The Ace Bigshot Becomes A Farmgirl

Zhao Xi was a bit surprised by Shu Yu’s reaction. ”What? You know this person?”

Shu Yu frowned and turned to Wei Qin to confirm, ”You said the boss’s Young Master is called Cheng Wenbao. Then the boss’s young lady... could she be called Cheng Jiatong?”

”Yes, yes, her name is Cheng Jiatong.” This time Wei Qin was truly shocked. Not only did they know the owner of that string of beads, they even knew the boss’s Young Master and young lady?

Zhao Xi rubbed his chin. ”So they’re really acquaintances?”

Shu Yu’s expression was complicated as she said in a low voice, ”They’re people from Changjin Prefecture. You also know Gan Rui—he’s Yun’s future cousin-in-law. Early last year, the Gan Family and the Meng family met and planned to settle Ah Han and Gan Rui’s engagement. This Cheng Jiatong liked Gan Rui. She mistook me for the one betrothed to him and even had a Maid under her seek someone to ruin my innocence, but Xia Yan subdued them.”

There was something like that? Zhao Xi looked toward Xia Yan, who was guarding the door. The latter nodded.

Zhao Xi asked, ”And then what happened?”

”After that, we took that thug straight to the Cheng Family. Cheng Wenbao dotes on this younger sister excessively, so of course he stood on her side. But Old Master Cheng, Cheng Feng, came out. When he learned I was a county magistrate, and that they couldn’t afford to offend me, he scolded the two of them harshly. Without waiting for me to say anything, he immediately imposed a heavy punishment and packed the pair of them off to the southwest.”

At the time, Old Master Cheng said that the Cheng Family had a shop in the southwest, and that the siblings were being sent over to manage it, to temper themselves properly and rein in their tempers.

Cheng Jiatong had even cried from anger, saying Old Master Cheng must have been instigated by Concubine Gao to treat the siblings this way, that he wanted to clear a place for Concubine Gao’s children.

Back then Shu Yu had indeed found Old Master Cheng’s punishment a bit strange, but Cheng Jiatong’s explanation could also make sense of it.

She had no interest in the Cheng Family’s internal disputes and had never imagined that the Cheng Family would end up entangled with the black market.

Zhao Xi clicked his tongue at that. ”So they used the excuse of offending you to send them openly to the southwest? And when people ask later, you’ve actually become their shield.”

”...” Shu Yu’s eyes shot blade-like glares straight at Zhao Xi.

Meng Yunzheng, who had been silent, was thinking much further. The Cheng Family were people of Changjin Prefecture; most likely they had been working for the black market forces over there from the very beginning, but they hid it too well. So many people in Changjin Prefecture had fallen, yet they remained perfectly fine.

After the black market in Changjin Prefecture was dragged into the open, Old Master Cheng sent the Cheng Family’s eldest Young Master to this southwest black market as well. No wonder he had made such a big fuss, exiling the siblings to such a remote place for no good reason.

”But according to what Wei Qin just said, that Cheng Jiatong... does she actually know her brother is a bad man?” Zhao Xi asked.

Shu Yu gave a bitter smile. ”Whether she knows or not isn’t important. What’s important is that the Cheng Family are distant relatives of Lord Cheng.”

Zhao Xi drew in a sharp breath. ”They’re Lord Cheng’s relatives? Then Lord Cheng is...”

He cut himself off mid-sentence, glanced at Wei Qin from the corner of his eye, and didn’t go on.

Everything they had said so far revolved around Wei Qin’s identity and the reason she was injured. They had yet to mention the existence of the black market at all. After all, it was their first time meeting Wei Qin; there were some things she was better off not knowing.

Shu Yu also did not elaborate. Instead, she thought of something else. ”I hadn’t given it much thought before, but now some things are becoming clear. After I finished my affairs in Changjin Prefecture, on my way back I passed through Huajiang Prefecture, and I actually ran into the Cheng siblings at the docks.”