Chapter 27: Chapter 27: The Mastermind is...

The family of three planned to have lunch in the city before accompanying Chi Wan to buy more supplies for Li Xingye and his group.

During the meal, Chi Wan casually mentioned the scammers from before.

Chi Yuanshan and Song Yinghe, who had been laughing and chatting, suddenly turned serious. They immediately pressed her for details.

After Chi Wan explained the whole incident from start to finish, they too found it strange.

"Could it be Liu Dali and his gang again?" Song Yinghe asked, her expression cold.

But Chi Wan shook her head. "It doesn’t feel like them. If it were really them, I doubt they’d use such a tame method."

Chi Yuanshan agreed with his daughter’s assessment. "Those people seemed like they were just after money. But Wanwan has a point—how could it be such a coincidence? This is the largest wholesale market in the city, bustling with all kinds of people every day. It makes no sense for them to take such a huge risk just to target a young girl with no obvious standing."

Chi Wan propped her chin on her hand, listlessly poking at the food in her bowl. "Maybe someone told them about our family’s situation? After all, that would mean the most valuable thing we own... is that entire orchard..."

Chi Yuanshan immediately set down his chopsticks. Frowning, he said, "So, it’s very likely they were targeting our orchard."

Song Yinghe realized something was truly wrong as well. "If the Ghost Orchid was really as valuable as they claimed, why would they ask for only two hundred thousand? Unless... they knew we couldn’t possibly afford to pay any more..."

’If Chi Wan had really been alone today, gotten intimidated by their act, and signed some compensation agreement, where would they have scraped together two hundred thousand yuan?’

’The only option would have been to sell or sign away the orchard.’

Just like that, all three of them lost their appetite.

Piecing it all together, Chi Wan was so angry she had to laugh. "No matter who’s behind this, do they take me for an idiot?"

"We should go talk to the man who tried to scam you," Chi Yuanshan suggested. "He might know something. And since you know the market’s owner, you can leverage that connection."

Chi Wan hadn’t pursued the matter earlier because she figured that with a failed scam, reporting it to the police would be a complicated mess. She had assumed that by dropping Zhou Huai’an’s name, the scammers would be too scared to bother her again, so she had let it go.

Now that her father mentioned it, she realized she could indeed throw Zhou Huai’an’s name around to intimidate them. Maybe she could even bluff the mastermind’s identity out of them.

However, none of the three could have predicted the outcome their questions would yield.

After lunch, the family of three marched straight to the warehouse.

The same proprietress Chi Wan had dealt with before was there, overseeing the flow of goods. Her expression shifted the moment she saw Chi Wan, and she rushed to intercept them.

"Miss, I am so, so sorry. I already gave my husband a piece of my mind. How could he have been so foolish as to try something like that!"

The remorse on the woman’s face didn’t look feigned. "But since he didn’t actually hurt you, can you find it in your heart to forgive him this once? Please, don’t tell Boss Zhou. I... I’ll get on my knees!"

Frowning as the woman made to kneel, Chi Wan sidestepped the gesture but made no move to help her up. "Are you sure about this? People are watching. If you kneel to me out of the blue and word of it gets back to Boss Zhou, what am I supposed to say when he asks me about it?"

The woman realized the truth in Chi Wan’s words and scrambled back to her feet. She ushered the three of them into a small awning, her tone subservient. "Miss, I know you’re a good person. The truth is, my husband isn’t... He... he was forced to do it..."

Hearing this, Chi Yuanshan couldn’t help but ask, "Ma’am, who would force you to target a young girl?"

Song Yinghe stepped forward and grabbed the woman’s arm. "Who was it?!"

The woman shook her head, her expression bitter. "When I saw you coming, I had a feeling what you wanted to ask. But believe it or not, we really don’t know anything. They just told my husband to trick you into signing some agreement."

"We don’t even know what the agreement was about. The person who delivered the message just said they wanted to teach you a little lesson, and that no one else would get involved. Our family is in the warehouse and logistics business. If someone decides to block us at any point in the chain, we have to do what they say. We really had no choice."

"If we’d known you were a friend of Boss Zhou, we never would have... I’m not saying this to make excuses, just to explain that our hands were tied. If Boss Zhou finds out about this, my family will be ruined..."

The woman spoke so pitifully that anyone who didn’t know the full story might have mistaken her family for the victims.

Chi Wan’s expression didn’t waver. She simply asked, "How did you know I’d be here today?"

The interruption made the woman falter. She had assumed that Chi Wan, being so young, would be easily swayed and soft-hearted. She was taken aback that her whole tearful speech hadn’t elicited the slightest change in the girl’s expression, and she felt a pang of embarrassment.

"To be honest, the messenger told us everything—the flowerpot, the whole routine... He’s even the one who said you’d come today. We really don’t know anything more."

With the woman pleading ignorance at every turn, Chi Wan guessed she was simply caught in the middle, too afraid to offend anyone.

’But this only made her more curious. Who on earth knew their situation so well and was now targeting the only thing they had left...?’

An unbelievable thought suddenly flashed through her mind.

Realizing she wasn’t going to get any more answers, Chi Wan tuned out the rest of the woman’s excuses and pulled Chi Yuanshan and Song Yinghe away.

"Wanwan, what’s wrong?" Song Yinghe asked, confused. "Even if she doesn’t know who’s behind it, we could have asked her who the messenger was."

But Chi Wan said softly, "Mom, do you remember? Before our family went bankrupt, Grandma wanted us to buy a house for my uncle."

Song Yinghe froze, and her face turned deathly pale. "Wanwan, are you saying..."

Seeing her mother’s reaction, Chi Wan felt a pang of pity. But there were some things her mother, who still held out some hope for her own family, needed to know.

As she led Song Yinghe toward the seafood section, she said in a low voice, "Actually, they came looking for me after that."

Even Chi Yuanshan was surprised, and his surprise quickly turned to anger. "What did they want from you?! Wanwan, why didn’t you tell your mother and me?"

Chi Wan gave a small smile, but as she recalled the memory, it held no warmth. "I don’t know who told them, but they got it in their heads that we managed to keep a large sum of money even after the bankruptcy. So, they came to ask me if we had any cash stashed away."

’His actual words had been even more outrageous.’ She didn’t even want to recall the look on her so-called uncle’s face. "Wanwan, I heard some companies use bankruptcy to evade their debts... Your dad didn’t declare bankruptcy just to get out of buying me a house, did he?"

’The accusation was so ridiculous she didn’t even know how to respond.’

After she told him off, he had just cursed back, "Who’d believe your family is actually broke? Hundreds of thousands used to be nothing more than your allowance. If you won’t give me the money, I’ll go get it from my sister."