Chapter 337: Extortion
Translator: Law Editor: Hitesh
“Ju Xiu? What dose she has anything to do with our Di Family?” With confusion and a slight panic, Di Luolang looked at Ji Hao and said, “she’s cursed, yes, she’s dying, indeed, but you should talk to the Ju Family regarding this!”
Hearing Ji Hao, Huaxu Lie said, “Ji Hao, the emissary from the Ju Family has been expecting you since quite a while ago. He’ll come once after you finished with Elder Di Luolang.”
Ji Hao nodded to Huaxu Lie, then turned back to Di Luolang, and said seriously, “How can Ju Xiu have nothing to do with your Di Family? My dear, respectful Elder Di Luolang, I heard that she is engaged to Di Sha, isn’t she?”
Di Luolang’s look slightly changed, remaining silent for a while, and then nodded and responded, “Yes, I assume you know that already. Their engagement is the reason why Di Sha had to bring his warriors all the way here to try to destroy the altar.”
Ji Hao smiled and said unhurriedly to Di Luolang, “I also heard that amongst the entire Blood Moon, your Di Family has quite the power in your grip. You’re less powerful than merely a few families, including the Dishi Family, right? As for the Ju Family, they’re especially close with the Xiu Clan, and they’re very wealthy, but far less powerful than your Di Family.”
Before Di Luolang responded, Ji Hao continued, “For example, your Di Family has twenty official Blood Moon standing armies under your control, and possesses fifteen family armies; while the Ju Family, who indeed are rich and wealthy, yet, they only have three official standing armies under their control… As for the number of their family armies…”
Di Luolang popped out his eyes and glared at Ji Hao in both shame and anger, and said hurriedly, “Bloody hell! I’m going to lash those stupid pigs who couldn’t keep their mouths shut to death! How dare they give you all this classified information?!”
At this moment, Di Luolang swore in his head that whoever had given Ji Hao this information will be punished severely and cruelly, even if they were Di Suo and Di Mo.
“The Ju Family only has five family armies.” Ji Hao looked at Di Luolang and said in a cold voice, “however, with their financial resources, they can easily afford a hundred armies. The reason why they only have five family armies is that the number of family armies equals to the power held in their hands, and they’re not allowed to have more armed forces.”
To Ji Hao, he could always attain information pretty easily, as long as he had captives held in his hands. Through induction and reorganization, he had dug up quite important and extremely useful information out of some seemingly worthless words.
By now, he took the advantage of what he knew, pushing Di Luolang into his ‘trap’ step by step.
“Therefore, the Ju Family went to you, bringing up the conversation of marriage. Ju Xiu was the Ju Family’s most excellent woman amongst her generation. She’s not only clever, talented, strong and powerful, but also stunningly beautiful. Amongst the top-ten beautiful women, selected from all Yu Clan’s noble and young women of the Blood Moon, it’s said that she made into the top-three, didn’t she?”
“For her, countless noble, powerful Yu Clan’s men toss and turn, even forget to eat.” Ji Hao went on blandly, “Surely, Di Sha was one of them. Their marriage meant the alliance of the Di Family and the Ju Family, one possessing the power while the other one possessing the wealth. The alliance of power and wealth could push both of your families up to a whole new level. You would become even more powerful, and of course, the number of your family properties would soar.”
Di Luolang stared at Ji Hao, and didn’t even blink his eyes while he was speaking. “We still have numerous elite young men in our Di Family, and the marriage can be arranged anytime we want.”
Ji Hao shrugged, continuing without any change in his voice, and said, “Have you ever thought about the family’s glory, dear Elder Di Luolang? Not only that, but also Ju Xiu’s personal reputation. Her fiancé died before the wedding ceremony. No matter what excuse you make up to cover this up, you can never cover a fact that Di Sha’s bones remained, and he didn’t manage to return to the great Blood Moon, which is a soul-deep humiliation!”
