259 Cleaning House 4

But it was the Patriarch who pointed out the weakness in his plan.

The Du Patriarch shook his head at his Heir. "You are putting too much emphasis on that bit, and not enough thought into the basis of our domination of the market. We have much better skills than our competitors and we have much better metal ore. In addition to that, we have Chuanshui Town, and its water, as well as our skills in metallurgy. Added together, all of that results in better metal and hence, better weapons.

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"Of course, the fact that you have already attained Rank Seven as a Weapon-smith ..."

"Rank Six. I have already attained Rank Six. I took the test quietly, last Summer. Sorry. I wanted to keep it a secret in case I needed to use it to overawe the rest of those fools. So I didn't tell you. Sorry."

Du Chengwei laughed as he shook his head at Du Yan. "Ha! Trust you to keep something aside like that. Never mind. What was I saying? Ah, yes. Since you have already attained Rank Six, you should be able to use what we have already accumulated here to craft powerful weapons at whim. And if you were given better materials, you could even create Masterworks.

"Low level Masterworks, true. But Masterworks all the same. And that should be enough to make your name resound, not only in the Shu Kingdom, but in the neighboring Kingdoms as well. When that happens ..."

The white-haired, white-bearded old man grinned at the burly fellow, and patted him on the back of his hand. "Do you really think that the King of Shu would dare to make trouble for you? When there is a chance that you will be tempted to head over to one of his competitors' Kingdoms instead? He would be the one smacking his own son on the head, and keeping him from offending you! So wouldn't that be a lot cleaner?"

Du Yan frowned, but made no attempt to answer.

Which was enough to prompt the old man to wave a hand at the town of Chuanshui, which could be seen in its entirety, from the Hall's windows. "You would be ruling over all of this, if you wish to. Although you will not be limited by this. No one will be able to take it away from you. Of course, that is if you are able to stay alive, and remain a threat to your enemies.

"But I doubt that you will have any trouble doing that."

Then Du Chenwei pointed a finger at the young girl at his nephew's side. "That is one of the reasons why the Yuan Family is so eager to marry their daughter to you. With you as their support, the King of Shu would not dare to make too many requests of them. And so the Yuan Family, like our Du Family, will be able to weather another generation or two of Kings, here in the Shu Kingdom. Long enough to figure out a strategy for dealing with the next one or two, that will follow after the next one."

The old man laughed, as that thought crossed his mind, and he grinned at his future great-granddaughter-in-law. "Of course, I will be long gone by then, so you two will have to figure that out on your own! I am having enough problems, wondering about the current Succession, and who is going to be the new king."

"Do we have any idea who that is going to be? The Third Prince and the Fifth Prince are rather closely tied, if we look at their accomplishments. So it should be one of them," Du Yan commented in a soft voice, "Are we supporting either of them? Have we made any moves?"

Du Chengwei shook his head, but gave his great-grandson a smile. "Not at all. In fact, we have been sticking to our usual answer, if anyone asks. That we don't really care who is King, so long as we can craft our items, and make a reasonable profit.

"I think you should be able to see why we are doing that."

"You mean, unlike those idiots who clearly don't? Clearly, they don't know that once we jump into that pit, and start playing a hand at the Succession, we would be stuck in that mire for as long as our Du Family exists? Father-in-law and mother-in-law are more than aware of that, which is why they had been building ties with us, so that they can remain neutral in Court."

"Even so, the rest of the Yuan Family has not been entirely clean," Yuan Qianlei reminded Du Yan, as soon as he said that, "You should know how my sister ended up in the Snow Swallow Mountain Palace. She said that she had told you all about it, when she broke her engagement with you."

Lin Liushui stepped forward as soon as he heard that, with an evident frown on his face. "My apologies, but that was not what I had heard. Was there something that Brother Yan forget to mention, when he told us that story?"

Du Yan shrugged as he looked at his future wife, but Yuan Qianlei simply waved her hand at him, as though indicating that he should tell the tale.

"I didn't misrepresent anything, if that is what you are asking. But I did leave out the fact that Yuan Qianyu had been rather strongly pursued by two Ministers' sons, one of them a cousin of a concubine, and the other who is related six lesser Court Officials, when she came to break up with me. I think that is the reason why the Snow Swallow Palace was so attractive to her, back then.

"She had probably had lost her temper with all those tricks that those fools had thrown at her already, and was ready to escape."

"Husband dear was also a little too raw as a Weapons Crafter, and so did not have the sort of power to offend all of those pursuers of hers. Besides, he wasn't lying when he said that he had only seen her as a sister. Just as my sister had always thought of him as a brother."

Yuan Qianlei giggled, as soon as she said that, and reached out to pinch Du Yun on his cheek. "I, on the other hand, knew that I wanted him as soon as I saw him. No doubt because he had gone through so much to help my sister get away from those idiots at Court. And I also knew that I would need to set things up, so that I could run away to the Du Family, if I ever started attracting irritating flies like those."

The Du Patriarch cackled again, the moment he heard that. "Which is no more than what I had been hoping for. Your Patriarch and I had planned it out a long time ago, and we were more than pleased that you were willing to replace your sister."

Then his face turned a little glum. "We were a little bothered, when she said that she would join the Snow Swallow Palace like that, back in the day. That had seriously thrown our plans into disarray, you should understand."

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