good season

Chapter 141 Picking Up a Child (Two Chapters Combined)

The man was dressed in coarse cloth clothes and wore a small blue cloth hat. His sleeves were rolled up, revealing his bronze arms.

People dressed like this can be seen everywhere in Dashikan. They are not tourists strolling around, but laborers doing rough work here.

No one would give them a second glance; in this bustling crowd, they were as insignificant as a speck of dust.

However, Xiao Zhen recognized him at a glance: it was Lu Qian, the commander of the Embroidered Uniform Guard!

Why is Lu Qian here, and why is he disguised?

Xiao Zhen had a gut feeling that there might be danger lurking in Baoji Teahouse. This time, it was his turn to tug at Zhao Shiqing's sleeve.

"Didn't you want to see a puppet show? Let's hurry, or we'll miss the opening ceremony."

As she spoke, Xiao Zhen grabbed Zhao Shiqing and left. Zhao Shiqing wanted to say, "Didn't you say that the puppet show would be one after another, and if we missed Hou Qi and Hou Ba's enlistment play, we would have to wait until tomorrow?"
However, she swallowed the words back down her throat.

Xiao Zhen is not one to speak carelessly; if he said that, he must have his reasons.

Zhao Shiqing did not refute, and let Xiao Zhen pull her away from the front of Baoji Teahouse.

Moving further away, Xiao Zhen turned to look, his gaze passing through the bustling crowd, but he could no longer see Lu Qian's figure.

Seeing that no one was paying attention to them, Zhao Shiqing lowered her voice and asked, "What's wrong? Did something happen at Baoji Teahouse?"

Xiao Zhen suddenly understood why he liked being with Zhao Shiqing. Who wouldn't like such a smart and quick-witted girl?
(Yes, Uncle Xiao insisted.)
Xiao Zhen said calmly, "I saw Lu Qian."

Zhao Shiqing was taken aback. Lu Qian? That name sounded familiar.

She quickly remembered that on that day at Kui Xing Tower, she had disguised herself as a dark-faced scholar and had faced Lu Qian face to face.

"Let's go, let's go to a safe place."

This time, Xiao Zhen didn't need to pull her back. Zhao Shiqing took the lead. A wise man doesn't stand under a dangerous wall. She could watch the show anywhere, but there was no need to get so close.

That's right, Zhao Shiqing has lost interest in puppet shows. She can watch puppet shows anytime, but she's never seen the Embroidered Uniform Guard solving cases.

Xiao Zhen didn't want to leave either. He was plotting something big and wouldn't miss any movement in the capital.

Xiao Zhen pointed to the three-story building diagonally opposite: "Let's go there."

This small building is also a teahouse, but it mainly performs excerpts from traditional operas, not military dramas.

A stage was set up in the lobby, surrounded by hollow sound-transmitting pillars. On the second floor, three pillars lined the railing, where individual private seats offered a panoramic view of the stage below.

When Zhao Shiqing and Xiao Zhen entered, two female opera singers and a young male opera singer were pulling, tugging, hugging and embracing on the stage, with laughter constantly coming from all around.

Zhao Shiqing's eyes widened. There was an opera troupe in the Liang Prince's mansion. During festivals, when she returned to the mansion, she would watch a few operas. She had never seen opera performed like this before.

Xiao Zhen whispered in her ear, "This is a romantic opera; those two female leads are played by men."

Just then, the young man kissed one of the actresses on the cheek, and another actress pouted her bright red lips, wanting to kiss her too. The audience cheered loudly. Zhao Shiqing felt a chill. These three were all men! Good heavens! Zhao Shiqing ran upstairs without looking back. She was so scared.

Xiao Zhen smiled and shook her head.

The upstairs private rooms weren't full, so Xiao Zhen slipped a piece of silver to the waiter, and the two of them sat down in the room with the best view.

Seeing a child selling grapes, Xiao Zhen bought two bunches. The grapes were washed very clean, with water droplets still clinging to them. He placed the grapes in front of Zhao Shiqing and said, "Try them and see if they're sweet."

Zhao Shiqing beamed; she hadn't eaten grapes yet this year.

She ate grapes and looked out the window. From there, the view in front of Baoji Teahouse was unobstructed.

Zhao Shiqing simply sat by the window, waiting to see the excitement. As for watching the play, forget it, it was too disgusting.

Fortunately, they didn't have to wait long. Before they had even finished a bunch of grapes, two people suddenly appeared in the Baoji Teahouse.

The reason they were said to have fought their way out is because they all carried a knife in one hand and a person in the other.

