Neon Clothes and Iron Clothes

The Taoist priest thought for a moment and nodded: "Fan Gong said yes, then I will do as you asked!"

"Well, go ahead!" Fan Changan said with a smile: "After this matter is settled, you can go to Zhongnan Mountain to live in seclusion for a while to avoid the limelight. Once the limelight has passed, return to Chang'an!"

"Hahaha!" The Taoist priest laughed when he heard this: "Don't worry, Mr. Fan, I have killed all the people who took action in the first place. I'm afraid the corpses are all rotten now. How can you find me without clues?"

"It's better to be careful!" Fan Chang'an said: "During this period, the people in the imperial court have been investigating closely, and Wang Wenzuo's men have not stopped in Chang'an. One day you stay in Chang'an will increase your risk."

"I understand!" The Taoist priest nodded: "I will leave Chang'an tomorrow afternoon at the latest!"

"Well, let's go!" Fan Changan stood up, sent the Taoist out of the door, and watched his figure disappear on the courtyard wall. After a while, he returned to the house, sat down by the brazier, picked up the brush again, and started writing. He stood up and said, "The secrets of heaven are elusive and cannot be predicted by human wisdom. You are lying when you say that your life span will not last forever, not this year, but in the next two years. Although your teachings have been rare in my family for more than a hundred years, The talents you see at first sight are all small skills after all, and if you use small skills to despise the world, you are in danger!"

At this point, Fan Changan's writing paused for a moment, and then he continued to write: "In my opinion, although the emperor's star is shaking, there is no sign of falling. Wang Wenzuo is in Hebei, but he knows how to advance and retreat. He only wants to be a vassal of the imperial court. Today Instead, I will become a helping hand to the emperor. We should wait quietly and wait for the right time!" As he wrote this, he carefully dried the ink, then sealed the letter with wax, stamped his own small seal, and called for the outside world. The servant said: "At dawn tomorrow, I will send this letter back to Shuzhong, and the second master will open it personally!"

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Murong Mansion.

Murong Miao sat listlessly behind the desk facing north, with a dull expression and dark circles under his eyes. He had not rested for a whole day and night. According to his order, as long as it is news about the scar-faced Taoist and the people from Hebei, report it at any time without delay. As a result, there was no relevant news so far. Apart from being disappointed, he also felt increasingly tired.

"General!" The guards on the side saw this and said cautiously: "How about you sleep on the small couch behind the screen for a while! As long as there is news, we will wake you up immediately without delay!"

Murong Miao made a slap in the face and did not express any objection. When the guard saw this, he knew there was something going on and hurriedly said: "General, I know you are worried about official matters, but it is not a problem for you to just waste your time like this! What if it really comes? It’s a bad thing that you’re so tired!”

This time Murong Nao was moved and he nodded: "Then you guys will keep an eye here and wake me up if there is any news!"

The guards hurriedly said yes, and Murong Miao went behind the screen. After a while, snoring could be heard from behind the screen! The guard who had previously admonished him breathed a sigh of relief and made a "take turns" gesture to his companions: "I'll come first, and you guys can take a nap too!"

Around noon, someone suddenly came in with a stout man. As soon as he entered the hospital, he shouted: "Found it, found it!"

"What did you find?" the guard asked quickly.

"That's the man with the blue birthmark on his left cheek!" The man said, "Exactly as the hair says, with a goatee and in his thirties, except he's not wearing a robe!"

"Great! Go and wake up the general!" The guard quickly ordered: "Where is that man?"

"Just two-quarters of an hour ago, he rode out of Anhua Gate on a green donkey! Someone has been sent to follow him, and he will put down signs along the way!"

"What's the news?" Murong Nao had already been woken up. He rubbed his eyes and walked out of the screen and asked.

"Reporting back to the general, we found the Taoist priest with a goatee and a blue birthmark on his left cheek through the eyeliner we left at Anhuamen!"

"Okay, okay! Prepare your horses, bring your hunting dogs, and chase immediately!" Murong Nao rubbed his hands and said nervously, "Now that I've discovered you, don't even think about escaping!"

