Jia Cong and Jia's Ma Xing encountered an assassination attempt by a night traveler. Liu Xiaoqi took the first step and killed the assassin. Jia Cong asked: "Do you know who he is? He killed him so cleanly."
"I don't know." Liu Xiaoqi said, "His kung fu is not inferior to mine. If it weren't for his overt and covert actions, he would have focused on you, and I might not be his opponent." He pointed to the sleeve arrow on the assassin's chest, "Just in case.
What if I use a poisonous arrow that will seal your throat with blood?"
Jia Cong rolled his eyes at him: "You were so arrogant just now, and I thought you could beat him three times! It turns out that you won by catching him off guard, and you had to kill him with one move."
Liu Xiaoqi also glared back: "You can do it! You can't rely on Master Qi to save you."
While talking, the aunt shouted from the kitchen: "Mr. Jia, what happened outside?"
Jia Cong shouted: "It's okay, a colleague is here."
The aunt shouted: "The noodles are ready——"
Jia Cong dropped Liu Xiaoqi and ran in. Liu Xiaoqi followed him: "I'm hungry too."
The aunt looked at the two of them: "I told you that I would cook more if there are two of us! You guys can share the food, and I will cook more."
"Thank you, auntie!"
The two then shared a large bowl of noodles face to face. While eating, Jia Cong asked: "Why did Wu Tianzuo suddenly have a stroke?"
"I did it," Liu Xiaoqi said, "I'll tell you after we finish."
"Then let's wait until we're full."
Seeing how hungry they were, the aunt cooked two more bowls of noodles to feed them, watching happily as they burped after eating. The two thanked the aunt again and left the kitchen. Liu Xiaoqi picked up the body on the ground and arrived.
Went to Jia Cong's residence to talk.
It turned out that the old man Wu Tianzuo sent his son away, ordered the attendants to go out, and sat down to think about things by himself. Liu Xiaoqi was sitting on the beam. He took out a small piece of ambergris from his arms, lit it, and left it.
On the beams, the aroma gradually spread. Wu Tianzuo smelled it, looked around and said, "I don't have any incense in this room." The more the aroma spread, Wu Tianzuo also recognized it as ambergris, which became even more surprising -
—There is no such fragrance in their house.
Just when she was about to call someone, Liu Xiaoqi squeezed her throat and imitated women shouting "Unjust... Unjust..."
Wu Tianzuo was so frightened that he said, "Who?!"
"Unjustly accused...unjustly accused..."
Wu Tianzuo stood up and looked around: "Who is it?"
"Uncle...niece was wronged..."
Wu Tianzuo suddenly felt that the clothes behind him were being pulled. When he looked back, there was no sign of him. However, his pants were pulled down again. The old man was frightened and ran out of the house in a few steps. But he was a man who wanted to save face.
Although I was almost scared to death, I didn't shout loudly. When I got to the courtyard, I looked around and saw the sun shining in the sky. The old servant and the boy who were with me were talking on the porch. I suddenly felt at ease. I thought: Ghosts can't see the sun.
Then he took two deep breaths and stood with his hands behind his hands for a moment. Just as he was about to call someone to check the scent of ambergris in the house, he suddenly felt a sudden pain in his knees and fell down in front of the steps. The old servant and the child rushed forward, but no one noticed.
Two locust stones rolled on the ground.
Jia Cong nodded after hearing this: "It turns out that he suffered a stroke due to being frightened by the ghost of injustice."
Liu Xiaoqi said: "I thought it would work if I played for a few more days, but I didn't expect him to be so careless. In the end, it's not because of a guilty conscience."
Jia Cong sighed: "Who is the assassin?"
"have no idea."
"ah?"
"It came out of nowhere." Liu Xiaoqi pointed out, "I stepped on the roof from the front yard and went straight to the kitchen. I probably heard someone mention you."
