Chapter 78 - Fleeing In The Night
Elsewhere in Turning Leaf town, in a luxurious manor along the wide road that led into town from the direction of Red Moon City Mo Ling sat in his private study, a large yet simple room with a single desk piled high with ledgers and scrolls. His sharp amber eyes flickered in the lantern light as he reviewed profit reports, the only sound the scratching of his brush. Though past his prime, Mo Ling's posture remained straight and movements precise from years of discipline. His thin lips were pressed into a grim line at the appearance of his wayward son.
Mo Yan's latest ploy to remove his rivals for Fairy Feng's affection had failed spectacularly. The boy clearly lacked his father's canniness and gift for strategy. Mo Ling had built his merchant empire through careful calculation of risks and intelligent investments. Mo Yan's rash gambits would likely bring the full fury of not only the newly ascended Soldier Tang Jin but perhaps even the City Lord himself. Allowing Mo Yan to command the family's agents as a reward for his successful Awakening had clearly been a mistake! The boy might have stumbled onto the path of cultivation but his mind clearly hadn't caught up with the reality of his authority.
Mo Ling set aside the report with a quiet sigh. For all his son's expensive tutoring, the boy took too much after his late mother. Charming yet thoughtless, always seeking shortcuts instead of understanding the underlying patterns and likelihoods. Much like the prey birds Mo Yan futilely tried to trap as a child.
There would be no sheltering the boy from consequences this time. Already, servants bustled about the expansive manor, packing decades of accumulation, records, agreements and ledgers into nearly labeled boxes and spacial treasures. The Mo family of Turning Leaf town would fall today but it wouldn't fall in chaos!
"Do you know your mistake my son?" Mo Ling asked, his voice as sharp and clipped as the strokes of his brush on paper.
"Father," Mo Yan said, trembling as he knelt on the floor of his father's study, exquisite robes still dripping from the rain. When he'd been met at the manor gates with a command from his father's long time atache he knew that things would not go well. "I couldn't anticipate that Ao Wen would demonstrate staggering alchemy abilities or that Tang Jin would break through to become a Soldier less than a moon after Awakening," he protested. "There was no way to prevent this from spiraling out of control."
"And that, my son, is why your fate is to die on the blade of a power who cannot be offended whose name you never bothered to learn," the elder man said sternly. "You think your mistake comes from variables you couldn't anticipate never realizing that you were doomed from the very first stone you set on the board. I should never have let your mother raise you, clearly she spoiled you far too much and cleaned up after your messes far too frequently!" Mo Ling's voice climbed to a near shout, his weathered fist slamming to the surface of his antique desk sending stacks of reports tumbling to the floor.
"Father, what is the Ao family compared to our Mo family?" Mo Yan protested. "They haven't produced a cultivator in generations. Even the Feng family isn't much of a threat with Feng Lieren all but crippled! This shouldn't have been a large matter!"
"Fool!" Mo Ling snapped. "Your mistake was targeting Tang Qui. He may only be a late stage Aesthete but he is beloved by many! The City Lord himself visits the Four Gardens House once a month. Do you think that you could frame such an individual without drawing an investigation from City Lord Zhang? Even if he sent the strutting peacock Zhang Bai, the eldest son of the Zhang family is far more observant and capable than you've shown yourself to be. Even without the surprises of Feng Xi's breakthrough to Understudy, Tang Jin's elevation to Soldier and whatever alchemy knowledge this Ao Wen possesses, you still doomed your venture that day you made a move against Tang Qui!" Mo Ling finished, spittle flying from his lips as he ranted.
"Father, I…"
"You'll nothing!" Mo Ling interrupted. "I've made a move to clean up your mess but it's only sufficient to buy us a few days to flee. The forces you provoked are too powerful to be resisted in Turning Leaf town," he said, shaking his head as he collapsed back into his chair. So many decades in this backwater place, developing it into a personal seat of power that he could use to nurture his branch of the family. Wasted. Gone because of the impulses of a teenage brat. "Because you used the family's agents to commit murder, I became implicated in your rash scheme. I could shield you from your own stupidity, blaming the surging yang of a newly awakened cultivator and the ignorance of youth as long as you didn't go too far. But you killed a man and framed another for crimes that would turn the whole of Turning Leaf town against him. Do you have any idea how many domestic disputes you provoked by spreading a rumor that Tang Qui used aphrodesiacs to help men bed young women at the Four Gardens House? How many women doubted their husbands? You played with fire and the whole family will burn for your carelessness."
"What… what do we do now?" Mo Yan said, finally realizing the severity of his blunder.
"We return to the Mo Clan," Mo Ling said with a deep sigh. "I've managed things well enough here that the Patriarch will still accept us back in Red Moon City. I will take over some other area of the family business, and you," he said, pointing a sharp finger at Mo Yan. "You will be stripped of the surname 'Mo', taking up the branch family name Ouying. Perhaps in the outer family you can find a path that allows you to regain your status as a young master of the 'Mo' clan. It seems like the only thing you're capable of is wild swinging of your sword," Mo Ling said with a glare at the son he had been forced to disown as a condition of being alowed to return to the shelter of the clan. "Your uncle Mo Shiang frequently needs cultivators to protect some of his riskier ventures. I've sent him a letter of introduction that you may wish to join his guard force. This is the LAST CHANCE you will be afforded. Do you understand, OUYING YAN?" Mo Ling said, driving home the change in Mo Yan's status with sharp words. Waving his hand in a gesture of dismissal, Mo Ling tried to put his disgraced eldest son out of mind as the young man stood stiffly and shuffled out of his office without a word.
"Mo Yu," the old man said several moments later, calling out to a youth who stood behind a screen. "In some ways, I think it's to your advantage that your mother passed not long after you were born. You see the results of thinking yourself infallible. You have three years to reflect on the lessons your elder brother has taught you today before you can face your first Awakening attempt. Do not follow that wastrel's shameful path!"
"Yes Father," a graceful young boy said, bowing with cupped hands. "Father's words are my laws."
"Good lad," the old man said. "Now, there is much work to do if we're to escape Turning Leaf town in the midst of the coming thunderstorm, come, you will help me to…."