Chapter 193: Disillusionment

In her dreams, Hao Yuan and Zhao Yigong seemed to be the same person, a man with two faces. He would show one face, then the other, leaving her flustered and at a loss.

Only she and Jia Le lived in the side courtyard. There were few people in the entire residence. After a quiet breakfast, Jia Le brought tea and snacks and chatted with her to pass the time.

Back at the Phoenix Villa, Xihua managed many affairs. From the moment she opened her eyes, there were things to do, and she was busy until the first watch of the night before she could rest. Seeing Zhao Yigong to report on matters was already a rare moment of leisure. She also had to study the lessons Zhao Yigong assigned her every day, which she usually did after the first watch. Although she was physically tired, her spirits were very content.

Now, after breakfast, there was nothing to do. Even making the bed and tidying the room, which were tasks for the young maids at the villa, were handled by servant women here, so she didn’t have to worry about them.

Xihua sat in the main room, chatting idly with Jia Le at the table, feeling empty inside.

She had already heard from Jia Le that she might have to stay here in hiding for a month. The thought of having to endure another month of these boring days made her feel a little lost.

“Are you usually this idle?”

“How could I be this idle usually? I have to help my parents with their work.”

“I mean Mr. Hao.”

“I don’t know. He’s rarely at home. Except when he’s teaching us at night, he’s mostly outside. No one knows where he goes.”

Jia Le knew very well that a dozen or so people in Nanxiawa, or at least a few, knew what Hao Yuan was doing, but she remembered his words: some things were not yet ready to be told to Xihua.

Xihua’s ability to read people was far superior to Jia Le’s acting skills. Seeing the flicker in Jia Le’s eyes, she knew she wasn’t telling the truth. For a moment, she didn’t know what to say.

“I wonder how the villa is doing…” Xihua’s heart felt empty, and her thoughts drifted back to the people and things at the villa. To think that just yesterday she was working with these people, and today she was in another place. The thought that the villa would face a great crisis today, and she didn’t know if these acquaintances were safe, made her worry for them even more.

At this thought, she felt an even stronger attachment to them.

Jia Le smiled blankly and didn’t respond. Seeing that her hint was ineffective, Xihua had no choice but to ask directly: how much damage would the villa and the bookstore suffer, and would many people die?

“At the villa, our brothers are just going to make some noise. The main force is the fighting societies gathered from the city and outside,” Jia Le said. “I heard there are also a few hundred monks.”

“Yes, monks. They say they’re going to defend the faith and vanquish the demons,” Jia Le said listlessly. “And a few hundred families of red-eyed silkworm…” She suddenly felt she had said too much and quickly swallowed the rest of her words.

“A few hundred families of red-eyed what?”

“…sericulturists, that’s all,” Jia Le stammered.

After that, fearing she would say the wrong thing again, she simply stopped responding to Xihua’s questions and kept changing the subject.

But she was, after all, a semi-literate child with little experience. Even when she tried to change the subject, she couldn’t come up with much to say. By now, Xihua knew that neither Hao Yuan nor Jia Le truly trusted her.

If they truly trusted her, they would have taken her with them as a guide for their surprise attack on the Wanbi Villa. Instead, they had left her here alone, with Jia Le, who was both a companion and, more importantly, a guard.

Although she knew she was a “newcomer” here and it was normal not to be trusted at first, she had abandoned everything and taken a great risk to join them, yet she couldn’t even hear a single honest word. She couldn’t help but feel a little displeased. She didn’t bother to say any more and just sat there sulking.

Jia Le was a kind-hearted child. Seeing the look of disappointment on her face, she knew her guarded attitude had hurt her feelings. She quickly tried to comfort her. “Don’t you worry. The villa is so big, and there are tens of thousands of people inside. Those fighting societies are all slackers. What kind of damage can they do? It’s just like setting off a firecracker to hear a bang.” “Then why attack the villa at all? Just to make some noise?”

“Isn’t it just to make some noise?” Jia Le said. “Master Zhao is a master, after all. What can’t be resolved between masters? It’s just that the masters on this side want to force the master on that side to spit out some benefits, so he doesn’t take it all for himself. Uncle Hao is just using a little trick to make them feel the pain more acutely.”

“Repairing the plank road in the open, secretly crossing to Chencang,” Xihua said. “A big fight at the villa over there, while Mr. Hao launches a surprise attack over here…”

“Sister, you are so smart.” Jia Le clapped her hands with a smile. Since the topic was open, she decided to speak freely.

“Uncle Hao certainly wouldn’t be a ‘patsy’ for some Master Shi. The masters are all people who eat people without spitting out the bones. How could he sincerely sell his life for them? Besides, the plan Mr. Gou proposed is truly vicious. If we get mixed up with them, we’ll suffer sooner or later. So Uncle Hao is just pretending to cooperate; they are each doing their own thing.”

