The most honest and useless illegitimate son... James Bolton's heart trembled violently for a moment, and suddenly he understood why his father Henry Bolton would help this particular family. He silently watched Edward Green clumsily gathering up ink, brushes, paper, and other miscellaneous items, and then recalled the words that had just come from the corner.

At this moment, Thomas Green leaned in close to James Bolton's ear and said with a grin, "Young master, the clan school’s monthly exam is on the thirtieth at the end of the month. Almost everyone relies on copying Benjamin Sullivan's test paper to pass. His grades are among the best in the clan school, and the price is fair for all... Ahem, those young masters are afraid their families will find out they’re misbehaving at school and get punished at home, while those poor relatives attending as dependents are after the school’s subsidies, so they’d rather split half with him. If you’re worried about the monthly exam, you might as well go to him."

"Who was the one who mocked me this morning?"

Thomas Green was still grinning, but as soon as he heard this, he immediately looked around to make sure no one was paying attention, then lowered his voice to a mosquito’s whisper: "Young master, people say our The Bolton Family is the number one noble family in Xiangfu, but that’s not entirely true. Henan’s Kaifeng Prefecture is the fief of Prince Zhou, and the other counties and prefectures are all granted to Prince Zhou’s various sons. That Qian Jia is a relative of the Prince of Xin’an’s family, and he came here to study because he admired our The Bolton Family clan school’s reputation, so..."

Even without the rest, James Bolton could understand what he meant. He had thought he already came from a flourishing, prominent family, but now it turned out there were even more powerful backgrounds here. He pretended to ask casually, but almost choked on his own saliva at the answer.

Just in this Henan area alone, besides Prince Zhou, there were his nine sons—altogether one prince and nine dukes. How many relatives did that make? In other words, if you weren’t careful when you went out, you might bump into a member of the royal family!

Seeing that the young man in white had already packed up and left the classroom, James Bolton looked around and found that all the students had already gone. He quickly called Edward Green and Thomas Green to hurry after him. Once outside, squinting at that somewhat aloof figure, he couldn’t help but smile, thinking that the "him" from before seemed to have had a similarly awkward temperament.

"Cousin!"

Benjamin Sullivan heard the call but didn’t associate it with himself, so he just kept walking forward. It wasn’t until he felt a tap on his shoulder that he turned around in surprise. Seeing it was James Bolton, he frowned, then quickly returned to his earlier cold expression.

"Is it about the monthly exam? Don’t worry, I’ll naturally give you the answers when the time comes."

Seeing him throw out such a blunt remark and turn to leave, James Bolton couldn’t help but feel stifled. He opened his mouth to say something, but suddenly saw Benjamin Sullivan stop after a couple of steps and, without looking back, say:

"Your father has helped my family a lot. I won’t take your money."

This guy really can’t say anything nice! Faced with such an extremely awkward person, James Bolton was left speechless. He simply slowed his pace, gradually widening the distance between them, and started thinking about other matters.

The road from the school to the The Bolton Family residence was straight, and it seemed deserted. Benjamin Sullivan was in front, with James Bolton and his two little pages following behind. To James Bolton's surprise, the whole way was peaceful—he didn’t even see a shadow of anyone. The troublemaking boys who had threatened to give him a hard time seemed to have all vanished. When he reached his own back gate, he saw Benjamin Sullivan walk straight ahead and quickly turn into an alley on the left, so he withdrew his gaze.

However, just as he was about to enter through the back gate, he suddenly realized that the brothers Charlie Bolton and Jack Bolton had been missing all day. For no reason, the three brothers had gone to school together, but only he had come back—how was he supposed to explain the whereabouts of the other two?

Standing at the back gate, looking around for a long time but still not seeing a soul, he had no choice but to turn to Edward Green and Thomas Green: "Big brother and second brother aren’t back yet. What do you think we should do?"

Seeing Edward Green and Thomas Green exchange glances with an obvious "we don’t know either" expression, James Bolton immediately lost his last bit of hope in these two seemingly clever but actually useless pages. They were no good at fighting, no good at coming up with ideas—apparently, these two little guys were only good for running errands and gossiping!

Glancing at the sky, which was already growing dark, and then at the household servants peeking at him from the door, he gave up on the idea of meeting up with the Charlie Bolton and Jack Bolton brothers here. He decided that if anyone asked, he’d just make up an excuse to muddle through. However, after entering the back gate and walking a short way down the passage, he saw a housemaid rushing toward him.

"Third young master, you’re back! The old madam and the second and third madams are sending people everywhere to look for you!"

Why are they looking for me? James Bolton was rather baffled, but as he followed the maid toward Madam Gu’s main quarters, a very bad thought suddenly popped into his mind—could it be that something happened to the brothers Charlie Bolton and Jack Bolton? No way, those two were accompanied by six burly bodyguards, and the The Bolton Family was the number one noble family in Xiangfu—how could anything have happened?