Jia Family Head

Fang Yuan reads the head’s choice to put Jia Jin Sheng and Jia Fu on the same caravan as deliberate. In his reasoning, the gap in cultivation and cunning is a blow meant to show Jia Jin Sheng reality. It also tests Jia Fu, because an overbearing Jia Fu could not be handed the position of clan head. Fang Yuan judges that Jia Jin Sheng never understood his father’s intentions. ^{ch. 47}

Gu Yue clan’s academy elder hurries to his clan head’s pavilion over Jia Jin Sheng’s disappearance. The elder knows that Jia Jin Sheng’s father is the Jia family head. The narration says the head is a rank five, above his son Jia Fu, who is rank four. Under his lead the Jia family rose to prosperity, became a large sized clan, and holds the resources of an entire mountain with a large number of clansmen. Gu Yue clan is only middle sized beside it and would be at a disadvantage if the two clans fought. ^{ch. 55}

Only in these last few days has Jia Fu realised why his father paired him with Jia Jin Sheng for the caravan. It was to test whether he could suppress his brother and still remember their kinship. He wonders how his father would view him if Jia Jin Sheng were dead. ^{ch. 55}

The Gu Yue clan elders recall that the Jia family’s clan leader wants to split the assets and hand on the role of clan leader. His children therefore compete intensely, above all Jia Fu and Jia Gui, both rank four with their own supporters. Many of the mountain villages know something of the Jia family situation. The elders reason that he put Jia Jin Sheng on the caravan partly to test whether Jia Fu was a good brother. In that reading, the one who gains if Jia Jin Sheng’s trouble implicates Jia Fu is Jia Fu’s greatest competitor, Jia Gui. ^{ch. 56}