Then he looked at the assassin's body. Jia Conglai, who refused to do any work if he was asked, looked at it with white eyebrows and red eyes biting dried dates. Liu Xiaoqi put on her gloves and quickly peeled off her night clothes, revealing the gray cloth underneath, like
It was worn by a servant of a wealthy family. He took out the items from the assassin's arms and placed them on the table, complaining: "I just ate two bowls of noodles, and there are dead people in front of me. You can eat them at a loss! Give me one."
"Pieces." Jia Cong smiled and grabbed three dried dates and stuffed them in his mouth. Liu Xiaoqi was not afraid of choking, chewed a big gulp, turned around and spit out three date cores into the garbage basket, bent down and picked up the tea cup on the table.
He took two sips of tea on his neck and put it back. He said: "This brother is not prepared to fight you head-on. He doesn't even bring a sword. His sleeve arrows, darts, plum blossom needles are all quenched with poison. There is also a poem... To avoid the cold and seek dreams.
Jialan, it’s a ridiculous night.”
Jia Cong said from the side: "Send me the wax plum blossoms, half of the garden is covered with snow and the moon is cold."
"How do you know?"
"I wrote it." Jia Cong said, "I wrote it as a greeting gift to Monk Wen Kong on the Lantern Festival." He leaned over to look at him and said, "The calligraphy in Guange style is very deep. Why do you write it so small?
?Is it for cheating?”
Liu Xiaoqi said contemptuously: "Are you out of your mind? It's obviously going to be put into the mailbox. Brother Assassin has raised carrier pigeons."
Jia Cong rubbed the back of his head: "I'm so used to using telegraphs that I forgot about the carrier pigeons. It seems like he's not from the Wu family. No matter how lacking in talent the Wu family is, they won't let assassins raise carrier pigeons part-time."
"It's hard to say, smart people know everything. They are quite rich." Liu Xiaoqi found a roll of banknotes and clicked them, "They are all in large denominations, so there are 6,000 taels in total." Then he took the banknotes into himself.
In his arms, he turned over the assassin's collar again, "The clothes inside are made of coarse cloth and are old and patched."
Jia Cong grinned and said, "You should also pretend to be serious when pretending to be poor."
Liu Xiaoqi looked at this person's hands: "He is left-handed. The arrow in his sleeve is hidden on his right arm. It seems that both hands are smart."
They checked again from the beginning and found no clues. The two cleaned up for a while, washed up and went to bed.
Early the next morning, the manager of the horse shop came in and said, "There is a Mr. Qiu outside who wants to see Mr. Jia."
Jia Cong held the porridge bowl in his hand and said, "Tell him, I haven't had breakfast yet. If he doesn't mind, just come in and wait. If he does, go outside and wait."
Not long after, Qiu Sheng followed the door and walked in. Jia Cong said embarrassedly: "It's cold and I got up late. I'm rude."
Qiu Sheng said: "The prince is a man of temperament." He sighed softly, "Mr. Wu is still awake. The doctor said, I'm afraid it's going to be difficult. Wan Sheng will go to Beijing to ask my uncle to come and say goodbye."
Jia Cong said: "When an old man gets this kind of disease, even the imperial doctor may not be able to do anything about it. Just try your best." Qiu Sheng nodded and said goodbye. Jia Cong then continued to eat breakfast.
About an hour later, the doorman came again and sent a post. Jia Cong took it and looked at it. There were only two words on it: Wu Rui. But he frowned slightly and turned to ask Liu Xiaoqi: "What is he doing here now?"
?”
Liu Xiaoqi stretched out his head and took a look and said, "What the hell." He turned around and left the room.
After a while, Wu Rui came. He raised his hand to Jia Cong and said, "Your Majesty, he looks very good today."
Jia Cong suddenly felt that this was not quite right: "Mr. Wu, did you come here specifically to see if I was alive?"
"That's right." Wu Ruidao, "I'll ask Mr. Qiu to explore the way first. If the prince is still alive, we can meet him later."
"So you recognize the assassin?"
