Ruohan winced as Reihe continued to cry, wiping his snot away only when it started dripping down his face.
"Dad, it's fine! I'm serious, I was just doing that for show, ok?" Ruohan whined.
Reihe let out a few sobs, blowing his nose loudly.
"To think the Hu family's come to this, that my only child has to beg to be let into the house in the pouring rain! I'm unqualified as a father!" Reihe sobbed. Ruohan sighed. She may be a good actress, but her father was the ultimate drama queen. She patted his back awkwardly with one hand, replying to messages with the other.
Her performance had already blown up on social media. Most of the comments were either bashing Wu Peifu or something along the lines of 'Wow I could never let a hottie cry in the rain like this' or 'Sorry but Ruohan's so pretty even when she's drenched.' Ruohan gave a satisfied smirk to her phone.
Reihe's loud sobbing drew her attention again, and Ruohan patted his back firmly.
"Dad! Stop crying, we need to talk business!" Ruohan said impatiently. Reihe toned his crying down to a sniffle, beard already dripping with tears. Yutian wordlessly passed him a napkin for that, but Reihe didn't get the cue and kept wiping at his face until Yutian gave up.
After her father calmed down a little, Ruohan hurried onto their plan of action.
"Dad, you know that Wu Peifu's really screwed. He's lost everything but Wuhan, General Feng defected, and there are random plague-spirits roaming around. This is really our chance to restore the glory of the Hu family," Ruohan said, launching into sales pitch mode.
"The glory of the Hu family? How about we survive this first?" Reihe said in disbelief.
"No, Dad, listen to me. We can't be passive in all this; we've got to be proactive. We have to join with one of the shaman factions early on and sponsor them enough that they'll treat us well later. If we wait until they're appropriating our money, all of us are screwed," Ruohan insisted.
"Don't do anything dangerous!" Reihe pleaded.
"Fortune comes from danger, that's literally our family motto! Also, I really do know what I'm doing," Ruohan said. Reihe looked at her uncertainly, so Ruohan prodded him a little more.
"Dad, make me the official Head of House and I'll take care of everything else," Ruohan said gently. Reihe looked even more uncertain now, but Yutian and the other staff members began voicing their support as well.
"Master, we'll really be in trouble if we're targeted as cooperators by the Triple Alliance," Yutian pointed out.
"Master, if we wait we'll be like crabs in a boiling pot!" This strange comparison evidently hit the spot, as Reihe slowly nodded. He sighed and turned a fond but exasperated look towards his daughter.
"Even if you act like a crazy brat sometimes, you're all grown up already. The times are changing and this old man can't keep up anymore," Reihe said, patting Ruohan's hands. "You're talented and have vision, if you restrain your temper, there's nothing you can't do. I'll give you the family seal. From now on, you are the Head of House."
Ruohan and everyone else in the room got a little teary-eyed, Reihe straight-up crying again.
"Dad," Ruohan said, genuinely touched by his words. "Thank you."
She picked up her phone. "Thank god, cousin Kui is already getting ready for the coup."
"What?!" Reihe roared. Ruohan smiled serenely.
"Just leave it to me. We need to get the Triple Alliance in here, don't we? If we keep waiting, Wu Peifu really will just kill us, take our money, and run. Since that's the case, better that we hit him first. If things go well, we'll be heroes. If they don't, brother's on the Eastern border anyways, we can just pull out and surrender," Ruohan explained.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
"Y-you – Good spirits, are you crazy?!" Reihe sputtered. Yutian sighed.
"Young master Kui seems to have convinced a few of his fellow officers, so it isn't impossible, Master," Yutian reported dutifully. Ruohan laughed, twirling the family seal between her fingers.
"Dad, I already sent a message to the Triple Alliance. We're investing, after all, we have to see who's worth it. If they choose to help us, I'll throw the Hu family's fortune behind them. If they don't, we'll just have to find another way out," Ruohan said decisively.
"You're testing them?! The guys with thousands of shamans?!" Reihe sputtered, face red from anger.
"The Triple Alliance definitely won't take my offer, but I'm sure one of the factions will," Ruohan said. "Dad, aren't you even a little interested in seeing who that will be?"
----------------------------------------
Spade stared incredulously between the encrypted email and the video playing on the screen. The good-looking lady crying dramatically in the rain looked like something straight out of a third-rate drama that had really broken the bank to find an attractive actor.
