Chapter 498

Yao Wenju frowned slightly, looking at me bewildered: "What are you saying? What isn't me?"

I stared at him, coldly saying: "Were Wu Fei and Han Duo sent by you to destroy the Yang family's feng shui ancestral grave? Was Han Rui killed by you? Also, was the masked man who slapped me that day you?"

The atmosphere grew tense in an instant, nearly everyone in the room closed in on me; a few bodyguards tried to strike, but Yao Wenju waved them away.

"Yang family, what's your relation to the Yang family?" Yao Wenju frowned and asked me back.

I didn't answer; instead, I fixed him with a cold stare and said, "Tell me, are you that masked man?" As I said this, I deliberately pointed to my face, exposing the Yao character.

Yao Wenju followed my pointing finger, saw the Yao character, looked puzzled at his ring then at my face, and finally chuckled, saying, "Yo, that's pretty similar!"

"Tell me, are you the one who hit me, that masked man?" This was my third round of questioning.

Yao Wenju shrugged, feeling I was completely bewildered, and retorted, "You say, how did I hit you back then? Like this?" As he spoke, Yao Wenju gestured with his hand.

Yet it was exactly this gesture that left the aggressive me stunned.

Because Yao Wenju attacked me from the right, while the masked man came from the left. Of course, direction isn't the point; the point is the masked man's backhand slap, showing his ring was on his left ring finger. Yao Wenju's ring, however, is on his right ring finger.

"Your ring… has it always been on your right hand, never changed?" I stared at him, bewildered; spotting this inconsistency, my heart gradually calmed. Upon reflection, not only was the ring's position wrong, but Yao Wenju's build also differed greatly from that of the masked man who had attacked me.

But… if not Yao Wenju, who else could it be? First the plow-head talisman, then the jade tablet finger—surely no one would deliberately fabricate evidence to frame Yao Wenju?

"All of you, leave," Yao Wenju said while I was dazed, waving his hand and calling everyone out of the hall.

He ran to the coffee machine, brewed two cups, handed me one after it was ready, and gestured for me to sit down first.

"What exactly is your relation to the Yang family, and what happened to the Yang family? Why do you suspect me of being the mastermind behind the killing of Yang Shouren's son?" Yao Wenju's thinking was clear; he asked the crucial questions.

"I, Pangzi, and QingSongShu came to help the Yang family handle the feng shui of their ancestral grave…" I slowly laid out the full context for Yao Wenju, including Wu Fei and Han Duo, the masked man's fight, and Yang Rui's death, leaving no detail unmentioned.

After hearing this, Yao Wenju remained silent for a moment, sitting on the sofa and slowly stirring his coffee, lost in quiet thought.

I felt the situation was growing bigger, so I anxiously urged him: "Brother Wen, if this truly isn't your doing, then someone is deliberately framing you. Although I don't know who that person is, you need to quickly devise a counterplan, otherwise once the Yang family moves, everything will be over.

"The Yang family has already moved!" Yao Wenju slammed his coffee cup down.

"What? They've already moved? That's impossible!" I was first shocked, then confused. Yang Shouren had said he'd set aside everything to handle Yang Rui's aftermath first—how could he change his mind so quickly?

No, Yang Shouren hasn't changed his mind; I've been in the house all night, Yang Shouren hasn't left the Yang residence, nor has he issued any orders to anyone. Therefore, the order for the Yang and Yao families to act definitely did not come from Yang Shouren.

There must be a deeper secret behind this.

"Sun Miao is dead… My Yao family's businesses in Yichang have three supermarkets sealed and five bars smashed—this is the Yang family indirectly using both black and white connections. Moreover, the Masked Beast incident at the casino, I suspect was also instigated by the Yang family." Yao Wenju dropped a bombshell on me, leaving the previously confused me utterly disoriented, unable to tell east from west.

At this moment I have no idea whom to believe. The Yang people say the mastermind behind everything is Yao Wenju. Yet now Yao Wenju claims he, too, is a victim of the Yang family's harm.

It couldn't be that Yang Shouren personally killed his own son and then used that as an excuse to attack the Yao family, could it? No matter how you look at it, that possibility is slim, given Yang Shouren's feelings for Yang Rui—it's plain to see, not something feigned.

Yao Wenju said nothing, instead pulling an envelope from under the table. I took it, opened it, and found a stack of photos inside.

