Mountains and rivers pray for peace

Five miles east of the city, in front of a tile-roofed house, stood a young girl wearing a power fence.

This tile-roofed house is a single-family house, about nine feet wide and one foot five long. The black tiles on the roof are faintly gray, and the carved windows and coffins show signs of being eaten by ants. It was a desolate place, with only the locust tree in front of the house adding some greenery and vitality.

It was almost dusk, and the tile-roofed house still hadn't waited for its owner.

Someone passed by and shouted to the young girl: "Girl, you have been here for half an hour, why are you here?"

Huo Qi turned his head when he heard the sound, and saw an aunt in burlap clothes, carrying a tofu basket on her shoulders, looking at her suspiciously.

This place is inaccessible and in a remote location. Since this aunt had seen her half an hour ago, she must have been milling around and must be a nearby resident.

After making up her mind, she walked towards the aunt first, pointed at the tiled house and said with a smile: "Aunt, I'm here to see the owner of this place, Wang Shouli. It's just that I've been waiting here for half an hour and I haven't seen anyone yet. Can you? Do you know when he will come back?"

The aunt looked up and down Huo Qi with her shrewd eyes: "You came to see Wang Juren? Who are you?"

Huo Qi pretended to have something to hide, and was silent for a while, then said sadly: "I am his distant cousin. Something happened at home, so the little girl had to go to Jiangyang Lu County to seek refuge with her aunt's family. Unexpectedly, her aunt's family were no longer alive. Listen. Neighbors nearby said that my cousin passed the high school exam last year and came to the capital to take the exam this year. So my daughter hired an escort to come to the capital to join her cousin."

In the last life, Wang Shouli was an aide to the Zhenyuan Marquis Mansion. Huo Qi knew a little about him, and now he became the basis for her nonsense.

Seeing that Huo Qi had a nose and eyes, and that Wang Shouli had lived there not long ago and her details were unknown, her aunt quickly believed her words and sighed: "Girl, you are late. About twenty days ago, Wang Juren packed up The baggage is gone. He rented this tile-roofed house alone from his employer."

Huo Qi was stunned for a moment and just didn't know: "Cousin... failed to pass the Jinshi examination?"

"I missed." The aunt shook her head and said, "Wang Juren drank all day long after he failed the exam. The soju he drank was on credit from my family."

Speaking of this, my aunt was very angry. It turned out that Wang Shouli was a good candidate, and maybe he would become a successful person in the future, and neighbors and villagers like them could benefit from it. Thinking of this, her family agreed to give him soju on credit. Who would have imagined that the person ran away?

The aunt rolled her eyes and said warmly: "Girl, I think you are well dressed. Since you are related to him, can you settle the remaining money for him? It's not much, just a small amount." "

Huo Qi: "..."

She took out a tael of silver and gave it to the aunt, and said with a smile: "That's natural. I just have to trouble you to tell you where my cousin is. Where have they gone?"

The aunt didn't expect a windfall from heaven, and the flesh on her face turned into a smile: "Young girl is too polite. I really don't know where Wang Juren went, but I thought he probably returned to his hometown. A few days before Wang Juren left He also told my family that he wanted to go back to his hometown to visit his grave. Since you came from Lu County, I’m afraid you just missed him on the official road."

Huo Qi nodded: "That's it, thank you auntie."

The aunt took the money, ignored Huo Qi, picked up the tofu and left happily, even her steps were much lighter.

Huo Qi, however, remained where he was, looking at the locust tree at the door of the house in trance.

The results of the examination will be released in April this year. Wang Shouli comes from a poor family. If he fails the examination, he will definitely return to his hometown as soon as possible. As a result, he will stay in the capital, which has a lot of money, until June. This is one of the doubts. Secondly, Wang Shouli still had ten taels of silver in his hand. Why did he dare to go to Baotai Gambling House to gamble even though he had to borrow all the money from his aunt's family?

It had only been less than a month since she last met Wang Shouli at Baotai Casino. In other words, less than ten days after the counterfeit money came out, Wang Shouli left in a hurry. Is there really such a coincidence in the world?

※※※

There are also people in the Nie Mansion in Liuying Lane looking for Wang Shouli's whereabouts.

In the study room of Nie Mansion, Nie Qin stood up suddenly, kicked Li Si on the ground, and said angrily: "A bunch of trash, where are the people? Where is Mr. Wang Shouli!"

Li Si did not dare to raise his head to look at his face, and said tremblingly: "Master, I have led people to search along the official road from the capital to Jiangyang, but this guy is really cunning... Please give me more Slaves, give me some time." Nie Qin sat down on the chair of the Grand Master and scolded: "Send more people to see the living person and the dead body. If the whereabouts of Wang Shouli are not found within a month, you can come and see him. .Why don’t you get out quickly?”

