"In the realm of martial arts, Quanzhen and Shaolin are both prominent sects with a strong presence and leadership. They logically shouldn’t have any reason to do this, but as they say, you can know someone’s face but not their heart. Who knows if they just want to teach me, an ignorant young man, a lesson?"
"And as for Ming Sect and White Lotus Sect that are both involved this time, theoretically, they shouldn’t be doing this either. It’s neither reasonable nor beneficial for them, but it’s hard to say. These two sects are used to stabbing each other in the back, so maybe some clever person thought to use this to pull a fast one on the other?"
"Which is to say, all four elders might be the ones doing this..."
"Don’t worry, I obviously won’t go knocking on each of their doors to confront them. If I were that brainless to blindly charge ahead, wouldn’t I be playing right into the hands of my opponents?"
Yang Ge gently patted Li Jincheng on the shoulder, smiling, which somewhat reassured him: "I was just worried about you being in Dongying..."
He wanted to say "worried you’re getting too comfortable in Dongying."
But he swallowed the rest of his words.
He knew Yang Erlang didn’t like hearing that.
"How clever am I?"
Yang Ge said with a casual smile, "Why would I engage in such an unpleasant and thankless job? That kind of dirty work should obviously be done by outsiders!"
Li Jincheng was puzzled: "Outsiders are willing to take on this kind of task? If I remember correctly, not only do you have no relationship with them, but there’s also some bad blood, right?"
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Yang Ge nodded confidently, "Exactly, there is bad blood, so I suspect they stole my money... It makes sense, right?"
Li Jincheng almost laughed out loud: "Outsiders would dare to mess with you? They’d probably prefer it if you never remembered them at all!"
Yang Ge spread his hands: "What they think and what I have to do with them? For now, in the martial world, I only have a feud with them, and only they are not afraid of me and dare to provoke me. Now that my money has been stolen, who else should I suspect but them? I surely can’t start suspecting our business partners in the Ming Sect and White Lotus Sect, can I? We’re still in business together."
Listening, Li Jincheng seemed to understand but was also confused: "Are you planning... to force the hands of the outsiders to return the three million Silver?"
"Nothing so severe..."
Yang Ge shook his head: "My feud with the outsiders is minor, not worth three million taels of silver. I just want to use them to dredge the real culprit out of the gutter... Aren’t they informers of the martial world? I’m giving them a chance to use their skills for a good cause. If they do it well, past grievances will be wiped clean. If not, they can’t blame me for dredging up old conflicts."
Li Jincheng pondered this for a long time, then said, "There’s another problem: you’ve said it yourself, whoever did this probably isn’t afraid of you taking action. The outsiders can’t afford to offend you, but they can afford to offend the other person?"
Yang Ge retorted, "But it also makes no sense for the outsiders to take the blame for that person, does it?"
Li Jincheng, gripped by a need for logic, argued, "But what if the outsiders hand over the money but stubbornly refuse to reveal where it came from?"
"That’s indeed a big possibility,"
Yang Ge nodded: "But for now, that’s the only plan I can think of. Though, once we get the money back, our brotherhood’s honor will be restored... Yes, it’s still a bit of a loss. No, we’ll say the money I lost was five million Silver!"
"If our brothers have to swallow a bit of bitterness and lose some face, we could gain two million taels of Silver... Not a bad deal, right?"
At this point, Li Jincheng could not counter any longer. Unable to contain his endless admiration, he smiled and gave Yang Ge a big thumbs up: "It’s better to offend a little devil than to offend you, Yang Ge!"
Seeing his smiling face, Yang Ge also relaxed a bit.
He stood up, stretching his arms slowly as if yawning, then swiftly hooked Li Jincheng’s head under his arm, trapping it there: "What did I tell you before? The one who can keep his composure despite inner turmoil is fit to be a General! You agreed so readily, yet you backed out at once? With such impatience, slicing at people indiscriminately, how will you ever handle affairs at Lianhuan Fort?"
Li Jincheng struggled to lift his head, arguing loudly, "A little trouble? Just a little? Do you know how many stories high three million taels of silver stacked would be? Do you know how many people would die if that much silver was dumped into the martial world? You don’t know. When I saw the silver in the chest turn to stone, I felt like the sky was falling... Also, those few who got their heads chopped off just now, they died rightly so. Those who should have been guarding were napping, and those who should have been on patrol went gambling. I’m eighty percent sure they were bribed..."
"You still think you’re right?"
Yang Ge pressed him to the ground with one arm, squeezing his neck and demanding loudly, "Are you short of money now? Am I short of money now? Three million taels of silver sounds like a lot, but if we’re willing to make a trip to Dongying, we could gather that in just three to five months... Isn’t this a small matter? If I were as impatient as you, wouldn’t I be packing my bags right now, riding Erhei, knocking on every elder and every outsider’s door demanding money?"
Li Jincheng, with his face red and ears burning, tightly closed his mouth and said nothing.
Yang Ge released him and slowly stood up: "Think more carefully next time... especially about matters involving human lives."