Ji Hao showed his evil face again, curved his lips upwards and looked at Di Luolang, whose forehead had begun sweating, while continuing slowly, “It’s a burning shame, and it’s even worse for Ju Xiu and the Ju Family.”
Ji Hao shrugged again, and slowly continued saying, “Think about it, my dear, respectful Elder Di Luolang… How many other families don’t want the alliance between Di Family and Ju Family to truly happen? And, why could our curse strike Ju Xiu down so easily? Then, you can think about this, if Ju Xiu recovered from the harm caused by the curse, would she still want to marry a Di Family’s man? What about her family? Would the Ju Family still be willing to build an alliance with you?”
While speaking, Ji Hao stared at Di Luolang with that evil and cunning look, and as for Di Luolang, once again, his eyeballs started rolling in his eye sockets speedily.
Out of all Ji Hao had just said, only one sentence was not true, however, this only untrue word had already dragged Di Luolang into the ‘trap’. ‘Why could our curse strike Ju Xiu down so easily?’ This was a deadly blow to Di Luolang and the Di Family.
“Some people don’t want our family ally with the Ju Family… without a doubt, this is true.” said Di Luolang slowly, “but…”
“If Ju Xiu woke up, and she and her family decided to break the engagement and marry her to another young man… How do you think that would be?” Ji Hao interrupted Di Luolang and said in a weird tone, “Di Sha died in the war. Merely for washing off all kinds of shame and negative reputations brought by Di Sha’s death, she and her family would try whatever they can to get Ju Xiu married to another young man, who is ten times better than Di Sha… Don’t you think so?” Ji Hao clicked his tongue and continued, “If this really happens, your Di Family won’t be the lucky one who gets to share all those financial resources possessed by the Ju Family!”
“But if she dies,” Di Luolang glared at Ji Hao with his pair of deeply hollowed eyes and said, “the Ju Family can break the engagement as well!”
“What if she doesn't die, and neither lives?” Ji Hao grinned, looking at Di Luolang and responded, “If she just keeps slumbering like this, she would have to carry the engagement forever, which means she would be a member of your Di Family no matter what. Whether to force the Ju Family to select another woman and marry her to one of your young men, or to put forward other requirements, your Di Family would always hold absolute advantages.”
Di Luolang paused, stared at Ji Hao with his teeth gnashed, as countless thoughts popped into his mind at that moment.
Yu Clan’s people were born to be unbelieving and cunning, they could be a hundred times more treacherous than foxes. Just now, Ji Hao had successfully started a tsunami of doubts in Di Luolang’s head. All kinds of horrible or embarrassing, or even terrifying thoughts gushed into his mind altogether, even making his whole body feel itchy.
“Or, I can even provide a more thorough and satisfactory service.” Ji Hao shrugged one more time, then said in a careless voice, “I suggest, you go talk to the Di Family, say that you have the right to decide whether Ju Xiu can wake up or not. If the Ju Family wants her to wake up and recover from the curse, she has to marry to a Di Family’s man.”
Hearing Ji Hao, Di Luolang’s eyes suddenly shone, but immediately, he calmed himself down from the excitement and said blandly, “What can you get from all this? Or, how many formulae, recipes and patterns do you want, for allowing us to decide Ju Xiu’s life or death?”
Ji Hao remained silent for a short while, then looked at Di Luolang with a humble face, and said, “I surely can’t spend all of my efforts in vain, can I? Since I’ve done such a huge favor for you, I want half of Ju Xiu’s dowry. I don’t think that’ll be too much, do you?”
A wealthy Blood Moon family marrying one of their younger generation females to a young man that came from another family that possessed higher status and held bigger power to achieve political connections with this more powerful family… one could easily imagine how much financial support they would attach to this marriage, to ensure the family alliance delivered by it. Ji Hao asked for half of Ju Xiu’s dowry, a price that had gone far beyond high.
Staying silent for quite a long while, Di Luolang slowly nodded and said, “Deal!”
Ji Hao satisfyingly rubbed his own hands, smiled and said, “Good. The last question, do you still want those Jia Clan’s big warriors back?”