The Challenge of a Farmhouse Son-in-Law
Chapter 415 - 425: Blood Stains Wangxian Town

Chapter 415: Chapter 425: Blood Stains Wangxian Town

Both sides held to their reason, but in reality, it was irrelevant because if they didn’t kill them, other reasons would’ve been found.

What mattered was that Zhuzhao Country could not let its citizens die in vain. To appease public resentment, Marquess Yue sent a memorial to the Emperor in Beijing, and the Emperor’s decree was that the matter be dealt with entirely at Marquess Yue’s discretion.

This chess game, they initiated the first move, their opponents had already responded to the next, now they were waiting, waiting for them to make the third move.

"Will Marquess Yue send troops?"

Jin Zijin smiled faintly, "Of course, otherwise, it would be difficult to calm the public’s anger."

Gu Youyou looked at his face and felt her heart palpitate inexplicably. People would die in a war, but how could he still manage to smile in the face of death?

He smiled, that confident smile, which, if it were on Yue Rujing’s face, would definitely seem triumphant.

But was killing something to be proud of and boast about?

That smile was somehow familiar, and Gu Youyou suddenly felt a shock.

Wasn’t this the same feeling she had when she was about to devour her competitors in the business world?

She looked at him, her gaze filled with surprise and a sense of unreality.

The battlefield was like the marketplace, one gambled with life, the other with wealth. If you lost the former, you’d have no life; lost the latter, and a fortune dissipated. What of the innocent people who lost their jobs as collateral damage? When had she ever pitied them?

In that sense, they were essentially the same kind of person.

"Have you already decided what to do?"

"Hmm." He hummed affirmatively, stroked her hair, and gently patted her shoulder.

It was the eighteenth year of Changqing’s reign in Zhuzhao Country. That spring, the peach blossoms in Wangxian Town flourished brilliantly in March, blanketing the town with a fresh pink bloom overnight.

The two armies clashed, and the battlefield was set in the midst of Wangxian Town. The residents had long evacuated, and the blood spilled belonged to the soldiers from both sides.

The victory went to Lingnan, the opposing commander was captured alive. To retrieve their commander, Nanzhao Country agreed to evacuate the Nanzhao residents from Wangxian Town, forever barred from stepping half a foot into the town again, and they agreed to give a generous compensation to the family of the father and son, yet, they did not make the sword-bearing soldiers apologize.

The family, mere commoners, had other sons and grandsons besides the ones lost. So, after mourning briefly, they forgot the pain of their loss upon receiving enough Silver Taels to go from poverty to wealth and scarcely remembered that the murderers were not executed nor did they apologize.

Having lived with Jin Zijin for a while, Gu Youyou realized that a superficial victory was not a true victory.

That night, as she lay on the bed unable to sleep for a long time, she pulled on his arm and leaned her head on his shoulder, and asked softly, "Did we win?"

He hadn’t brought up this matter to Gu Youyou for a long time after the war, so she felt uneasy.

He only said two words, "Draw."

"Then..." She was about to ask why it was a draw, but then thought that if he didn’t mention it, it must touch on some secret he was unwilling to share. So just as she began to speak, she swallowed her words back down.

He turned to embrace her in his arms. This embrace had nothing to do with poison; he just wanted to hold her.

Resting his chin on top of her head, his gentle voice came through.

"Ask whatever you want without hesitation, no need to hold back."

Gu Youyou was startled, then chuckled and said, "I’m afraid to ask because you might not answer, and then where would that leave my pride?"

"Hmm!"

"The things you can say, you’ll naturally tell me, and the things you don’t, are those inconvenient for me to know, right?"

He laughed and patted her back, sighing, "Of course not. The reason I don’t say some things is that I don’t know how best to put them."

"For example?" His words were sometimes enigmatic, sometimes misleading, and more often than not, they were incomprehensible.