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On the official road, Li Li was sitting on his green blue donkey, his eyes were slightly closed, and he was mumbling something. Taoist priests like this were quite common, if not everywhere, around Chang'an. Passers-by at the tea shops on both sides of the road were talking to each other and talking loudly, but they seemed not to notice Li Li's presence at all.

There is a wine flag fluttering in the wind on the roadside not far ahead, but it is a small tavern in the countryside for summer vacation. The furnishings are very simple, except for a reed mat hanging above the head to protect from the sun and rain, and six or seven simple tables placed under the reed mat. There are two stools surrounding two tables, with tea, rice balls and other simple food on them. Li Li got off his donkey, and while he was buying drinks with the tavern owner, he had already taken a good look at the two stalkers behind him. He remembered that these two guys followed him when he left Anhua Gate, and he didn't know who was the spy.

"Fan Gong is indeed right, those bastards found them so quickly!" Li Li thought to himself. He has rich experience in the martial arts world, so he naturally knows that these two guys must be just stalking, and are the ones really responsible for catching him. At this time, he was chasing after him along the marks left by these two people. His only way to survive was to kill these two people as soon as possible and then escape. Otherwise, if the guys behind him caught him, the consequences would be disastrous.

Thinking of this, he casually tied the donkey to a nearby tree, secretly hid the dagger in his sleeve, turned around and walked towards the two men. The expressions of the two men who were watching changed drastically when they saw Li Li approaching them. One of them even reached for his waist, obviously trying to get a weapon.

"You two have followed me from Anhua Gate to here. You must be very tired, right?" Li Li said with a smile.

"Who followed you here!" The taller and thinner man responded forcefully: "We just happened to be on the same road. Does this official road belong to your family? Only you are allowed to leave, but we are not allowed to leave?"

"Yes, it's from your family!" The shorter and fatter man helped. As he spoke, the two of them had separated to the two sides, forming a tense situation. Obviously, these two guys should have no lack of experience in fighting with weapons. "Of course the official system does not belong to my family! But -" Before Li Li could finish his words, he flicked his right hand and a white light flew out from his sleeve. The tall and thin man grunted and fell to the ground. Almost at the same time, Li Li Then he rushed towards the remaining person. The short, fat man hurriedly pulled out a short knife from his waist and stabbed it with his backhand. Li Li sidestepped to avoid it and kicked him down. Then he stepped forward and stepped on the knife-wielding hand of the man. He twisted his wrist hard and heard a scream. The short and fat man's right wrist had been trampled off.

"Spare my life!" Before the short and fat man could scream, Li Li stepped on his neck. He instinctively used his good left hand to pull. Li Li snorted coldly and exerted force on his foot, but In a moment, the short, fat man turned blue and died.

Li Li killed this man and was about to pull his leg to see if the tall and thin man was dead or alive. He heard a soft sound and a piece of cloth was torn off from his robe, but it was caught by the deceased before he died. . He spat, went to confirm that the tall and thin man had died, quickly found his donkey, and left the official road.

But in the blink of an eye, two lives were lost, and several customers at the wine stall immediately dispersed. Only the owner of the wine stall did not dare to run, but did not dare to stay. In the dilemma, he only heard bursts of sound. With the sound of horse hooves, dozens of horsemen and horses came from a distance, each with a fierce look and wearing various official robes, accompanied by horses and hounds. When the wine stall owner saw this, he knelt down by the roadside and screamed injustice.

"What's going on?" Murong Moule stopped his horse and shouted: "Go and ask clearly!"

"Yes!" His subordinates hurried forward to ask, and came back after a while to report: "General, the owner of the tavern said that two people were killed. After checking, the person who was killed was our informant, and the one who did the killing should be the one. Scarface Taoist’s traces must have been discovered!”

"Damn, this guy is alert!" Murong Miao jumped off the horse and touched the body's body temperature: "Well, the body is not cold yet, so it probably hasn't run too far yet. Hey, there is still a rag on his hand, um, it must be It was torn off that scar-faced Taoist, come on, bring the dog!"

Li Li left the official road and ran for a while, but the road became narrower and narrower. He simply jumped off the donkey and drove it westward, while he fled into the woods to the east, trying to confuse the pursuers. But as he ran away, there were bursts of dog barking behind him, and the barking was getting closer and closer, and he was about to catch up.

