The Head Elder

"Just what do you hope to achieve," the head elder paused for a brief moment, and feigning calmness, took a sip of tea. "...By digging up matters of the past?"

Yu An Xue replied immediately without even blinking. "It doesn't matter when it happened. I will take revenge for my sister - and now that I had a sufficient amount of power, it's time to put that plan into action."

"Hmph," the head elder snorted. "Naive little girl, you think with that tiny power of yours, you can avenge your sister?"

The other elders around the table all looked uncomfortable as they sensed a fight coming, but were all too scared to say anything to stop it. Did the head elder really hold this much power? And as an aside, his actions right now were very suspicious. From what the patriarch told us, the elders were supposed to exert their full effort to help us in this plan. But reality says otherwise.

"I won't know until I give it a try," Yu An Xue replied calmly. "Besides, that is none of your business. All you have to do is follow my father's - the family patriarch's - instructions, and assist us to the best of your ability."

She placed emphasis on the 'patriarch' part, which under normal circumstances held the highest authority in a family. However, in the Yu family, it seemed that the head elder had the entire elder hall on his side (albeit not willingly, from what it looked like), which totaled up to power equal to if not more than that of the patriarch, Yu An Xue's father.

Furthermore, the head elder's face was practically covered in the word 'dislike' when he looked at Yu An Xue in disdain. He wasn't even trying to hide it at all. And if he disliked the family patriarch's daughter, chances are he despised the patriarch himself as well.

We decided to leave for the day, since the elders were clearly not going to tell us anything useful. Soon after, Yu An Xue left to report this back to her father, which left Feng Mian, Qing Yue, and I walking around aimlessly in the massive garden, awaiting her return.

"That head elder...there's something fishy about him," Feng Mian began. "I could feel it."

"I did too," Qing Yue added. "If only I had the Level Two Mind Read spell..."

"No. He had an exceptionally powerful aura, only slightly inferior to Song Qian Long, our school principal. It would no doubt take at least a Mind Read II to be able to figure out what he's thinking, and if he has a Pyschic Element attribute, perhaps even a Legendary - Mind Read III - or Mythic tier - Mind Read IV - spell."

"You can already sense auras?" Feng Mian seemed surprised.

I nodded. "Only extremely strong individuals show up on my radar though. For example, I can't feel anything from the two of you."

"H-Hey! Did you just call us weak?!" Qing Yue placed her hands on either side of her hips and pouted.

"Er...sorry. Didn't mean to," I replied, which was the truth.

"A-Ahem...putting that aside, usually only Advanced Mages are able to sense the magic auras of others," Feng Mian explained, but then added something completely unnecessary. "Though unlike you, they can also read weak people's auras."

"...Was that meant to be an insult?"

"'Sorry, didn't mean to.'" She imitated my statement from before in mockery with a shrug, and Qing Yue gave her a wink and a thumbs-up that really couldn't be called 'secret'.

I sighed at their childish schemes and made a mental list of questions I would ask Yu An Xue when she got back. Mostly surrounding the head elder.

- Several Minutes Later -

Yu An Xue returned to us with a crestfallen face. The three of us picked up on this immediately and hurried over to investigate.

"What's wrong?" Feng Mian began, naturally placing a hand on Yu An Xue's shoulder like good friends.

She let out a deep sigh, and spoke. "My father...he said he can't do anything about the head elder."

I grimaced. "Didn't he say he would 'ensure the elders assist us to the best of their abilities' earlier?"

"W-Well, he said that he did tell them to, and they had agreed - at least, on the surface," Yu An Xue replied shakily.

"So what you're saying is that the relationship between your father and the head elder is to the point where one can lie to the other's face."

She weakly nodded her head. "And the worst part is...my father can't do anything against him."

Hm...this was certainly a problem - under normal circumstances, that is.

In this case, the head elder not willing to tell anything to us is a clue in and of itself. I doubted he was not giving us any information just to spite us, since he had nothing to gain from it. From what I can tell, the head elder is probably trying to steal the patriarch seat away from Yu An Xue's father. Not an uncommon scenario in this world, where strength rules all. Thus, the head elder is almost certainly a selfish man who only cares about his own gain, and won't do anything that doesn't prove to have any benefits for him.

Look at it this way - if he tells us any information he knows, that could earn the patriarch's favor and trust. This will make betraying him in the end a lot easier, so there's no reason he wouldn't choose this course of action. And by his age, I'm sure he had already thought of this from the moment the patriarch informed him about us coming here.

With all that being said, the next most likely possibility is that he's trying to HIDE something. The annoyance that he's shown us, and the reason why he's not trying to disguise it at all - is because he WANTS to show us that he's irritated. It's all a front, to make us think he merely considers this matter bothersome, whereas the truth is, he is...afraid.

Afraid that we'll find out the truth, scared that we'll expose him for doing some evil deed related to this incident.

I have to admit; it was a well-thought out plan for an old geezer like him. But if I had to say where the flaw was, it would be his acting skills. He had gone way too overboard with showing us we annoyed him. That was when I started finding him suspicious, after all.

After some careful thinking, I explained my entire thought process to the three girls, and they all seemed surprised at how I figured all this out.

...I mean, if they had just observed and used their heads a little, they probably could've discover the truth behind this conspiracy too. Though I wasn't going to say that out loud, lest they start mocking me in some childish manner again.

Just this once, I'm thankful for Qing Yue not being advanced in Psychic Magic enough yet to learn Mind Read.

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- The Next Day -

We had school all 7 days a week, so we could only head to the Yu family manor after school had finished for the day. But this time, unlike yesterday, we were prepared - prepared to uncover the truth behind the episode years ago.

We arrived at the elder hall building soon enough, and were once again led to the large room by a servant girl (though it was a different one today).

The servant girl retreated as soon as we arrived at the double doors from yesterday, and just as Yu An Xue was about to knock, I grabbed her wrist and stopped her.

"Just confirming one more time..." I began, not letting go of her slim wrist. "The head elder...he's really your uncle, correct?"

Indeed. Yesterday, I had asked Yu An Xue for the true identity of the head elder as I was explaining my logic to the three of them. She had revealed that the head elder was in fact her father's brother, making him her uncle. The previous patriarch had made Yu Ao the patriarch, which obviously upset Yu Niao (the head elder). After Yu Ao succeeded the patriarch's seat after his father had passed away, he took pity upon his emotionally scarred brother and made him head elder.

What he didn't expect was for his brother to turn on him as soon as he gained the support of the entire elder hall. Of course, he had won their support not through righteous ways, but through bribery, threats, and sick manipulation. And now, his influence was too strong for Yu Ao to do anything to him. The kindness in his heart back then proved to be a fatal mistake.

I wasn't like him. I'm not some extremely kind person, nor am I some sort of hero. I am a 14 year old boy who has no qualms about murdering someone. If you've done me good, I will indeed pay you back.

...But if you've harmed me or the things and people I care about, I will pay you back as well - in a much more bloody, violent way. Hundredfold.

Yu An Xue then nodded. "Yes...and I've already told you the full story yesterday, I think."

After getting the confirmation I needed, I let go of her slim wrist and she proceeded to knock on the massive double door.