Border Cook

Chapter 697: Kidnapping Demonstration
The flavor of sour soup dumplings lies not in the dumplings but in the soup.

For dumplings stuffed with ordinary scallions and meat, the dough should be tough and of a certain thickness. After they are cooked, scoop the dumplings and the noodle soup into a bowl, add enough aged vinegar, chili oil and a little coriander. It tastes sour and spicy, appetizing and quite satisfying.

It is especially suitable for the situation when you have been eating dried fruits and snacks for an entire afternoon and your mouth is feeling numb and boring.

If you sweat a lot after eating a bowl of sour soup dumplings, you will feel refreshed and comfortable all over.

Xia Mingyue felt very comfortable just thinking about this scene. Even the saliva in her mouth surged in an instant. She nodded hurriedly and said, "I want to eat a big bowl!"

"Okay..." Lu Qiyan stretched out the last syllable when he agreed, and kissed Xia Mingyue's forehead with a doting look in his eyes. He asked the waiter for a new pot of tea, then closed the door and went downstairs to buy things.

First, I went to find the stall selling fried tofu skin as Xia Mingyue said.

The stall is not big, and the stall owner is an elderly lady. Although her hair is gray, she is energetic and nimble. She greets customers while wrapping stuffing with bean curd and frying the bean curd. She does not delay anything.

The flat-bottomed oil pan was emitting steam, the fat wrapped around the bottom of the bean curd, making a sizzling sound and emitting a rich aroma, which made Lu Qiyan couldn't help but sniff, sighing that it tasted really good.

It seems that what Yin Qiao said is true, this fried tofu skin must be delicious indeed.

But delicious food is always popular.

There were many people like Lu Qiyan who came here because of its reputation, but the old woman could only make fried tofu skin so fast that the people present had to queue up and buy it one by one.

There were five people queuing in front of Lu Qiyan.

At the current speed, it will take at least another meal.

But since my lady specifically asked for this, it must mean that she really wants to eat it.

When you can eat the food you want, the overwhelming sense of satisfaction is irreplaceable by anything else.

Lu Qiyan had experienced this feeling firsthand, and felt that he must not let his wife down, so he lined up obediently.

After waiting in line for fifteen minutes and successfully buying two servings of fried bean curd, Lu Qiyan went to buy sour soup dumplings.

Sour soup dumplings were equally popular, but it was almost past mealtime and not as busy as before. Lu Qiyan only waited for a cup of tea and successfully bought two large servings of sour soup dumplings.

Lu Qiyan walked back quickly with the two kinds of food in his hand, and bought two pieces of the glutinous rice jelly that Xia Mingyue had mentioned earlier at the entrance of the theater.

After buying everything, Lu Qiyan went to the private room on the second floor.

"Madam, I'm back."

As he spoke, Lu Qiyan pushed open the door.

But at this moment, Xia Mingyue was not seen in the private room, and a man was lying in the corner.

The man in blue robe and small hat is a waiter in the theater.

Lu Qiyan's face suddenly darkened. He put the food in his hand on the table, squatted down, and reached out to test.

And breath.

Lu Qiyan reached out and pinched the guy’s philtrum.

The waiter woke up slowly, and when he saw Lu Qiyan in front of him, his face was full of surprise. After he came to his senses, he couldn't help but kneel down and kowtow to Lu Qiyan, "Thank you very much for saving my life, thank you very much for saving my life!"

"What happened?" Lu Qiyan asked in a deep voice, "Where is my wife?"

"I don't know, I don't know." The waiter was so frightened that tears came out of his eyes. "I just heard someone asking for tea, so I went to the second floor to get some tea. As soon as I got there, I felt a sudden pain at the back of my head, and I didn't know anything..."

Lu Qiyan's eyes darkened again.

If he didn't see Xia Mingyue in the private room after he came back, he would think that she might have gone to the toilet or was waiting anxiously to find him. He would definitely look for her first, and only when he couldn't find her would he guess whether Xia Mingyue had encountered an emergency.

But now, the other party deliberately left the knocked-out waiter here in order to deliberately tell him that Xia Mingyue was kidnapped.

This is to demonstrate to him.

This person was obviously coming for him.

And he has an irreconcilable feud.

who is it……

Lu Qiyan frowned and walked out of the teahouse with a gloomy face. He came to the back alley of the teahouse, put his finger to his lips and whistled loudly.

After a while, several figures quickly came to Lu Qiyan from nearby and bowed, "My Lord."

