In the hall, Ning Yi’s question left many people at a loss, but in a certain sense, it also seized the initiative from the start. Born into merchant families, most of the people present had, to varying degrees, their own interest in matters of business. When the imperial merchant affair had first come to light, people couldn’t help imagining themselves in Ning Yi’s position, wondering what they would have done, or imagining themselves on the opposing side and what they might have done—the kind of fantasy that never required taking any responsibility.
In the eyes of some in the Su family, if the Wu family had only held out a little longer back then, they might well have found a way to break the deadlock—after all, threats like having one’s whole family arrested and clan wiped out sounded frightening but weren’t actually all that likely. That the Wu family had ended up compromising only proved they’d had no fighting spirit whatsoever… Wasn’t that exactly the point? Even a son-in-law who’d married into the family had been willing to go all in and gamble everything, while the Wu family hadn’t shown a shred of nerve, letting him pull off a lucky reversal—it was hard to imagine how they’d ever risen to the top of the cloth trade.
To some degree, of course, everyone tended to assume Ning Yi still had many more tricks up his sleeve, most of them ruthless and vicious, and people had fantasized about them at length. So when Ning Yi posed this question, quite a few of them were eager to hear the answer, exchanging glances or whispering to one another. Su Wenxing and the others naturally didn’t want to let him steer the conversation away, and shouted, “Ning Liheng, don’t you dare change the subject! Today we’re talking about you and that Nie Yunzhu woman! Everyone, Second Sister only just gave birth…”
Su Zhongkan added, “Don’t try to clown your way around this. I’ll tell you now, today the household law will be enforced here. However formidable you are out there, you can’t run wild here…”
Many people belonging to the Second and Third Branches began shouting and clamoring. Ning Yi sat there, looking around, and laughed. “See, they really are thinking about it now… All of you, shut up!” His tone abruptly turned sharp, then after a moment he laughed again. “It’s all the same thing, Second Uncle, all the same thing… See, they really did go and think about it—hahaha. Have you ever thought about it? And Wenxing, what about you? Have you thought about it?”
“Take a look at yourselves right now.” The chatter continued, though it hadn’t managed to derail him entirely—most of what he said still got through to the crowd. Ning Yi leaned back against the chair, exhaling a breath, his gaze carrying a clear note of disgust. Then, word by word, he said, “Take a good look at yourselves right now! The Wu family, the Xue family, the Lou family, and all of you—what are you all, really.”
“Ning Yi, watch yourself!”
“Gamble with your lives? People like you? People like the Wu family? Why would you even think about something like that? Haven’t you already finished doing what you were supposed to do to help me? What is today about? All of you standing here, hundreds of you—which one of you doesn’t know exactly what’s going on? What is this right now? A banquet at Hongmen? A tribunal? All of you? What filthy, disgusting business are you all up to? In front of outsiders you’re like chickens, but the moment it’s your own family, you turn into wolfhounds. None of you has an ounce of ambition or drive—it’s only after someone like Tan’er in the First Branch fights for a piece of territory that you all think you’re entitled to a share of it. You! You, you, you, and you!”
Ning Yi had already stood up, his gaze icy, his finger pointing almost straight from Su Zhongkan’s face down the line: “The lot of you aren’t even worth shit! Su Wenxing, get over here! Tell me what exactly you’re capable of!”
“Too far! This is too much!”
“Seize him!”
Having said such things, even one of the two elders above could no longer sit still. Just as Su Zhongkan bellowed for the household guards to seize Ning Yi, there came a loud thud—Ning Yi had drawn his war blade and driven it into the tea table beside him, the blade sinking in most of its length, poking through the other side. His gaze fixed on the two guards who’d been about to rush forward, and they froze, not daring to advance. Su Zhongkan was shaking with fury, his fingers trembling. “You—you—you’re rebelling…”
Turning back, Ning Yi sat down slowly, one hand resting on his knee.
“Let me tell you what you’re all actually capable of. You can’t accomplish anything, but you’re plenty capable of ruining things. The moment you see an advantage, you want your share, and if you get less than you like, you nurse your grievances. While Tan’er and I were planning how to deal with the Xue family, the Wu family, you were all scheming how to deal with Tan’er, because you know you can’t accomplish anything yourselves—but you can certainly sabotage your own family. You can’t build anything, but you can wreck it. You’re like maggots, like beggars blocking the door at a wedding banquet—if you don’t get paid, you’ll bash your own heads in just to ruin someone else’s happy occasion. That’s exactly what you all are…”
“Su Wenxing, why don’t you dare come over here? Afraid I’ll hit you? Then what are you doing hiding over there? You know of Lou Jinlin, don’t you? He used to have dealings with the Su family. When Fang La rose in rebellion, Lou Jinlin threw in his lot with him and became the top merchant house in Hangzhou at the time, gathering men of the underworld, keeping household thugs. Last year, right before New Year, he captured Tan’er. In under two hours, in a place just like this one, in his own household, in front of everyone in his family, I beat his eldest son to death—put a bullet straight through his skull!” Ning Yi slammed his hand down on the armrest of the chair. “And he was standing farther away than you are right now!”
