Chapter 4: A Complicated Family Web!

After leaving Windsor Tower, Mi Jingzi quickly changed his look. He stripped off the Daoist robe, the smoky makeup, and everything else from before, then switched into a fresh, sunny set of casual clothes and tidied up his long hair, because in a little while he was officially going home to play the role of the wealthy young master.

The reason he had come here first, apart from Xiao Bai in his arms, was mainly to revisit an old haunt. He was the full-moon baby from that eerie story. His father had never mentioned it, his master never said a word, and even when he entered inner contemplation it was hard to calculate his own situation, but he wasn't an idiot. Some things didn't need proof; a good guess was enough to get eight or nine tenths of the truth.

After changing clothes, Li Changsheng got into the luxury car sent to pick him up and headed straight for home. As for that celebrity stepmother, and the sister-in-law he had never even met before, Li Changsheng found them rather troublesome. He was a pure-yang cultivator who kept away from women; surely he wouldn't be tempted by feminine beauty, would he?

"Uncle Fu, has he still not been picked up yet?"

"He's already on the way. He should be back soon. I'll have the kitchen make a few more dishes the young master likes."

"Mm, make a few more. The little brother finally came back after all this time, so we can't let him be unhappy here."

Li Weiguo was very satisfied with his eldest son's performance. The older he got, the more he wanted to see the family living in harmony, reunited and happy.

"Mom, when you meet Changsheng later, how are you planning to introduce yourself?"

Li Jiaxin was naturally very displeased with this veiled jab from her cheap daughter-in-law.

The two of them had never really liked each other. Li Jiaxin was 35 this year, only one year older than her nominal son Li Jiacheng. Xu Ziqi, her daughter-in-law, was 29 this year. That was already awkward enough, and now there was suddenly a 20-year-old younger son as well. It really was enough to give anyone a headache.

The Li family villa was on Hong Kong Island, one of Hong Kong's famous wealthy districts. It was extravagantly luxurious, and calling it land as precious as gold was no exaggeration. But while every inch here was indeed expensive, that phrase was a little misleading in this case. It was certainly pricey, but compared with the Li family's enormous fortune, it didn't seem quite so valuable.

Seeing his youngest son holding a fox terrier in his arms, Li Weiguo stepped forward with a big smile, patted Li Changsheng on the shoulder, and said with obvious satisfaction, "At last you're home. Let Dad have a good look at you. Not bad, pretty sturdy. Do you have a girlfriend? If you do, just say so. I've always been very open-minded."

Li Changsheng shot his old man an irritated look. On the outside, they said he had gone to the Tsinghua junior class, but where had he really run off to? Surely the old man couldn't not know.

In the end, wasn't it you who took me there?

"If you don't have one, then you don't have one. Eat first. After we're done, the two of us can have a proper talk. And honestly, why don't you call home more often when you're away?"

"The signal on the mountain is bad."

As soon as he heard "the mountain," Li Weiguo didn't bother with the polite small talk anymore. He pulled his youngest son Li Changsheng straight to the dining table and even arranged for him to sit right beside him. That was a privilege even his eldest son Li Jiacheng didn't get to enjoy.

Though Li Weiguo was getting on in years, he was still full of energy. First he introduced Li Changsheng to his sister-in-law and stepmother, both of whom had only appeared after Li Changsheng went north, and he really didn't know them.

What a coincidence, too, that both the stepmother and the daughter-in-law worked in the entertainment industry. The stepmother was Li Jiaxin, known as the most beautiful Miss Hong Kong, while the daughter-in-law was Xu Ziqi, a little actress who hadn't originally been all that famous. Both were beauties in their own right, but overall a mature, alluring woman like the stepmother had a little more flavor to her. She was absolutely lethal to young men.

After sizing up his sister-in-law and stepmother for a while, Li Changsheng gave his father an approving look and said, "Not bad. You judged people very accurately. Dad, your taste really is getting better and better. Sister-in-law and Auntie are both excellent choices. Good eye."

Li Weiguo was even happier after hearing that. This naturally meant his youngest son had really come back after completing his studies, and maybe he had already mastered the legendary Wind-After-Hour Eight Trigrams. That was a secret art of the Pure Yang line from Wudang Mountain. Even the legendary number-one mystic of Guangdong, Hong Kong, and Macau back in the day, Xuanjizi, had only barely scratched the surface when he first got started.

Li Changsheng's eldest brother was genuinely happy to see his younger brother home. It was sincere to the core. Strictly speaking, Li Jiacheng had the bearing of a gentleman; he truly wasn't a bad person, and in fact he even had a bit of a small-man contentment to him.

As for his stepmother, Li Jiaxin, she was more uneasy. Li Changsheng, like Li Jiacheng, also addressed her as "Auntie" instead of "Mom," which clearly showed that neither brother had truly accepted her as their stepmother.

As for the sister-in-law, the billionaire daughter-in-law Xu Ziqi had a good face and a strong fate. She was the classic kind of woman who was good at keeping house and good at bearing children. Marry a woman like that, and she could help her husband's family with its career and its legacy. After death, if she were buried in a good feng shui site, she could still carry the family line forward for generations. She wasn't exactly a woman of unmatched nobility, but she certainly wasn't bad.

Her character, however, was harder to praise. She had a bit too much scheming in her, and both Li Changsheng and Li Weiguo could see the little calculations in Xu Ziqi's mind. They just didn't call it out. It was enough that they knew it privately.

The Li family wasn't especially large, but Xu Ziqi was quite impressive. After marrying Li Jiacheng in Sydney, Australia, on December 15, 2006, she gave birth to two sons and a daughter in 2007 and 2009. Because of that, she was very much to Li Weiguo's liking. Having more branches and more descendants was the greatest wish of people of their generation.

Because Xu Ziqi's womb was so fruitful, her position in the Li family was very special, even more favored than the stepmother's. Li Changsheng could tell at a glance that his stepmother's status in the household was awkward in every respect.

His old man was already 73 this year. Whether that old tool could still even work was a question in itself. Could this possibly be real love?

So Li Jiacheng didn't like Li Jiaxin all that much as a stepmother either. Back then, he had even strongly opposed letting her into the house, nearly falling out with his father over it. At times like that, Li Jiacheng could still be very stubborn; he wasn't really that warm and gentle. He just had a good temper.

Although the situation at home was rather delicate, Li Changsheng didn't take any of it to heart. He had never planned to fight for anything, and he didn't really think much of these things either. At his current level, fame, power, and wealth were all within easy reach. If he really wanted to, taking a seat at the center of power and becoming a national preceptor wasn't impossible at all.

Compared with a national preceptor standing above all else, what did the Li family's colossal fortune amount to?