“What kind of vicious method?” Xihua was concerned about her acquaintances at the villa and couldn’t help but ask.

“That Mr. Gou also knows that they can’t make much of a scene at the villa, so he came up with a vicious idea. As soon as they rush into the villa, they’ll start a fire and burn down the Cihuitang first…”

Xihua let out a small cry of alarm. “There are tens of thousands of men, women, and children in the Cihuitang!”

“Isn’t that so?” Jia Le frowned. “I don’t know what deep-seated hatred that dog has for Master Zhao to come up with such a poisonous plan. But according to Uncle Hao, that whatever-his-name-is Master Shi wants many people to die in the villa. The more, the better. That way, Master Zhao won’t be able to maintain his foothold in Hangzhou and will have to go back to Guangdong.”

In such mass armed feuds, the scale was large, but the goal was usually not to cause many casualties. If too many people were killed, the authorities would surely investigate. Buying lives was expensive and troublesome, and if too many people died, the authorities couldn’t cover it up.

But arson was a different matter. In the chaos, it was difficult to say how a fire started. As long as one controlled public opinion, arson could be turned into an accidental fire, and the blame could be shifted entirely to the other party.

Xihua’s mind was in a turmoil. She never expected the enemy’s plan to be so vicious! Although she had not participated in the villa’s strategy meetings, she could see from the preliminary arrangements that Zhao Yigong had not focused his main defenses on the Cihuitang. After all, there was nothing to loot or destroy there, only tens of thousands of refugees and their living facilities.

She knew the Cihuitang like the back of her hand. The houses were built very close together, with fifty to a hundred people living in one longhouse. The building materials were mostly wood. If a fire was started, it would instantly become a raging inferno!

Normally, they relied on day and night patrols and strict, harsh laws to prevent fires. But in the chaos, who would care about that?

At this thought, her blood ran cold. What about the hundreds of children in the charity school? They were small and weak. In the chaos of a raging fire, even if they weren’t burned or suffocated to death, they would be trampled to death. Not to mention the many infants in the nursery who couldn’t even walk. They were all abandoned children picked up by the Cihuitang and raised with great difficulty.

She had no more heart to speak and just sat there in silence.

“Sister, don’t you worry too much. Uncle Hao said the guards at the villa are no pushovers. Even if they want to set a fire, it won’t be that easy,” Jia Le said, trying to comfort her when she saw her pale face.

“I just hope they are all safe,” Xihua murmured.

As they were talking, someone suddenly came in, whispered something in Jia Le’s ear. Jia Le’s expression changed, and she quickly stood up and smiled. “I have something to attend to. I’ll be back in a moment.”

Xihua was preoccupied and didn’t pay much attention, just nodding.

As the sun rose higher, her worries grew heavier. She had never imagined that the matter Hao Yuan was involved in would endanger the lives of the tens of thousands of refugees in the Cihuitang!

Xihua was different from the others. She had always managed various miscellaneous affairs in the Cihuitang at the villa and had a lot of contact with the refugees, developing a deep affection for them. As for the hundreds of children in the charity school, they were more like her younger brothers and sisters than students. Now, hearing that they were in danger, her mind was in a turmoil. She became restless and stood up, pacing in the courtyard to relieve the stuffiness in her chest.

She walked round and round in the courtyard, but Jia Le still did not return. A suspicion arose in Xihua’s heart. She quietly walked to the courtyard gate and saw Jia Le talking to several strong men in the corridor of the outer courtyard.

Because of the distance, she couldn’t hear what they were saying. She quickly took a few steps back. Eavesdropping was a very taboo thing, even if she heard nothing. Especially for someone in her delicate situation.

Just then, Xihua smelled a strange odor.

She shuddered instantly. She was very familiar with this smell—the smell of sulfur. The Cihuitang had a large amount of sulfur ointment, specifically for treating the skin diseases of newly admitted refugees.

These men smelled of sulfur. It was clearly not from sulfur ointment, but from sulfur hidden on their bodies.

For a person to have sulfur hidden on their body, there could be no other explanation than the intention of arson.

Xihua’s body trembled again. “Arson?!”

Jia Le had personally said that Hao Yuan was not participating in the attack on the villa, but was using a feint to launch a surprise attack on the Wanbi Villa. Since he was not participating in the attack on the villa, there was no question of arson there.

They were going to set fire to the Wanbi Bookstore!

Xihua felt as if she had been struck by lightning and almost collapsed. So the Mr. Hao she had admired and trusted was also planning arson!

The Wanbi Bookstore was located in the city of Hangzhou, surrounded by densely packed houses and narrow streets. The bookstore itself was full of books, printing ink, paper, and woodblocks. If it were to catch fire, it would instantly become a great disaster, spreading to thousands of homes!

Compared to his methods, that so-called “Mr. Gou” was nothing.

In an instant, Hao Yuan’s entire image became detestable, even somewhat ferocious.