After I made out the contents of the photos, my eyes widened and I sucked in a breath of cold air.

These photos show two people meeting at a small restaurant; at the restaurant table, they wore mysterious expressions, whispering and plotting. I know these two faces all too well: one is my fellow disciple from Yin Mountain, Wu Fei; the other is the Yang family's second master, Yang Shouyi, younger brother of Yang Shouren.

"What… is this?" I kept flipping through the photos, looking at Yao Wenju with doubt.

"Look closely at the last one, see if you can spot anything!" Yao Wenju pointed to the bottom photo; I skipped ahead, turned over the lowest photo. Upon unfolding it, I was shocked again.

The photo still only shows Wu Fei and Yang Shouyi, but behind Wu Fei there is a vague, blurry shadow; upon close inspection, this shadow turns out to be the gray-clad Pangzi who was swallowed by the Masked Beast—it's practically a perfect match.

Before the casino incident, we had a disagreement over the casino's shares. How to put it? Yang the second master was being unreasonable, demanding an extra ten percent of profit from my Yao family. Know that my Yao family's share of the casino's profits was only twenty percent to begin with. He casually tried to seize half of what rightfully belonged to my Yao family—it was nothing short of sucking my Yao family dry.

Yao Wenju rubbed his forehead and slowly explained: "According to normal practice, our profit split has been fixed for years; Yang the second master suddenly demanding this is truly strange. Afterwards, Sun Miao paid extra attention, sending people to tail Yang Shouyi after the meeting. He worried that the Yang family might be joining forces with other shareholders to swallow my Yao family's shares, or even move against my Yao family's other holdings in Yichang. Though the other shareholders noticed nothing, they did capture this batch of evidence.

"Then Yang Shouyi said you once sent people to his village in the middle of the night—what's that about?" I put down the photos, looked at Yao Wenju, and asked.

Yao Wenju replied: "It wasn't me who sent them; it was my men who followed the sallow‑complexioned young man in the photo all the way to Yang's village.

"Want some coffee?" Yao Wenju added sugar, stirred my coffee well, and handed it to me. Then he picked up the cup on my desk, added sugar to it, and slowly adjusted it.

He mused: "I originally suspected Yang Shouyi of failing to seize my Yao family's shares, so I used a ploy—hire an unknown mystic to cause trouble at the casino. If everyone who won money at the casino then died mysteriously after leaving, people would think the casino was engaging in black‑on‑black violence. Once its reputation suffered, the other shareholders would blame my Yao family.

"Wait… why would the other shareholders blame my Yao family after the casino incident? Doesn't the Yang family have a stake too?" I was a bit puzzled.

Yao Wenju gave a self‑deprecating chuckle, said nothing, and simply tossed something from his pants pocket at me.

I casually caught it and saw it was a paper crane folded from yellow wrapper paper. This crane was what Yao Wenju had previously used to track the Masked Beast.

"Don't underestimate any shareholder in this venue; everyone who can get into this game has a background not much weaker than my Yao family's. Their connections, money, and relationships are beyond your imagination.

After a pause, Yao Wenju emphasized: "So, as long as they investigate seriously, discovering that my Yao family inherits the Wu lineage is not difficult. Afterwards, they will naturally suspect that my Yao family itself is behind the mischief. Regardless of whether anyone believes it, by then my Yao family will surely be in trouble.

I believe what Yao Wenju said: the people capable of sustaining this casino's operation and participating in its management are certainly not nobodies. This casino launders black money, gambles on smuggled antiquities, and even arranges contract killings. So brazen, there must be a profit chain within it that ordinary people dare not imagine.

I had thought the Yang family merely wanted to use a borrowed knife to kill, but hearing you say this, the matter is truly not simple at all." Yao Wenju stopped stirring his coffee, frowned, lifted the cup to his lips, and took a light sip.

Just then, a bolt of lightning flashed outside the window; the indoor air grew more oppressive, as if heralding an imminent mountain storm.

Yao Wenju's explanation left me more vexed and my head ached worse. Amidst the thousand threads of thought, I took a light sip of coffee.

Who would have thought— as soon as the coffee entered my mouth, I couldn't help but spit it out with a puff.

Fuck, what the hell is this fucking thing, the taste is literally like cat shit.