If the Shen Family broke off the engagement to Wei Changying, Wei Huan and Old Madam Song could not reject it. However, they could make a plan for retaliation.
Recently, Ruiyu Hall had suffered a lot.
If Wei Huan did not do something to gain ground, Ruiyu Hall would come to decline.
There was a roaring fire in Fengzhou after the day when Old Madam Song had received the letter from the Capital City. The dawn did not come yet.
It was the bellman who first noticed the flame that had newly appeared in the dark.
The fire started in Zhiben Hall, not far from Ruiyu Hall. Residents in Fengzhou gradually knew that Zhiben Hall went up in flames.
Several hundred years ago, Zhiben Hall moved its main business to Capital City for various reasons. The old house remained. In the house, the grand ceremony, such as ancestor worship, wedding or funeral would be held. In usual, only servants stayed here to guard and clean the house. Bleak as it was, it used to be the headquarter of Zhiben Hall. What was more, there was an ancestral hall in this house.
After getting the news, Wei Huan quickly put on his coat and headed for Zhiben Hall to guide people to contain the blaze in person.
As he reached the spot, he found that the building engulfed by fire had been deliberately splashed with oil. There was so much oil that people failed to put out the blaze with water. On the contrary, the fire became stronger after people splashed water over it because it made oil flow everywhere. What was worse, it was likely that the buildings near Zhiben Hall would be fired.
Wei Huan was calm enough to order people to carry sand and stones to stop the fire. It became a little weaker now. There were many wells and ponds in this grand house. Piles of sand or stones were not attractive, so they were not here in usual. Finally, the fire was basically extinguished at ten in the morning.
At this time, the whole building engulfed by fire was almost destroyed, only the base left. Unfortunately, people spotted that the fire started near the ancestral hall. Although the inner hall was free of fire, the outer wall of it was scorched.
It was a terrible thing that the ancestral hall had nearly been destroyed by fire. The servants who guarded it were almost scared to death. Kneeling before Wei Huan, they begged and kowtowed to him. Wei Huan queried them about the reason why the building had been burned with oil. It must be destroyed on purpose. The ancestral hall was even nearly been destroyed by the fire.
The ancestors of Zhiben Hall were worshiped in this burned ancestral hall. They were also a part of ancestors of Ruiyu Hall and worshiped in Ruiyu Hall. Although the inner part of the ancestral hall in Zhiben Hall was not fired, it was still a serious thing in the Wei Family.
As the Family Head, Wei Huan had to find out the truth.
He had asked the servants, but something urgent stopped him.
The Family Head Song Han, his son Song Duan, and more than ten loyal guards were cruelly killed. Their bodies were found in an alley near Zhiben Hall.
Song Han, as the vice-governor, was an official in charge of army. Besides, he and his son, Song Duan were praised by the emperor recently. It was a shock that they had just been murdered in the city. Wei Huan raged. He ordered that servants of the Zhiben Hall must be strictly watched. He intended to research something in the alley personally.
However, when Wei Huan walked out of the gate, an arrow came suddenly. But for the alert servant beside Wei Huan pushed him aside, he would have died as well as Song Han and Song Duan in the alley.
After the assassination, guards and officials in Fengzhou were rather angry. They dared not let Wei Huan make a survey in the alley in person, but forced him to go back to Ruiyu Hall. After entering the gate, Wei Huan urged guards to tightly close the gate and was escorted by them to come to the back hall. At this time, he started feeling a little relieved.
Wei Huan was talking with Old Madam Song and grandchildren who came to comfort him for a while.
A frightened servant rushed to the hall and told him that Wei Zhengya, a renowned scholar in the country and a royal heir of the Duke Jingping, was just now found violently dead on his bed.
A concubine was also killed beside Wei Zhengya. She was the dowry maidservant of little Mrs. Liu and birth mother of Wei Gao’an, Tenth young master.