"Did you see any suspicious people coming out of the front door or back door of the teahouse just now?"

These people were all secret guards brought up by him. They usually followed him and Xia Mingyue to protect them.

Today, he and Xia Mingyue went to the theater to listen to a play. The secret guards could not follow them in, so they just watched from nearby. They probably didn't know what was going on in the theater.

Several secret guards looked at each other and shook their heads.

Sun Kai, the leader, said, "My Lord, people come in and out of the theater, and we didn't find anyone suspicious. But if there is anything special, there was a carriage parked at the back door of the theater, and the theater attendant carried a box onto the carriage, but I heard the attendant say that these were the costumes of the troupe, so I didn't pay much attention to it."

box?

That's it.

"Do you remember what the carriage looked like and which direction it went?" Lu Qiyan asked.

"I remember." Sun Kai said, "I went to the West City."

"Take two people and head west immediately to look for the carriage." Lu Qiyan said, "The rest of you, look for other clues in the city. If there are no clues in the city, look outside the city."

"Remember, don't miss any clues, you must find these people!"

"Yes." Sun Kai and the others nodded in agreement, but frowned slightly, "But... Lord, can you tell me what you are looking for?"

This way, they will have a goal and avoid missing any clues.

Lu Qiyan then became alert. He was so panicked at this moment because he was worried about Xia Mingyue.

After calming himself down a little, Lu Qiyan closed his eyes and took a long breath. After a moment, he opened his eyes with a deep look in his eyes, "Someone kidnapped my wife."

Madam Xia was kidnapped?
Sun Kai and the others were shocked, their expressions were serious, "Don't worry, my Lord, we will do our best to find your wife!"

"Go."

Lu Qiyan said this and turned away.

He first went to the county government office and informed Fan Pingyang that Xia Mingyue was missing and suspected of being kidnapped.

"I have arranged for people to search everywhere, but we are outnumbered and my men are not as familiar with the county as the yamen runners and the soldiers guarding the city. So after thinking it over, I still need Mr. Fan's help."

"You are too polite, Marquis Dingyuan." Fan Pingyang said respectfully and solemnly, "Not to mention that Madam is kind and virtuous, has a high status, and has a personal relationship with me. I will do my best to arrange the staff for both public and private reasons. Please rest assured, Marquis Dingyuan." "Thank you." Lu Qiyan stood up and said, "I'll take my leave first."

"Marquis Dingyuan, take care."

After seeing Lu Qiyan off, Fan Pingyang immediately ordered everyone in the county government to urgently gather together, notify the soldiers guarding the city, close the county gates, and strictly check all people entering and leaving.

The rest of the yamen runners conducted a carpet search inside and outside the county, questioning door to door in the hope of finding some clues.

He himself brought a team of people with him and searched together with other yamen runners.

Since taking office as the county magistrate, Fan Pingyang has been an upright official, benevolent to everyone, and is deeply respected and loved by everyone in the county government. Therefore, everyone takes Fan Pingyang's orders very seriously.

Especially when he heard that the person he was looking for was the respected Madam Xia, he became even more alert and vowed to find Xia Mingyue's whereabouts as soon as possible.

Lu Qiyan left the county government office and went home, telling Xia Yunji, Fan Jinglan and the skilled Zhuang Cui about the matter.

Upon hearing this, everyone became extremely anxious and did not dare to delay or stop for a moment. They immediately found horses and started searching separately with Lu Qiyan.

Wu Jin barked twice and followed.

"Wu Jin, please stop making trouble." Yin Qiao hurriedly stopped him, "Come with us and search near home, so that my wife can escape from the thieves without anyone to help her."

Wu Jin refused and continued to chase Lu Qiyan.

Lu Qiyan tightened the reins, stopped the horse, leaned down and simply carried Wu Jin on the horse's back, "Maybe Wu Jin can be of great help."

Previously, when Xia Mingyue and Zhuang Cui encountered bandits on the way and jumped into the river in a hurry, it was Wu Jin's keen sense of smell that enabled Lu Qiyan to successfully rescue Xia Mingyue and Zhuang Cui.

With Wu Jin's help this time, the probability of finding Xia Mingyue might be much higher.

"Woof woof woof." Wu Jin barked a few more times, agreeing with Lu Qiyan's words.

After settling Wu Jin, Lu Qiyan rode away on his horse.

First they arrived at the back door of the theater, and Lu Qiyan put Wu Jin down.

This is where Xia Mingyue was taken away.

