The Legend of the Condor Heroes: From Being Expelled from Peach Blossom Island

Chapter 112 Powerless
Wu Zhengliang called Wu Chengyu to his side and asked, "So, are you confident about fighting in the arena?"

Wu Chengyu countered, "Fourth Uncle, does the family really want to cooperate with the Shi family?"

Wu Zhengfan, the head of the second branch, said, "We don't have such big ambitions. Our Wu family's upper echelons are currently on the same side as Shi Miyuan, so there's no need for us to get closer to him."

This time, however, they want the operating rights to our iron mine. The last contract we signed with the imperial court was for fifteen years, and it's about four years away from expiring.

Wu Chengyu nodded. Since ancient times, the salt and iron trade has been controlled by the imperial court, and the common people are not allowed to participate. However, in the Song Dynasty, the court relaxed its control over the mining and metallurgy industry and adopted a recruitment system and a contract system, allowing private individuals to contract the mining and smelting of iron mines, only needing to pay a certain percentage of taxes to the government.

But this matter is not that simple; one must have strong connections at the top. The iron mine played a significant role in the Wu family being regarded as a powerful clan in Suzhou.

"In fact, my friends in Hangzhou have already sent me letters. Shi Miyuan will become the Right Chancellor by next year at the latest. After he takes office, he wants to control the salt and iron industries."

The above means that since the cooperation has been established and the other party has clearly offered benefits, your third brother Cheng Lian's mentor, Lord Zheng Qingzhi, has been recommended by Shi Miyuan to become a professor and imperial tutor in the Prince of Wei Huixian's palace, instructing the princes.

In return for handing over the operating rights of this iron ore mine, the Shi family did not let us suffer any losses and provided us with corresponding benefits.

Who would have thought that Shi Tong would come to Suzhou and arbitrarily change the contract, only wanting to pay a few hundred taels of silver to take away the management rights, which is why we had such an unpleasant argument.

Ultimately, the Wu family and the Shi family were partners and had no personal grudges against each other.

Now that Shi Tong has died inexplicably, Shi Chang has arrived. His proposed solution is quite good. We'll discuss the details with him later.

Now it all depends on whether you can win the fight. If you win, we'll take more; if you lose, we'll settle according to the original contract.

Wu Chengyu nodded. Fighting in a tournament to seek benefits for the family was nothing to be ashamed of.

He looked at the three martial arts masters that Shi Chang had mentioned earlier; they were one of the three who had come upstairs with Shi Chang.

Two of these three are masters of external martial arts, strong and powerful, with no obvious physical deformities. They clearly have a legitimate lineage and have developed internal strength, far superior to someone like Yu Heihu.

As for the depth of his martial arts skills, it is impossible to know without a fight. He should be superior to Cheng Wuji of the Chasing Wind Sword, but not to the level of the successor of the Five Greats.

There was another one who wasn't an external martial artist, but stood in front of the two external martial arts masters. He was clearly of a higher status, with long, slender arms, pale palms, and sharp, piercing eyes. He should be skilled in internal martial arts techniques. As for how high his martial arts skills were, they couldn't possibly surpass Lu Chengfeng's.

Wu Chengyu always judged the martial arts masters he saw by the level of the Five Greats' successors. Excluding the underage Feng Mofeng, according to his own guess, the weakest were Hao Datong and Sun Bu'er, the strongest were Qiu Chuji and Qu Lingfeng, and Lu Chengfeng was below average.

If he can be compared to Lu Chengfeng, then his martial arts skills are already quite remarkable.

Wu Chengyu was absolutely certain that even if these three people attacked together, they would not be a match for him.

However, he was concerned about the fourth one, the one who had almost not heard his footsteps earlier.

He was very young, in his early twenties, somewhat unkempt, with his hair down and a long sword slung across his waist. He appeared lazy from the moment he arrived.

Shi Chang remained standing the whole time, while Shi Chang simply pulled up a chair, sat down, and looked around, completely oblivious to the stares of others. Shi Chang let him be as lazy as he wanted.

