“No!” Yu Wen refused Yu Tang without a second thought.

Both Yu Tang and Yu Yuan looked at Yu Wen in astonishment.

Yu Wen said, “If A’Tang’s guess is correct, Lu Xin’s death is eighty or ninety percent related to this painting. We don’t even know who the people behind this are—how can we let Third Master Pei get involved in such trouble?”

Yu Tang’s face burned hot.

She had only thought about how Pei Yan was the big winner in her previous life, but forgot that in her previous life, Pei Yan hadn’t gotten involved in her family’s affairs and didn’t even know her.

Father was right.

This painting already had a life on its back—they couldn’t selfishly drag Pei Yan into this as well.

Only now did Yu Tang realize she had strayed somewhat from the right path.

She said sincerely, “Father, then what should we do?”

“Let me think!” Yu Wen smiled bitterly.

Clearly, he didn’t have any good solutions either.

Yu Tang thought of Lu Xin.

He probably didn’t know this painting hid such a secret either, right? Otherwise he wouldn’t have lost his life.

After returning to Lin’an, she should burn incense for him.

Yu Tang sighed faintly, then suddenly had an idea.

She said tentatively, “Father, how about we let Uncle Lu take the blame? After all, this matter was caused by him, and the main Lu family has severed ties with him and no longer has contact, so they won’t be implicated.”

Yu Wen really had no other options. Thinking that three cobblers equal one Zhuge Liang, and that Yu Tang had been clever since childhood—perhaps she really could come up with a good idea—he said, “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

Yu Tang’s spirits lifted as she said, “Think about it—Uncle Lu lost his life because of this, so those people must have come looking for him. Either they know the painting ended up at our house, or Uncle Lu also didn’t know the secret in the painting and didn’t confess anything clearly. I’m thinking that whether it’s the former or the latter, our urgent priority is to separate our family from this. Why don’t we just give them this painting?”

“I understand what you’re saying,” Yu Wen said, “but the problem is how do we give them this painting?”

Yu Tang smiled and said, “Didn’t we come to Hangzhou? When we return, why not tell people we came to collect Uncle Lu’s belongings? Those people didn’t find anything at our house, right? When they hear this, they’ll definitely find a way to get their hands on Uncle Lu’s belongings. We can then tell everyone we’re going to burn all of Uncle Lu’s belongings for him…”

“Ah!” Yu Yuan’s eyes lit up as he said, “This is a good idea! They’ll definitely try to get these so-called belongings, and won’t we have sent out the painting?”

Yu Tang nodded repeatedly, agreeing with Yu Yuan, and said to Yu Wen, “Didn’t you also say that painting is a map, something ordinary people not only haven’t seen but haven’t even heard of? It’s normal that we don’t recognize it. When the time comes, we’ll just say we don’t know what this messy thing is, and won’t we be able to extract ourselves from this matter?”

“That makes some sense.” Yu Wen’s spirits lifted from his earlier low mood. He smiled as he paced around the room, saying, “However, this is a major matter—we still need to deliberate carefully, deliberate carefully.”

But the general direction was correct.

Yu Tang and Yu Yuan’s hearts relaxed, and they couldn’t help exchanging smiles.

Yu Wen muttered there, “We just need to find a way to fool those people so they don’t know we know the painting’s secret.” At this point, he suddenly stopped and said to Yu Yuan, “We’ll still need to trouble Master Qian with this—have him find a way to restore the painting.”

“Father!” Yu Tang interrupted Yu Wen and said, “Restoration probably isn’t appropriate—everyone knows our family bought Uncle Lu’s ‘Fishing in Seclusion by Pine Stream.'”

Right! If someone asked about their family’s “Fishing in Seclusion by Pine Stream,” what would they do?

Yu Wen asked Yu Yuan, “Since Master Qian is in this business, can you ask him if he knows any masters at copying ancient paintings? We can hire someone to copy a ‘Fishing in Seclusion by Pine Stream’ to put in our house.”

This way, everything would be foolproof.

Yu Yuan smiled and said, “Showing off skills before Lu Ban—asking anyone would be worse than asking Master Qian. He’s a master in this area.”

“Excellent!” Yu Wen said. “I was just worried that involving too many people would make it hard to keep the secret.”

Yu Yuan smiled and said, “Don’t worry. Master Qian has seen so many situations like this—otherwise he wouldn’t have called me over as soon as he discovered something wrong with the hidden layer painting.”

Yu Wen nodded and said, “Then let’s do it this way!”

