Chapter 309

A courtyard layout, with four sides above and a circular canal winding below; although it wasn't raining, the water curtain was endless, and a lotus vat placed in the central area rippled with curling white smoke.

While aesthetically pleasing, it also brought bursts of cold air; staying here, one wouldn't know the summer heat.

Tan Wenbin reached out to touch the surface of the vat while sighing: "Brother Xiaoyuan, can Grandpa Li's house also have one of these?"

"Yes, but you have to first persuade Grandpa to smash the dam at home, tear down the house, and dig the foundation down another three zhang to place the formation materials, and there's a small repair every year and a major repair every three years."

Tan Wenbin: "The cost is that high? This Zhao family is truly extravagant."

"In their old residence in the mountains, they can easily borrow the terrain of mountains and water to form a formation; now that they want to live in seclusion in the city, the price is naturally much higher."

"Since that's the case, Brother Xiaoyuan, did they move into the city specifically because they had a premonition that something would happen in the future, feeling guilty?"

"Ding..."

The bell at the door rang, meaning someone from outside had entered.

Tan Wenbin resumed the posture of the Second Master, his chin raised, his gaze distant.

Li Zhuiyuan didn't move, continuing to sit on the small stool looking at the leaves drifting away in the small canal in front of him: "It's Zhao Yi."

Tan Wenbin relaxed, dug his ear with his little finger, feeling quite embarrassed.

Relying on that white centipede, his hearing was even stronger than Brother Xiaoyuan's, but "perception"—having "perception" isn't enough; one also needs the corresponding "knowledge" in one's brain.

Zhao Yi was now disguised as Zhao Xu, and his walking habits had changed.

The memory database in Tan Wenbin's brain hadn't had time to update.

Zhao Yi pushed the door and entered, then turned to close it.

"Li, something happened!"

"Team Leader, something happened."

The two spoke in unison.

Zhao Yi: "Did you all encounter fakes too?"

Tan Wenbin: "Your second aunt is fake."

Zhao Yi nodded.

Tan Wenbin: "Who did you discover was fake over there?"

Zhao Yi: "Heh, you all might not believe it if I say it."

Li Zhuiyuan: "Is it your dad or your mom?"

Zhao Yi: "Li, can't you wait for me to lay the groundwork first?"

Li Zhuiyuan: "Mm, lay the groundwork."

When he heard that the second aunt was fake, Zhao Yi wasn't surprised, proving that the impact of the fakes Zhao Yi discovered over there was even greater; besides his dad and mom, there was no one else.

Zhao Yi pulled out a stool and sat down facing Li Zhuiyuan across the small water canal:

"My dad and mom are both fake."

Tan Wenbin squatted down beside Zhao Yi and asked: "Then were your real dad and mom kidnapped and imprisoned in some secret place?"

Zhao Yi looked at Tan Wenbin and said: "Deputy Team Leader, there's no need for you to be so tactful."

Tan Wenbin: "This kind of thing, even if it's a good friend, isn't suitable to be too aggressive from the start."

Zhao Yi: "Think about how we got the human skin on our faces; I feel my dad and mom have already been admitted to Fengdu in advance."

Tan Wenbin: "My condolences."

Zhao Yi felt his pocket, took out a few coins and a piece of red paper, wrapped the coins, and handed them to Tan Wenbin.

Tan Wenbin accepted them.

Immediately after, Zhao Yi looked at Li Zhuiyuan again: "Li, do you want some?"

Li Zhuiyuan ignored him.

Zhao Yi: "Sigh, I even told my second uncle that I hadn't told anyone else, secretly sending him to the underworld to select an official position; I reckon my second uncle must be cursing me down there now."

Tan Wenbin: "Your second uncle can understand; after all, the benefits are definitely given to his own family members first."

Zhao Yi: "Mm, hearing you say that, I feel much better."

Li Zhuiyuan: "Are the ethical jokes finished?"

Zhao Yi lit a cigarette and said: "Hey, what a big deal."

Li Zhuiyuan: "We can enter the main topic."

Zhao Yi exhaled a smoke ring and said: "Cui Xin-yue, Chen Cuier, Zhao Heming... when you discover there are several cockroaches in your house, it means there is actually a nest."

Tan Wenbin: "Team Leader, are you worried that the entire Zhao family now only has you as a real one?"

Zhao Yi pulled at the face skin on his body: "No, even I am fake."

Li Zhuiyuan: "Replacement ratio."

