Red Mansion: Fuyao River and Mountain

Suzhou, Lianxi Street, Fuyun Teahouse.

Although it was disappointing that there was no trace of Zhou Zhengyang in Luo Mansion, it was also within Zhang Wu's expectations.

Zhang Wu asked again: "Mai Qiao, did you find anything after entering the inner courtyard of the Luo family?"

Wu Maiqiao was a woman in her early twenties. She was a maid at the Yao family wine shop in Jinling. She was one of the few women in the Jinling carriage company and was also a close confidant of Xu Qinnan.

Because the Zhongchesi cooperated with Jia Cong's personnel to go to various states along the Yangtze River to gather information, it was often more convenient for women to travel through the streets and alleys on a daily basis than for men.

For example, this time when entering Luo Xiong's mansion, only a woman like Wu Maiqiao could enter the Luo family's inner courtyard.

"The people living in the inner courtyard of the Luo family are all Luo Xiong's wives, concubines, children, maids and servants. I have paid close attention and there is nothing unusual."

Zhang Wu was not surprised to hear this. This was common sense. It was impossible for Luo Xiong to hide a man in his own inner courtyard.

Wu Maiqiao continued, "The wife of Housekeeper Zhao who brought me into the inner courtyard just now is quite talkative, and I learned some things from her.

It can also prove that there is nothing strange in the Luo Mansion. I saw that she took a fancy to the perfume in my box, but was reluctant to buy it, so I gave her a bottle and asked her to introduce me to the sale through her channels. "

Jiang Xiaoliu on the side said with a smile: "The perfume in your box is a new product from Xinchunhao. A small bottle costs three taels of silver. She is not a lady, so she can't afford it."

Wu Maiqiao smiled and said, "I just did it for fun, to make a good relationship, thinking that I might need it in the future.

Perhaps the perfume I gave her was a big favor, and the woman was embarrassed to take it for free, so she actually introduced two rice, grain, and vegetable businesses to me, which sounded quite impressive.”

Zhang Wu's eyes lit up slightly when he heard this.

Wu Maiqiao said: "She introduced me to the business of two families in the city. She said she would send a message to ask Jiang Liu to deliver fresh vegetables to their homes.

She also said that the two owners and their masters were close friends and they visited each other frequently.

One is He Tong, the commander of Suzhou Guards, and the other is Geng Dafu, a wealthy businessman from Gusu."

The rich businessman among them was nothing special, but the other commander was of no ordinary background. He was the deputy minister of Suzhou Wei and Luo Xiong's deputy.

Zhang Wu said: "Although the information sent by Lord Jia confirms that Luo Xiong hid Zhou Zhengyang, it is only circumstantial evidence and it is difficult to accuse him of the crime.

Without an imperial edict or a command from the Five Military Commandery, we cannot search and hold accountable a fourth-rank guard commander. We can only rely on finding solid evidence in secret.

We have not been in Gusu for long and are not familiar with Luo Xiong's past. Since these two people have a special relationship with Luo Xiong, we must investigate it thoroughly.

Especially He Tong, who is the second-in-command of Suzhou Wei. It is very likely that Luo Xiong is in collusion with him or hiding Zhou Zhengyang in his mansion.

Xiaoliu will prepare everything tomorrow and first go to these two families to find out the details, especially that He Tong.

I hope that the memorial sent by Lord Jia to the capital will receive a reply from the palace as soon as possible... "

……

Shenjing, a single-entrance house in the east of the city.

On the left side of the yard, against the wall, a row of bird cages were built with wooden boards, and a porch was built on top to protect against wind and rain.

A graceful girl was holding a short-handled broom, carefully cleaning the bird cages and replacing the water and grains in each cage.

She was born beautiful and heroic, with skin as white as jade, eyes as bright as water, and a hint of blue. She was slightly different from the women in the Central Plains, and her clothes were also simple and neat.

She wore a blue headscarf with dark patterns on it, which covered her beautiful hair, leaving only a few strands of dark golden hair visible at the temples.

She was wearing a Sichuan brocade robe embroidered with magnolia flowers and a deep blue scented sweat towel tied around her waist, which made her slender waist look as graceful as the mountains.