Yu Yuan responded and collected the paintings, preparing to immediately go to Master Qian: “While it’s not yet fully light, let’s get this matter settled early so we can rest easy and return to Lin’an sooner.”

But Yu Tang stopped Yu Yuan and said to Yu Wen, “Father, we can’t rush this. I’m thinking that since Master Qian is a master in this area, and we’re already troubling him, why not ask him to help copy this map as well?”

“A’Tang,” Yu Wen disagreed, saying, “we can’t get any more involved in this matter. We should distance ourselves as far as possible. Whatever secrets are in this, we shouldn’t pry. Sometimes, the more you know, the faster you die, the more miserably you die.”

Yu Tang said gently, “Father, I understand this principle too. But I think relying on others is never as good as relying on ourselves. If we can smoothly hand over the painting, that’s certainly good, but what if those people don’t believe us at all? Should we expect them to show great mercy? We must guard against harming others, but we must also guard against others harming us!”

This was the lesson she had learned after marrying into the Li family.

It was also the resolution she made after her rebirth.

Mountains may fall when you lean on them, water may dry up when you depend on it—only by grasping the power of speech in your own hands can you respond to every move and remain undefeated.

“Father,” she persuaded Yu Wen, “please listen to me this once! It’s not the ten thousand possibilities we need to fear, but the one in ten thousand. What if those people find out we’ve discovered this painting’s secret? Will they silence us? Will they suspect the painting is fake? We need to know why all this is happening, right? Like Uncle Lu—if he had known there was something else hidden in this painting, would he have ended up this way? Others may not know, but we do. He truly didn’t know the secret in the painting, but did those people spare him?”

Both Yu Wen and Yu Yuan stared at her blankly, not speaking for a long time.

But Yu Tang didn’t yield at all under her father and brother’s gaze. She stood straight, letting them look her over, using this attitude to tell them that once she made up her mind, she wouldn’t change it easily. She also wanted to use this matter to reassure her father and brother that she had grown up and could handle things.

After a long while, a hint of a smile appeared in Yu Wen’s serious gaze.

He glanced at Yu Yuan and suddenly said, “The Yu family will be entrusted to you two siblings in the future. Your father and I are old, afraid of trouble, and can’t keep up with the changing times.”

“Father!”

“Uncle!”

Yu Tang and Yu Yuan said in unison.

Yu Wen waved his hand and smiled, “Don’t think I’m speaking discouraging words—I’m actually happy. It shows that our ancestors’ words still make sense. Whether a person can handle things or not depends on whether they can hold up when it matters. You’re both children who can handle things when it matters, and I’m very reassured.” After speaking, he took a deep breath and said loudly, “Then let’s do it!”

Yu Yuan and Yu Tang quickly said in unison, “Keep your voice down! Walls have ears!”

Yu Wen laughed heartily, then abruptly stopped after two laughs and said quietly, “I’ll listen to you, listen to you both.”

Yu Tang and Yu Yuan exchanged smiles again, both seeing joy in each other’s eyes. Yu Tang even felt that because of this matter, her relationship with her eldest cousin had suddenly become much closer.

While collecting the paintings, Yu Yuan asked Yu Tang teasingly, “Do you have any other instructions?”

Because of her father and brother’s unity and cooperation, Yu Tang’s mind worked even faster. She said, “Father, I have an idea about the map.”

Yu Wen listened with interest and said, “Tell me!”

Yu Yuan wasn’t in a hurry anymore and sat back down at the table.

The three of them talked around the bean-sized oil lamp.

Yu Tang said, “Father, I think some of what Uncle Lu said was quite right. For example, that his father once served as Secretary Left Guangzong’s aide—perhaps this painting really was Lord Left’s.”

As for whether it was a gift or obtained through other means, no one knew.

Yu Tang continued, “So I think if you’re going to inquire about the map, it would be best to go to the capital or Fujian.”

Yu Wen’s spirits lifted as he said, “You mean… the capital has hidden dragons and crouching tigers with many knowledgeable people; Lord Left was a famous general who fought pirates, so Fujian has many of his former subordinates?”

“I even think going to Fujian might yield more results.” Yu Tang continued, “Besides Lord Left, there’s no way the Lu family could have obtained this painting. If so, Lord Left has been dead for over ten years—if the map went missing, there should have been an investigation while Lord Left was still alive. This matter only surfaced now, so it definitely isn’t the court pursuing it…”

It would definitely be very dangerous then!

But what if they couldn’t shake off this burden?

They had to prepare early.

Both Yu Wen and Yu Yuan understood what she left unsaid.