Zhao Yi: "I contacted two sons of the first branch; they look very normal, with no changes, but if my dad and mom hadn't shown flaws, actually, no abnormalities could be seen either.

But regardless, it's not like they would replace the entire clan from top to bottom, including the servants, because the forces with the strength to do this don't need to do it at all.

Therefore, it is preliminarily inferred that the targets of replacement should be the core descendants of my Zhao family, which is the fourth branch of this generation.

Supplementary condition: the day after tomorrow is the birthday of the head of the family, which is my grandfather; grandfather will take the people of the fourth branch to the old residence in the mountains to worship the ancestors.

In the past, grandfather disliked that there were too many children and it would be noisy, so he set a rule that each branch could bring at most two children, which is my generation.

This rule hasn't changed even though many of my generation are already adults these years."

Li Zhuiyuan: "Is the old residence in the mountains hard to enter?"

Zhao Yi: "To you, of course it's not hard, but in this world, not everyone can be like you, having the ability to change locks under the Great Emperor's nose."

Tan Wenbin: "So, the purpose of them replacing the core members of the Zhao family is to be able to enter the old residence in the mountains?"

Zhao Yi: "My Zhao clan ancestral graves are also within the coverage of the old residence formation; oh, of course, there is also the treasury."

Tan Wenbin: "I remember you said there is one in the city too?"

Zhao Yi: "Everything in the city is built in imitation of the old residence, and there is indeed a treasury, located under the museum, but the real essence is still in the mountains."

Li Zhuiyuan: "Their purpose is not to seek wealth."

Zhao Yi: "Indeed, that would be making too much of a fuss."

Li Zhuiyuan: "Identity confirmation."

Zhao Yi: "I feel it should be people on the river, because this work is done too delicately, unlike river enemies or forces coveting my Zhao clan's foundation.

Mainly, their operation is something I can easily empathize with.

No big force backing them, few people, elite."

Li Zhuiyuan: "Mm."

Zhao Yi: "As for whether Cui Xin-yue and my dad and mom could be the same team..."

Li Zhuiyuan: "Cui Xin-yue's performance style is very forced, and she deliberately pursues slackness in the end. The performers on your dad and mom's side are very invested and confidently add drama to themselves, as if they are enjoying it.

They are not from the same side."

Zhao Yi: "Mm, Li, you are professional in this regard."

Tan Wenbin: "So, this time is the same as last time in Lijiang, also multi-team river-walking?"

Zhao Yi: "That's right, but there are differences. Lijiang was everyone at the same starting line; this time... they clearly jumped the gun.

To be precise, it's more like they have been operating and raiding for a long time, and we were temporarily arranged to join.

This also fits the style of this wave we just took.

According to the rules, we just finished a wave, and the next wave should be a long time away."

Li Zhuiyuan: "They have a time advantage, but we also have our own advantages."

The advantage of their side is Zhao Yi, this genuine Zhao family member.

Zhao Yi: "I now have the feeling that my Zhao family is a demon cave; in the past, this perspective was only used to analyze other forces or secret realms; I really didn't expect that the training from river-walking in the past could be used on my own family one day.

However, don't worry, as the future master here, I will definitely fulfill the duties of a host for everyone.

Even if it's a piece of rotten meat, I will help everyone bite off the biggest piece of profit."

Tan Wenbin: "Team Leader is righteous."

Zhao Yi: "Giving it to anyone is giving it, why make it cheap for outsiders."

Li Zhuiyuan: "Need more information expansion. One, confirm the number of teams in this wave. Two, confirm their perspective on the true intent of this wave."

Zhao Yi: "I'll go touch the first and fourth branches again to confirm. As for the second point, I feel that during this period, beating the grass to scare the snake doesn't seem appropriate."

Li Zhuiyuan: "It's only beating the grass to scare the snake at home; it doesn't count outside."

Zhao Yi: "Li, are you planning to go fishing?"

The identity of a core Zhao family member is equivalent to an invitation to the ancestral residence in the mountains; there are teams that have already come in, but there might be teams that haven't gotten it.

At this time, if one could go out for a stroll, maybe a team would be fished out.

Li Zhuiyuan: "If we can bump into a team, then things will be much simpler."

Zhao Yi: "The scale of the team this time definitely isn't as big as Lijiang, but their quality has already been seen; it's very high."

Li Zhuiyuan: "I know."

Zhao Yi: "You can directly mobilize the Liang sisters; they will listen to you."

