Chapter 1416 — Movements of the Various Families, Part One: "Grandfather... there is something I don't know whether I should say..." Chen Yuxuan deliberated a moment, then spoke.
The Blossom Guardian · Page 2 of 2
No sooner had Yu Feng returned to the Yu family than the invitations to the Assembly of the Great Families went out from the Yu household and arrived at the other eight great families!
Those eight families were the Song, the Chen, the Sun, the Wu, the Liu, the Xiao, the An, and the Yang!
This Assembly had two aims. The first was to settle the grievances between one family and another; the second, to redraw the ranking of the Four Great Families and the Five Lesser Families. And of course it was possible that some family would be struck from the ranks for being too weak — and equally possible that some more vigorous clan would be propped up to become one of the new great families!
Among the families that received their invitations, some rejoiced and some despaired.
Old Master Song was somewhat troubled by the collapse of the marriage alliance between Qiu Lingshan and Yu Feng, but on the whole he had little to be anxious about. After all, the Song family still had abroad a master wandering the world at the peak of the late Profound rank! No news was no news — but until word of his death arrived for certain, no one dared belittle the Song family. And besides, Qiu Lingshan had advanced to the early Profound rank; even without the alliance with the Yu family, the Song family could not be struck from the ranks!
The Sun, the Yang and the An, for their part, were perfectly composed. These families did not aspire to shine, nor would they be struck from the ranks; every Assembly had been the same, with nothing to make one hold one's breath. As for the Xiao family, its former worries had gone up in smoke the moment it won the support of the hidden Pi family! Among all the families, none stood so sure of itself as the Xiao family does now. Two of the Pi family's experts had died, true — but the Pi family simply sent more, and the Xiao family had lost nothing!
The Liu family, too, seemed to sense the crisis in this Assembly. In the study of Liu Zhenhu, head of the Liu family, stood the two brothers Liu Tianyi and Liu Tianli; behind Liu Zhenhu stood Liu Jinghan, the Liu family's little strategist.
"The Assembly is nearly here. What do you make of it?" Liu Zhenhu laid the invitation on the desk and looked up. "Does our Liu family have any hope of keeping its place at this Assembly? I hear the Yu family means to make the Kang family one of the new great families?"
"As matters stand, our Liu family is in no danger. We have become the sole distributor of the wound medicine, and of the painkiller that is about to hit the market. Neither the resources nor the channels in our hands are things the Kang family can match — so our Liu family should have nothing to worry about," Liu Tianyi said.
Liu Zhenhu nodded. "And you, Tianli? What do you say?"
"Big brother is right!" Liu Tianli too nodded, and said with pride: "The sales themselves bring little profit, but the standing and the reputation of our Liu family in the business world have climbed to the very top. Every merchant who wants the wound medicine comes fawning on us. This line of selling may not make us money, but our other trading has filled our pots to the brim! The ones with the biggest headaches now, I'd say, are not our Liu family — but the Chen family and the Wu family!"