He had sent people searching for over two years without finding him. Had he changed his name and fled?
"Little Bead, what is the identity of this Hao Ren? How does this matter involve the Tong family? And what about the Ouyang family? Could they be the last branch of the royal Tong family His Majesty has been searching for all these years?
They changed their names and surnames to avoid the court's investigation!"
At the mention of the Tong family, everyone present, including Shen Jian, Feng Tang, and Huang Xie, felt a jolt of excitement. If they could successfully apprehend them, Huang Xie, for one, could redeem himself for several charges of negligence. The merit would even outweigh discovering the iron mine and exposing the Yu family, as Wei Shouyi’s survey had shown the Yu family’s iron ore reserves to be modest. A minor clan like the Yu family couldn’t forge anything significant in three years.
[Master, there’s some juicy gossip here—want to hear it?]
Hearing about gossip, Yue Fuguang couldn’t help but quickly open the system task panel. Sure enough, when Hao Ren appeared, the system triggered a new task. That meant Hao Ren carried something that could affect the rise or fall of Dayan or become an obstacle on her path to completing her mission.
"You call it juicy gossip—how could I not want to hear it?" Yue Fuguang squeezed the system object in her hand. She had to admit, the system’s manifestation, the "Realm-Breaking Pearl," was not only beautiful to look at but also smooth to the touch, with a slight elasticity. Playing with it was truly stress-relieving.
Feng Tang, Shen Jian, and Wei Shouyi caught a glimpse of the divine artifact, a shimmering, flowing pearl being toyed with in the Young Master’s hand—squashed, stretched, and rolled around. Seeing this, they couldn’t help but chuckle inwardly.
This usually arrogant artifact, which scolded anyone it pleased and even made His Majesty cautious, now had to obediently sit still in the Young Master’s hands, just like everyone else, letting her do as she wished.
[Master, please don’t squeeze so hard. I can barely speak. Do you still want to hear the gossip?]
Hearing the system’s complaint, Yue Fuguang reluctantly stopped. "Alright, I won’t squeeze. Talk quickly!"
[Master, this Hao Ren was originally named Tong Jiaren, a grandson of the last emperor’s youngest son. During the previous emperor’s purge of surviving remnants of the former dynasty, the entire Tong family relocated.
At just over three years old, Tong Jiaren got separated from his family during the move. Fortunately, a loyal old servant protected him. Unable to find the Tong family, the boy and the old servant spent years wandering in hardship.
Then, when he turned ten, just as he was worrying about not having an identity to study openly, he was mistaken by chance as the long-lost son of the Hao family, Hao Ren.]
"You mean Hao Ren assumed the identity of the Hao family’s son?"
[Exactly. Hao Ren is a genuine Tong by blood. He successfully passed himself off as the Hao family’s lost child not only because he was of similar age and appearance, but also because, like the Hao family’s missing son, he had a butterfly-shaped birthmark on his left wrist.]
"How coincidental!" Yue Fuguang voiced the thought on everyone’s mind.
Meanwhile, Hao Ren, kneeling in the hall, had begun confessing his journey from an upright official to a lawbreaker. In short, his refrain was that everyone else was to blame; he had only strayed due to various temptations.
Yue Fuguang sneered inwardly. Did Hao Ren really think she was just a naive twelve-year-old girl?
His words were half-truths. She was too busy savoring the gossip to bother with him—she’d just treat him as background noise.
Not just Yue Fuguang, but the others paid little attention to his words. After all, the gossip was far more reliable than anything Hao Ren said.
Only Yao Tongpan, tasked with recording the case, diligently kept writing, transcribing Hao Ren’s every word without missing a detail.
[Master, this coincidence is both coincidental and not so coincidental.]
"What do you mean? Is there more to it?"
[The Hao family was originally nobles of the former dynasty, producing high-ranking officials and noblewomen. They only declined in the Dayan dynasty.
Tong Jiaren’s grandmother was a secondary consort to the last emperor’s youngest son. Those with Hao family blood share a unique birthmark, which he inherited from his grandmother, the former consort.]
Everyone silently nodded. Yue Fuguang remarked, "I see. So Hao Ren and the Hao family truly were destined to be connected."
[When Hao Ren passed the imperial exam at twenty and gained some local fame, he was recognized by the Tong family, who had changed their surname to Ouyang.
It was then that Hao Ren secretly reunited with his birth family, though publicly he still carried the Hao family’s identity.]
"And what happened to the real Hao son? Is he still alive?"
[Master, don’t you think Sun Tongzhi bears some resemblance to Hao Ren in certain ways?]
Yue Fuguang paused, her teacup hovering in midair. She immediately caught the system’s implication—but how could such a coincidence be possible?
These two were accomplices in crime—how could they have such deep ties! She had encountered Sun Tongzhi last night but received no mission prompt, so the problem must lie with Hao Ren.
Prompted by the system, Yue Fuguang unconsciously glanced at Hao Ren kneeling on the ground and compared him to Sun Tongzhi, whom she had met only the previous evening.
Sun Tongzhi had a thick beard—the most luxuriant facial hair of any official Yue Fuguang had seen in Dayan. Even the rugged Wei Shouyi didn’t have such dense whiskers. Because the beard covered half his face, Yue Fuguang could only detect a few similarities between the two men from their eyes and brows.
"Little Bead, could it be that no one noticed Sun Tongzhi and Hao Ren’s resemblance because of his bushy beard concealing half his face?
Does Sun Tongzhi even know he isn’t a Sun family member?"
Given his wholehearted devotion to the Sun family, doing everything to protect their only grandson even in violation of the law—aside from his rotten character—he truly seemed to have gone to great lengths for the Suns. This suggested he might really be unaware.
[Master, Sun Tongzhi was kidnapped before he turned three. His memories were all of growing up in the Sun family.
The Sun couple, childless for years after marriage, bought him as their son. When he turned six, they had two sons of their own.
A common folk belief holds that an adopted son brings good fortune for biological children. So even after having their own sons, the Sun couple treated their eldest, though not as well as the biological ones, fairly decently overall.
They supported his studies, arranged his marriage, and once he passed the imperial exams, they became even more caring, especially since his two younger brothers achieved nothing.
So Sun Tongzhi never truly doubted his identity.]
"Sun Tongzhi doesn’t know his own identity, but does Hao Ren know?" Yue Fuguang asked the key question. The others sized up Hao Ren in their minds. Perhaps influenced by his Tong family background, they felt he was somehow devious.
[Hehehe, Hao Ren actually does know. He found out through the Ouyang family’s connections. Originally, Hao Ren and the Ouyangs feared his identity might eventually be exposed.
So they planned to find the real Hao Ren—and kill him to eliminate the threat.]