Wu Rui asked: "Then the assassin Xiangbi is dead?"
"certainly."
Wu Rui smiled and bowed deeply: "Thank you, Your Majesty." Jia Cong raised his eyebrows. Wu Rui said, "This man is my family's gardener. Starting from his grandfather, his family has been a gardener in my family for three generations."
"Is he your slave?"
"No. He was invited from outside. He usually lives in our house, so it's easy to go out and no one cares about him."
"Oh." Jia Cong glanced at him, "You deliberately revealed my identity and whereabouts to him."
Wu Ruidao: "Didn't the prince say that if an assassin encounters you, it will definitely be the assassin who dies?"
"You're so rude." Jia Cong breathed out, "What's his origin?"
Wu Rui shook his head: "I don't know. My father didn't tell me. When I was a child, I accidentally saw his father flying over walls and walls."
"Then do you know where else he lives? How many people are there in his family?"
"I know, there is a small courtyard only two streets away from our house, but he doesn't live there." Wu Rui said, "There is no one else in his house, he is alone."
"Without a family, how will he be replaced when he gets old?" Jia Cong thought for a while, "Does he look like his father?"
"Not at all like that."
Jia Cong pursed his lips: "There's no telling whether he's his biological father or not. Leave his address to me and I'll call the legal person to check it out." Wu Rui smiled slightly and picked up a pen to write down the gardener's address.
Jia Cong asked someone to take him to the next door to see the body. Soon Wu Rui came back and said that it was the gardener.
Liu Xiaoqi had to take a hard trip to the gardener's house to check. When he came back, he carried a pigeon cage with two strong pigeons in it, which looked like homing pigeons. He smiled and said: "I came back with a full load."
He took out a small bundle from his arms, which was full of small pieces of creased paper. "He didn't destroy it! He's not a qualified craftsman at all."
Jia Cong said: "How careful are you doing? It's obvious that you and the old man Wu Tianzuo are in the same group, so you don't need to be careful about anyone." Then he looked through the pieces of paper, and there were only two words on them: Got it. "What kind of return is this?"
!”
Liu Xiaoqi glanced at him: "It means that his boss never gives him other errands."
Jia Cong nodded: "So he is a full-time reporter."
Liu Xiaoqi pointed at the piece of paper and said: "Xue Tao's paper, the handwriting looks like a woman's handwriting." He smelled it again, "It smells like powder."
Jia Cong snapped his fingers and said, "Woman."
Liu Xiaoqi shook his head: "You are a little worse than Master Qi. This kind of rich balsamic powder is not used by serious women. If you are either a powder head, you are a prostitute."
Jia Cong couldn't help but whistle: "Qi Ye six six six!"
Liu Xiaoqi made a cup of tea, held it in her hand, and said proudly: "If you look again, what else can you see?"
"I'm too lazy to look." Jia Cong said, "You've already seen it, why should I repeat the work?" Liu Xiaoqi smiled and picked out one of the pieces of paper and threw it to him. Jia Cong took a look and saw that it was above
There was a light pink circle with the word "中华" written in seal script. Nai laughed, "No! It was produced by our Zhonghua Book Company."
Liu Xiaoqi said: "There are seven or eight kinds of Xue Tao's paper from Zhonghua Book Company. This is the most expensive one and is only sold in the Zhuque Street specialty store."
Jia Cong clicked his tongue and said, "All of Taizu's men are really rich."
Liu Xiaoqi twisted out four more pieces: "These pieces are not very expensive, and the handwriting is new." Jia Cong blinked. Liu Xiaoqi smiled and said, "What did you do in the old year?"
"What?"
"We liberated all the prostitutes in the Yan Kingdom out of thin air." Liu Xiaoqi said, "What a pity for those big group of old brothel madams, who turned from their bosses to their middlemen in the blink of an eye. Originally, the fans were all theirs, and the money they earned from doing business was also theirs.
Theirs; now they can only live on their own."