She picked up the white bone flute hanging on her chest and blew strange, intermittent sounds into the air.

After a while, two shadows with wings spread appeared in the sky above the yard. When they descended in altitude, they could see clearly that they were two majestic Saker Falcons.

As the girl blew another long monotonous note on the bone flute, two Saker Falcons swooped into the yard like arrows and stopped in front of two unusually large wooden cages.

The powerful wings flapped vigorously a few times, as if greeting the girl.

The strong airflow blew the girl's hair into a mess, making her giggle and adding a touch of girlish beauty to her pretty and heroic face.

However, she did not feed these two Saker Falcons like she did other wild pigeons, because Saker Falcons are different from ordinary domesticated wild pigeons.

Since Ellie brought them from Liaodong to Shenjing, except for the first few days of feeding them and waiting for them to get familiar with the environment, she released them to hunt every day to maintain their survival and wildness in the wild.

This way they can transmit information more safely and quickly over long distances.

Before Jia Cong came to Jinling, he had visited Ai Li once, but that was more than a month ago.

Ever since Jia Cong went to Jinling, the flying feather message service between Jinling and Shenjing has been temporarily stopped.

Ai Li's courtyard also calmed down temporarily. She trained birds and practiced sword skills every day, and she felt comfortable. However, she hadn't seen Jia Cong for a long time and felt very bored.

However, when Jia Cong left, he said that he would be back from Nanjing in two months at most. Considering that most of the time has passed, he will probably be back soon.

At this moment, there was a hurried knock on the door, which made her feel a little strange.

She and her mother had settled in the capital for less than half a year, and she knew very few people. Except for Jia Cong, almost no one came to visit her.

She opened the door and saw a slender young man. Ai Li recognized him as Jiang Liu, a close follower of Jia Cong, who had come to Jinling with Jia Cong this time.

Ai Li felt happy. Jiang Liu was back. Could it be that he had also returned to Shenjing?

Jiang Liu said: "Miss Ai Li, I am following the orders of the Third Master to return to Shenjing to deliver a memorial. Now there is a letter that needs to be sent to Jinling by flying feathers.

This letter is very important to the Third Master, and the Third Master has instructed that it should be delivered to Jinling as soon as possible using the fastest and safest method."

Emperor Jia Zhao handled the matter very quickly. Jiang Liu delivered the memorial to the palace, but the next day, someone from Gu Mansion came to inform him to go to the mansion to get the master's reply.

Although Jiang Liu didn't know whether the palace had issued an edict, since Minister Gu had already written a reply, according to the Third Master, the palace must have issued a clear edict.

Moreover, Gu Yankui was shrewd and experienced. He did not even let his family members deliver the letter, but asked Jiang Liu to pick it up at his house in person, just because he did not want more people to handle the letter.

Jiang Liu had followed Jia Cong for a long time and had become somewhat shrewd and meticulous. Naturally, he felt the importance of the letter. As soon as he received the letter, he went straight to Ai Li to deliver it.

After hearing what Jiang Liu said, although Ai Li was very disappointed, she let Jiang Liu into the yard, opened the letter and copied it carefully.

She kept two Saker Falcons in her yard. One of them once brought news of Zhou Zhengyang's escape from the Jinling Post Station and knew the flying route from Shenjing to Jinling.

She proofread the copied letter, put it in the mailbox on the Saker Falcon's legs, raised her hand with force, and the Saker Falcon flapped its wings and flew away.

She picked up the white bone flute on her chest and blew many strange tunes into the air, some long and some short.

The Saker Falcon seemed to have received some kind of message. It let out a sharp cry, flapped its wings higher and higher, and then flew high to the south.

……

Judefang, Earl's Mansion, Xuanfu Hall.

Yingchun was talking with Daiyu, Tanchun, Baochai and other sisters in the hall, and the topic of conversation inevitably mentioned Jia Cong who was on business in Jinling.

Little Xichun was at the side, not joining in the conversation with her sisters, but just solving the nine-ring puzzle by herself, enjoying herself. All the sisters were present, except Xiangyun.

