sunset twilight,

Pedestrians on the street went home one after another.

In the hotel box, the two people sitting opposite each other were silent.

It wasn't until his subordinates appeared that this embarrassment was broken.

"Sir, we are out of the city."

Shi Yuanjing waved off his men and wiped his sweat with his sleeves, "Fortunately, Mr. Tang discovered that the backyard mechanism had been tampered with, but he investigated it, otherwise our plan would have been exposed."

"This matter can't wait any longer. Even if the prince is concealed by me this time, he will definitely react next time. I will go and ask the nobles to see if the plan can be brought forward." Master Tang said with a low expression.

"Then I'll be waiting for news from Master Tang."

——

Seeing the man entering a brothel with money, Qiao Xi was dumbfounded and looked at Qi Anze secretly.

"I'll go in and determine which room he is in. You wait for me outside."

Qiao Xi quickly stopped him, "Host, it's better for me to do such a dangerous thing."

If you are attracted by the madam here, I don't even know who to write to. The general went to the border a while ago and is beyond his reach.

Just when the two were arguing, the man was beaten out.

The turtle man in the brothel had his hands on his hips and humiliated him arrogantly.

"You only have so little money, but you still want to redeem Miss Yinrong's life? Where are you sending the beggars? Miss Yinrong will suffer if she follows you."

The man knelt down on the ground and begged for mercy, "Master Xi, I and Yinrong truly love each other. Please help us."

The turtle man known as Mr. Xi kicked the person down the steps, dusted off the non-existent dust on his clothes with his hands, and said disgustedly,

"Gungungun, don't block our business at Xilin Pavilion."

Josie “…I have a bold idea.”

Qi Anze: "I agree."

…

…

"That Yinrong girl and this man named Mu San were childhood sweethearts, but this Yinrong girl had a gambling father who sold her to Xi Linge ten years ago.

She’s not of the oiran level, but she’s also Xiaojiabiyu. In addition, Mu San comes to cause trouble two or three times a year, so they specially trained this girl.”

Qiao Xi told Qi Anze every detail of what he had learned.

"What's the asking price?"

"Three hundred taels. But this time Mu San only has two hundred taels."

"Let's go."

Looking at the man who was about to go in directly, Qiao Xi grabbed him and said, "Don't we need to cover our faces or something?"

"He has received the reward, but he still doesn't know who we are? Even if he doesn't know, it doesn't affect us from asking him."

"What if, I mean what if he tells Shi that we are still in the city?"

"Just tell him, and he will never be able to redeem his childhood sweetheart." Qi Anze shrugged innocently.

Josie; “…”

‘Dong dong dong’

"It's so late, who is it?"

Looking at the uninvited guest who broke in, the man was so frightened that he knelt down and said, "Boss, I didn't mean to lie to you. I didn't mean to lie to you."

Qiao Xi was just about to help the person up, preparing to use her emotions to persuade him to tell the truth, but she didn't know that she hadn't sold the goods yet. Qi Anze threw a one hundred tael silver note on the table.

.

"Tell me the whole story of this matter, don't miss a single detail, and these one hundred taels will be yours."

Just when Qiao Xi wanted to praise him for being so domineering, the man paused and continued, "If you tell lies or miss something...your silver-faced girl will be someone else's."

Josie: “…”

"The younger one was originally a farmer in Lingnan, and he usually did some small business. Yesterday, a man in blue clothes came to me. He was about this tall."

After gesticulating, the man continued, "You're not old, he should be younger than me... He asked me to go to the market the next day to find the people in the portrait... the two of you... and then convince you to buy rice."

"Then what?" Josie couldn't help but ask.

"Then they asked me to wait until you leave before sending the rice back... to the place where we bought the rice."

"How much did they pay you?"

"Twelve."

Qiao Xi: "..." No wonder you said that, Mr. Shi is too stingy, asking people to do things, and giving him too little.

Qi Anze sat on the bench, straightened his clothes elegantly, and said casually,

"Are you a farmer here?"

"yes."

"How's the harvest this year?"

"It's very bad, otherwise I wouldn't do this kind of business." Mu San slapped himself in frustration.

Qiao Xi glanced at Qi Anze and asked, "What's wrong?"

"Except for a few companies related to Master Shi, almost all others suffered from the locust plague."

"Do they have any way to control the locust plague?"

"We also find this very strange. Logically speaking, this kind of thing is a natural disaster, but those bugs seem to recognize people, and those families won't eat them."

After leaving the man's house, Josie guessed,

"Either these families have been wiped clean, or these are the only ones who have not been wiped clean."

Qi Anze nodded, agreeing with her idea.

The two men stole some ears of wheat from the field and returned to the Chenghuang Temple to study them.

"These belong to Mu San's family and his neighbors. The ones over there are the ones he said were not affected by the disaster."

Qiao Xi picked up the things and looked at them carefully. After looking at the fire for a long time, he didn't notice anything. Except that one had more bug holes and the other didn't, there were no other changes.

"Why."

The homeless man next to him snatched the bad piece from Josie's hand and threw it into the fire.

Josie quickly picked it up to save the evidence in his hand from being burned.

"Hey, why are you like this? We gave you food and clothing, how can you repay kindness with enmity? This thing is very important."

But the tramp kicked their fire over and jumped back and forth in a pile of wood ashes.

Qiao Xi felt that the other party was provoking him, so he rolled up his sleeves and was about to beat him, but was stopped by Qi Anze.

"He's telling us the truth."

Looking at the crazy homeless man, Josie looked puzzled.

"Did he just throw in the good pile or the bad pile?"

"Not good."

"It seems that the man surnamed Shi had long ago judged that there was going to be a locust plague here based on the drought in surrounding villages, and not only did he have the means to prevent it, but he also prevented it as planned."

"Tell me that Mu San is lying. Is their output here normal?"

"The supply to the royal family is normal. Some of the good rice and some of the poorer rice are mixed with and sold by the common people."

"He already has ways to prevent it, so why not prevent it all? Are there not enough manpower?"

"If there is not enough manpower, he can report it to the court and ask for troops to be sent for support. He has a recipe in his hand. Not only will my father not blame him, he will also praise him, but he does not."

"Could it be that he originally thought he had enough manpower and wanted to show off his merits, but he failed and was afraid that His Majesty would blame him, so he hid it and dared not say anything."

"It's possible." Qi Anze pondered for a moment and nodded.

Unexpectedly, the homeless man who had been listening to them quietly just now suddenly burst into loud laughter and banged his head against the wall. Joey was so frightened that he quickly stepped forward to pull him up.

Looking at the homeless man whose head was bleeding but still acting strangely, Qiao Xi said helplessly,

"Yu...Old man, why are you so crazy? Just say what you want to say. You keep banging your head against the wall like this. You need to practice iron head skills."

"Shi Yuanjing didn't do things poorly...it was intentional, right?"
Chapter completed!