Heirs of the Seven Swords of the Qin Dynasty

Chapter 1958: The Seven Stars of Azure Dragon (V)

"Hey, I'm a little late. I made Xia Kui wait for a long time."

Zhu Jia stepped forward, smiling with a happy face, and clasped his fists to apologize.

"You're welcome. Master Zhu, you're here on time." Ah Yan nodded slightly in response and exchanged a few simple greetings.

"Hey, nice to meet you, Xia Kui."

After the two bosses greeted each other, Liu Ji smiled and saluted towards A Yan, and then received the same nod in response.

"The hero summoned me here urgently. Is there something urgent?" After saying all this nonsense, Zhu Jia didn't beat around the bush and went straight to the point.

Upon hearing this, Ah Yan did not hesitate to ask, "Hasn't Hall Master Zhu always wanted to know the whereabouts of Hall Master Chen Sheng and General Manager Wu Kuang of Kuiwei Hall?"

Zhu's eyes froze under the mask, and then he replied with a smile, "Xia Kui is willing to tell me about Old Zhu?"

"I have been hiding this from Hall Master Zhu for the safety of Hall Master Chen Sheng and Manager Wu Kuang. I hope you can forgive me." Ah Yan first explained why he concealed the truth.

Zhu Jia immediately responded cheerfully, "Okay, okay, I understand."

Whether he really understands it or not, he can only say that he understands it.

A Yan didn't care and simply recounted how she sold Chen Sheng and Wu Kuang to Luo Wang, and how Zhao Gao sold them to Mount Li to build the imperial mausoleum.

The Zhu family remained calm throughout the entire process, as if they didn't care at all about their ally being betrayed.

Liu Ji was quite indignant, his eyes widened and he wanted to say something several times.

However, at the suggestion of the Zhu family, he finally restrained himself.

After Ah Yan finished speaking, Zhu Jia asked calmly, "I wonder what the purpose of the hero selling out Brother Chen Sheng and his men is?"

Ah Yan replied calmly, "Before I took over as the Knight-Emperor, Hall Master Chen Sheng once asked me to find the missing former Knight-Emperor Tian Guang. What I did was to fulfill this request."

"Tian Guang Xia Kui..." Zhu's mask changed and cut into yellow music noodles. "So, Tian Guang Xia Kui is in Luo Wang's hands?"

"Um!?"

Liu Ji, who was confused by A Yan's answer, became even more dizzy when he heard his boss's guess and couldn't help but let out a surprised cry.

Ah Yan was very calm, "The head of the Zhu family is indeed a wise man in our farming family. He has a quick mind and guessed it right away."

"As far as I know, the person most likely to know the whereabouts of Tian Guang Xia Kui is Luo Wang, and he is very likely near Mount Li."

“So, you sell Brother Chen Sheng and the others to Luowang, and then Zhao Gao sends them to Mount Li, in order to track down the whereabouts of the hero Tian Guang…” Zhu Jia twisted the beard on his mask and summarized the whole plan, but doubts also followed.

Even Liu Ji, whose CPU was spinning so fast that it was smoking, thought of this question instantly.

"No, how can you guarantee that Zhao Gao will send Chen Sheng and his men to Mount Li instead of killing them on the spot or imprisoning them somewhere else?"

Ah Yan replied very bluntly, "I can't guarantee that."

"Ah!?" Liu Ji's face twitched. "Then... then isn't this gambling with the lives of Chen Sheng and the others? It's a gambling method with a low chance of winning..."

"I won't mess around with the lives of the farm brothers, especially a hall master and a steward, but this matter does involve risks." Ah Yan explained for himself, "Hall Master Chen Sheng and the others want an answer, and they must bear this risk - if possible, of course I am willing to take it on their behalf, after all, this is my promise."

"But unfortunately, I can't do anything about it, so the risk can only be borne by Master Chen Sheng and his men."

Zhu Jia raised his hand to appease Liu Ji who was still about to speak, and asked in person, "I can understand that Xia Kui took the risk for this trip, but I really can't think of any reason why Zhao Gao would deliberately lock up Brother Chen Sheng and his men in the Lishan Imperial Mausoleum where they might come into contact with Xia Kui Tian Guang without external interference?"

When Chen Sheng and Wu Kuang fell into Luo Wang's hands, Zhao Gao might kill them outright or temporarily detain them for future action.

As the head and general manager of Kuiwei Hall, they are both very valuable and it is highly likely that they will not be killed directly.

Therefore, if you take a gamble between killing and not killing, the probability of survival is still very high. The Zhu family thinks it is reasonable that Tian Yan is willing to take the gamble.

But where people are imprisoned is completely out of control.

A Yan also knew this, so she had already made a series of plans to guide Zhao Gao to finally do this.

First of all, Tian Guang is no longer in Luowang's hands, but under the control of Liusha.

