Nongmen Shenjue

After collecting information from the servants, Mu Qingyan came to the courtyard where Li Ziying lived.

Now the imperial envoy Pang Zhong lives in this courtyard, and now there are only entourages, even so, Mu Qingyan cannot enter.Fortunately, he didn't need to go in, the distance from the courtyard gate to the house was not too far.He planned to go back to what happened two years ago. What Li Ziying did must be concealed. The more proficient he was, the less likely it was that he would leak his flaws. Then, it was easier to find flaws when he first came.

two years ago -

Honghua Villa was built in the early days, the flowers and trees are still sparse, and the walls of the houses and courtyards are also brand new.The servants walking through the villa also wore brand-new clothes to set off their joy. As the steward of the villa, Lai Xing led a few gorgeously dressed young masters to visit the villa with gracious faces. The leader was pacing boredly, holding a horsewhip in his right hand. , tapping the palm of his left hand repeatedly.

Everyone is headed by him, and this person is Li Ziying!

Concubine Li was able to fight her way out of the harem and was favored by the emperor for many years, not only because of her scheming, but also because of her good looks.As a direct younger brother, Li Ziying's appearance is naturally not bad, and he is ten years younger than Concubine Li, so he is standing at the right time.But this Li Ziying has always been flattered and flattered, extravagant and lustful, with his chin raised slightly, flamboyant and arrogant, he looks at Lai Xing, there seems to be a smile on the corner of his mouth, but out of thin air there is a cruelty.

As for the next three dandies, they are not bad just by looking at their appearance.

This is also the gap between ordinary people and aristocratic families. I have been obsessed with it since I was a child, no matter how incompetent or rich, I am different from ordinary people.

"This is the main courtyard of the villa, which is arranged according to the third young master's preferences." Lai Xing led a group of people in.

The main courtyard is naturally large and spacious, the materials are all selected, and the furnishings in the house are also done with care, including several precious antique appliances.But these young masters were all from rich and powerful backgrounds, so they scanned casually and nodded.

"Okay, you go down." Li Ziying waved her hands, not wanting Lai Xing to be in the way.

Lai Xing also knew this person's temper, so he left obediently.

Immediately afterwards, Li Ziying sent away all the entourage and guards, leaving only four of them in the house.

The four of them looked at each other with eagerness in their eyes.

"Qian Er, talk!" Li Ziying knocked on the table with a horsewhip. The whip was made of fine cowhide, glowing black, with a ruby ​​the size of a longan embedded in the top of the handle.

Although gemstones were not as precious and popular as jade in ancient times, rubies of this color and size are by no means unusual.

The "Qian Er" in Li Ziying's mouth is Qian Hua.

Qian Hua is the second son in the family, second in line, lower in status and age than Li Ziying, Li Ziying is used to bossing around people, even if they have a good relationship, he often calls Qian Hua that.Even so, Qian Hua is the strategist among the four, with a lively mind and the best at following others' preferences. After a long time, he is the "military adviser" among the four.

Generally speaking, their status in the group is inseparable from each other's family background.

It's like in the harem, Qian Hua's elder sister Qian Guiren wants to flatter Concubine Li.In order to survive and benefit, Qian Hua followed Li Ziying under the gesture of her sister.

Hearing Li Ziying's urging, Qian Hua said with a good-natured smile: "What's the hurry, Mr. San? This matter must be kept secret. We must not be in a hurry. We have discussed it before, and according to the plan, we will be able to finish it at the beginning of next month at the latest. start."

Yang Yongyan clapped his hands and smiled, "I can't wait."

Chang Hao was also eager to try, but also a little worried: "Is there really no problem?"

Li Ziying sneered: "What are you afraid of! If you are afraid, don't go!"

Qian Hua also said: "Tianning Mansion is not anywhere else."

They deliberately chose Wanxia County because the local magistrate was promoted by the Li family, and the magistrate was Li He. Even if there was a little accident, the Li family would cover it up.As for outsiders, they can't go beyond the rules to manage Tianning Mansion, and there is Concubine Li supporting them, and it's okay to kill people in Beijing, let alone "the sky is high and the emperor is far away" nowadays.

Time passed, and on the eighth day of October, the four of them gathered in the room again.

Qian Hua looked at the three of them and said with a smile, "It's all ready."

Li Ziying was very satisfied: "Thank you for your hard work. I can't wait any longer. I'm all ready to set off tomorrow night."

On the evening of the ninth day of the ninth day, when it was almost midnight, the villa started to move.The threshold of the back door was removed, and the horses were led out one by one. Li Ziying straddled the horses, and a carriage followed behind the horse team.A fat man got into the carriage with two handymen.

Someone warned by the carriage: "Close your eyes, don't look at what you shouldn't see, don't listen to what you shouldn't hear, don't speak what you shouldn't say!"

"Yes yes yes, I promise to be a deaf and blind man." The three of them looked terrified, and they dared not defy.

Not long after, the team set off.

Not counting the carriage, there were twenty horses in total, and they were quite noisy when they really ran, and in the dead of night, the sound could be heard far away.In reality, however, there was not much movement.Before setting off, the hoofs of those horses were wrapped with cloth, which greatly reduced the sound.Even so, because of Ma Duo, the night was quiet, and muffled noises could still be heard clearly.It may not be heard at a distance, but people in the village can definitely hear it.