If it weren't for the lightness skill he just displayed, Wu Chengyu wouldn't have paid any attention to this person at all.

Although having high lightness skills doesn't necessarily mean being a great martial artist, after watching a lot of martial arts movies and TV dramas in later generations, people generally think that guys with this kind of style are mostly masters.

However, he wasn't among the five experts Shi Chang mentioned earlier who would be competing. Wu Chengyu guessed that this person was probably there to act as Shi Chang's bodyguard. Shi Tong's death was too sudden; if Shi Chang also died inexplicably, all of the Shi family's arrangements would have been completely wasted.

However, since he is not the one defending the title, there is no need to pay attention to him for the time being. Wu Chengyu had no intention of killing Shi Chang as well.

Wu Chengyu was looking at the young man. The young man seemed to sense his gaze. Their eyes met briefly, then looked away. The young man, bored out of his mind, looked away again.

Wu Chengyu also withdrew his gaze and said to his three uncles, "I am fully confident in dealing with the three of them."

"That's good, that's exactly what I wanted to hear. Now I can get more benefits for the Wu family," Wu Zhengfan said with great joy.

Wu Zhengliang, who was standing nearby, interjected, "Seventh Brother, Twenty-One is one of our Third Branch. He helped your Second Branch this time, so don't forget him when you get the benefits."

"Haha, do you even need to tell me? When will my second wife produce such a good child?"

With the matter settled, Wu Chengyu's three uncles were to stay and negotiate with Shi Chang. Feeling somewhat bored, Wu Chengyu took his leave first.

However, as he walked, Wu Chengyu's steps gradually became heavy, and his mind was filled with inexplicable thoughts.

Having read many novels in my past life, I remembered the name Shi Miyuan. I knew he was a treacherous minister, mainly because he exonerated Qin Hui. This matter has not yet occurred, but it should be this month. This is one of the peace terms proposed by the Jin envoy to Shi Miyuan.

His third cousin, Wu Chenglian, who was a third-ranked scholar in the imperial examinations, became a student of Zheng Qingzhi. Unless you are a specialist in Song Dynasty history or have a Baidu search tool at your fingertips, very few people would know the name Zheng Qingzhi.

Wu Chengyu did not know Zheng Qingzhi's life story or what kind of person he was, so he could not judge whether this person would rise to prominence in the future. However, it was known that Shi Miyuan would then hold absolute power in the court for more than 20 years.

This indicates that Zheng Qingzhi's future position will be below Shi Miyuan's. The two sides are already cooperating, and in the future, he will likely be classified as a member of the treacherous faction.

Therefore, it seemed that his family had become an appendage of the treacherous minister's faction, with many exchanges of interests between them. This conclusion was quite unexpected for Wu Chengyu.

His values, cultivated through nine years of compulsory education, seem somewhat unacceptable.

Currently, the Wu family and the Shi family have no direct contact, but it is hard to guarantee that the Wu family will not be implicated in the future. Perhaps Wu Chengyu will be used as a weapon to deal with opponents.

This was the first time Wu Chengyu had felt uncomfortable because of his family since returning to the clan. Originally, the family was an asset, but now he found it to be a quagmire.

However, since you receive protection from your family, you also need to contribute to your family when it matters. This is the cause and effect that your family brought to Wu Chengyu.

Wu Chengyu would never serve a historical villain, so even though he never thought of changing history, the ties his family had placed on him were like a net, forcing him to consider making some changes.

The word "rebellion" didn't cross his mind; he knew he didn't have the ability.

But Wu Chengyu had no clue what to do. Faced with the overwhelming situation, even the butterfly wings of time travel might not be able to make any difference.

With these thoughts in mind, Wu Chengyu returned to Wuweilou. He went to the kitchen first and found that A-Ku was not there.

He turned to look at Wu Jinshui, who replied, "In the back alley. I helped a lot of beggars today. They were all good food and drinks that I could sell. I put it all on your tab."

(End of this chapter)