"Yes, I understand!" Li Si wiped his sweat and retreated as if running for his life.

Ms. Liu stood nearby without interrupting. After Li Si left, she handed Nie Qin a cup of hot tea and said softly: "Master, please calm down. How can we find a living person so quickly?"

The beauty by her side, the warm and fragrant soft jade, was the most useful thing. But after a long time, Nie Qin didn't take her tea, but snorted coldly: "If you hadn't taught a good son like you and made random friends, Why should I get so angry here?"

Nie Ru, his son, had disappointed Nie Qin extremely. The Nie family could eventually cope with the stinking problems of a noble son who spends his days being ignorant and loves to hang out in flower houses. However, he prefers to make friends with gangsters so that he can wear high hats and act in a careless manner.

Huo Chi had been coaxed into a coma before, and he used government soldiers to assassinate Huo Xian without authorization. Later, he got involved with Li Wencai, who came to the capital to take part in the examination this year.

Li Wencai is the son of the Li family, a wealthy silk merchant in Jiangyang. Last year, his father spent 10,000 taels of silver to buy the test papers in advance and successfully passed the provincial examination. In this year's examination, Li's father spent another fifty thousand taels of silver to open up the joints, and Li Wencai successfully became a Jinshi.

Nie Qin was one of the examiners who took bribes.

I don’t know how Li Wencai managed to fawn over Nie Ru. That day at Wanghai Tower, the two of them were hanging out together.

After drinking for three rounds, Li Wencai toasted to Nie Ru: "Without Mr. Nie, I, Li Wencai, would not be where I am today. From now on, Mr. Nie will be my elder brother. As long as you give me a word, I, Li Wencai, will go through fire and water, and my heart will be destroyed." .”

Nie Ru was so flattered that he responded with a smile: "What's wrong? It's you, Brother Li. When the time comes, Brother Li will become famous, so don't forget me."

The two of them were talking randomly when they heard the sound of a wine glass falling to the ground outside. Nie Ru was so frightened by the sound that he woke up from drinking. When he opened the door, he saw only a figure running away in a hurry.

At first, Nie Ru was afraid and did not dare to let Nie Qin know about this. He only found out Wang Shouli's identity, secretly ordered his subordinate Baotai Gambling House to set a trap to lure him to gamble, and finally thought of a way to get rid of Wang Shouli legitimately. As a result, a man and a woman who didn't know where they came from found out what they were doing, and Wang Shouli seemed to feel the danger vaguely, so he packed up his bags and ran away overnight.

Nie Ru saw that he could no longer carry on, so he told Nie Qinhe about the matter.

In fact, according to Nie Qin's cautious temperament, he accepted money from the Li family, but he did not necessarily have to be friends with the Li family.

First of all, Nie Qin was the examiner of the Jiangyang Township Examination last year. His son and Li Wencai were too close and would only cause gossip. Secondly, Li Wencai was a merchant after all. No matter how much money he had, it was not worth taking him seriously. After all, the Nie family had a virtuous concubine and a fourth prince.

But a fire broke out in the backyard, and my son was held back. What's even more difficult is that Wang Shouli actually found out about this.

Wang Shouli was already well-known in Lu County, otherwise he would not have been able to pass the imperial examination despite coming from a poor family. And this kind of people are also very closely connected with the poor scholars in Jiangyang. Li Wencai was not the only one to pass the Jiangyang Township Examination last year through bribery. If this matter was brought out, half of Qi's officialdom would be purged.

Mrs. Liu was still not angry after being scolded like this. Instead, she put down her tea and stepped forward to squeeze Nie Qin's shoulders: "Sir, Wang Shouli is just a nobody, why do you take him so seriously?"

Nie Qin became even more angry. He raised his hand and swept the tea to the ground: "Women's opinion! Wang Shouli is a little person, but what if a little person can take advantage of the situation? He fled back to Jiangyang this time. He must be trying to win over the person who failed the provincial examination last year. Those poor scholars of yours went to the Gongyuan Court to cause trouble together. If this matter gets too big and spreads to His Majesty’s ears, the entire Nie family will have to be buried with your good son! When the fourth prince is blamed, will the Nie family be able to bear the responsibility?"

Mrs. Liu sighed, knelt down, picked up the fragments of celadon into the handkerchief in her hand, and said: "Master, this time Ru'er has lost his sense of importance. But in my opinion, Ru'er's mistake was not in befriending Li. He is a talented person, but he should not have used such brutal methods to deal with Wang Shouli."

Nie Qin's anger subsided slightly: "What do you mean by this, madam?"

In the future, if there is no accident, it will be updated at 22:30.