CHAPTER 360: CHAPTER 314

Lan Tian sat in the car, somewhat speechlessly staring at the chauffeur. Mr. Mo had said the chauffeur didn’t know the way, but look at this supposedly clueless chauffeur, he still arrived at the school a good ten minutes earlier than the previous one.

Lan Tian, feeling helpless, touched her forehead. Why did she believe the old man’s words?

"Miss, you wait in the car, I will go to the school gate to wait for your fiancé." As soon as the military school’s gate opened, without being asked by Lan Tian, the chauffeur took the initiative to go down to pick someone up. Lan Tian, watching the chauffeur walk away, felt an itch to scratch someone for the first time.

The driver actually knew what Mo Junhua looked like, so... she’d been hoodwinked by Mr. Mo.

There Mo Junhua came out heading to the bus stop when a figure walked up and blocked his path; Mo Junhua stopped to look at the person.

"Son-in-law, the young miss has come to pick you up." The chauffeur pointed at the black vehicle parked on the roadside. Mo Junhua looked at the vehicle indicated by the driver and saw the tiny person inside, his lips curving up into a smile filled with amusement in his eyes.

Lan Tian was still caught in the state of being hoodwinked by Mr. Mo, and out of the corner of her eye, she saw the chauffeur pointing in her direction. Then Mo Junhua looked over here, and the two of them started walking toward her while talking.

"Girl." Mo Junhua opened the car door, sat down next to Lan Tian, his smile so wide it reached his ears, looking like a fool. After sitting down, he rubbed the top of Lan Tian’s head.

"Let’s go! We’ll loop around the back palaces before heading back." Lan Tian shifted a little to the side and instructed the driver in front, not wanting to pay attention to Mo Junhua. The driver glanced at Mo Junhua.

"Listen to your family’s young miss," said Mo Junhua.

The car headed towards the back palaces. Once it started, Lan Tian closed her eyes and released her Divine Sense, scanning around the palace without finding any clues, and then instructed the driver to go back.

"Why so late?" Mr. Mo asked as soon as they arrived home.

"Got held up by something," Mo Junhua replied, apologizing to Wu Hongfei and his apprentices, "Sorry to have kept you waiting."

Lan Tian glanced at Mo Junhua but said nothing and sat down without a word.

After dinner, Wu Hongfei and his apprentices left. Lan Tian had something on her mind and didn’t notice the silence at the dinner table. As Lan Tian got up to go back to her room, the old man waved and called both of them to his study.

"Take a look."

Mr. Mo took out an invitation from the drawer of his desk and handed it to them. Lan Tian took it over and saw it was bordered in black and gold, with a peculiar animal’s head stamped on the bottom left, looking like neither a tiger nor deer, very strange indeed. It was written with a brush that Mr. Mo had received it.

It looked high-end and classy. That was all Lan Tian could make out from it. She handed it to Mo Junhua, who took a look and then gave it back to Mr. Mo.

"When was the invitation delivered? I don’t recall you mentioning it before." Lan Tian found it odd. She had been home all this time and hadn’t seen anyone deliver an invitation.

"It came shortly after you left this afternoon."

"Oh," Lan Tian voiced, no wonder she was unaware.

"Grandpa, is there a problem with the invitation?" Lan Tian asked.

"You know who delivered this invitation?" Mr. Mo took back the invitation and casually placed it on the table.

Lan Tian shook her head, completely clueless.

"It was sent by someone from the Ji Family, and they specifically mentioned to bring you and Junhua along to the banquet," Mr. Mo explained while tapping the edge of the table with his finger, a motion that those familiar with him knew signified his contemplative state.

"A banquet at the Ji Family’s, and Mr. Ji and his grandchildren are well again, could it be they’re using the banquet to make it public?" Glancing over the invitation on the table, a flicker of confusion passed through Lan Tian’s eyes, remembering the Ji Family’s invitations were not black.

"It’s not an invitation from the Ji Family, but the Ji Family was asked to deliver it on someone’s behalf," Mr. Mo suddenly sighed, finding it strange. The Ji Family held power in Dragon Country, and the fact that they were commissioned to deliver an invitation indicated the formidable influence of the person backing this.

"There’s someone in Beijing even more powerful than Ji Feng’s family?" Lan Tian blurted out, surprised as she looked towards Mr. Mo.

Mr. Mo frowned, gazing thoughtfully at Lan Tian, then his face took on a contemplative look as he stared out at the dark and obscure yard. The girl’s words were coarse but not without reason. Is there really someone in Beijing more powerful than those four families... existing?

No wonder he always felt something was off but could not pinpoint what. Thinking back, the person who delivered the invitation had claimed to come on behalf of the Ji Family, yet he was not someone Mr. Mo had seen before. Mr. Mo was aware of the Ji Family’s acquaintances.

"It’s odd, if it’s not the Ji Family, who could it be? And why must Junhua and I attend?" Lan Tian’s eyelids twitched, and a vague anxiety crept up as if a storm was looming. "Great Gramps, where’s the banquet being held?"

"Take a look for yourselves!" said Mr. Mo as he handed Lan Tian a card, "I’m going to make a phone call."

Some things he needed to confirm for himself – was it someone from the Ji Family or someone using their name? Did the Ji Family know about this?

As Lan Tian and her grandfather conversed, Mo Junhua remained silent and thoughtful. Lan Tian, holding the card, saw that aside from Mr. Mo, her and Ji Feng’s names were on it. At the very bottom of the card was an address line. After scanning it, she unexpectedly found herself unfamiliar with the place.

"Hey, Junhua, take a look at this, do you know this place?" Lan Tian turned and pointed to the address on the card, asking. Junhua glanced at the address, narrowed his eyes, nodded, and then patiently explained.

"It’s only a few streets away from Taian Hall, take a left at the main entrance of the Department Store into that street, there are several old mansions there, seems like they belong to the old estates of big families. Usually, there’s someone watching at the corner, ordinary people can’t go in."

"Taian Hall? Show it to me on the map, where on the map?" Lan Tian’s eyelid twitched fiercely, her head numbing slightly, and deep down, she felt as if a voice was saying that place had something to do with He Xu Palace.

...

Mr. Mo had a dedicated telephone in his study, only for emergency use. He went inside, closed the door, picked up the receiver, and after a moment of thought, dialed the Ji Family. The other side answered quickly.

"Old Ji ah, I have something I want to ask you about, or I won’t feel settled," said Mr. Mo, his expression more solemn than ever before.

"It’s about that invitation, isn’t it!" Mr. Ji seemed to have anticipated what Mr. Mo was going to ask, "The matter with the invitation is real, not just your family, but many households in Beijing have received it, several called and asked. It’s not only in the name of my Ji Family, the other three families were involved too; you could say the invitations were sent in the name of all four families. Old Mo, don’t ask any more, I can’t tell you anything else right now, you’ll know when you come tomorrow, I can only tell you, it’s good news."

"Good news?" Mr. Mo stared at the hung-up phone for a while, unable to snap out of it, since Old Ji said it was good news, it should be, right?

He hung up the phone and returned to the room, where he saw Hua Zi pointing out something on the map to the girl, and the girl leaned over the table for a closer look.