Chapter 411: Mr. Rhodes, You’re a Goner

Chapter 411: Chapter 411: Mr. Rhodes, You’re a Goner

"What?"

Arabella Donovan was stunned for a moment, the look she gave Caspian Rhodes one of pure, innocent confusion.

"This is the ancestral home. It used to be rather run-down, but my great-grandfather’s generation tore it down and rebuilt it as an ancestral hall. After several generations of upkeep and repairs, it became what you see today."

Caspian Rhodes’s explanation didn’t just startle Arabella Donovan; Zane Lynch and the others were taken aback as well.

When they recalled the wedding in a funeral hall that Arabella had just described and pictured it happening in this very place, everyone shivered in unison.

Arabella Donovan, however, was too busy being shocked that she had already unlocked a key plot location to notice the others’ strange reactions. After a good while, she came back to her senses and stammered, "So, do you know who the seventh-ranked sibling of your generation is?"

"The seventh-ranked..." Caspian Rhodes, who’d had a bad feeling ever since Arabella mentioned keywords like "main branch" and "sole heir," fell into a rare silence.

Seeing his reaction, Arabella looked at him quizzically. "You don’t know?"

"No. It’s me."

"I know it’s not you. I’m asking who the seventh-ranked sibling of your generation is in your family."

"Me."

"Huh?"

"What I mean is, among all the siblings of my generation, the one who is ranked seventh is me."

Arabella Donovan: "..."

Zane Lynch and the others: "..."

A delicate silence spread among them. After what felt like an eternity, they heard Arabella Donovan’s deafening shriek once more.

’It’s over, Mr. Rhodes! You’re done for! AHHHHHHH...’

Caspian Rhodes: "..." ’Well, this is sudden.’

Zane Lynch and the others: PFFT...

Arabella Donovan’s eyes were vacant and her face was blank, but internally, she was screaming for a good two or three minutes.

When she finally calmed down and looked up to see Caspian Rhodes, her feelings grew even more complicated.

’I mean, Mr. Rhodes looks perfectly healthy. He might not be able to kill a bull with one punch, but I’m sure he could take out a chicken without a problem.’

The bull and the chicken: "..." What’s with the personal vendetta?

Caspian Rhodes: ’There’s no need for that!’

’So what kind of illness could be so potent that it would suddenly take away a man as strong, reliable, and thoroughly healthy as Mr. Rhodes? Don’t tell me...’

Arabella Donovan abruptly remembered Mrs. Rhodes mentioning last night that someone had a weak constitution and was chronically ill. She also recalled the child who had blessed Caspian Rhodes with a life of peace and good health. Could it be... the twist in the plot had something to do with that child?

Hearing this speculation, Caspian Rhodes’s eyes flickered. Thinking back, he did recall overhearing his doctors secretly telling his parents when he was young that if his body’s deficiencies couldn’t be corrected, he probably wouldn’t live past thirty.

After a moment of contemplation, Arabella Donovan asked a somewhat presumptuous question. "Mr. Rhodes, how old are you?"

"I turned twenty-six after the New Year."

"Twenty-six?" Arabella Donovan shot bolt upright. "Are you really twenty-six?"

"...Yes, really."

’In the original story, the young master of the Rhodes family died when he was only twenty-five! Mr. Rhodes is twenty-six now! That means his fated tribulation is long past! This is wonderful news!’

Upon hearing this, everyone, including Hector Donovan, let out an imperceptible sigh of relief. They might always be complaining about the man for deliberately getting close to his sister, even saying they wanted to chop him to bits.

But that was all just talk. What normal person could remain indifferent to the sudden death of an acquaintance?

While the younger group was talking amongst themselves, the elders had already prepared the necessary items and were beginning to head toward the ancestral tombs.

Arabella Donovan still had to check the feng shui of the Rhodes family’s ancestral tombs for Caspian Rhodes and the others, so naturally, she had to tag along.

And where she went, Hector Donovan and the others were sure to follow. Luckily, a huge crowd was heading out at the same time, so nobody paid them much attention.

The Rhodes family’s ancestral tombs were all located in one specific area. And because they had undergone major renovations several times when the ancestral hall was being rebuilt, the site looked more like a modern memorial park than a collection of traditional earth-burial mounds, despite its origins.

Of course, with no one specifically assigned to its long-term care, the graves had inevitably become overgrown with weeds and trees.

Many of the family’s elders were present today, and the younger generation was eager to make a good impression. A large crowd swarmed the area, and before long, the weeds were completely cleared.

Arabella Donovan and her friends didn’t have to lift a finger. They simply followed behind a few elders like decorative ornaments, secretly observing the overt and covert struggles among the different family branches.

Once all the ancestral tombs were tidied up and adorned with offerings, incense, and candles, the members of the Rhodes family began to approach one by one to offer incense.

As the sole direct descendant of the main branch of the family, Caspian Rhodes stood slightly ahead of his cousins.

Arabella Donovan gazed at his tranquil profile, her feelings a complex tangle as she thought about his description in the story. She recalled the chaos that engulfed the Rhodes family after his "death" and the shameless greed with which the other family branches plundered his family’s fortune.

’No wonder ancient emperors wanted all those palaces and seventy-two concubines to pop out babies nonstop—they really had a throne at home that needed inheriting. In the original story, Mr. Rhodes was handed the "frail and sickly" script. In the eyes of his rapacious relatives, he was a fat sheep ripe for the slaughter. Even his death wouldn’t stop them from digging up his grave, flaying him, breaking his bones, and squeezing out every last drop of his value.’

Caspian Rhodes: "..." ’What kind of grudge is this? They won’t even let me rest in peace!’

At that moment, Old Master Rhodes, standing at the very front, held several sticks of incense. Just as he had for the past several decades, he began to murmur to the ancestors, recounting the family’s major events of the past year and praying for another year of smooth affairs, peace, and happiness for the family.

Watching this, Arabella Donovan couldn’t help but recall the beginning of the story, when Old Master Rhodes had announced the engagement between his late grandson and another deceased girl in front of all their guests.

Although it was a ghost marriage, the Rhodes elders in the story took it very seriously. They followed all the proper procedures of a real-life engagement, from exchanging the children’s eight-character birth charts to signing their names and drawing up the marriage contract.

Before, she had been too busy rushing through the story to find clues, speed-reading through these descriptive details without a closer look.

Now that she had a grasp of the book’s general framework and was idly watching everyone else work, Arabella Donovan suddenly found herself curious about the birth chart of Caspian Rhodes’s other half in the story.

’Let me just calculate who this poor soul was. The one who couldn’t escape the fate of marriage even in death, who was practically kidnapped by the living to be joined with Mr. Rhodes in a ghost marriage.’

Caspian Rhodes froze mid-bow, incense in hand. Zane Lynch and the others’ ears perked up as well, clearly intrigued by this bit of gossip.

However, what no one could have anticipated was that as Arabella Donovan pinched her fingers together to do the calculation, she suddenly froze.

’Huh???’

’HUH!!!’