Chapter 294 Which mountain to look for?
In the "A" room of the inn, the candlesticks on the table spread out the light.
Zhao Duan was wearing an inner robe, hanging loosely on his body. He stood at the table and put down his pen, as if he had just been writing something.
Hearing the princess's voice at this moment, he raised his head, his handsome face looking particularly three-dimensional in the candlelight.
"Write poetry." Zhao Duan said casually with a slight curl in his mouth.
poetry?
Xu Junling's eyes suddenly lit up, she took a lot of steps and approached the table.
After being obsessed with it all the way, I finally saw this guy writing poetry again. How could the princess, who is a talented girl from Jiangnan, miss it?
As he came closer in a few steps, he was surprised to see that the ink stains Fang Fu wrote on the brown letter paper spread out on the table quickly dried up.
It seemed as if it had been sucked away by the paper, leaving no trace at all.
"What kind of poem is this?" Xu Junling frowned.
Zhao Duan smiled and recited to himself: "The body of the twenty-eight beauties is as soft as a crisp, and the waist and limbs are like swords to kill ordinary people. Although no heads are lost, secretly I teach you that your soul is withered."
Xu Junling's sweet and lovely cheeks turned blue and white, and said expressionlessly:
"Master Zhao, why do you keep using this method to embarrass me? Why do you still write such crooked poems? Even if you are not afraid that I will report to the emperor's sister, you are not worried that the walls have ears?"
Tsk, I can’t help but tease...
Zhao Duan smiled and said nothing.
After all, Xu Junling couldn't hold back his curiosity. After holding it in for a while, he still asked:
"What's going on with this paper?"
"A town item."
Zhao Duan dropped the writing brush, folded up the palm-sized piece of letter paper, and stuffed it into his arms: "Before leaving the capital, I borrowed it from the imperial office's warehouse. It can be used to send letters within a certain distance. "
Xu Junling was ice-snowy and clever:
"Are you communicating with the 'fake imperial envoy' at the inn? Do you know the situation?"
"That's right," Zhao Duan pointed to the chair and asked the princess to sit down.
He also sat down and tapped his forehead with his fingers in distress:
"It's not optimistic. Hehe, according to the local officials in Fucheng, Wang Chusheng, the suspected corrupt magistrate of Taicang County, disappeared a few days ago before the order from the capital came."
"Missing? Could it be that he absconded out of fear of crime?" Xu Junling was surprised.
"It's not just that simple. Before and after his disappearance, he submitted a letter of prosecution to the Metropolitan Procuratorate to expose the accusations against him from the mining class, and he also disappeared." Zhao Duan's eyes were deep.
Taicang Silver Mine is not only a mine, but also has a supporting smelting furnace.
The folk name is "Gold and Silver Factory".
The yamen in charge of this area is the "Mining Class Promotion Department".
The person who submitted the "reporting materials" to Beijing was the eighth grade Tiju of the Tiju Division, surnamed Song, and was also an important witness in the case.
After the empress read the report letter, she immediately gave the order to the Taoist officials.
Demanding the arrest of the Taicang County Magistrate and the protection of Song Tiju.
It turned out to be a step too late.
"Both two of them disappeared?"
Xu Junling became more and more surprised: "Could it be said that after Song Tiju sent the letter, his report was accidentally leaked, and Taicang County Magistrate Wang Chusheng found out about it and silenced him? Then he fled out of fear of crime? Or did he commit the crime? Kidnapped?"
This is the most reasonable guess.
"It's a possibility,"
Zhao Duan crossed his legs, half lying and half leaning on the chair.
Due to the habit left over from my previous life when I was studying, when I was thinking, I gently fiddled with the penholder in my hand:
"The answers given by these local officials are exactly what you guessed."
In the dim and quiet inn room, Xu Junling's eyes were bright and dark, and he felt excited about participating in solving the case and acting as a detective.
He crossed his arms across his chest, gently held his chin with his small hands, and advised him: "So, isn't the clue broken? The suspect is gone, and the informant is gone, so next, should we think about it? How to find traces of the prisoner's escape and try to arrest him? "
She was a little excited.
As the daughter of a prince, she is pampered and lacks experience in investigating crimes.
At this moment, it feels like I am playing a puzzle-solving and crime-solving script...
She rolled her eyes and said suddenly: "The cavalry you mobilized will be useless now. How about you beg me? My Huai'an Prefecture has merchant teams all over the place. If Wang Chusheng fled in fear of crime, he would probably take the waterway." , this princess still has some..."
