Jiapingguan Chronicle

“That’s true. In the Forget-Me-Not Powder scheme, everyone in every link is indispensable. Unless the scheme collapses from Master Falian’s point of view, if anyone in any link has the thought of backing down, the others will not let them go.” Shen Cha snorted and said, “Master Falian has seen this out, which is why he has brought so many people in. It’s all for the sake of mutual checks and balances, to make you fight amongst yourselves until you know that this business is utterly unethical, but you still have no choice but to grit your teeth and keep going for the sake of profit, with no room for turning back. The only time you can turn back is now, when we’ve caught you.”

Boss Luan sighed softly and nodded to Shen Cha, indicating his agreement with her statement.

“He lives behind the scenes and never appears in public. Apart from the one time I met him when I was young, I have never seen him again. Not only me, but Ning Changguo and my father-in-law have never met him either. The only people who have seen him in public, besides my father, are the Empress Dowager.”

“I have a question.” Jin Miaomiao tapped the table. “After you took over the business of the Luan and Liu families, I’ve never seen him. How did you conduct business? Did you rely solely on correspondence?”

"Of course not." Boss Luan shook his head slightly. "The closer you get to the core of the Qinglian Sect, the more numerous and strict the rules become. The fewer people know about them, and the fewer people you see them. As for how we contact each other, I can first explain the structure of the entire Qinglian Sect. Master Falian does not live in Daxia. You should already know that, right?"

"Say what you want, and don't pry into things you shouldn't." Shadow Five lightly flicked his whip, warning, "What we know is what we know, and what you say is what you say, understand?"

“Understood.” Boss Luan nodded. “The core members of the Qinglian Sect all live on those islands. The Forget-Worry Powder is also distributed from those islands at a fixed time every year, using the connections between the Ning and Wang families to spread throughout the Great Xia. However, after the fall of Ning Changguo, the Ning family was severely weakened, making the sale of the Forget-Worry Powder a major problem. Generally speaking, core members cannot leave those islands without Master Falian’s permission, because they have seen Master Falian in person. They know how to navigate those islands, including the main island where Master Falian resides. They are familiar with the mechanisms, so they are a very dangerous presence for Master Falian. They cannot leave there except to deliver goods to us. Not only that, they are also controlled by Master Falian with a special medicine. Every so often, they need to take the antidote; otherwise, they will die suddenly in about three months.”

How do you know all this?

"Lord Jin, please don't be hasty, let me explain slowly." Boss Luan gave a weak smile and said, "The only chance for these people living on the island to leave is to deliver Master Falian's secret order, the Forget-Me-Not Powder, and other goods to me, or to the people in Liao and Jin who are doing the same thing with me." He paused for a moment, "I'm not very clear about Jin, but the collaborator in Liao is the Xiao family, and they have been cooperating for a long time. Even some of the people in charge of the Xiao family have met Master Falian."

Shen Haolin, Shen Cha, Xue Ruitian, and Jin Miaomiao exchanged glances. Boss Luan wasn't lying about this; Xiao Fengqi had previously mentioned that those members of the Xiao family who secretly colluded with Master Falian had indeed met him. However, the Master Falian they met wasn't the real Master Falian, but rather a masked Master Falian in disguise.

“I’m talking about you, not anyone else.” Shadow Five flicked the whip in his hand again. “How many people from Master Falian’s side have you met?” “Not many, maybe three or five!” Boss Luan spread his hands. “I’ve met three regularly in Great Xia, and one or two in the Western Regions. One of them became my best friend because I saved his life by chance.”

"So, he said all those things to you?"

“Yes!” Boss Luan nodded. “Because he was almost dead that time. The doctor I found said that in addition to a severe cold, he had also been poisoned by a strange poison. He could treat colds, but he wasn’t very good at deciphering things. Later, although the brother’s cold was cured, it triggered the strange poison in his body, and he was still on the verge of death. I had an ancestral antidote pill at home, which was said to be able to cure all poisons. I had no use for it, so I gave it to him. As a result, it saved him by accident, which I didn’t expect. After all, that pill had been sitting for at least several decades, and it was not certain that it would still be effective. I didn’t expect this.” He sighed softly and said, “Later, we became friends and talked about more and more things, things that Master Falian couldn’t know about. I don’t know if Master Falian discovered something, but the last time I saw him, he was not in good condition. He specifically sent me a letter saying that the master asked me to go to the Western Regions to open up new trade routes. After that, I never saw him again. When I was in the Western Regions, I inquired about his whereabouts, but all I got were bad news.”

"Terrible news?" Jin Miaomiao sighed. "Was she silenced by Master Falian?"

"Probably, but people from the Western Regions told me that he seemed to have died suddenly from an illness. As for whether that's true, only heaven and earth know." Boss Luan sighed and said, "Master Falian knows for himself. However, since that person passed away, the special envoys who come to see me have been rotating, and they no longer talk to me about anything. It's all business."

"That means your affair has been discovered. Master Falian still needs you, so he can't do anything to you. He can only punish the people around him."

“Yes!” Boss Luan nodded. “He might have let something slip, or something might have been discovered, so…” He spread his hands. “However, these people are the people around Master Falian, basically his core. And we, as Master Falian himself said, are his partners. So, our activities are limited to Great Xia or Liao-Jin. I was ordered to go to the Western Regions for a few years before. Once things were settled there, he found local partners to take over, and I had to return to Great Xia. Although I knew that neither the Luan family nor the Liu family were his confidants, and that they could be discarded immediately if someone replaced them, I didn’t expect the discarding to come so quickly.”

"He promised to make you the second Empress Dowager, so he can't really go back on his word, right?"

"Lord Jin, please don't joke. How could we possibly become the second Empress Dowager?" Boss Luan chuckled self-deprecatingly. "Their relationship is simply beyond my comprehension. To Master Falian, the Empress Dowager was his unforgettable love, his white moonlight. That's why he rushed to Great Xia as quickly as possible when he learned of her death." (End of Chapter)