Chapter 323: False Alarm

Chapter 323

The Jiuzhen Store had already booked 80 catties of lychees. Not only were the Fengjing noble families eagerly waiting, Zheng Ruqian was also looking forward to it with bated breath.

But then the carriage overturned.

Wang Xiaosong, who was responsible for transporting the goods, was stunned like a fool, and it took him a long time to regain his senses.

Zheng Ruqian still held out a glimmer of hope. He poked his butt into the carriage, searching to see if he could salvage even a little.

But after groping around for half a day, he didn't even see a branch.

It was obvious that the Liao Family had shouldered the blame.

Zheng Ruqian was heartbroken and inconsolable. He screamed at the top of his lungs, "My lychees, my lychees! Damn the Liao Family, give me back my lychees!"

It is said that the marketplace is like a battlefield, where people fight viciously for profits. There are countless underhanded tactics, and Jiang Sheng and her brother had experienced conspiracies and plots from the very beginning when they started delivering vegetables.

With the decision to transport lychees, retaliation from the Liao Family was expected, but when it happened, it was still as painful as cutting one's own flesh.

"This carriage could have yielded 20-30 catties of lychees. At 50 taels per catty, that's over 1,000 taels..." Jiang Sheng calculated as she sniffed mucus.

Zheng Ruqian felt even more gutted, and the siblings were on the verge of bursting into tears.

Just as they were about to break down, Wang Xiaosong regained his senses. He scratched his head with a silly grin as he glanced around blankly. Staring at his employers' tear and mucus-stained faces, he asked, "Why are you all crying? Did someone die?"

"My lychees died," Zheng Ruqian said viciously. "I'm mourning for my lychees!"

If he had a knife on him, he would have charged out and hacked people down.

But there was only a confused laborer in front of him. "What Liao Family? What lychees? Our lychees have already been transported back to the courtyard. They're probably being unloaded now."

Zheng Ruqian's breathing hitched abruptly, as if trying to swallow his sobs to no avail. It ended in a long hiccup instead.

"We're almost out of Fengjing. Why are the employer and young miss here?" Wang Xiaosong scratched his head with a silly smile. "Let's hurry back. It'll be dark soon."

Zheng Ruqian trembled, unable to speak. He hiccuped again.

Jiang Sheng was afraid her brother would be scared to death. She quickly stepped forward to speak on his behalf, "Brother Xiaosong, why are you standing here in a daze? Whose carriage is this that actually overturned here? My brother thought there was something wrong with our lychees!"

Wang Xiaosong's smile gradually disappeared.

The situation had become extremely grave all of a sudden. Whether to continue transporting lychees became a difficult problem.

If they continued, it meant confronting the Liaos and having to live in constant dread, under perpetual threat of annihilation.

If they stopped, they would feel aggrieved. The Liao Family could have engaged in open and upright market competition, yet they employed all sorts of despicable means to oppress people. It was truly hard to endure.

Zheng Ruqian struggled to come up with countermeasures while the others also found it hard to remain cheerful.

Only Chang Yan was still relatively calm. As he rubbed six little wooden men, he said, "Don't panic. Wait and observe first."

There was no such thing as a fluke in this world. Especially at critical life-and-death junctures, instances of seemingly good luck all stemmed from people helping covertly in the shadows.

Take that burly man with simultaneous vomiting and diarrhea for example.

Also take that carriage of lychees that narrowly avoided calamity.

Inside the Jiang Family's lopsided carriage.

The sudden collision overturned ordinary carriages instantly while the Jiangs' better-quality carriage could not escape rattling precariously.

Sandwiched between his two elder brothers, Jiang Chengyu had yet to recover from the earlier panic, his large eyeballs still glancing around nervously.

"Big Brother, can you give us some forewarning next time?" Jiang Chengfeng was also in discomfort. "I understand you dote on our little sister, but you shouldn't gamble with all our lives for a joke."

He could have just hacked the horses' legs or cut their reins. Yet he had insisted on mutually assured destruction.

Moreover, that was merely a carriage full of lychees. How could that compare to three lives?

"It wasn't merely a carriage of lychees," Jiang Chengyuan said gravely. "There were also two people on it, with another person in the carriage behind. The Liao Family intended to claim lives with this."

While their lives counted, so did the lives of commoners.

Most importantly, he did not wish to see his sister sadness and tears.

When they stopped outside the Liao Residence, Jiang Chengfeng resigned himself to bending over and lugging in the trussed-up Liao family coachman.

As the doors opened after their knocking and announcing their arrival, the Liao family patriarch happily came out to meet his eldest nephew, intending to improve relations. But his smile vanished at the sight of the coachman at Jiang Chengyuan's feet.

"Chengyuan, what are you doing, boy?" He kept his composure. "Now that you've come, why did you also bring someone along? Hurry and release him. I've just received a new batch of fresh lychees. Come on in."