At that time, Gu Xun considered that he might be very valuable, so he had him captured, and in a sufficiently covert manner.

But Tian Guang, who was considered useful by Gu Xun at the beginning, was locked up... and then forgotten by Gu Xun.

It’s not that he completely forgot about this person, but Gu Xun found that he couldn’t use Tian Guang for quite a long time, so he put him aside.

At this point, the farmer's hero Tian Guang mysteriously disappeared and has been out of sight for more than ten years.

Zhao Gao had always been curious about Tian Guang's whereabouts, and had long suspected Liusha - Zhao Gao had no evidence, but apart from Liusha, it seemed that no other force could have done this and kept it secret from Luowang.

Some time before the Battle of Daze Mountain, Gu Xun felt that the time was right and it was time to play Tian Guang, the card he had hidden for many years.

Then his good daughter gave him a job.

Gu Xun simply gave up his original plan and only made extremely conservative arrangements for the farmers' affairs, leaving the rest to A Yan and the others to handle.

A Yan's first step was to transfer Tian Guang to Mount Li to hide, and deliberately left some clues for Luo Wang.

At that time, the Nong family had been in a state of turmoil. It was normal for Liusha to try to use the chivalrous leader Tian Guang as an opportunity to intrude into the Nong family, and Zhao Gao had no reason to doubt it.

In addition, with the help of Ah Yan, a traitor, who personally set up the scheme, the clues were hidden very secretly, and normally the whole process was flawless.

Zhao Gao would not be able to find out that something was wrong unless he knew that Quexie was a spy... or he could rely on his sixth sense to guess?

In short, there is no reliable possibility.

Just as A Yan judged, Zhao Gao took the bait and began to pay attention to the situation in Mount Li.

But he also maintained the utmost restraint.

As the power of Liusha continued to shrink, Zhao Gao acted more and more radically and boldly, but he still did not dare to touch Gu Xun's tiger whiskers openly, especially on the border of Xianyang.

Although he was deeply favored by Ying Zheng, the more so, the more he knew that he could not cause trouble for Gu Xun under Ying Zheng's nose - he knew very well that what he did was not something that could be made public, and once it was really exposed, Ying Zheng would be the first one to not forgive him.

Ying Zheng just favored Zhao Gao, he didn't fall in love with him, and he didn't have much tolerance for him.

So he was very cautious and restrained in his actions in Mount Li.

Therefore, there has been no gain - A Yan has also made some preparations to hinder him, and it is impossible for Zhao Gao to find Tian Guang in a short period of time.

Then the Nongjia chaos broke out, the Battle of Daze Mountain broke out, and the Nongjia situation settled. The final result was not the most favorable for Zhao Gao, but it was not bad either, at least the new Nongjia leader was Luowang's "own man".

However, this gave rise to a new problem - the former knight-errant Tian Guang became a hidden danger.

Although it is hard to say who is more popular among the disciples of the Nong family, the former leader of the chivalrous clan who has been missing for more than ten years - even if he had a high prestige before his disappearance - and the current leader of the chivalrous clan who led the Nong family to defeat the powerful enemy, the empire, and holds all the power - it is hard to say who is more popular among the disciples of the Nong family.

To evaluate objectively, the new hero 'Tian Yan' is more popular among the grassroots disciples, while the old hero Tian Guang is more trusted by the middle and high-level leaders in the six halls of the farming family.

Considering the results, even if Tian Guang reappeared in the world, the possibility of shaking the rule of the new hero 'Tian Yan' was not great, but it was not impossible.

The probability is not zero, which means it is possible, not to mention that the possibility is not particularly low.

Although Tian Yan was somewhat of a thorn in Zhao Gao's side, he was still one of Luo Wang's own.

He certainly could not accept that the rule of "his own people" over the farmers' family would be affected.

So he is now more eager to get Tian Guang.

Whether to kill or keep him can be discussed later, but the person must not be left in Liusha's hands, otherwise he will be like a bomb buried inside the farmer's house that may explode at any time.

Then, A Yan sent Chen Sheng and Wu Kuang to Zhao Gao, and captured them under the pretext of finding Tian Guang.

Theoretically, 'Tian Yan' didn't know that Luowang had found clues to Tian Guang's whereabouts.

At this critical moment, it seemed a coincidence that she was involved in Tian Guang's affairs, but Zhao Gao still had no doubts.

Because during the entire Nongjia Rebellion, A Yan rarely mentioned the former chivalrous leader Tian Guang. It was only when others mentioned him that she would echo them.

She used Tian Guang's matter to set a trap for Chen Sheng and his men because Chen Sheng had been asking her to find Tian Guang.

Generally speaking, it was others who did it. She, Tian Yan, was pure and innocent and knew nothing.

In the end, just as A Yan had expected, Zhao Gao sent Chen Sheng and Wu Kuang to Mount Li to build the imperial mausoleum.

