Chapter 51: assassination (5) “The Great Elder turned out to be quite formidable. He has managed to escape this time, but no worries Miss Ye. We’ll camp here tonight and deal with him once he returns.” The leader spoke up. Ye Qingtang looked at the bleak aftermath sprawled across the entire courtyard, before she shook her head at him, “That won’t be necessary. You guys have already helped a great deal. Well done!” With that said, she handed over the remaining twenty thousand gold to the men. “It’s getting late. We’ll take it from here. Before you guys leave, thank you all again. We’ll never forget this favor you guys did us.” It would be great if those men were able to get rid of the Great Elder. However, now that he had escaped, if the men were to remain here any longer, they could become a liability instead. Besides, there’s no telling if the Great Elder would return at all with the men around. And things tend to go awry when one plays a waiting game. The men had their gold and Ye Qingtang’s seal of approval. Obviously, they would not plan to stay around for long. After thanking her in return, they were gone like the wind. With the men gone, Ye Qingtang looked down at the guards’ corpses littered around with a cold-eyed stare. Those guards, who were formerly attendants of the Ye Household, should have owed their allegiance to Ye Ling, the head of the household. But they turned their coats and joined the ranks of the Great Elder instead. Under the Great Elder’s orders, those guards had deliberately left their posts in her father’s courtyard, in order for his assassination to succeed. Thus, the guards could be considered a bunch of miscreants who had betrayed her father’s trust and Ye Qingtang would never bat an eyelid over their deaths. “Father, it’s late. We’ll have to fetch second uncle home first thing in the morning. Let’s call it a day.” Ye Qingtang chuckled as she spoke. Since the beginning, she had expected the Great Elder to be able to escape those assassins, given his capabilities. But she was certain he would no longer pose a threat to Ye Ling in his current situation, and with the Second Elder’s imminent return, she doubted he had the time and capacity to commit further misdeeds. It was not until it was almost daybreak, did the Great Elder finally return to the residence in a miserable state, only after he was certain the assassins were no longer around. Till now, he was still unable to comprehend why the assassins he hired turned against him instead. If he was not capable, he would have died at their hands. The Great Elder could neither come up with a plausible reason nor answer to that predicament. For the moment, all he could do was to defer the case for further investigations in the future. Now that the assassins had violated their agreement, and with Ye Ling still alive, his plan to frame the Second Elder for his murder was thwarted. The Great Elder knit his brow at this realization, but as he stood before the aftermath of that scuffle in his courtyard, a sudden thought struck him. An attempt to assassinate the head of the household or the Great Elder, in either case, they entailed the same death penalty! Ye Ling would succumb to the poison sooner or later, the thorn in his side was definitely the Second Elder. He would never allow those two to join forces against him. He would reign as head of the household soon enough! On the following morning, Ye Qingtang awoke from her dreams and once she donned her outing garments, she left her room promptly to meet up with Ye Ling. But when she reached his quarters, Ye Ling was nowhere to be seen. She questioned the attendants on his whereabouts immediately. And only then she found out…. The Great Elder had went ahead to fetch the Second Elder before the agreed schedule. Ye Ling, who learned about this later, reacted indifferently and not wanting to disturb her sleep, he left in advance to catch up with them and should be reaching the training grounds by now.