It was a horrible night. Someone on purpose set fired to Zhiben Hall and the fire almost destroyed the ancestral hall. Song Han and Song Duan were killed in the alley. Wei Huan was ambushed. The famous scholar was murdered on the bed. Four disasters were increasingly shocking, serious and frightening one after another. Worst, they all happened overnight.
People in Fengzhou suddenly became frightened.
The advantage of the headquarter was completely revealed.
Within three days, knife wounds of Song Han and Song Duan, the arrow that almost shot Wei Huan in the forehead but finally in the stone and the wolf’s fang left beside Wei Zhengya’s bed were all powerful evidence. Besides, someone recalled that he or she had accidentally met some suspects in the desolate places in Fengzhou these two days. For some reasons, however, the suspects were often ignored.
Wei Huan was very sad and angry. He was sure that these horrible things were achieved by the northern Rong Tribe who had secretly been in this city.
Why?
It was because they wanted to revenge for the triumph in the north of the province.
Not long before, Wei Huan’s only two lineal grandchildren and one common grandchild who was taught by Wei in person saw off the standby guard of the emperor, the son of the minister of the public and the future Crown Princess outside the city. On their return to the city, three grandchildren were ambushed by people from the northern Rong Tribe. God blessing, Wei Huan’s two lineal grandchildren survived from it.
Wei Changying was suspected that she had been raped in the forest after the ambush. She did not go back to Ruiyu Hall until several days later.
At that time, Wei Zhengya, Wei Changying’s uncle condemned shameful behavior by the northern Rong tribe.
Wei Huan wrote in an urgent report to the emperor that after the ambush, he had ordered his private guards to search for the remaining Rong people nearby Fengzhou. He thought that they should escape toward the north after they did not successfully carry out the plan. Unexpectedly, they were so crafty that they came back within a month.
Therefore, the truth of three events overnight was clear.
It was a retaliatory action. The northern Rong tribe plotted to murder Song Duan and Song Han who once defeated them in the north of the province. Also, they hated the Wei Family, in particular Wei Zhengya who used to in public criticize them for their unscrupulous actions.
The northern Rong tribe was fully prepared for their revenge. First, they splashed oil over the building in the Zhiben Hall and set fire to it. It was the old house of Zhiben Hall and near the ancestral Hall. Two buildings were so important that no one would not intend to extinguish the fire. What was more, the building spilled by oil was not easy to put out by water, but by sand and stones. Hence, it took efforts to put out the fire under the guidance of Wei Huan. Otherwise, it would take more time to put out the fire.
At that time, residents in this city all hurried to put out the fire. So did Song Han and Song Duan. Unfortunately, on their way to the destination, they had been shot by arrows in the alley near Zhiben Hall. It was likely that they had fought with opponents for a while or that they were attacked again. Therefore, they were all killed in the short time.
The fire was roaring. Many dwellers made noise to wake their neighbors. It was pretty noisy. The alley was not far from Zhiben Hall. However, it was so noisy that no one could notice the riot in the alley. Therefore, a group of people led by Song Han was murdered swiftly.
Wei Zhengya died in his room. Someone speculated that the servant bought by the northern Rong tribe killed Wei Zhengya when he reported the fire. Someone even guessed that people from the northern Rong tribe disguised as servants to kill Wei. The murder was acted suddenly when Wei was not alert at all.
If not, the door was not deliberately destroyed, and why did Wei Zhengya die in the room?
In short, all these disasters were plotted by the northern Rong tribe.
In his report, Wei Huan wrote that the Wei Family had suffered a lot and the northern Rong Tribe was despicable.
He described that people in the Duke Jingping Mansion were struck by the death of Wei Zhengya in a sad tone. Also, he felt pity that Wei Zhengya, as a famous scholar, was dead. Furthermore, Song Duan and Song Han were once praised by the imperial edict. Their murder was indeed a provocation to Wei’s prestige.