Of course, building the imperial mausoleum was fake. Zhao Gao mainly wanted to use them as a test.

Testing Tian Guang who was hiding in Mount Li, testing to hide Tian Guang in the quicksand of Mount Li, was also a test...'Tian Yan' - although everything was reasonable, it did not prevent him from making a test.

Ah Yan didn't care about it at all.

In her plan, Tian Guang is not important at all, and she will not involve Liusha in the future. No matter how Zhao Gao tests him, he will not be able to find out anything.

All she wanted was to let Luo Wang and Zhao Gao personally send Chen Sheng and Wu Kuang to the Imperial Mausoleum of Mount Li - of course, there were other subsequent operations.

But she definitely couldn't tell the Zhu family about this, so she had to find another reason to fool him.

This isn't difficult. You don't even have to tell a lie. You just need to hide a few...key details.

"It was not a coincidence that Zhao Gao imprisoned people in the Mausoleum of Mount Li to do hard labor. It was to test me." Ah Yan explained calmly, "He was wary of me and worried that I had other intentions, so he revealed the whereabouts of Tian Guangxiakui to me through indirect channels to test my reaction."

"He thought I didn't know, but I knew something was wrong long before it happened."

"Probing?" Zhu Jia asked, "If it's a probing, is Tian Guangxia Kui really in Mount Li?"

"I have confirmed the intelligence and it is accurate. Tian Guangxiakuai is in Mount Li...at least he was there before, and it hasn't been too long." A Yan answered simply without giving any further details.

The Zhu family did not ask about Ah Yan's source of information, but only focused on the key points:
"So what is Xia Kui going to do next?"

"This is exactly why I came to see you, the head of the Zhu family, today."

It's easy to talk to smart people. Ah Yan smiled and said, "To be honest, I don't care about the whereabouts of Tian Guang Xia Kui."

"What did you say..." Liu Ji became angry again when he heard it.

However, as soon as he opened his mouth to speak, he was interrupted by the Zhu family.

Ah Yan also pretended that Liu Ji didn't exist and continued, "Bringing back Tian Guang Xia Kui is meaningless to the farmers now... I know what you are thinking. His return is not meaningless. At least it is not good for me."

At this point, Ah Yan sneered, then changed the subject and said, "There are only three of us here, so I think we can just put our words out there and talk openly."

"Bringing back Tian Guang is not a good thing for me. On the contrary, it may be a good thing for you in the future."

Tian Guang's return may shake A Yan's rule over the Nong family. Once he successfully regains part of the control of the six halls of the Nong family from A Yan, it will be a good thing for the Zhu family.

Zhu Jia still didn't rush to speak, and watched A Yan continue speaking.

"But for the farmers, for the farmers at the moment, the return of Tian Guang Xia Kui will definitely not be good!"

"You should also be aware of this."

Once Tian Guang returns, unless he is determined to retire and no longer care about the affairs of the underworld or the farmers, it is bound to cause the farmers, whose situation has just stabilized, to split again.

It’s hard to say to what extent the split will be, but... it’s definitely not a good thing.

"The hundreds of years-old Xiaoshengxian Manor was destroyed, and the 'sea city' that took the empire ten years of manpower and material resources to build was blown away... Everything shows that the situation in the empire is rapidly heading towards chaos."

"Master Zhu, do you think that the Nong Clan will once again be caught up in internal strife at this time?"

Facing Ah Yan's last question, Zhu Jia was silent for a moment before slowly answering:

"Since the hero said that we should talk openly and honestly, then I won't say anything empty."

"For the sake of the overall interests of the farmers, it is indeed not appropriate for Tian Guangxiakui to come back at this time, but..."

Just as Zhu Jia was about to make a turn, Ah Yan interrupted him directly:

"I understand Master Zhu's thoughts and concerns. In fact, I don't intend to stop anyone from finding Tian Guang Xia Kui. I just... won't put too much energy into this matter."

"If Hall Master Chen Sheng and his men can find the Hero Tian Guang, I will be happy to see it happen, but if they fail to find the former Hero in time, then I can't wait for them."

"In time..." Zhu Jia immediately grasped the key point and asked, "What does this mean?"

"Because the plan has changed." Ah Yan replied calmly, "Originally, I just followed the agreement with Hall Master Chen Sheng to send them to Mount Li, where there is a chance to find the former Knight-Emperor. As for whether we can find him, it all depends on their efforts."

"But now, we have another choice, or...an opportunity."

"Oh?" Zhu Jia's brows twitched under the mask, and he immediately became interested.

Ah Yan continued, "Master Zhu should be aware of the recent developments in the empire. The northern border is about to be attacked by nomadic tribes, the war in Lingnan is about to restart, and many major projects are under construction."

"The empire is already short of manpower. For this reason, the court intends to transfer some of the prisoners who were building the Lishan Imperial Mausoleum to other places."