RWWAI 38

Chapter 38: System Warning!

I gave serious thought to phrasing those three words in a slightly more tactful manner, but after a moment of internal debate, I realized I couldn't think of any.

So I abandoned the effort altogether and blurted out straight:

"On what grounds?"

Because I had genuinely never heard such absurd logic in my life.

Whose ancestral property nowadays wasn't owned by somebody else a few hundred centuries ago?

Since when did descendants have a constitutional right to force people to buy back their own property out of pocket?

Pointing a shaking finger straight at my nose, the sour-faced old man looked fit to suffer a massive cerebral hemorrhage as he sprayed spittle everywhere and roared:

"Lady Liang! Do you honestly take me for a complete fool? Who exactly sold off those tracts of farmland is recorded with crystal clarity right down in the official government land registries! The original registered owner's name, written in plain black and white, is none other than Liang Jingjing!"

Oh my, aren't we clever, even knowing how to cross-reference the original owner!

Perhaps because I was inwardly cracking jokes, my facial expression flickered slightly, prompting the old man to assume he had cornered me in a mistake. Puffing out his chest with an air of intimidation, he threatened:

"Lu'er's body isn't even cold yet, and you've already gone ahead and peddled off the Qi family's ancestral assets piece by piece. Now you even dare to stand here and play dumb in front of us! Privately embezzling and liquidating clan ancestral property—how is that any different from outright theft? Do you seriously expect me to haul you down to the yamen and wait for bailiffs to drag you off in chains before you'll finally confess!"

No, wait. In the face of major principles of right and wrong, explanations were still in order.

"Uncle, as I stated yesterday," I replied with a look of innocent grievance, "when my husband was alive, everything he owned was mismanaged and squandered away under his watch."

Screaming at the top of his lungs, the old man barked back:

"I just told you the land registries explicitly list your name as the owner, are you deaf or just pretending not to hear me?"

Shrugging casually, I countered:

"Uncle has misunderstood. What this humble concubine meant was that those plots of land were personally bestowed upon me by my husband back when he was alive because he cherished me so deeply. Alas, one can only blame my husband for always being far too extravagant with his generosity; long before he passed away, the ancestral estate had already changed hands. That is precisely why I said everything was squandered away under his watch."

"If Uncle refuses to believe me," I pointed outward toward the street, "you are more than welcome to check the official government archives further back. Every single transfer was finalized while my husband was still drawing breath."

After all, when I "tricked" those property assets away from Luo Fan back then, the Minister of Revenue hadn't even taken in his concubine yet!

Pointing a trembling finger straight at my face in sheer disbelief, the old man sputtered:

"Liang Jingjing... you venomous shrew..."

I let out a cold snort inside my head.

You call that venomous?

Just watch me drop the real ultimate weapon.

Right on cue, I gave Qin Miaomiao a hand signal, and she immediately fetched my ultimate trump card—Qi Sile—out from the inner room.

"Speaking of ancestral property, if Uncle hadn't brought it up, this humble concubine nearly forgot." Pressing both hands firmly against Qi Sile's tiny shoulders, I shoved him a step forward.

"This is Qi Sile, my late husband's posthumous son. If I recall correctly, years ago when my husband was still a young boy, Uncle also paid a visit to Yangshan—the very year my husband's parents passed away. Didn't Uncle kindly step forward to take custody of the ancestral residence left to him by the Qi family? Now that my husband finally has a legitimate heir, and Sile is safely under my care, shouldn't that ancestral home—which you graciously 'safeguarded' on his behalf for all these years—finally be returned to its rightful owner?"

To be honest, I never genuinely planned on stealing back Qi Lu's dilapidated old shack, but since you keep showing up to raise hell time and again, refusing to take it would simply show a lack of hospitality.

The old man's face instantly morphed into an ugly shade of bruised indigo.

Clenching both hands into tight fists, he bellowed:

"You shameless, spouting-nonsense hussy! What posthumous son are you talking about? Didn't your baby vanish along with Qi Lu on that fateful night?"

Mocking him openly, I chuckled:

"My, my! Uncle's intelligence network is remarkably well-informed. Don't rush—let me finish speaking first!"

Spreading my hands wide, Qin Miaomiao immediately stepped forward to hand over the Qi family clan genealogy registry.

Flipping the registry open, I announced:

"While Qi Sile is indeed not this concubine's biological child, he was formally registered under my name the very moment he was born. Both in emotion and under the letter of the law, he is an impeccably legitimate heir."

Pulling the corners of my mouth into a chilling smirk, I declared:

"As the legitimate heir inheriting Qi Lu's ancestral home, what possible grounds does Uncle still have to block us?"

Honestly, at that exact second, I felt remarkably badass.

Little did I know, four glowing orange Chinese characters flashed across the floating text overlay right at that moment:

【System Warning!】

What warning? What did I even do? Is being too badass a rules violation?

Yet within seconds, I realized the situation was spiraling rapidly out of control.

Because no matter how airtight you made your arguments on paper, trying to reason with an unreasonable brute is an exercise in utter futility.

Without a moment's hesitation, the sour-faced old man lunged forward, grabbed hold of Qi Sile, and barked aggressively:

"As a lone woman, should you ever choose to remarry in the future, you certainly can't drag the Qi family's eldest legitimate grandson off to another man's household! This child will be handed back to the senior clan members to be raised; once he reaches adulthood, whatever ancestral property belonged to Qi Lu will be managed by his elders, requiring zero further interference from the likes of you!"

I lunged forward in a panicked frenzy to yank Qi Sile back, screaming curses at the top of my lungs:

"You old piece of trash, you couldn't rob our money so now you're trying to kidnap a kid?!"

Realizing I was no longer playing nice, the old man dropped all polite pretenses, his expression twisting into pure greed:

"You want your son back? Then redeem the farmland and trade it for him!"

Before the words even faded from his lips, several brawny thugs lunged forward from behind him to wrestle Qi Sile out of my grip.

Terrified out of his wits, Qi Sile buried his face against me and wrapped his arms around my waist with all his might, while Qin Miaomiao threw herself into the fray to help me fight them off without a shred of self-preservation.

But how could two frail women possibly win a tug-of-war against a pack of grown men?

In a matter of moments, Qi Sile was ripped away from my grasp, leaving only his tiny hand locked desperately inside mine until our fingers slipped apart.

Tears flushed his chubby face—which bore an uncanny resemblance to Qi Lu's—as he wailed at the top of his lungs:

"Mother!! I don't want to go!"

He kicked his little legs wildly in a futile attempt to resist, accomplishing precisely nothing.

Crushing his eyes shut, he screamed in pure despair:

"Let go of me! I want to go home! Take me home!!"

In that harrowing split second, Qi Sile's tear-streaked face merged seamlessly with the image of Luo Fan standing aboard the burning painted barge.

"Stay alive! Clear your mission, and then go home!"

Without a microsecond of hesitation, I bolted straight into the kitchen and snatched up the heavy kitchen cleaver.

The floating bullet comments shifted instantly from orange to a blazing, warning red.

【System Warning!!】 【This action will result in Liang Jingjing's physical vessel perishing prematurely.】

So that was what that fleeting flash of crimson light in Luo Fan's eyes had meant back then!

Yet I felt not an ounce of hesitation.

Just like Luo Fan seven years prior, I held back zero doubts.

Stiding purposefully out the front door, I raised the heavy cleaver high into the air and roared at the mob of burly men:

"Any of you bastards dare lay a hand on my son, and I'll hack you all to pieces!"

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