Li Zhuiyuan: "You arrange it, let them go to the old residence in the mountains first and do the preliminary layout on the formation for me; since we know their purpose is there, it's very critical."

Zhao Yi: "Fine, I'll go notify them; anything else?"

Li Zhuiyuan: "My condolences."

Zhao Yi: "The one who raised me, at this moment, should be drinking and playing games with your Grandpa in Nantong."

To a certain extent, Zhao Yi and Li Zhuiyuan are very similar.

It's just that Li Zhuiyuan didn't know what emotion was since he was a child, so he could only perform.

Zhao Yi opened his wisdom too early, just like the stupid one in Big Beard's house, and he has always remembered the memories of his childhood very clearly without forgetting.

In fact, he was a normal child at the beginning and had higher emotional needs in the torment of illness, but the utilitarianism and coldness of his family and parents caused him to gradually shave off and strip away his emotions.

Li Zhuiyuan's situation is too extreme; in fact, Liu Jinxia's description of Li Zhuiyuan as early-wise and thin-hearted is more suitable for Zhao Yi.

In the entire Zhao family, there are only two people Zhao Yi truly has feelings for.

One is Old Man Tian;

One is Zhao Wuyang.

Walking out of the door, Zhao Yi licked his lips and immediately revealed the cowardly expression of "Zhao Xu" who had just been scolded by his father.

He first went to the first branch's courtyard; it was impossible to see the eldest uncle directly, so he used the excuse of seeing Zhao Wen and Zhao Li.

After entering, he immediately turned toward the eldest uncle's study, which was where the eldest uncle handled affairs and was the power hub of the Zhao family; in the past, it would be very lively, with endless meetings.

The eldest uncle's desire for power was very strong; he had helped grandfather manage the family very early on, and if it weren't for his own birth, the eldest uncle would have logically become the next head of the family.

However, when Zhao Yi arrived at the study area, he found it very deserted, basically seeing no one.

Asking a retainer who was sweeping the floor, he learned that the eldest uncle Zhao Jiuzhi was unwell and hadn't managed affairs for five or six days; now, all matters large and small in the clan had to be reported to the clan leader.

With grandfather's birthday approaching, there were many matters, and as long as one wasn't sick to death, one had to get up and work.

This illness... was very inappropriate.

Zhao Yi could almost arbitrarily conclude that the first branch had also been replaced.

Leaving the first branch's courtyard, Zhao Yi headed to the fourth branch.

The fourth master of the Zhao family was obsessed with cultivation and didn't like worldly affairs, but he married very early, marrying his early cultivation master, who was also a family-born servant of the Zhao family.

When he got his master pregnant, the fourth master Zhao Hengcheng was only fourteen years old, and that was his nominal age, while his master was already over thirty.

The family was definitely opposed to this marriage; although since ancient times, it wasn't rare for young masters of big families to roll in the sheets with maids early on, and it was even normal to get them pregnant early and take them as concubines, but this age gap and the semi-master-disciple name were truly outrageous.

It was just that Zhao Hengcheng had no interest in personal marriage after that; after his master gave birth to a pair of twins for him, he didn't consider a formal wife for the family at all, constantly going into seclusion to contemplate.

Later, the family let it be; although that master concubine didn't have the status of a wife, she was tacitly recognized as the matriarch of the fourth branch.

When Zhao Yi arrived at the fourth branch's courtyard, he learned that the fourth master, the wife, and the pair of cousins had all announced seclusion four days ago, waiting to be awakened from seclusion only on the morning of grandfather's birthday the day after tomorrow.

Then, in all likelihood, this fourth branch had also been replaced.

And the people who replaced them chose a method that both fit the persona and was lazy, directly going into seclusion and declining to perform.

Zhao Yi sighed and thought: "Heh, it really is a total wipeout."

Although the true foundation of the Zhao family was in the old residence in the mountains, where there were elders and old immortals of the Zhao family sleeping, having the core members of the outer residence all replaced without a sound was truly too absurd and bizarre.

But if one considers that this is a wave, the people pushed over by the river water are all talents of the current generation, then it makes sense.

These people, if they weren't lighting lamps and walking the river, it would be impossible for them to gather together to do such things.

No wonder, when I read some river-walking anecdotes in the past, many family sects would suddenly perish and decline.

When the specific reason couldn't be explored, onlookers would attribute it to the will of heaven and sigh that creation plays tricks on people.