Zhao Duan smiled half-heartedly, glanced at the girl, and said:
"Why rush to arrest people?
Who said that if the person is gone, there will be no way to investigate?
Have you forgotten, as I told you before, what Your Majesty cares about is never a mere seventh-grade county magistrate, but whether there is a bigger backer behind him. "
...Xu Junling scratched his head and said harshly: "Isn't it more important to arrest someone? If you don't arrest someone, how will you know who it is..."
Zhao Duan slowly stroked the stray hairs on the tip of the brush with his fingers and said:
"In the letter of accusation sent to the capital, Song Tiju once mentioned that in order to prevent anything from happening to him, he made a backup copy of the evidence in his hand and entrusted it to be placed at the home of a relative or friend.
In other words, as long as I get the evidence, I don't necessarily need to arrest anyone. "
Ga——
The princess's words were stuck in her throat, and her eyes widened slightly.
Is this still possible?
She suddenly became excited:
“Then let’s go get it quickly. What are we waiting for?”
"Yawn~"
Zhao Duan suddenly covered his mouth with his hands, waved his hands and cursed with a smile: "It's so late. After a long day of traveling and traveling, it's time to go to bed. We have to get up early tomorrow."
…
…
A night of silence.
Early the next morning, while the "fake imperial envoy" was still at the inn, following Zhao Duan's order, he was arguing with local officials to delay time.
Zhao Duan, the princess and his entourage took a carriage out of the city and rushed towards the "Taicang Silver Mine" on the outskirts of the city.
Today is a cloudy day, the sky is covered with clouds.
The carriage and horses walked for more than an hour, and they could see the mine ahead in the distance.
"Princess, is that the mine? Hiss, it's so big..."
In the carriage, the maid Lv Shui stretched her neck and pointed into the distance.
Zhao Duan opened his eyelids and ordered:
"Get out of the car and take a look."
Two carriages stopped on the side of the road, and everyone got out of the car.
Looking into the distance from this place, we can see a series of mountains.
The top of the mountain is red, mixed with yellow-green.
They are maple trees all over the mountain, and there are many maple trees on Linfeng Road.
Every autumn, when the wind blows, the mountains turn red.
In the mountains, a huge open-pit mine suddenly sunk down, as if a fist from the gods hammered the earth into a deep pit.
Anyone standing by the pit looks insignificant.
"There must be miners over there, tsk, they are as small as ants."
Among the princess's escorts, the ordinary-looking female knight holding a sword was amazed.
Next to her was the burly man who threatened to challenge Zhao Duan that day.
Hanging a straight knife at an angle on his waist, he would laugh and say:
"It's so far away, so naturally it's small. Hey, Master Lu, I remember you are the one who was granted the title of Taoist priest, right? Have you been here before?"
Next to the man was the old man in plain robes.
After being wounded by Eunuch Hai with just one bullet that day, he has now recovered as before.
At this moment, the mountain wind blew, and the gray robe inflated like air. He smiled and sighed:
"I have indeed been here, but that was more than ten years ago. At that time, the pit was not so big. When it rained, a river would form underneath, and the government would summon nearby townspeople to clear it.
I remember that there was a small, run-down family named Song nearby, who also came from a scholarly family.
I passed by and stayed in the Song family's village for a few days. The family wanted to keep me as a gun and stick instructor for their family, but I declined. "
Xu Junling was in a very good mood when he saw that the mountains were red and the mines were magnificent. He smiled sweetly and said: "It is very courageous for a country gentleman to want to keep Master Lu. He must not know Master Lu's status in the world. Name."
Lu Qingfeng habitually wanted to praise himself a few words, but suddenly he caught a glimpse of Zhao Duan beside him who was silent and just looking into the distance with his hands behind his hands.
He coughed and said humbly:
"A little charlatan is not worthy of the Tao."
Although they had become familiar with Zhao Duan along the way, they were still in awe of this vengeful "King of Hell Zhao" because of the challenge in the ring.
At this moment, the old man in plain robes who was sitting in the palace of the Prince of Huai'an and considered a master in the world smiled and said: "Mr. Zhao, I wonder which mountain here the person you are looking for is located on?"
When walking outside, in order to avoid trouble, everyone called him and the princess Young Master and Young Lady.
Zhao Duan squinted his eyes, looked away from the distance, and glanced at the royal master with a smile: "Since you know the Song Family Village, how about leading the way? This is the one I'm looking for."
(End of chapter)