Of course, in the last part of his report, Wei Huan did not forget to refer to the so-called resident from Fengzhou stopping Wei Qi’s sedan to ask for help. This action must be done by the northern Rong tribe. They tried to revenge the Wei Nation because they were not satisfied with our triumph in the north of the province.
If not, why did they not burn the other buildings in Fengzhou, but the old house of Zhiben Hall?
The resident filing a sue died of a fan punishment ordered by Wei Qi. The resident must be arranged by the northern Rong tribe, so they got angry and burned the old house of Wei Qi.
This report written by Wei Huan was polished by Wei Shigu who was better than Wei Zhengya in literature. He spent hours polishing the article. Finally, the report was greater in content and emotion. It portrayed a miserable family that once guarded the nation but its member was killed by the northern Rong tribe out of retaliation.
Wei Huan read the polished report. He praised the article and said, “Yongshi, if the report could not touch His Majesty, there would not be any words could do it.”
Wei Shigu smiled and said, “My family head, your article was pretty good, I merely made it better.”
Two people complimented each other for a while. Then Wei Huan ordered his loyal servant to send this report to emperor as quickly as possible by horse. When the servant left, Wei Huan became worried, “The marriage of Changying….”
“There is only one available solution,” Wei Shigu said. He was not only a teacher of Wei Changfeng and Wei Gaochuan, but also an adviser of Wei Huan. Wei Huan had gotten well along with him for many years. They trusted each other. Now Wei asked him about the private thing. Wei Shigu thought for a while and said, “Now, we have to wait for the arrival of people from the Shen Family. If they insisted on canceling the marriage, in my view, we would agree with it out of the consideration of Third Miss. After all, you and Old Madam Song only have one lineal granddaughter. It is not wise to marry a noble man who perhaps will not treat her well. Instead, if she married a common but honest man, it would be great that he would protect and treat her well. And you could see her often.”
“I also expect that Changying would not be treated well if the Shen Family suspected her reputation. If she got married with Shen Cangfeng, her life in the future would not be comfortable.” Wei Huan touched his white beard. He continued, “However, what her grandmother said was right. Wei Changying is innocent. At this time, she was rumored. She merely wanted to protect her brother. I thought that she was too active before, unlike an elegant girl in the noble family. Zhenghong was weak. His wife tried many ways to have babies. So they often spoiled them. Their grandmother loved and cared much about them. I had no time to teach them….”
“But for Changying insisted on practicing material arts for many years, she and Changfeng could not survive from the ambush. And she was so brave to head for the invitation by Wei Xinyong by disguising herself as Changfeng. It was very dangerous. I used to underestimate her. According to her love to her brother, I do not stand that she would felt wronged after the ambush.”
Pondering for a while, Wei Shigu shook his head and said, “Though you argued for Wei Changying in the report, but there are too many things in it. The thing about Wei is too trivial to cause attention. What is more, we are not in the Capital City. We cannot impact on the discussion. Changying has not reached there, and there are widespread rumors on her. If they are not true, some disgusting words have appeared. It is not good for a girl to be discussed in public. Besides, Shen Cangfeng was an heir in the Shen Family.”
Wei Huan was silent for a long time, and sadly said, “Let it go. If the Shen Family was not satisfied with Changying, and unwilling to marry her, I would not agree this marriage either now. As you suggested, I would choose a distant relative of another family and have him move into Fengzhou. I would protect her here for a life. Marriage is not the only way to have a good relationship with the Shen Family.”
“What about the old men in the Family?” Wei Shigu asked. Wei Changying was rumored. A spot in her reputation had a negative impact on the Wei Family. Wei Huan and Old Madam Song were not powerful enough to determine the result of their granddaughter. Generally, Wei Changying would be punished to show integrity of the family.
“Do they have any attention to deal with it? The royal heir of Duke Jingping was murdered by the northern Rong tribe. It reveals how strong their desire to retaliate the Wei Family. If the old men were not cautious and alert,” said Wei Huan who was angry, sneering, “they would not be safe anymore.”