that you know the truth, what will you do?"
Yes, the people sitting up there are even the culprits. The word "surrender" is so ridiculous.
They are all birds in a cage.
"You go back, I'm tired." Master Jian waved his hand lazily, with a look of fatigue between his brows.
Jian Xiurong returned to the West Garden in a daze, dismissed all the servants, closed the door of her room, and leaned against it with a sad look on her face.
Then he saw a man named Yi sitting on the beam.
Jane shuddered with shame: "!!!"
"Hei Yichi! Didn't you disappear?"
Yi Chi: “…”
He really thought she was Hei Yichi.
In order to change this guy's perception, Yi Chi told him everything about the conversation they had on the Chaos Cliff before entering the Qintian Secret Realm. Only then did Jian Xiurong believe that the person in front of him was his respected senior sister.
He asked Yi Chi why he suddenly disappeared yesterday. Yi Chi said, "Don't mention it. I was taken to the secret realm to work for nothing."
"You were looking for me yesterday? You didn't mistake me for Hei Yi Chi and wanted to assassinate me." Yi Chi teased with a smile.
Jane smiled shyly.
Yi Chi: “…”
It’s pretty good, at least the stance of eradicating evil is very firm.
"I didn't find you in Xiyuan just now. When I went there to look for you, I heard your conversation." Yi Chi said.
The smile on Jian Xiurong's face gradually disappeared, and sadness covered his face like mist.
The last trace of a smile remained on that face, which was uglier than crying.
He said, "Actually, I just lied. In reality today, I had no idea that the person behind my father was the incorruptible Lord of City Yao. I only found out after I did something wrong."
"Do you know what I did wrong?"