The horse team made a detour from the small path to the official road, and the village was next to the path, one or two miles away.

Some people sleep deeply, some people don't want to be meddlesome, but there must be curious and light-hearted ones.Furthermore, Li Ziying and others have to go out every once in a while, even if they don't care once or twice, they always want to know what's going on three or four times.

So, the village knows that Li Ziying travels at night, and if they say they don’t know, it’s probably adhering to the principle of “one thing more is worse than one thing less”.In addition, they also don't like people like Li Ziying, who cares whether they live or die.

It's a pity that Li Ziying and the others didn't know whether they were cautious or big-hearted, and they didn't mention the specific things about going out at night in the villa.As we can see from the backtracking, Qian Hua is doing all the implementation of the plan.

Since the assignment of tasks by the imperial envoy Pang Zhong yesterday, everyone has performed their duties.This is also a disguised form to tell Mu Qingyan, Lin Jia, and Yuan Cheng that they just need to do their own things well and don't care about anything else.Looking at what they did, it was to check and implement the clues obtained earlier to clarify the doubtful places.If it was in the yamen, such things would be dispatched to the head arresters, or even ordinary arresters. Correspondingly, it also showed the position of Mu Qingyan and the others in the imperial envoy team.

Because of this, Mu Qingyan finished his investigation at the villa and took a break.

His supernatural ability can find out the whereabouts of Li Ziying and others, but since the imperial envoy asked him, why should he be troublesome.

In the evening, Lin Jia and Yuan Cheng came back.

The two looked tired, obviously after a day of running around.

"Mr. Mu, did you find anything in the villa?" Lin Jia asked.

"It's just a hidden clue." Mu Qingyan said what the housekeeper Lai Xing had said.

Lin Jia's eyes changed slightly: "There is such a thing, it seems..."

Without saying anything later, Lin Jia covered up her guesses and talked about her harvest: "I went to Xiaolian Village and got clues from a few children. In the village, there are horse teams going out at night every once in a while. , I know about it. The village doesn’t say anything, because they are afraid of causing trouble, and because Mr. Li and others have come, there have been many conflicts with the village.” After a pause, he added: “Mr. Li once took a fancy to Xiaolian Village a woman, but the woman has a husband."

Although he didn't say what happened afterwards, it can be inferred based on Li Ziying's past behavior.

Lin Jia brought up this matter on purpose, and can only say that this matter is the most serious, and there must be other dirty things, otherwise the whole village would not refuse to provide clues.

Lin Jia said again: "I have inquired about the official road with the villagers. In the past two years, the official road from Wanxia County to Wuyi County has not been peaceful. There have been several incidents of looting merchants. There is a bandit den, but the bandit acts fiercely, and every time he robs property, it is not counted, but if there is resistance, no one will be left alive, and even if he is interested, he will take people away. No corpse."

Lin Jia pointed out the time when the incident happened. It is hard not to let people think too much about this sensitive time period.

This was really beyond Mu Qingyan's expectation.

"I have also found similar news here." Yuan Cheng is a man of few words, but when it comes to business, he is not stingy with words: "Wanxia County is rich in safflower, which blooms every year, and business contacts are endless, but the two The bandits on Nianguan Road seriously affected the sales of safflower and caused many merchants to complain. The Yamen organized people to search the mountains twice, but they didn't even find any traces of the bandits, so they said they wandered here. Loot once and leave."

As he spoke, he took out a few pieces of paper: "The records I got from the yamen, there are a total of five cases, and the victims were all merchants."

"The first incident occurred on October [-] the year before last. A businessman surnamed Dong transported two carts of cloth. A group of seven or eight people was robbed. Everyone was killed, and everyone had messy knife wounds. They were killed the next morning. The traveler found out and reported to the official. The two carts of cloth and the money with him were gone.

The second case was in March last year, when a team of several families took a rest on the way, three people went to the woods to relieve themselves, and finally disappeared.The three of them were all young men in their twenties, ordinary guys with no wealth and no enemies.In the beginning, only missing persons were dealt with until the third case occurred.

The third case happened in the early autumn of last year, on the second day of August, when the safflower-trafficking merchant team was robbed, and the people and their goods disappeared. Only horse-drawn carriages and carts were left on the official road without any blood.

Generally speaking, the robbers rob the road for money, at most they rob sex, but they never rob all the living.

The fourth case was in March of this year, when the caravan was robbed, but because several bodyguards were hired to protect the merchants and escaped, the others were all killed.According to those who escaped, the robbers were all riding horses, wearing ordinary clothes, bamboo hats, black scarves, bows and arrows, and big knives. There were about a dozen of them.These robbers didn't speak at all, and rushed out to kill. The leader laughed and shouted to kill, very rampant.

The fifth was in June, when the robbers hid in the woods and did not show up, and the caravan was discovered only after someone was shot with an arrow.Some arrows had gun cotton on them, and everyone was avoiding the bows and arrows at the time, causing the goods to be burned.Fortunately, some escaped under the cover of the fire, and the robbers chased for a while and gave up. "