"About two months ago, my father received news from Xinlan."
"That is a special encrypted contact information of the Stuart family. It says that the Stuart family is now on the brink of extinction. Those who still have Stuart blood have either been killed or imprisoned. The Grand Duke Stuart of New Lan, who is currently in power, is a treacherous villain."
"After receiving the news, my father and his family did not take any action at first. At that time, they were involved in the Green Day incident. It was not until a month ago that they began to really take this matter seriously."
"You should also know that the Stuart family is different from other duke families in the Western Region. Those families only want their family name to be passed down and to maintain its reputation. So when there are no outstanding talents who can take over the chosen one within the family for a period of time, they will use the method of recruiting sons-in-law to attract young talents to change their family names and join them."
"But the Stuart family was once a royal family. Even now, they have always emphasized their royal bloodline. This is their fundamental capital to oppose the Central An family, and it is also the main reason why the Western District was willing to accept them."
"And now, if the person who holds the power of the Stuart family's chosen one is no longer of royal blood, then this is unacceptable to both the Stuart family and the entire Western Region."
"Therefore, in addition to sending me here to determine the current Grand Duke Stuart's inclinations, my father and his men also sent me to find the person who initiated the request and to find out the truth of the matter."
In the car, Sherlock told without reservation all the purposes of his visit to Xinlan.
Levi did not hide anything from him about these things, and Sherlock naturally had no reservations either.
But from his words, Levi could clearly hear that he had some different thoughts about the current Grand Duke Stuart, Sherlock's father.
Levi didn't ask any further questions about this matter.
Sherlock stepped on the accelerator to the bottom. The road near the barrier area was deserted, so they were moving very fast. Less than half an hour after leaving the city, they arrived at a barrier on the southeast side of Xinlan.
The urban structure here is similar to the sun. The part of the city edge close to the barrier is designated as an industrial plant area, the part between the urban area and the factory area is the agricultural area, and the innermost urban area is naturally the core residential area.
It's only 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning, and quite a few of the factory buildings are still brightly lit.
Xinlan's manufacturing industry is mainly based on light industry, and the workers there are divided into two shifts, working more than ten hours a day. Except for eating and sleeping, almost all the time they spend doing boring labor in the production workshop.
When Sherlock saw those sweatshops, his face looked obviously ugly.
"I checked before I came here. After the current Grand Duke Stuart came to power, agricultural and industrial taxes throughout New Lan increased by about 30%, and more than half of these taxes were passed on to farmers and workers. The Grand Duke also frequently dissolved and established governments. His subordinates were extremely corrupt, and his children were greedy by nature, and they have been making money under various names."
Levi could certainly feel this at Hack's house. Hack himself kept complaining that ever since the current Grand Duke inherited the title, their family's life had been getting worse day by day. Before, not to mention anything else, basically for breakfast, this family of four could still guarantee one egg per person, but now, eggs have become a food that needs to be saved.
In response, Levi simply asked bluntly.
"What about Iris? Will these people have an easier time under the rule of the Green family?"
Sherlock's answer was calm.
"My father treated farmers and workers better than others, but only to a limited extent. In essence, he still regarded these people as his tools, tools to create wealth for the Green family. He thought that other people's greed was too ugly, and he could enjoy the fruits of their labor and their blood and sweat in a more elegant and polite manner. But in fact, he was no different from them."
An answer without any double standards, even Levi sometimes felt ashamed of the qualities Sherlock possessed.
This is also the reason why many people dislike him. We are all just like everyone else, but you are different. If not you, who else should he target?
If Sherlock had not been the only one in this generation of the Green family who showed extraordinary talent and had now reached the third level, ready to take over the power of the Chosen One at any time, Grand Duke Green would not have wanted him to be his heir.
Not long after, the car stopped at the edge of the Xinlan Barrier.
Sherlock and Levi got out of the car together. They both knew how to find cousin Huck's grandparents.
There was a special mark near the barrier on this side. The two of them went to look for it separately, and Sherlock made a discovery not long after.
"Here I am! The family crest that the Stuart family used in history - [thriving ginkgo tree]."
Levi came to Sherlock and saw the emblem with him.
Along the edge of the emblem, they found a protruding stone that looked a little different from other places. Levi exerted a little force and pulled the stone off the barrier. Under the stone was a white button.
The two looked at each other, and Levi pressed the button directly. The next moment, the stone wall with the emblem in front of them began to tremble, making a "booming" friction sound! The stone moved to one side like a sliding door, and soon revealed a deep entrance.
Levi led the way, followed by Sherlock, and the two entered the secret passage together.
As they went deeper, both of them understood why those three people had been able to hide here for so long without being discovered by the Archduke Stuart.
The rules covered by this city are based on the entire barrier as the boundary, and only include the area within the barrier. However, this secret passage dug from the barrier to the outside is completely out of the scope of Shinran's own rules and is equivalent to the space of another separate individual.
Therefore, even if Archduke Stuart is as powerful as the Chosen One and can directly control a certain specific rule, he cannot find anything other than what separates the two different spaces.
After walking about one kilometer, they finally got out of the secret passage and came to a relatively open and wide space.