Isn't everything happening in the Zhao family right now a realistic presentation of the will of heaven?

Zhao Yi moved again in the residence; he still had to confirm one thing next, and that was the current head of the Zhao family, his grandfather by blood.

He was very unfamiliar with this grandfather, because the perspective this grandfather looked at him with was the same as the elders in the family, and he had never experienced the feeling of intergenerational affection.

Comparatively, he had eaten at Li Zhuiyuan's grandfather's house; although Li Weihan and Cui Guiying had many children and grandchildren, he could feel the love they had for Li Zhuiyuan.

"Old thing, don't tell me you've been replaced too?"

The old man lived in a courtyard alone, and after the old lady passed away, he didn't remarry and didn't get close to women at all.

Here, there were many people, constantly coming in to report various tasks.

The identity of "Zhao Xu" couldn't get a private audience with the head of the family; he could only look from far away.

The old man was handling various affairs in an orderly manner, personally making proper arrangements.

He didn't look like someone who had been replaced; if he had been replaced, how much would the guy replacing the old man love to perform to be able to sit there and handle clan affairs?

But intuition told Zhao Yi that in the state of river-walking, the more impossible the situation, the more likely it is to become possible.

And, with the old man's temper, with his seventieth birthday approaching, the eldest son was sick, the second son was "debauching" outside, the third son was playing the scholar, and the fourth son was in seclusion.

How could you hold back from losing your temper?

Unless, you know why they aren't coming out to work, and know why they want to avoid your sight.

And from previous contact and understanding, Zhao Yi suspected that the fourth branch might not know that each other had been replaced.

Because according to past river-walking habits, this kind of small-scale team collaboration wave usually doesn't give you a clear hint at the start, letting you explore and guess for yourself whether there are other teams.

Then, this old man might be the one sitting in the highest position in this wave, with the clearest vision, and the old man's strength wasn't something the others in the fourth branch could compare to, so it was very likely that this one not only had the best vision but was also the strongest.

At this time, the old man seemed to notice Zhao Yi standing in the distance; he stopped his work and looked over.

The others standing around him also collectively looked over, and upon seeing it was Zhao Xu, their expressions became relaxed again.

The second branch had always been unreliable, and the young master of the second branch wasn't valued by the family either.

Grandfather Zhao Shan'an raised his hand and beckoned to Zhao Yi.

Zhao Yi pointed at his own face in disbelief, then revealed a nervous and uneasy look, and shuffled over with small steps.

Zhao Shan'an: "What is it?"

Zhao Yi: "My mother asked me to find you, wanting you to preside over justice."

Zhao Shan'an: "Go back and tell your mother, I don't have time to manage the broken matters of your second branch; isn't it shameful enough?"

Zhao Yi hurriedly nodded: "Yes, yes, Grandfather."

Just as he turned to leave, he was called back.

"You come here."

"Grandfather?"

Zhao Shan'an placed his palm on the table, signaling Zhao Yi to put his wrist on it.

Zhao Yi timidly put his wrist on it.

This looked like taking a pulse, but in the moment of contact, the old man's tiger eyes widened, and pressure instantly fell on Zhao Yi.

When people encounter this kind of sudden situation, they will make an instinctive reaction, and Zhao family members will channel their own fundamental technique at this moment.

Zhao Yi was "scared" into channeling it.

This was a very subtle probe, not even called a probe; even for someone who was disguised, facing this situation, it would be very hard to know what the other party was doing in the first moment.

Zhao Shan'an let go of his hand and said irritably: "At such a young age, your kidney essence is so deficient; shameful, go back, practice abstinence, and take some tonic pills from the pharmacy."

The people around laughed one after another.

Zhao Yi revealed shame and said: "Okay, Grandfather, I know."

"Get out."

Zhao Yi bowed again and left in a dejected manner.

The old thing was testing whether I had been replaced?

Heh, didn't expect it, I am truly surnamed Zhao.

Hey, this point can be utilized well.

While they are all suspicious of each other's teams, let our second branch be a pure, genuine second branch.

In this way, as "natives," we can minimize the suspicion and precaution from other teams;

Secondly, after going to the old residence in the mountains, for other teams, the elders and sleeping old immortals are their biggest threats, but on our side, we can utilize our identity as Zhao family members.

If it really doesn't work, I can run directly in front of them, crying and shouting that the Zhao family has been invaded and infiltrated by foreign enemies, and ask the elders to take action to save the Zhao family!

This is a trump card to flip the table.