"Master Lei... I, I told Master Wen that you were busy, but..." Sweat beaded on the staff member's forehead.
Master Wen had suddenly arrived with people, each carrying weapons, looking like death incarnate. They couldn't stop them even if they wanted to.
He had really tried, but... but they were from the Wen family!
"I know, you can go. Dismissed." Master Lei showed no surprise at Master Wen's appearance. He simply waved his hand, letting the staff member leave.
The door closed again, leaving only the family heads of the Lei and Wen families, along with Gu Yaoyang, in the room.
"Master Wen?" Gu Yaoyang looked at Master Wen with some bewilderment. Didn't the Wen family always stay out of Lei family affairs?
It was also today that Master Wen couldn't openly send people, which was why he had brought Gu Yaoyang and Xia Qing Tian with Shi Guan Zhu. Why was Master Wen showing up before the treasure map had even surfaced?
Master Lei was not surprised by Master Wen's presence. He simply scoffed, "After all these years, your surveillance of my Lei family has not loosened at all."
"You know in your heart," Master Wen said coldly.
"I know it extremely well, clearer than ever!" Master Lei clenched his fists by his side, as if deliberately suppressing his anger.
Master Wen sighed deeply before shifting his gaze from Master Lei to Gu Yaoyang. "Yaoyang, you should leave first."
"How much longer do you plan to hide it from him?" Master Lei blurted out, "A lifetime?"
"That's what we agreed on long ago!" Master Wen's temper was also starting to fray.
"What we agreed on was for him to live with dignity! For him to live a peaceful life without worries!" Master Lei stood up abruptly, slamming his hand on the table. "Not to be a dog that is bullied and insulted in the Gu family!"
"I will handle this matter!" Master Wen's eyelids twitched, clearly the Gu family's actions had exceeded his expectations.
"Ridiculous. You said the same thing back then, and as a result, the Lu family is gone, and my wife is gone too!" Master Lei laughed, his smile not reaching his eyes. "And now you say the same thing again. What next? Who is going to die? Him, or me?"
"You!" Master Wen choked, about to retort. Realizing Gu Yaoyang was still there, he took a deep breath to suppress his anger. "Yaoyang, you go out."
Gu Yaoyang had a gut full of questions, but he knew it wasn't the right time for him to speak. However, he was not an inexperienced greenhorn.
"Thirty minutes," Gu Yaoyang said to both of them. "After thirty minutes, give me the answers I want."
Neither Master Wen nor Master Lei responded after Gu Yaoyang spoke.
They knew that Gu Yaoyang was now well-established and difficult to deceive, but they also had to consider the cost of truly revealing the matter to him.
Seeing that they neither refused nor agreed, Gu Yaoyang walked out with his head held high.
Thirty minutes was for Master Wen and Master Lei to have their discussion, and it was also for him to sort through his thoughts.
After all, the answers they gave might not be the true answers, and he needed to organize his accumulated experience and memories to discern them.
After Gu Yaoyang left, Master Wen finally erupted, "You agreed to that matter back then!"
"You told me you would handle it!" Master Lei was no longer constrained. "Is this how you handled it?"
"No one wanted that outcome!" Master Wen said. "When fighting a war, how can there be no bloodshed or sacrifice? At that time, I had already sent people to protect the Lu family, and we all thought it was safest for your wife to return to the Lu family! We all thought that with you leading the operation to cross the heavens under camouflage, we could surely trick him and catch them all in one swoop!"
"They massacred the entire Lu family!
If it weren't for the old butler sacrificing his own grandson to save Yaoyang and hiding him in a secret room, the Lu family would have been completely wiped out! What's the use of talking about that now? You risked so many lives for a broken stone, and in the end, the people are gone, and the stone is gone too! What's the point of you still talking to me about this!
When I said I wanted to raise Yaoyang myself, you worried I would covet the treasures of the Lu, Miao, and Tang families, and forced me to hand the child over to you. You said you would choose a reliable prominent family, ensuring Yaoyang a safe life! No one would know he was from the Lu family, and he would live a peaceful life.
But in the end, after all your careful selection, you chose the Gu family? You chose the Gu family! Raising Yaoyang like a dog, is that it? Is this how you solve things?
And now Yaoyang is going to marry into the Xia family, marry into them?
I'm not dead yet!" Master Lei slammed the table, his eyes bloodshot.
"I admit that the Gu family matter was my oversight," Master Wen took a deep breath. He had underestimated the greed and malice of human nature.
He had originally thought that with the Wen family clearing so many paths for the Gu family, the Gu family would be grateful and would raise Gu Yaoyang well, nurturing him as a member of the Gu family.
But he hadn't expected that years of preferential treatment would be taken for granted by the Gu family. After their net worth had multiplied several times, the Gu family's ambition and wickedness had also multiplied several times.
When he led troops to battle, it was about tactics; it was about risking their lives with real swords and guns.
But the changes in people's hearts were even faster and more complex than the changes in tactics.
"An oversight is all it takes?" Master Lei sneered. "For so many years you've guarded against me, against the Lei family. For the sake of giving the Lei family stability, I ruined my own two sons, making the third son sensitive and suspicious, and my most beloved daughter, the youngest and most like her, timid and subservient!
Those were my own flesh and blood!
Do you have any idea what it feels like to personally ruin your own children?
How could you possibly know?
Your Wen family are noble scholars and generals, renowned heroes from your ancestors. Among the younger generation, there's Wen Jiu, a martial arts prodigy. Your Wen family...
How many people's blood and bones were piled up to create these honors for your Wen family? You probably don't even remember yourself."
"I guard the borders and protect the people, without any selfish motives!" Master Wen's eyes widened. "On that day, it wasn't just the Lu family who died, nor just your wife, but also an entire team I had painstakingly trained, led by my own younger brother! They all died there! Don't you think I'm heartbroken? You're not the only one who has been living in pain all these years!
And if your Lei family hadn't been the first to set their sights on that stone, how would the news have leaked?
You, Lei Hongzhen, also played a part in the deaths of those people from the Lu family!"
This time, Master Lei didn't retort. He closed his eyes in grief, the smiling face of his wife appearing in his mind.
His beloved, whom he had cherished for so many years, whom he had indirectly caused the death of due to his momentary greed.
They were both at fault for the Lu family's incident, yet also powerless.
"We can do nothing for the dead," Master Wen said after a deep breath. "But for the living, we cannot give up hope."
"You still want to keep hiding it from him?" Master Lei frowned. "Do you have any idea what kind of life Yaoyang has had in the Gu family? Do you know how the Gu family treated him in public today!"
"I will settle this score with the Gu family slowly," Master Wen's gaze turned sharp, his expression darkening.
It was time to withdraw the preferential treatment given to the Gu family, and those old debts should also be brought out for settlement.
"I want to bring Yaoyang back to the Lei family," Master Lei said. "I absolutely will not let him marry into the Xia family."
"Are you trying to take Gu Yaoyang back, or are you trying to keep an eye on that treasure?" Master Wen looked at Master Lei, his eyes sharp.