"Damn it!" Li Li gasped and cursed: "These dog thieves even brought hunting dogs with them! What to do? There is no escape!" He looked around and found that there were sparse woods, and the nearest mountains were not far away. It took me at least half an hour to walk. By the time I reached the mountainous area, the dog had already caught up with me. He pulled out the dagger, pointed it at his throat, and wanted to kill himself, but he couldn't do it, so he paused and fled eastward.

"General, if you listen to the barking of this dog, it should be right in front!" the accompanying dog slave pointed to the front and shouted.

"Well, let the dog go! Your dog can't bite anyone! I want to live!" Murong Miao asked proudly.

"Don't worry, these dogs have been trained by the villain. Unless the villain orders them, they will never kill them! At most, they just have a few more holes in their legs!" the dog slave said with a smile.

"Okay, release the dog and show this bastard some color!" Murong Parrot said fiercely.

With bursts of barking and the sound of snapping branches of dead grass coming from behind, Li Li realized that the enemy's hounds had caught up. As soon as he turned around, he saw a black shadow rushing out of the grass on the right. He threw himself to the ground. Just as he was about to stab him with a dagger, he was bitten. Almost at the same time, he was bitten in four or five places all over his body. He couldn't help but scream: "Bitch, get out of here!" Get away!"

While he was struggling, six or seven men followed behind him. They all held long lassoes in their hands. They rode Li Li while the dogs were struggling, and skillfully used the lasso to wrap around Li Li's limbs and neck. Pull, he immediately became a big character and couldn't move. Then he heard someone yelling at him to drive away the hunting dogs, and someone turned his face over to expose his left cheek.

"General, yes, it's this guy!"

A pair of deerskin boots stepped on the dead grass and walked up to Li Li. A moment later, he heard someone snort coldly: "So it's such a thing, and it's made me toss for so many days! Tell me! Who are your accomplices?" , where are they, and who are the people behind the scenes!”

"I don't know what you are talking about!" Li Li said as calmly as possible: "I was just passing by, and you grabbed me for no reason. Are you robbers? How much do you want to let me go?"

"Money?" Murong Miao smiled. He was too lazy to talk nonsense and waved his hand: "Hit his mouth and searched him. Then the doctor applied medicine to his wounds and went back to interrogate him carefully. He finally caught it, but Don’t let him die!”

"Here!"

As soon as he finished speaking, Li Li's mouth was strangled with a thick hemp rope, and then his whole body was stripped naked. A doctor first treated his wounds, then wrapped him in a blanket and threw him on the horse. , all the way back to the city.

Returning to Murong's mansion, Li Li immediately tasted what Murong Miao meant by "careful interrogation". The jailers under Murong Mu had received special training from Wang Wenzuo. Although they were not as broad-minded and low-limit as Zhou Xing, the new type of punishment based on modern medicine and psychology focused on treating the victim's body as small as possible. Inflict as much pain as possible without causing harm, so as to ensure that the victim will not die due to torture. In order to ensure this, Murong Mu even hired a doctor to be at the place of execution to monitor the physical condition of the tortured at all times.

As a result, Li Li was basically tortured for only four hours. In fact, Li Li collapsed after more than an hour. The remaining time was just to repeatedly confirm the authenticity of the confession. After reading the confession, Murong Miao let out a sigh of relief and sneered: "My dear fellows, you actually dare to play such tricks under the command of the general. Well, I want to see what happens to you!"

In order to save as much time as possible, Murong Mu even ignored the curfew regulations in Chang'an. He immediately sent troops to arrest Fan Changan and his party, and sent an urgent message to Hebei to report to Wang Wenzuo that some Hebei scholars were involved in the assassination. . After finishing all this, he took a deep breath, fell down on the soft couch, and said loudly: "Before noon tomorrow, even if the sky falls, don't wake me up!"

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Chang'an, Yongpingfang.

Fan Changan suddenly opened his eyes, and a sudden throbbing woke him up from his dream. Although he didn't know what was going on, he sat up and immediately woke up Mrs. Ru who was sleeping beside him.

"Master, what's wrong?" Mrs. Ru asked sleepily, "What time is it now?" (End of Chapter)