There are some portraits placed on the walls around. The people in the paintings are wearing crowns and gorgeous clothes, just like emperors.
After taking a few glances at the portraits on the wall, Sherlock basically figured out where this place was.
"These are things from the old century. The portrait of the emperor of the Wei family's royal family. This should be a secret safe house built by the Stuart family for themselves after taking over Xinlan, so that they can have a temporary hiding place in case of any accidents in the family."
Levi didn't have much interest in this room.
"So, where are they?"
Sherlock looked at a corridor extending to the right side of the safe house, where there were several rooms with closed doors.
"Mr. and Mrs. Stuart, I am Sherlock Green, the son of the current Grand Duke Green. My father received the message and location you sent, so he specially asked me to come here to help you!"
His voice was so loud that its echo lingered in the space long after it had fallen.
Not long after that, a door in the corridor was quietly opened from the inside.
There is no wrong version in the 1619 book forum!
A young man who looked to be less than 30 years old stuck his head out to take a look at Sherlock and Levi. After making sure that they were the only two of them, he retracted his head again. After a while, he came out again, supporting an old woman with a cane.
The old woman couldn't help but redden her eyes when she saw Sherlock for the first time, and tears flowed from her eyes.
"Yes, yes. You look so much like your father! I've seen him before, and now I can recognize you at a glance! You're finally here, that's great! The family is finally saved!"
Sherlock and Levi noticed that there were only two people coming out of the room. The young man should be Huck's cousin, and the old woman was the nominal "mother" of the Grand Duke. So where was the other person? "Madam, where is your husband?" Sherlock asked.
Hearing this question, the old woman's eyes became even redder and she cried with tears in her eyes.
"His health was not good to begin with, and he became ill from worrying over the years. Not long after he escaped, he died of illness. I buried him in the innermost room. He never got to see that ungrateful bastard suffer retribution until his death. He couldn't rest in peace!"
Sherlock whispered a few words to comfort the old woman, while Levi, who had already sat in the chair, spoke.
"Why don't you tell us first, Madam, why has your son become such an ungrateful person?"
"He has never been our son! Never! Our son was killed by him a long time ago!"
The old woman's voice grew sharper, and soon the truth about the present Grand Duke of Stuart came to light in her narration.
As Sherlock said, because the nature of the Stuart family is different, it cannot just think about passing on the surname and abandon its bloodline.
Therefore, in order to ensure that the future chosen power can always be passed down within the family, they encourage their members to have more children and try to expand the family size. It doesn't matter even if the bloodline is thin. As long as there is Stuart blood flowing in the body, they will recognize it no matter how thin it is.
The "parents" of the current Grand Duke are one of the many members of the Stuart family. As long as they and their descendants show excellent talent in science, they will have the opportunity to inherit the chosen power, take over the title, and become the lord of the new Lan in the future.
But they had not put any hope on such a thing in the first place. None of their family was good at studying and they were basically just average people. Even if they could become scientists, they would at most waste their lives at the first level until they died. There was no possibility of advancing to the chosen level at all.
But one day, a family from the Western District that was a vassal of the Stuart family came to find this family.
They forcibly controlled the "parents", kidnapped their biological children, and pushed another boy who was only 7 years old to their side, asking them to announce to the public that this was their second son, who had been frail and sickly and had been receiving medical treatment in other cities, and had only recently been brought home.
Although the "parents" were pressured at first, they did not think that these people's whimsical plans would succeed.
Since the Stuart family understands the importance of bloodline, they naturally attach great importance to the authenticity of their bloodline. Almost every member of the Stuart family who wants to participate in family affairs must undergo DNA testing to ensure that there will be no counterfeit.
However, after the "parents" really raised the boy to adulthood and he showed excellent scientific talent, the family that coerced them did something that even the Stuart family passed their own tests! This made the "parents" really terrified.
At that time, they realized that this was not a spur-of-the-moment decision, but a huge conspiracy that a group of people had been planning for a long time, with sufficient preparation and planning, and wanted to replace the dead with the dead! Those people wanted to directly replace all the resources of the Stuart family, and use this royal family that has been passed down for nearly a thousand years to complete their own transition! What's more terrifying is that they really did it! The boy who was sent to his "parents" and grew up as a child of the Stuart family became the only third-level scientist of his generation who was qualified to inherit the Chosen One. Later, he sat on the position of Duke smoothly and became the true Lord of Xinlan.
Over the years, he has used his power to continuously suppress the original Stuart family members, helped his own followers avoid blood tests, and occupied various important positions in Xinlan by frequently dissolving and reorganizing the government.
Today, they can be said to have achieved their greatest success.
If the "parents" had not been dealt with and had not been alive to pass on the news to the outside world, no one would have thought that the Stuart family had already been completely replaced by another family and completed a backdoor listing! After hearing the secret, Sherlock felt horrified. He could not imagine what kind of scheming and means the person who made such a plan had to actually accomplish such a thing.
Li Wei just sighed a few times. He just treated the stories of "Li Dai Tao Jiang" and "Civet Cat Substituting Prince" as stories at most.
What I am thinking about now is how to use this to kill people! (End of this chapter)