I Became the Eye Candy: Four Bigshots Claimed to be My Dad?-Chapter 127: The First to Act Gets the Knife

Ye Qianning could hear him. Her heart ached to see her father in such distress. She wanted nothing more than to get up and tell him she was fine, but she couldn’t. She had to seem gravely ill for those people to believe her act.

Gu Shuo’s fox-like eyes darkened. He turned and left the room, a dull ache spreading through his chest. ’She’s still just a child. Of course she’d be terrified by something like this.’

’If my men had only intervened yesterday, none of this would have happened. What if the little girl never wakes up...’

A sharp pain twisted in Gu Shuo’s chest, and he clutched at it fiercely. ’So this is heartache. It really hurts!’

’Since Prime Minister Gao was the first to make a move, then he’ll be the one I make an example of!’

Qian Fanji followed him out the door and summoned his personal guard.

"Sir." A guard in combat attire knelt before him.

"Have your men surround this courtyard. If anyone approaches from the shadows, regardless of whose faction they belong to, kill them on sight. That goes for anyone who still means her harm—even if the Royal Hidden Guards try to force their way in!" Though Qian Fanji’s voice was calm, his words were utterly commanding.

"As you command." The guard vanished.

「Imperial Palace, Imperial Study」

"It was Prime Minister Gao’s men. They didn’t manage to injure her, but the child was terrified," a Hidden Guard reported to the Beili Emperor, recounting the previous day’s events.

"She really just found it?" the Beili Emperor asked, his voice laced with suspicion.

"She claims she found it on a mountain but doesn’t know which one. From her condition, it doesn’t seem like she’s faking it."

The Beili Emperor wasn’t so sure. A six-year-old was old enough to understand a great deal. It wouldn’t be difficult for someone to teach her how to lie. Still, one part of her story did ring true. 𝕗𝕣𝐞𝐞𝘄𝐞𝚋𝚗𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹.𝚌𝕠𝚖

If the child had known how precious the Two Qi Fruit was, she never would have given it away. And even if she had, she would have given it to Xiang Minghou. There was absolutely no reason for her to give it to Dean Chen.

’For a child, how could becoming some master’s disciple be more important than her own father?’

Xiang Minghou hadn’t even recognized the fruit, either. That alone was enough to give her story a great deal of credibility.

"What about the old woman who brought her to the Capital City? What have you found out from her?" the Beili Emperor asked.

"The old woman knows nothing about a Two Qi Fruit. Prime Minister Gao’s men went to the General’s residence yesterday and used force—they nearly beat her to death—but they couldn’t get anything out of her. The two of them traveled all the way from Nanyuan with little money, surviving mostly on fruit they picked in the mountains to sate their hunger. Their story appears to be true."

The Beili Emperor had absolute faith in the abilities of his Royal Hidden Guards. At this point, he was mostly convinced that the little girl had simply stumbled upon the Two Qi Fruit by chance.

"We have a medicinal pill here. Take it to General Xiang. It might just save the child’s life."

’If the child dies because of this, and Xiang Minghou finds out Prime Minister Gao’s men were responsible... he’d probably march right over and cut the Prime Minister down himself.’

—

Prime Minister Gao’s men had exhausted every means at their disposal but came up empty-handed. The only conclusion was that the girl had simply found it, but no one knew on which mountain. That very day, he dispatched numerous men to Nanyuan with orders to search every mountain, one by one.

Even though the region was vast and mountainous, and the search would take a very long time, he was determined to see it through.

The other noble families in the Capital City also received the news in an instant: the child had been scared half to death, and the old woman had nearly been beaten to death.

The old woman knew nothing of the Two Qi Fruit. The child only knew it as a fruit she had found and kept because she thought it was pretty.

It truly seemed to be a chance find. While stumbling upon a Two Qi Fruit sounded preposterous, Penglai, the immortal mountain, was itself a preposterous existence.

They recalled the last appearance of a Two Qi Fruit several hundred years ago. According to the stories passed down by their elders, it had also appeared quite suddenly back then.

A villager had found it, only for a group of bandits to recognize it, slaughter the villager’s entire family, and sell it off. Only then did it fall into the hands of the nobility, sparking a fierce struggle to possess it.

The little girl’s story was probably true. And if she really had just found it by chance, there was no point in focusing their attention on a clueless child.

’The most important thing now is how to get a Two Qi Fruit!’