Wu Jin understood what Lu Qiyan meant, and sniffed vigorously after landing.

The people who came in and out of the theater were a mixed bunch, and the smells were numerous and complex. And the back door of the backyard was very smelly because the theater usually had to transport water and goods, and the troupe members and their costumes came in and out. The smell of food and powder was very strong. Wu Jin sniffed a few times and was choked by the smell and sneezed several times.

But also because of these sneezes, Wu Jin felt that his sense of smell seemed to be more penetrating, and he soon smelled a most special smell among these smells.

It smells like mint.

The mint was sent to Song's home yesterday, saying that her mother-in-law had planted a lot of it. She brought a few pots and placed them in the yard in the room. The scent was fresh, refreshing, and could drive away mosquitoes.

Xia Mingyue liked the refreshing fragrance of mint very much. Not only did she pick some tender leaves to make mint water to drink, she even made mint scrambled eggs and mint fried pork ribs at noon today, filling the whole yard with the scent of mint.

As the person who prepared these foods, Xia Mingyue has the strongest minty scent on her body.

At this time, the mint smell probably came from Xia Mingyue.

Wu Jin was quite excited. He wandered back and forth near the backyard gate for a while and quickly determined the direction in which Xia Mingyue disappeared.

After barking twice at Lu Qiyan, Wu Jin began to head in the direction of the smell.

Lu Qiyan caught up on horseback.

Wu Jin walked all the way inside the box, and after many twists and turns, he arrived at an abandoned courtyard.

Signaling Wu Jinmo not to make a sound, Lu Qiyan jumped up, easily climbed onto the top of the wall, and then landed in the yard nimbly.

The entire courtyard and the several houses inside were extremely dilapidated. The yard was overgrown with weeds, but there were traces of people coming in and out and trampling on the weeds.

Obviously, those people once settled here.

After looking around, Lu Qiyan took advantage of the night and slowly walked along the wall.

Through the window that was already half dark, Lu Qiyan looked out in the still bright moonlight.

There was no one in the room, and even when listening carefully, there was no sign of any sound inside.

Lu Qiyan let out a breath, took out a fire starter from his arms and lit it, then kicked open the tightly closed door outside, let Wu Jin in, and checked the conditions in the yard and the house together.

There were many messy footprints in the room, and in the middle was a huge wooden box. The box was opened, but there was nothing inside.

Holding the tinderbox and carefully observing the inside of the box, Lu Qiyan found a small piece of cloth on the edge of the slightly raised wooden board inside the box.

It was a piece of moon-white cloth embroidered with apricot flowers of the same light color.

And today, when Xia Mingyue went out with him to watch a play, she was wearing a bodice of this color and pattern.

Obviously, this box was the one moved out of the teahouse.

After arriving here, he changed his appearance and set out again to avoid attracting attention.

This time the replacement...

Lu Qiyan observed carefully, and when he saw the crooked tire tracks on the ground, he immediately had an idea.

wheelbarrow!
Most of the things that can be put on a wheelbarrow are wooden barrels and rattan baskets.

Both of these things can serve as containers to accommodate the petite and thin Xia Mingyue.

Going out in this way would make you no different from ordinary people and would not be easily noticed. It would be much more low-key than a wooden box carriage.

Urging Wu Jin to continue looking for Xia Mingyue's scent, Lu Qiyan took out a small bamboo pole from his arms and lit the fuse.

"Oh!"

A beam of light flew into the sky, creating a dazzling glow in the darkness.

Not long after, Xia Yunji and Fan Jinglan came riding in, their faces full of anxiety and panting, "Brother-in-law, have you found any trace of my sister?"

"We have found some of them," Lu Qiyan said. "Yun Ji and Madam Fan, go tell everyone in the yamen that the thieves have changed their appearance and traveled lightly, dressed as ordinary people, pushing one or more wheelbarrows, which are loaded with rattan baskets or wooden barrels that are big enough to hold an adult."

"Yes!" Xia Yunji and Fan Jinglan took the order and left, passing the message to all the yamen runners, soldiers and others who were looking for Xia Mingyue outside.

At this time, the yamen runners and soldiers, led by Fan Pingyang and others, were conducting a carpet search throughout the county.

I went door to door almost every day to ask if I could get any clues.

At this time, ordinary people had been busy for a whole day and were exhausted when they just took a break. Suddenly, they were woken up by someone knocking on the door, and they were very unhappy.

Especially when he heard that the government office and soldiers were looking for a suspicious person, his anger grew even greater.