Director Jiang sat on the stool, feeling completely drained. His fourth brother had been lost when he was only three days old. His mother had driven herself mad with self-blame over him, though she had only begun to recover slightly in recent years. For thirty-two years, the family hadn't given up searching, yet there had been no news.
"Come on, tell me where Ah Si is now?" Director Jiang said in a gentle and seductive tone.
Old Man Guan kept his mouth shut and said nothing.
"Heh," Director Jiang chuckled. The news about his fourth brother was a great joy for him. Who would have thought that arresting a few spies would actually lead to finding his brother, who had been missing for thirty years? Director Jiang was in a truly good mood at the moment. As for Old Man Guan's refusal to speak, that was out of his consideration. The word "refusal" didn't exist in his vocabulary.
After a brief thought, Director Jiang looked into Old Man Guan's eyes and said with certainty, "Is Ah Si in Guanjia Village?"
After seeing Old Man Guan's reaction, he confirmed his guess. He knew that Ah Si was still alive. The blood connection between brothers was hard to explain, but he and his father were very sure that Ah Si was still alive over the years.
The Jiang family of Shanghai is a renowned aristocratic family. Generations of them have been merchants, and several streets in Shanghai are entirely owned by them. My grandfather's generation served in the military, and the women in the family rose to prominence, supporting the family business. Of my father's generation, with the exception of the third son, who refused to enlist, all the others did the same. The brothers who served married wives from established merchant families. Director Jiang himself joined the army as a teenager, a testament to his pedigree and his family's reputation as a true capitalist.
But things always happened to the family, and it happened one after another. Director Jiang's grandfather's generation had two brothers. His grandfather's father had several concubines. Because these concubines were vying for favor, in order to frame the most favored concubine at the time, his grandfather's younger brother became a victim and fell into the river and died at the age of two.
His grandfather was the only son left in the Jiang family's eldest branch. Later, his grandfather got married. His grandmother was quite capable and gave birth to six sons in the next generation. The youngest son, who was six or seven years old, followed his grandmother back to her parents' home to visit relatives, and all of them disappeared.
In their generation, his fourth brother was stolen away while he was sleeping next to his mother three days after he was born.
Director Jiang married at the age of twenty. Their marriage was arranged as a child, during a military stint back home. The following year, he received a letter from home announcing the birth of a large, chubby boy. At the time, he was engaged in a fierce battle with Rong Ziheng's puppet Japanese forces in Shandong Province, and the letter took a long time to reach him. After the battle, before he could even apply for leave, another letter arrived, announcing that his wife and child had been killed in a bombing on the way to the business.
It was as if the Jiang family was under a curse, with one dead in each generation.
Director Jiang asked Old Man Guan, "Who instructed you to steal Ah Si away back then?"
Old Man Guan still didn't say anything.
The area was too large, and Director Jiang could not figure out who was behind it no matter how capable he was. Moreover, he was only a child at that time. His father and grandfather were heartbroken by this incident. Later, when he grew up, he asked them many times, but they never said who could have such a deep blood feud with him.
So this is what has always bothered him, who on earth hates his family so much.
Since Old Man Guan refused to say, it didn't matter. He already knew where Ah Si was going anyway, and he had plenty of time to "wait" for Old Man Guan to speak on his own initiative.
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