"Can someone translate the email for me?" Joyce asked. Spade sighed and gave her a quick rundown.
"It's from Hu Ruohan, she says that she's the new Head of the Hu family, and no longer engaged to Wu Peifu's wife's nephew," Spade explained.
"Good for her," Joyce said. "I saw the pictures, he's hella ugly."
"Ruohan's saying that she arranged with her network in Wu Peifu's army to help the Triple Alliance. They don't have enough people to stage a proper coup, but they can let you in through the East side of the city, where we get to from there is up to us," Spade continued.
"What kinda network she's got that she could pull this kind of thing?" Joyce asked suspiciously.
"Her cousin, Hu Kui, is an officer in Wu Peifu's army. He's currently holding down the Northeastern border of the city, but he's gotten the rest of the Eastern side in as well," Spade explained.
"That doesn't really solve any problems though, we'd still have to fight block by block," Kajio pointed out.
"The point isn't to take over the city, but to take its Eastern border," Mohan said thoughtfully. "Ruohan didn't say as much, but that's probably her intention."
"That literally doesn't do anything for us," Kajio said.
"It does though, it gives the Alliance a morale boost, gives us at least a little more progress, and it'll probably make Wu Peifu mad enough to self-sabotage," Mohan said.
"You mean like, personally leading an attack or something? That's civilian endangerment," Selva said skeptically.
"So she's betting on Wu Peifu's personality," Kajio said with a frown. "She certainly has some advantage with that, since she has a lot of social media posts with him in the background. But it'll still cause us a lot of headaches either way."
"Well, we can't just keep staring each other down, we need a breakthrough of some kind and this is a literal breakthrough," Joyce said. "Let's do it!"
Everyone gave her looks of varying degrees of concern.
"No, I'm serious guys, we have the best shot at this. If it fails, we can just grab the defectors and retreat. If it succeeds, we just evacuate the citizens for good PR and then play whack-a-mole with the rest of Wu Peifu's soldiers," Joyce suggested. "We can literally throw up a defensive ward big enough to cover a whole district, we'll just waste some time if we fail."
"She's right," Mohan said. "It shows that we've tried, we won't take too many casualties, and maybe even get a sponsor." After Mohan pushed for it a little more, everyone grumbled their agreements.
"You think Ruohan might sponsor us after all this?" Joyce asked hopefully. Kajio lifted his head towards the sky as if offering a silent prayer.
"Let's come up with a basic plan then, and take her offer as soon as we can move out. The longer we wait, the more likely Wu Peifu will notice the plan. We can't afford to lose this window of opportunity," Kajio said.
"Sounds good," Joyce said cheerfully. "Oh, and we should probably plan for if Wu Peifu comes charging right at us. Maybe Spade can pull another Gu Feng?"
Spade nodded grimly, unsheathing his sword halfway in a sharp motion.
"I will use this sword to cut off Wu Peifu's head," Spade declared. Joyce slowly pushed the sword back into its sheath.
"Yeah no, we don't really need to start putting heads on pikes this early on, bad PR," Joyce said. "Anyways, let's tell Ruohan we're doing this and let the other two factions know so they can send us back up if we're getting wrecked out there."
"That was surprisingly reasonable and also not a one-step plan," Spade said nervously. "Guys, let's also get all of our contingency plans ready."
Kajio looked up from where he was typing furiously on his phone with a determined gaze.
"Don't worry, I have the plans ready. All 87 of them," he declared. Everyone looked suitably relieved.
"I didn't know we had that many but whatever," Joyce sighed. "Let me eat something before we go."
----------------------------------------
Ruohan smiled as she looked at the reply.
"Did someone respond already, Miss?" Yutian asked.
"Yes, the Flying Dragons agreed," Ruohan said. "I can't tell if they're bold or stupid."
"Probably both, if they agreed in half an hour," Yutian said suspiciously. "Are they just trying to call dibs?"
"They want to move tonight," Ruohan said.
Yutian's jaw dropped. "They're insane," Yutian gasped. "We can't agree to that!"
Ruohan chuckled. "I already did."
"Miss!" Yutian protested. Ruohan shook her head.
"This is all about speed and instinct. If we want to get out of this alive," Ruohan paused to answer a text from Kui. "We have to follow my instincts."