Dead silence fell around them. Though everyone had more or less heard the general outline of what had happened to Ning Yi in Hangzhou, the finer details were things Su Tan’er and the others had, in the end, never shared much of. Of course, however ruthless a man might be, one wouldn’t expect him to truly turn savage in his own home—everyone was still somewhat in shock. Ning Yi spread his hands, his tone having turned mild again.
“Come on then… In a situation like this, whatever I do to you, in everyone’s eyes it’ll look bad for me. Don’t you all fancy yourselves brilliant? If I were you, I’d goad me without restraint, push me until I lost control, and then everything you wanted to do would become perfectly justified. Every one of you is the same, isn’t it? To get something done, you’re too scared to take even one beating, yet you can talk big about fighting someone to the death without blinking. Now, back to where we started—you want to know what we can do if they’re really willing to fight to the death? I’ll tell you: as long as there’s still a shred of hope, once you get past a hundred people, they can’t fight to the death, because trash like you—people who can’t build anything but can wreck everything—exist in every single household. Wherever there’s someone willing to charge ahead, there’s always someone like you dragging them back. Do you all understand what I’m saying now?”
Once he finished, the crowd calmed down somewhat despite themselves—not that anyone agreed with him, of course, and there was some muttered cursing here and there. Su Yunfang, who had been standing off to the side the whole time, looked at him, wagging a finger, and said slowly, word by word, “That’s not what we’re discussing right now. What does this have to do with you keeping a woman outside?”
He had watched calmly from the sidelines, and now finally steered the conversation back, looking at Ning Yi with a faint, knowing smile. Ning Yi smiled too. “I thought it was all the same thing… Third Uncle. Su Wenxing, come here, let me tell you…”
“If you’ve got something to say, say it—who knows if you’re not just some madman…”
Su Wenxing still wanted to struggle a bit, but Su Zhongkan barked, “Wenxing, get over there! I’d like to see exactly what he can do!” He too had realized that Su Wenxing’s cowering only made him look weak. In a setting like this, would Ning Yi really dare put on airs and then actually lay a hand on him? With his father’s backing, Su Wenxing gritted his teeth, squared his shoulders, and abruptly stepped forward. “I’ll just see what you can…” And then he saw Ning Yi’s eyes.
As he stepped out, Ning Yi had already risen from the chair with a smile, bracing himself against it—but in the space of a single blink, that smile fused together with a pair of cold, indifferent eyes. In the next instant, in the brief span before anyone could react, Ning Yi did the one thing everyone had assumed he would never do.
The chair whistled through the air. With all his strength, Ning Yi swung it and smashed it down onto Su Wenxing’s head.
A thunderous crash rang out amid a wave of chaotic noise. Su Wenxing had only managed to throw up a hasty block with his arm, and blood sprayed out as splinters of the shattered chair flew everywhere. Su Wenxing’s body slammed into the pillar behind him. Two household guards who’d rushed forward, along with two young men of similar age who had been standing behind Su Wenxing, all stumbled back in fright. Ning Yi had already stepped forward, closing the distance. One guard reached out and failed to grab hold of his robe, and Ning Yi, aiming at the still-standing Su Wenxing’s knee, turned his body and stamped down hard with the side of his foot.
There was a crack, and the leg twisted out of shape, bone jutting out—it had already been snapped.
“You—still—dared—to come over here!”
The chair Ning Yi had been holding had indeed been used to beat Su Wenxing.
The scene descended into chaos in an instant. Some rushed forward, others screamed, blood mingling with Su Wenxing’s agonized cries amid the general uproar. Two guards had already grappled with Ning Yi, but he then snatched up the tea table with the blade still lodged in it and smashed it savagely down onto one guard’s back, knocking him flat to the ground. When the scene fell briefly silent again, Ning Yi already had his war blade in hand, using the flat of the blade to send the other guard sprawling. Seeing that he now held the blade as if ready to kill, no one in the Su household dared approach further. Ning Yi grabbed a chair, set it down in front of Su Wenxing, and sat there holding the blade, watching Su Wenxing’s blood-soaked, wretched state. Su Zhongkan and the others gathered behind Su Wenxing. “What are you trying to do…”
By now more household guards had gathered inside, and someone shouted, “Murder! Murder!” Su Yunfang roared, “You’re not walking out of here today…”
Ning Yi bent down, looking at Su Wenxing, uncertain how much awareness the man still had left. “Now we can talk. Those people who approached you these past few days—were they from the Xue family or the Wu family, or both? You want to tell me, or should I tell you?”
Su Yunfang said, “This whole time, you’ve done nothing but dodge the real question—”
“If I’m not mistaken, Miss Nie should still be a virgin!”
Ning Yi stared at Su Yunfang as he said this—the words came out of nowhere, but everyone in the hall heard them with perfect clarity. A strange stillness fell over the room.
“Her backers include me, the Princess Chengguo’s estate, and Right Chancellor Qin Siyuan. If she truly wanted to pursue what you all did today, she could have every one of those women, and all of you, thrown into prison at any time. Eight times over!” Ning Yi picked something up and hurled it at Su Wenxing’s bloodied face; it rolled across the floor a few times in the pool of blood—a wooden token identifying him as a guest scholar of Prince Kang’s estate.
“But none of that matters. All I want is to have a talk with you lot about what exactly you useless people think you’re doing!”