"That year, the Flower Morning Festival first began to emerge."
"However, after the Flower Morning Festival, the Hundred Flowers List suddenly changed its name to the Golden Rooster List." (Chapter 3)
"The reason given by the Eight Gangs was to avoid the name of the Flower Morning Festival."
"This explanation was actually quite reasonable. Moreover, due to the scarcity of clues at the beginning, nobody suspected that there were hidden truths."
"But by the time the Jiang Family began their investigation, there had already been five saintesses, and accordingly, five surnames."
"Therefore, following this clue, the Jiang Family quickly discovered the connection between the surnames of the Eight Gangs and the surnames of the five saintesses."
"After that, they started trying to investigate the Eight Gangs."
"And to their surprise..."
"Over the years, although the Flower God’s Holy Maidens appeared to be randomly selected, in fact... they all had ties to the Eight Gangs."
"Some of these Flower God’s Holy Maidens were children of henchmen from certain gangs, some were family members of a small gang leader."
"Some of them had even joined the Eight Gangs themselves."
"Others were the daughters of merchants who had business dealings with the Eight Gangs."
"Actually, if matters had stopped there, it wouldn’t have been particularly suspicious."
"After all, the Eight Gangs had been entrenched in Emerald City for fifty years, and almost everyone in Emerald City was somewhat related to them."
"However, the Jiang Family used their family’s influence to continue digging into the information about these Flower God’s Holy Maidens."
"While everything seemed normal on the surface, after expending a great deal of manpower and resources on the investigation... they found that all these Flower God’s Holy Maidens were orphans!"
"And without exception, all were girls who had been kidnapped from the lower-class districts of smaller cities or adopted by the Eight Gangs." (Chapter 27)
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"The Eight Gangs crafted fictitious identities for them from an early age, either adopting them themselves or after giving them a name, would abandon them to be adopted by others."
Bai Zhi was so shocked by Fang Ze’s words that she couldn’t close her mouth, and she felt goosebumps all over her body.
After all, Emerald City was enormous. And the Eight Gangs, though they seemed quite impressive, were but trifles in the face of official authority, easily suppressed and eradicated with a single command. Hence, in Emerald City, they were not considered a significant force.
If it wasn’t for their well-operated Red Light District, they probably wouldn’t have much fame at all.
Yet the Flower Morning Festival was an event of interest to the entire Eastern Administrative Region, a secret realm governed by Law.
One seemed like a mere speck of dust, the other like a dazzling star.
And now, the mastermind behind the Flower Morning Festival turned out to be them? Read new adventures at freewebnovel
Could a speck of dust really control a vast star?
How could this not shock Bai Zhi?
Seeing her reaction, Fang Ze smiled and nodded, "Are you surprised?"
"I too was quite astonished when I first heard the news."
As he spoke, Fang Ze gestured for her to stop staring blankly and to keep writing, while he continued, "Afterward, the Jiang Family treated the Eight Gangs as a breakthrough point and began to infiltrate them."
"For this purpose, they did not hesitate to plant personnel or to cooperate with the Eight Gangs in business and so forth."
"And after nearly a decade of infiltration, they were close to the truth."
Bai Zhi couldn’t help but ask, "What truth?"
Fang Ze said, "Do you remember the nursery rhyme I mentioned earlier?"
Bai Zhi nodded, "I do."
Fang Ze said, "Didn’t you notice anything odd about that nursery rhyme in relation to the Flower God’s Holy Maidens?"
Bai Zhi looked puzzled as she reviewed what she had just written, then after a moment, she shook her head.
Fang Ze pointed to the rhyme’s fifth position, "Zhou," then pointed to the last two of the Flower God’s Holy Maidens, reminding her, "Look at the sequence."
Realization dawned on Bai Zhi, "Did it skip over ’Zhou’?"
Fang Ze nodded, then said with a serious tone, "No, it didn’t just skip over ’Zhou.’"
"Rather, there was never a Zhou to begin with."
"Through detailed investigations and timeline scrutiny, The Jiang Family found out... actually, more than fifty years ago, the people who came to Emerald City and established the Eight Gangs were not eight people, but seven."
"Initially, there weren’t Eight Gangs, but Seven."
"Zhao, Qian, Sun, Li, Wu, Zheng, Wang."
"After that, came the Flower Morning Festival."
"Then, three years after the first Flower Morning Festival, a nursery rhyme began to circulate in Emerald City."
"Soon after, within that year, a new gang power suddenly rose within the city’s underground: the Zhou Family."
Bai Zhi spontaneously asked, "Are you suggesting that the Zhou Family was a latecomer? That they inserted themselves into the events of the Flower Morning Festival?"
Fang Ze shook his head, "The Jiang Family initially thought so too."
"But later, they discovered that the secret was even bigger."
"In fact... there is no Zhou Family in Emerald City at all."
"The ancestor who founded the Zhou Family didn’t actually have the surname Zhou, but Xiang Ka."
"Xiang Ka?" Bai Zhi furrowed her brows and repeated the name, clearly unfamiliar and confused.
Fang Ze said, "I’m sure you wouldn’t know about it."
"I did some research on this surname."
"It’s an ancient surname of the Miaohua Tribe, a minority group that existed only before the federation was established, during the period of Xida Country."
"Afterward, with the establishment of the federation and Xida Country becoming a state, the Flower Sprout tribe was required to change their surnames. Thus, the surname Xiang Ka was abolished and changed to ’Zhou’."
"But in actuality, it was an adopted surname, not a true ’Zhou’ line."