Yu Tang continued, “This map shows water—it’s either related to rivers or the sea. As for what we say later, since we’re asking Master Qian to help copy this painting and this map anyway, why not do it thoroughly? We’ll keep the original painting and use the copy as Uncle Lu’s belongings. Then we can divide the original painting into several parts, quietly take one part to inquire, saying we inadvertently discovered this map while sorting through Uncle Lu’s belongings, and ask those people what’s drawn on the map and roughly what area it depicts. Won’t that work!”

Right now, the urgent priority was to prepare what needed to be prepared, just in case.

“Excellent!” Yu Wen clapped his hands. “Let’s do it this way! Prepare the paintings first to avoid any last-minute changes catching us off guard.”

“But don’t force yourself.” Yu Tang instructed her father. “This matter could be big or small. Preserving life is most important.”

“Don’t worry, I still want to see you bring home a good son-in-law!” Yu Wen teased his daughter.

Yu Tang smiled at her father, but her mood didn’t lighten.

She had a vague feeling that a storm was gathering.

She only hoped this storm wouldn’t affect more people.

Yu Yuan, however, gave Yu Tang an approving thumbs up.

Yu Tang smiled at him with pursed lips.

The lamp wick crackled for a moment, then Yu Wen said seriously to Yu Tang and Yu Yuan, “Let’s do as A’Tang says. Ask Master Qian to help make three paintings—one to restore the ‘Fishing in Seclusion by Pine Stream’ we sent before, one to copy ‘Fishing in Seclusion by Pine Stream,’ and one to copy that map. We’ll keep the originals. First, we’ll try to see if we can figure out what this map depicts ourselves. If that really doesn’t work, I’ll go to Fujian first, then to the capital. I’ll go find some people I was familiar with before and see if anyone is going to Fujian—if I go to Fujian, I’ll have acquaintances to help gather information.”

This would probably cost the family a lot of silver.

And there was Yu Yuan—the shop on Changxing Street would be completed by year’s end, and the Yu family’s lacquerware shop needed to reopen before the New Year. Yu Yuan had to go help at the shop—who would accompany her father then?

All these matters gave Yu Tang a headache.

But Yu Yuan didn’t know Yu Tang’s worries. Seeing that matters were arranged properly, he happily got up, carefully concealed the three paintings on his person, and left.

Yu Tang secretly breathed a sigh of relief.

What she could think of, what she could do—she had done her utmost.

Do your best and leave the rest to fate!

Yu Tang was pondering this in her heart when she realized she was so hungry she could barely straighten her waist.

She turned to Yu Wen for help: “Father, I shouldn’t need to fast anymore, right? I could drink three bowls of plain rice porridge right now.”

With this matter resolved, Yu Wen also became relaxed and cheerful, teasing his daughter: “Hmph, what do you think you can eat? After fasting, you can only drink plain rice porridge, and you have to do it gradually—first drink one bowl, and only add more if nothing happens. I already told the innkeeper’s wife yesterday that she’ll cook you some plain rice porridge this morning.”

Yu Tang looked at the gradually lightening sky and wailed, “But Father, it’s not even light yet, and who knows if the kitchen has cooked porridge. I’m so hungry I’m dizzy. Could you go buy me two meat buns? When I went out yesterday, I saw that not far in front of the Pei family pawnshop is where we disembarked—it’s a small dock on Little River Imperial Street. There must be people selling breakfast early there. If meat buns won’t work, tofu pudding is fine too! Father, I’m begging you!”

Yu Wen chuckled and went to buy breakfast for Yu Tang.

Yu Tang leaned pitifully against the window waiting for Yu Wen.

Yu Wen not only bought tofu pudding back, but also bought meat buns.

Yu Tang’s eyes sparkled.

But Yu Wen placed the tofu pudding in front of Yu Tang and said, “This is yours!” Then he stuffed a meat bun into his own mouth and said unclearly, “This is mine.”

Yu Tang was on the verge of tears as she listlessly drank a sip of tofu pudding.

Fortunately, her father hadn’t completely ignored her—this tofu pudding was at least sweet, giving her some energy.

As for the plain rice porridge the innkeeper’s wife cooked, she didn’t waste it either and drank it all.

Yu Wen continued to tease her: “You stay here and make hair ornaments. Remember to make one for your mother too. Tonight I’m planning to go with your brother to the night market at Little River Imperial Street, and I’ll tell you all about it when I get back.”

Yu Tang pretended to angrily stab the needle into the flower’s calyx, but her heart felt like it was overflowing with sweet syrup, and tears glistened at the corners of her eyes.

With her father and brother by her side and her mother waiting for her—these kinds of days were true happiness!