Jia Cong gave a thumbs up: "Master Qi has good eyesight and good reasoning! Keep going."
"No more." Liu Xiaoqi took a sip of tea, "The rest must be sent back to Beijing to be investigated by Luo Tainiang."
"……All right."
Without any further hesitation, Liu Xiaoqi took a few pieces of Xue Tao's paper and left. How could Jia Cong go out without bringing his own soldiers? He was just pretending to be a merchant and hiding in an inn. The inn was on the same street as the horse shop. Not long after,
A young boy left Cangzhou quickly and headed for the capital.
Jia Cong remembered that the eighteen major benefactors of Wanshou Temple did not come from the capital, so he speculated that this fan or madam in Beijing must be the nineteenth family besides these eighteen families. He did not give money to Wanshou Temple.
He sent money, but he had a group of experts in his hands to monitor whether these people were disloyal. He sighed: "The emperor is always suspicious no matter what."
Liu Xiaoqi suddenly remembered something: "That Imperial Physician Han, I heard he has good medical skills. Do you want..."
"Nonsense, of course." Jia Cong held his cheek and said, "Now that we have Wu Rui, what else do we need Wu Tianzuo for?" Liu Xiaoqi smiled slightly and walked away.
Jia Cong was hanging out in Cangzhou, wandering on the streets to eat snacks. Eight days later, Qiu Sheng led Dr. Han back. Dr. Han looked at him for a long time, shook his head and sighed: "It's too late. In these three to five days, we will prepare
Let’s take care of the funeral.” Wu Rui cried loudly.
The next day, the soldier who went to the capital came back. Luo Tainiang smelled the smell on Xue Tao's paper and knew which store she bought it from. She also ordered someone to check the store's account in the name of the government and found six
An old bustard came and checked the handwriting again - the brothels of Yan State had been re-registered with the government last year, and there was the signature and fingerprint of the old bustard. So that day they found out that the calligraphy was the handwriting of Wang Haitang, the old bustard of Jinxiangyuan, and there was no trace of it.
Alarming her, the Wucheng Military and Horse Department sent two yamen officers to take the girl away from Jinxiangyuan on an unfounded crime, and locked her in a small cell under their yamen, and then ignored her. That night, some night walkers went to visit her.
However, she was not rescued from prison. Luo Tainiang asked the soldier to return to Cangzhou to report the news.
After hearing this, Jia Cong said with emotion: "It's really convenient to be in power. If we had come to investigate this matter earlier, it would have been a lot of trouble. If we were not careful, we would have alerted the enemy."
Three days later, Wu Tianzuo, the president of Donghai Academy, passed away, and all the scholars in Cangzhou burst into tears.
The next night after the old man left, Jia Cong received a call from the capital: Two men in black entered the prison at night and tried to kidnap a female prisoner. They fought hard with the guards. Although they did not kidnap the female prisoner, one of them escaped.
Another was shot dead by guards.
At five o'clock in the morning, another call came from the capital: Jarvis, the governor of the Jingying camp, personally led the troops and sent the dogs to chase the fleeing man in black. He chased him to a small house and now surrounded the house.
Half an hour later, three calls came from the capital: break into the house, kill sixteen men in black, and capture one alive.
Early the next morning, as the sun was about to rise, another call came from the capital: "Go and get some sleep. We have to sort out the next few days."
Jia Cong yawned and said to Liu Xiaoqi: "Go to sleep. It's upside down again."
"Get some sleep." Liu Xiaoqi said, "You promised Wu Rui to go to express condolences early this morning."
Jia Cong scratched his head: "Go back tomorrow. Send someone to tell him that I'm busy. When I'm done, he'll be free - the gardener's lair that monitors their home has been taken over by us." Liu Xiaoqi was still waiting.
To persuade him, Jia Cong went to the Kang, closed his eyes and said, "I have to sleep. It's easy to calm down my heart. I'll go play with Duke Zhou."