Ever since Lady Li, the wife of Marquis Baoling, heard the rumor about the arranged marriage in the palace, she came to the Jia Mansion that day to report the news to Lady Jia, and when she returned, she took Xiangyun back home.

Originally, she asked Xiangyun to come over more often and even let her live in the Earl's Mansion with the tacit approval of Grandmother Jia, in order to bring Xiangyun and Jia Cong together.

Now the news of the palace's arranged marriage to the Zhen family has spread like wildfire. Li is worried that if this comes true, Xiangyun, a girl from another family, living in the Earl's mansion for a long time, will be given an excuse to accuse her.

So he took Xiangyun back home first, so as to avoid the limelight.

Only Grandmother Jia knew about this idea. Others just thought that Xiangyun had lived in the Jia family for a while and it was just an ordinary thing for Li to take her niece back home.

Among the sisters, only Daiyu began to have vague suspicions about Xiangyun after hearing Zijuan's story about the day when Li informed Lady Jia of the arranged marriage.

But she was not sure about this guess. After all, they were sisters who grew up together. She could also see that Xiangyun's mind was still immature. Although she was very close to Jia Cong, they did not have any thoughts about love between men and women.

However, she understood that Jia Cong's closeness to Xiangyun and his feelings for her were different situations, so after letting this matter linger in her mind for two days, she no longer took it to heart.

While the sisters were talking, the housekeeper of the mansion sent a message from outside the second gate, saying that the uncle's follower Jiang Liu was returning to Jinling and sent a message to say goodbye to the eldest lady.

Yingchun was surprised to hear this. Jiang Liu had only been in Shenjing for two days before returning to Jinling. The time was so urgent.
I think my brother's job in Jinling must be difficult, which is why his followers come and go in such a hurry.

Yingchun gave Xiuju a finished soft robe and a written letter from home and asked her to deliver them to the outside of the second gate and ask Jiang Liu to take them to Jinling.

All the sisters in the hall were worried, but for the ladies like them, even if they missed her very much, the only thing they could do was to wait.

……

Shenjing, Hongde Gate.

Jiang Liu, accompanied by five musket guards, rode his horse through the city gate and galloped towards Jinling.

Shortly after they left the city, a group of people came out from the direction of the palace.

It was composed of dozens of imperial guards, all wearing helmets and armor, with shining swords and spears, escorting a carriage like stars surrounding the moon.

When the convoy was about to reach the city gate, a captain of the imperial guards in the team arrived at the gate in advance and showed the official document to the general flag of the patrol army guarding the city gate.

The general took the document and saw the words written on it: Fourth-rank Qianyang Palace Supervisor Guo Lin, from Nanzhili, is ordered to announce the imperial decree.

The general flag was really shocked. A fourth-rank eunuch was the highest rank, and there were only a few of them in the entire inner court. The Qianyang Palace was where the emperor governed the country.

Guo Lin, the supervisor of Qianyang Palace, is the deputy chief eunuch of the inner court and serves the emperor. He is a very popular figure in the palace, and yet he went out of the capital to announce the emperor's decree.

The commander-in-chief of the city defense did not dare to be negligent at all and quickly ordered his soldiers to evacuate the crowd near the city gate.

Until the empty Hongde Gate was left, and they watched the imperial guards and cavalry march through the city gate and head south.

The general did not notice that among the crowd he was driving out of the city, there was a simple but sturdy carriage, followed by four horse-riding attendants.

They don't look like an ordinary family going out of town.

The curtain of the carriage was lifted, revealing the face of a middle-aged man. The general did not recognize this man as Liu Yong, the chief officer of Prince Beijing's Palace.

He looked at the imperial guards cavalry marching through the city gate in an orderly manner, with a look of surprise on his face.

Jia Cong's memorial was sent to the capital in a hurry, and the matter was done in secret. Even Gu Yankui was on guard when he sent his reply.

But whether it was because of this memorial, or some other hidden undercurrents that had long been in existence, the entire Shenjing city was stirred up with some dark ripples.

In the next two days, groups of horses would often appear among the noisy crowds leaving the city every day, heading towards the magnificent city in the south...

