"Oh! No, no, no! I think you've misunderstood!" Lei Lin quickly shook his head.
"While I do know Jenny, I have absolutely no intention of interfering in the internal affairs of the Augustus family!"
Lei Lin made his position clear.
Though a single word from him could immediately resolve the enormous crisis facing Jenny and her father — Lucas wouldn't dare object in the slightest — what did any of that have to do with Lei Lin?
Moreover, once he influenced Siegfried's decision, he would inevitably owe the man a favor! And favors were the hardest debts to repay!
Furthermore, directly intervening in another family's affairs was considered an extremely disrespectful gesture among wizards.
Siegfried might not necessarily show it on the surface, but it would undoubtedly leave a trace of displeasure in his heart.
Lei Lin didn't particularly care about any of that, but between Jenny and her father — who, in his eyes, possessed no real strength and only a bit of mundane political power — and Lucas, who now had Siegfried backing him behind the scenes, there was no need to deliberate on which side to choose.
After all, years of experience had long since trained him to make choices based on his own self-interest, and this was the fundamental attitude of a wizard.
Sure enough, after hearing Lei Lin's declaration, the smile on Siegfried's face grew even warmer: "Lei Lin, you're probably not yet familiar with the wizard landscape of the capital, are you? No matter — you're welcome to visit me often in the future, and I can also take you to exchange gatherings organized by formal wizard organizations, where you can make some new friends!"
"That would be wonderful!" With his objective achieved, a pleased smile appeared on Lei Lin's face as well.
Following that, Lei Lin and Siegfried exchanged some experiences regarding the practice of advanced Meditation Methods. Though Siegfried had lived close to two hundred and fifty years and possessed extraordinary experience, he was still astonished by some of the hypotheses Lei Lin had simulated and calculated through his Chip, so much so that he nearly buried his head in his laboratory right then and there to verify them. This only further solidified his conviction that Lei Lin was a scholar of vast and profound knowledge. Lei Lin, for his part, was thoroughly impressed by the other's rich practical expertise.
By the time their exchange concluded, neither side felt entirely satisfied, as if they could have gone on much longer. Only after setting another meeting time did Siegfried reluctantly see Lei Lin off from the wizard tower.
……
Now that even Lei Lin had given up on Jenny and her father, everything else fell into place with inevitable ease.
At the family council convened by the Augustus family, Lucas won by an overwhelming margin and was elected as the new patriarch of the Augustus family, inheriting the title of Marquis Augustus!
That very night, the former Marquis Augustus succumbed to a relapse of the poison and died in agonizing pain!
As for Jenny, she was accused of poisoning the Dragon Blood Blossom she had brought back, murdering her own father!!!
Though anyone with eyes could see this was the crudest and most transparent frame-up, executed with laughably childish methods, Lucas had deliberately employed this tactic to gauge the factions and allegiances within his family, while simultaneously establishing his authority!
In truth, this very act of calling a deer a horse was Lucas's deliberate ploy to kill the chicken and scare the monkey.
After ruthlessly purging several die-hard holdouts with thunderous measures, Lucas had already seized firm control of the Augustus family's power. The entire family fell silent, collectively maintaining a stance of tacit acceptance of Lucas's actions, cementing the narrative that Jenny had poisoned her own father! A warrant for her arrest was subsequently issued!
Such was the naked brutality of power struggles — the victor becomes king, the defeated become bandits — a vivid enactment of nature's savage law of the jungle.
"Pant — pant — pant!"
Deep within a pitch-black forest, Jenny was sprinting desperately.
At this point, the noble young lady had completely lost her former air of elegance and cold composure. Her dress was slashed in numerous places by thorny bushes, her face was streaked with blood, and she looked utterly wretched—somehow even more wretched than a beggar.
"Father!" Jenny cried out as she ran, tears streaming involuntarily down her cheeks.
Everything had happened so fast that Jenny could hardly believe she wasn't dreaming.
Her pillar of support—her father, always so composed and kind—had been killed under a plot of treachery, and she herself had been framed as the murderer!
Heavens! Jenny couldn't even imagine what kind of deranged mind it would take to pin such a crime on her!
But what followed silenced her entirely. Under the crushing weight of authority, this absurd accusation had actually been cemented as fact, and a bounty had been issued for her arrest!
In truth, if not for a few loyal servants and sympathetic factions who had secretly tipped her off and helped her escape—if she herself hadn't been a First-rank Apprentice—she might not have even managed to flee.
Of course, after the fact, those servants and factions had been promptly massacred.
*Thud!* Jenny, sprinting at full speed, tripped over a tree root and crashed to the ground. Mud and water splashed across her clothes, and the young lady finally collapsed, sobbing loudly into the dirt.
But even if she escaped this time, what good would it do? Whether it was other nobles she'd been close to or even ordinary people, they would all see her as a murderer. In the end, her fate would either be captured and executed, or she'd have to live her entire life in the dregs of society—hiding her name, crouching in the mud like refuse, never daring to reveal her identity. Just thinking about it made Jenny feel utterly hopeless about her life.
"Wuu wuu… why… why did it have to be like this?" Jenny kept sobbing.
"Tsk tsk! What a pathetic sight!"
At that moment, a somewhat familiar voice came from behind her, sending a chill through Jenny's entire body.
She turned around and saw a tall Knight in armor, a vicious scar from a blade wound still marring his face.
"'Short Blade' Toward—even you, Father's personal guard captain, have betrayed us too?"