Can a System Have Bad Intentions? - Chapter 66

After separating from Liang Cheng, Xue Tian immediately went to Gu Yunhe. He stayed there for about the time it takes to drink two cups of tea before coming out.

When he went in, he looked apprehensive. When he came out, he was all smiles, carrying a pouch of silver.

It wasn’t that Guo Dawei’s servant was particularly skilled; it was just that Xue Tian opened the pouch to check the amount of silver right after leaving Gu Yunhe’s place. Satisfied with the amount, he left, whistling happily.

With this information, everyone was even more certain that Xue Tian approached Liang Cheng under Gu Yunhe’s orders with ill intentions. As for Gu Yunhe’s motive…

Xu Shen, Zhou Shu, and Guo Dawei all looked at Lu Tang.

Lu Tang thought for a moment and said, “Gu Yunhe is targeting my family. Liang Cheng is just a pawn in his plan. Zhou Shu, at dawn, head back to the county and inform Uncle Liang about Xue Tian.”

Xu Shen agreed, “Yes, we need to tell the adults. We can’t handle Gu Yunhe on our own.”

Zhou Shu quickly said, “Why wait until dawn? I’ll go now.”

“In the middle of the night? What if you run into bandits and get kidnapped?” Guo Dawei retorted, rolling his eyes. “Go in the morning.”

Xu Shen hesitated for a moment, then suggested, “Why not take Liang Cheng with you? If he’s gone, they can’t use him.”

Zhou Shu immediately objected, “With Little Tang here, you think he’ll leave? Don’t joke.”

Lu Tang said, “We’ll give him some medicine to make him sleep. That’s settled. Zhou Shu, you take him back first thing in the morning.”

Zhou Shu patted his chest, “No problem.”

Unaware that he was going to be drugged, Liang Cheng stumbled into his room, collapsing onto the bed, staring blankly at the canopy overhead.

When he was a child, his family and the Xue family were neighbors.

To be precise, his family fled to Sihe Town during a famine and rented a house from the Xue family.

At that time, the Xue family had a thriving silk shop in Sihe Town, and they were doing well. They treated Liang Cheng’s family, who were outsiders, with great kindness.

It seemed Liang Cheng’s father had a natural knack for business. The more he interacted with Xue Tian’s father, the more he learned.

However, out of gratitude, they didn’t want to open a competing silk shop. Just as they were planning to open a hemp rope shop, the Xue family’s shop was vandalized.

The reason was that Xue Tian’s father had lost almost three thousand taels of silver in gambling.

After selling everything they could and borrowing from everyone, they managed to scrape together just over two thousand taels. With no other choice, the Xue family planned to sell their shop and even their eldest daughter to a human trafficker.

Liang Cheng’s father took the family’s only two hundred taels of silver to the gambling den and persuaded the gamblers to let the Xue family keep their shop.

“If they keep the shop, they can make money to repay the debt. If you sell it now, you’ll only get two hundred taels, which won’t cover the three thousand taels. You’ll never get your money back.”

The gamblers weren’t stupid. They made the Xue family write an IOU, acknowledging that they had repaid two thousand seven hundred taels and still owed three hundred taels, to be paid within three months.

If they missed the deadline, the interest and principal would double every month.

Late by one month, it would be six hundred taels. Two months, it would be twelve hundred taels.

It was a harsh deal, but it saved their shop.

After the gamblers left, Xue Tian’s father, in tears, offered to marry his eldest daughter to Liang Cheng as a child bride and run the shop together.

Liang Cheng was only four years old at the time.

He had no idea what the adults were doing. He was just a typical brat, playing all day with Xue Tian, who was a month younger, not wanting to go home.

Xue Tian, chubby and fair-skinned, followed Liang Cheng around like a little tail, calling him brother. Sometimes, he mischievously called him brother-in-law.

Xue Tian’s sister, Xue Min…

Thinking of Xue Min, who was three years older than him, Liang Cheng curled up in pain on the bed, feeling as if his heart was being carved out.

That summer, when he was six, he and a group of boys of similar age went to catch fish in a river outside the town.

A bunch of naked kids splashing around in the river, having fun, when suddenly seven or eight snakes appeared.

There were never any snakes in that area.

Seeing so many snakes, the boys panicked, screaming for their parents and scrambling to the shore. The snakes seemed to target Liang Cheng, slithering straight at him.

Liang Cheng could swim fast, but not as fast as the snakes. Scared out of his wits, he even peed in the river.

In the chaos, someone accidentally kicked him hard in the stomach, sending him flying several meters right into the middle of the snakes. He was so terrified that he felt his soul leave his body.

Everyone was scared out of their wits. The younger kids cried, while the older ones ran to get help.

Xue Tian and Xue Min were there too.

Xue Tian was so scared that he sat on the ground, crying. It was Xue Min who jumped into the river to save him.

He had no recollection of how Xue Min rescued him from the circle of snakes. When he woke up, he was back home with multiple snake bites on his body.

Fortunately, the snakes weren’t venomous.

As soon as he woke up, he rushed to the Xue family, only to be told by Xue Tian that his sister had died.

It felt like being struck by lightning. Liang Cheng could still clearly remember his reaction.

All these years later, he still didn’t understand how Xue Min had died when the snakes weren’t venomous.

No one in the Xue family answered his question.

They only said that Xue Min was his child bride and it was her duty to save him, so he shouldn’t feel guilty.

Look at that.

His mother, however, told him that when he was brought back, the doctor found snake powder in his hair, a substance that attracts snakes.

His mother reported it to the authorities and investigated for a long time but found nothing. No one knew how the snake powder ended up on him.

After Xue Min’s death, the Xue family didn’t seem too upset. But he was devastated, losing sleep for nights, haunted by the image of the snakes and Xue Min’s desperate rescue.

The only one as devastated as he was, was Xue Tian.

Xue Tian clung to his sleeve, crying, “Sister loved me more than our parents did. Now I have no sister. You’re my real brother, okay?”

From then on, he and Xue Tian were like real brothers.

Xue Tian loved the paper boats he folded. Whenever Xue Tian missed Xue Min and cried, he would fold him a boat.

Until that day…

That day, his father and Xue Tian’s father were ambushed by bandits while transporting goods from Suzhou and Hangzhou.