Once, I wanted to be a good person

Jiang Cheng shook his head again.

The interrogators exchanged glances, then finally asked, "What about Fang Ze?"

At the mention of Fang Ze, Jiang Cheng couldn't help but be taken aback. He said, "What does this have to do with Fang Ze?"

"You're not suspecting that he's the one controlling me, are you? Hah... That's ridiculous."

The interrogator pressed, "Jiang Cheng, please answer the question directly!"

Jiang Cheng huffed, "I just met him, and there was no reaction between us!"

The memory abruptly ended there, and He Weidao removed the Memory Crystal from his forehead, his gaze as calm as still water.

"Really not Fang Ze?"

By now, with so much evidence laid out before He Weidao, even if he always felt something was off, he could only believe in the tangible facts.

As for whether the Jiang Family had tampered with or edited the interrogation memory, He Weidao did not suspect it: the current Jiang Family simply didn't have the nerve for that.

A decade ago, when the Jiang Family was at its peak, perhaps they would have dared, but now, the old ancestor of the Jiang Family was on their last breath, and they had just decided on a successor, busy with a series of power transfers. What they needed most was stability, and they dared not stir up any trouble.

Didn't you see even Jiang Cheng's father, who used to dare to confront him, acted so compliant yesterday? This was not only because Jiang Cheng's father was about to step down as Family Head and could no longer use the Jiang Family resources limitlessly, lacking his previous confidence, but also because of the extraordinary timing.

"It seems... I really guessed wrong," he mused.

With that, He Weidao placed the Memory Crystal back into its box and murmured to himself, "Well then, if that's the case, there's no need to follow up on this lead with Fang Ze any longer."

"The priority now is the matter with Dahei Garo. I should find that rat first..."

...

Meanwhile, over at the Parliament Building in Xida State,

in the conference room that had just been cleared, Fang Ze also felt a bit relieved.

He truly hadn't expected He Weidao to play such a hand with the tactic of information asymmetry: sharing the meeting's content with everyone else but deliberately not informing him, and even specifically instructing an Executive Councilor to question him first.

Had he not noticed this trap and impulsively shared some information he wasn't supposed to know, his identity would have been exposed outright.

Even if he hadn't spoken out of order but had only offhandedly attempted to brush it off, that alone would have greatly increased suspicion: after all, how could he be aware of any related information without being informed about the meeting's content, and why reply with an evasion instead of a query?

This move was truly devious...

Luckily, Fang Ze saw through all this and managed to navigate the situation successfully. Moreover, thanks to the experiment with Little Grass at noon, only his physical body had attended tonight; his soul hadn't, which meant he wouldn't trigger the master-servant response with Jiang Cheng.

Therefore, Fang Ze felt that after tonight, he should be substantially cleared of any suspicion, and many things could now move forward!

With these thoughts in mind, after the meeting dispersed, Fang Ze took the initiative to stop the Executive Councilor and began to inquire,

"Sir, it's like this. After the Si Family's reinstatement, the Federation granted us the rights of a normal noble family: to choose any high-level city outside the top ten economic ranks in Xida State as our family's municipality, and to select one of the lower-level cities within that high-level city's jurisdiction as our family's residence."

"May I ask if I can now exercise this right?"

Upon hearing Fang Ze's words, those who had just reached the door, or who hadn't yet left, couldn't help but stop in their tracks and turned to look at Fang Ze.

A noble's territory is arguably the most important and core right of the nobility, the largest source of a noble family's economic income and power.

Especially in Xida State, which has a strong economy, even cities ranked below ten have several million residents with considerable tax revenues, thereby greatly increasing their value.

And this was precisely why all the noble families wanted to collaborate with Fang Ze.

After the Federation granted the favors, many had wondered which city Fang Ze would ultimately choose as his territory. But Fang Ze seemed completely untroubled by the decision, not choosing for a long time.

Now two months had passed... Could everything finally be settled?

At that moment, hearing Fang Ze's words, the Executive Councilor hesitated for an instant before nodding and saying, "Of course."

He glanced at the others, then said to Fang Ze, "Then please come with me, and let's select the city you wish to claim for the Si Family."