The vicious female supporting role is posted in the opposite direction by the cub

For the next week, Yan Yueqing stayed in her room, quietly studying the history of the Jiang family, and finally managed to come up with a general idea.

As a family with a thousand-year history in China, the Jiang family has survived the changes of dynasties and naturally encountered several crises of collapse.

The key to their repeated success in overcoming difficulties lies in a unique system—

Before each head of the family abdicates, he secretly stores one percent of the family's wealth.

The core purpose of this "treasure" is to reserve for the successor a sum of money to make a comeback in the event that the family suffers a catastrophic disaster.

Therefore, this secret is one of the core contents that must be disclosed during the normal handover process between the old and new heads of the household.

However, if there are frequent changes in the head of the family (such as every few years), it is impossible to carry out the hiding of treasure every time—no family can afford such a drain. Over time, the system was adjusted to: regardless of the change of the head of the family, a portion of the property is hidden every fifty years, and the current head of the family is responsible for carrying it out.

Another key question is: if the head of the family dies unexpectedly, wouldn't the information about the treasure be lost along with it?
To prevent this from happening, the head of the family would draw up a treasure map in advance and leave a secret letter, which would be entrusted to a person he absolutely trusted for safekeeping. This person was called the "guardian of the secret".

During a normal handover, the keeper of secrets will never reveal their identity until their death; only when the head of the family dies unexpectedly and is unable to personally hand over the position will the keeper of secrets appear and reveal the secrets to the new head of the family. For example, when Jiang Yu took over as head of the family, the keeper of secrets chosen by her maternal grandmother was Jiang Ke.

Later, to prevent the keeper from leaking secrets or in extreme cases where the patriarch and the keeper both perish, the "Elders' Council" was gradually introduced as a supervisory body.

When it was first established, the council of elders had limited power and mainly played a supervisory role.

Three hundred years ago, the Jiang family suffered a devastating disaster. The then-head of the family initiated the Treasure Vault Project, retrieving most of the treasures buried in China to rebuild the Jiang family.

This top-secret mission was carried out by members of the Presbyterian Council at the time (because they were few in number and relatively trustworthy).

After the mission was successful, the family urgently needed manpower to rebuild the family, and the elders had made contributions. The family head was also overworked, so he delegated a lot of power to the elders.

But after the new head of the family took office, the elders refused to return the power!

From then on, the Council of Elders grew to power, its power structure becoming deeply entrenched and enduring for three hundred years, its foundation profound and difficult to shake.

The entire Jiang family has existed for no more than a thousand years.

The Presbyterian Council has continued for three hundred years...

"Sigh..." Yan Yueqing couldn't help but complain upon seeing this, "...The initial intention was good, but it became increasingly defensive, complicating a simple matter..."

She rubbed her head: "When the old and new heads of the family are handing over the treasure in a normal way, wouldn't it be better to just tell them the location of the treasure? If they are worried about dying unexpectedly, wouldn't it be more direct to tell the new head of the family in advance? Both the new head of the family and the keeper of the secret could have accidents, but it is better to tell the heir directly than to go around in circles and have a bunch of people supervise the keeper of the secret, right?"

"Besides, the keeper of secrets was chosen precisely because they are 'not easily leaked.' Adding layers of oversight only increases chaos and risk. In the end, they created an elders' council, which has effectively taken away the head of the family's power..."

Yan Yueqing also noticed—

About a century ago, when the Jiang family moved overseas, they handed over three-quarters of their property to China. They also retrieved almost all the treasures collected by previous family heads and took them to S Continent.

However, during the treasure hunt, some elders went missing, and the whereabouts of some of the treasure became a mystery...

Are they really missing? Or were they taken over by those people?

It's hard to say.

In short, even after so much time has passed, and even though Yan Yueqing's maternal grandmother took power and fought against the Elders' Council for thirty years, plus her mother Jiang Yu's twenty-five years, the impact on the Elders' Council was still not significant.

Grandma's secret letter, seemingly from the perspective of three generations of family heads starting with Mother, aimed to bring the Jiang family back to China. In reality... it was a plan for the new family heads to use the return to China as a pretext to purge the Elders' Council!

After a century of wandering overseas, their roots are in China. However, in recent years, they have continuously intermarried with Western royal families, and many of their high-ranking officials are foreigners.

Returning to China would mean severing their ties with the outside world.

Such ruthless methods were tantamount to crippling the entire Jiang family, with far-reaching consequences.

But it has to be done!

If things continue like this... who knows, one day the elders might devour the entire Jiang family?
After reviewing all the information, Yan Yueqing had a clear understanding of the situation. She slowly uttered the word "delete," and everything on the large screen turned into specks of light and disappeared.

The old papers on the desk were also rearranged and reassembled by the levitation force, then stacked one by one and placed in the combination lock box under the desk.

Yan Yueqing stepped out of the space filled with the dust of history and cold words. The heavy carved door of the study slid shut silently behind her, isolating her from the secrets of rise and fall over a thousand years.

After a week of intensive study, the undercurrents of power struggles within the Jiang family and the arduous schemes of her grandmother and mother against the Elders' Council had been deeply etched into her mind like a burning brand.

That heavy sense of mission was no longer a vague outline, but had transformed into a clear and burning mark, searing her heart.

The sight outside the door made her pause slightly.

In stark contrast to the absolute silence of the study, the entire "Jade Palace" seemed to be infused with vitality, and a carefully prepared clamor flowed through the air.

As soon as she stood still, a middle-aged woman in an elegant uniform with a gentle face quickly stepped forward, bowed slightly, and said in a respectful tone with a hint of barely perceptible surprise: "Miss, you've come out. The head of the family instructed that she be notified immediately as soon as you emerge from seclusion. She has been waiting for you."

Yan Yueqing recognized that this was Aunt Jiang, her mother's most capable housekeeper, and nodded.

Almost as soon as the words were spoken, the suspended staircase at the end of the corridor silently slid open.

The figure of her mother, Jiang Yu, appeared in the halo of light.

She changed out of her usual neat and tidy household head's attire, and into a moon-white, modified traditional Chinese evening gown that accentuated her still-elegant figure. The silk fabric was embroidered with delicate lotus scroll patterns in silver thread of the same color, flowing with understated elegance under the soft starlight simulated by the dome.

The sharpness characteristic of a family head in her eyes was softened slightly by the deliberate gentleness she cultivated at this moment. She quickly walked up to Yan Yueqing and took her hand.

"Xiaoxing," Jiang Yu's voice carried a hint of weariness, but more so the joy of seeing her daughter, "How are you feeling?"

Her gaze swept calmly across her daughter's face, as if trying to discern from that serene expression how much heavy past she had endured.

Yan Yueqing grasped her mother's slightly cool hand and whispered, "Mom, I know everything. Grandma's good intentions... and your persistence."

Jiang Yu's hand tightened almost imperceptibly, and a complex emotion flashed in her eyes, a mixture of relief and deeper worry.

"Good that you understand. The road ahead is long." She gently patted her daughter's hand. "Take care of the present first. The family... has prepared a welcome feast for you."

"A welcome banquet?" Yan Yueqing was slightly taken aback.

Having just emerged from the vast and heavy weight of history, hearing this word suddenly felt like stepping into another world.

“Yes,” Jiang Yu’s tone was firm, “You’re officially returning home, so there needs to be a ceremony. It’ll also let everyone see you. It’s getting late, go change into your dress first. Sister Jiang, take Miss to ‘Star Pavilion’.” (End of Chapter)