……

Suzhou, Bolan Street, an ordinary single-entrance courtyard.

This is where Zhang Wu and Jiang Xiaoliu stayed in Gusu City.

Ever since Jia Cong had successively transferred the personnel assigned to him from Zhen and Changzhou to Gusu City, Zhang Wu had more sufficient manpower to deploy.

Following the methods used by the China Railway Company to gather information in the past, he spread his manpower among the popular foot shops, restaurants, gambling dens, and theaters in Gusu City.

Every day someone would come to this small courtyard and compile here the fragmentary information collected from the streets and alleys.

Zhang Wu brought a few people from the China Railway Company and screened out the things that were valuable to them from the miscellaneous information.

But what Zhang Wu was most concerned about these two days was the news about Jiang Xiaoliu and Wu Maiqiao.

Among the two business deals introduced to Wu Maiqiao by the housekeeper Zhao from the Luo Mansion, the one about the commander He Tong caught Zhang Wu's attention.

Jiang Xiaoliu and Wu Maiqiao have been busy these days investigating the details of He Tong and wealthy businessman Geng Dafu, but no news has been received.

It was not until the evening that Jiang Xiaoliu and Wu Maiqiao returned to the courtyard, which made Zhang Wu excited. He took the two into the house and asked about the results in detail.

Jiang Xiaoliu picked up the teapot on the table, drank it all, and said, "In the past two days, we have sent vegetables to the residences of these two people according to the recommendation of the housekeeper Zhao's wife.

The rules of Zhu Tong's mansion are even stricter than those of Luo's. Mai Qiao and I were not allowed to enter the mansion when we delivered the vegetables. We were stopped at the gate and allowed to leave after we settled the money.

I asked around nearby and they told me that the Zhu family didn't have a large population, and that Zhu Tong's family and servants totaled less than thirty people, and that the amount of rice they bought was normal.

Later we went to the mansion of the wealthy businessman Geng Dafu. The Geng Mansion was much more lenient. After all, it was just a merchant's mansion, and it didn't have as many requirements as an official's.

I found an excuse to enter the outer courtyard of Geng's mansion, but I didn't find anything unusual. There wasn't much rice left in the kitchen, and I heard that the new rice hadn't been delivered yet."

Zhang Wu was somewhat disappointed after hearing this, but his attention was still on Zhu Tong's mansion.

This man was the deputy commander of Suzhou Guard and had a close relationship with the commander-in-chief Luo Xiong. Although Jiang Xiaoliu judged that there was nothing unusual in the Zhu Mansion based on the amount of rice purchased by the Zhu Mansion,

However, Zhu Tong's mansion was heavily guarded, and he was obviously very wary of the outside world, which could not help but make people imagine.

Jiang Xiaoliu added: “However, when I was leaving Geng’s house, I accidentally saw a strange pattern in an inconspicuous place in the outer courtyard.”

Wu Maiqiao asked, "Why didn't I hear you mention it when you came out?"

Jiang Xiaoliu said, "At first I thought it was just a doodle by a kid in the mansion, but on the way back, the more I thought about it, the weirder it seemed. A kid wouldn't be able to draw such a complicated pattern."

Zhang Wu quickly took out a pen and paper and asked Jiang Xiaoliu to draw the pattern he saw.

Although Jiang Xiaoliu had only studied in a private school for two years and could recognize a few words, he did not have much knowledge, but he was not blind.

But he was a man with a quick mind and a good memory, and he remembered the strange pattern very clearly.

The image drawn by Jiang Xiaoliu looks like a strange animal, composed of many lines. It looks like a fish and a dragon, and is weird and strange.

When Zhang Wu and Wu Maiqiao saw this pattern, their faces changed drastically.

Seeing their strange expressions, Jiang Xiaoliu couldn't help asking, "Is there anything wrong with this pattern? Although my drawing is not exactly like it, it is generally correct. I remember it very clearly."

Wu Maiqiao glanced at Jiang Xiaoliu and said, "This pattern is the logo of our CRRC Corporation Limited. Only people from the CRRC Corporation Limited can draw it." (End of this chapter)