Chapter 1099 — A Cooperative Relationship
The Blossom Guardian · Page 2 of 2
"Do you know the relationship between the Yu family and the Hidden Yu Family?" Seeing how quickly Xiao Ben took the point, Pi Zhifeng nodded in satisfaction.
"Naturally we do. Were the Hidden Yu Family not standing behind them, the Yu family could never have become the foremost great house!" Xiao Ben's heart gave a leap. Could it be that the Hidden Pi Family meant to help the Xiao family become a great house such as the Yu family? Xiao Ben was beside himself with excitement.
"If our Hidden Pi Family were to back your Xiao family, how far could you go? In other words, how much could you bring us in return?" Pi Zhifeng had at last come to the heart of his business.
The Pi family was indeed a Hidden Family, it was true — but under the articles of the covenant drawn up in those years, Hidden Families were forbidden to meddle in the affairs of the secular world. That is to say, beyond devoting themselves to quiet cultivation, they could not go about making money in the mortal realm with any fanfare.
The Hidden Yu Family, however, had taken an indirect route: they had gained direct control of the Yu family in the secular world and turned them into an instrument for their own profit. The secular Yu family, leaning on the strength of the Hidden Yu Family behind them, became the leading house among the great families; and the Hidden Yu Family, fed by the vast sums the secular Yu family remitted them every year, grew ever greater.
The Yu family's case was a matter of chance, something no other great family could replicate — after all, the Hidden Yu Family and the secular Yu Family had originally been two separate clans, and only later secretly re-established contact. That device of circumvention, too, was not one others could copy.
Nobody else could conjure a secular branch out of thin air, so all they could do was watch the Yu family rake in money and remain helpless. The old covenant had never been a mere ornament; to offend those who witnessed it was no joke.
It was only that over the years the covenant's witnesses, together with those Heaven-tier masters, had all vanished, and the covenant restraining the Hidden Families had lost much of its former force. Recently the Hidden Zhao Family had begun to stir, setting up an illegitimate son, Zhao Qibing, to rake in money in the secular world.
Of course, no one yet dared to tear up the covenant brazenly and in the open — but an indirect approach was perfectly acceptable. Look at the Yu family: they had been raking in money for years, and had anything ever come of it?
So the Hidden Zhao Family let Zhao Qibing make money in the secular world, dressing it up in fine words — Zhao Qibing was the Zhao family's illegitimate son, his bloodline impure, and therefore he could not be allowed through the Zhao family's gates. Of course, impure blood was still Zhao blood, and it was only proper that the Zhao family should lend him a measure of help.
But anyone with eyes could see that the money Zhao Qibing raked in out in the secular world went straight to the Hidden Zhao Family.
And so, with the Yu family and the Zhao family as precedents, the other great families could no longer sit still. One after another they cast about for means and pretexts to enter the secular world and make money. These Hidden Families, for all their high standing in the martial world, had no money to speak of.
Even without living extravagantly, the purchase of heavenly materials and earthly treasures every year was no small expense; and even if they bought none of those, there were still all those mouths to feed.