The knife was dripping blood, and what they were holding in their hands were two thin men with white painted noses, dressed as clowns.

Xiao Zhen looked closely and said to Zhao Shiqing, "The two people being held hostage are Hou Qi and Hou Ba."

At this moment, Lu Qian also chased after them from inside, accompanied by more than a dozen people who were disguised like him. They were obviously all members of the Embroidered Uniform Guard.

Zhao Shiqing's attention was now focused entirely on one of the knife-wielding men, a nimble fat man.

“I know him, he’s Chef Zhang!” Zhao Shiqing said in a deep voice.

“Chef Zhang? Who is he?” Xiao Zhen asked.

Zhao Shiqing did not answer immediately, because she saw another person, a woman, a woman dressed as a man!

She suddenly pointed at the woman and said to Xiao Zhen, "Look at that woman, yes, she's a woman. Look at her face, doesn't it look familiar?"

Before Xiao Zhen could answer, Zhao Shiqing reminded her again: "Do you remember now? You painted her in Huizhou City!"

Xiao Zhen had already recognized the woman's face.

He had never seen this woman before, but he recognized her face because he had painted her.

This is Cui Niang!

The woman who managed the assassins in Shili Pu was later taken down by him. Cui Niang disappeared without a trace. Zhao Shiqing sent people to post Cui Niang's portrait in several nearby counties, but even after Zhao Shiqing left Wu, he still could not find Cui Niang's whereabouts.

Zhao Shiqing's face turned red with excitement. Xiao Zhen only recognized Cui Niang, but she also knew Chef Zhang.

Chef Zhang and Cui Niang, two seemingly unrelated people, appeared in the capital at the same time.

Zhang the cook in Zhaoting Town, Xiuxiu said, was also an assassin, but he later escaped and broke away from those people.

So, these two are related; one is a murderer, and the other is a former hitman.

At this moment, the Imperial Guards had already surrounded the two of them. Zhao Shiqing thought that Lu Qian would shout something, such as releasing the hostages and waiving their weapons, just like in the storybooks.

But she was wrong. Lu Qian simply smiled coldly and gave the order: "Kill!"

The Imperial Guards charged forward, brandishing their swords. Twenty or thirty well-trained Imperial Guards killed two people without any suspense.

Chef Zhang and Cui Niang didn't hold out for long before being hacked to the ground and dying. Even Hou Qi and Hou Ba, who were taken hostage, couldn't escape and became victims of the Embroidered Uniform Guard's blade.

Zhao Shiqing stared in disbelief at the bloody scene before her. The bustling crowd outside the Baoji Teahouse had long since scattered in terror, leaving only four corpses and pools of blood on the ground. The Imperial Guards sheathed their swords, and Lu Qian gave the order again. The four corpses were then stuffed into their pockets and taken away by the Imperial Guards.

Only after the Imperial Guards had vanished without a trace did the manager of Baoji Teahouse muster the courage to come out. Looking at the bloodstains on the ground, he stamped his foot and said to his staff, "What are you all standing there for? Go fetch water and wash this place clean!"

The onlookers, who had just scattered in fright, gathered again, but dared not approach. They stood at a distance, pointing at the blood on the ground.

The waiters from Baoji Tea House brought over a dozen buckets of water, and in a short while, the open space was washed clean.

The shopkeeper asked his assistant to bring an incense burner and lit four sticks of incense inside.

Four lives lost, four sticks of incense burned.

This place was a melting pot of all sorts of people, and murder and violence were not uncommon here. People were very receptive to such things, and within an hour, the place was bustling again.

Zhao Shiqing moved the chair from the window back to the railing, only to find that the stage downstairs had been changed. The lovey-dovey trio had been replaced by a beautiful woman with a white veil tied around her forehead. The woman sang mournfully, as if she were mourning the four dead people.

Zhao Shiqing didn't understand a word and asked, "What is this song about?"

Xiao Zhen said, "She said that her husband died shortly after she got married, and she was a widow with a hard life."

Zhao Shiqing waved her hand, signaling him to stop talking, as it was pointless.

However, she remembered something: "Could this beautiful woman in white be a man too?"

Xiao Zhen smiled and said, "The operas performed here are all female operas; there are no female opera singers among them."

Zhao Shiqing sighed and said, "Last time we guessed that the mountain gate had been incorporated into the imperial court, and now it seems to be true. Chef Zhang is a deserter, and it is said that he has some kind of leverage over him. As for Cui Niang, she disappeared with the antidote long before you wiped out Shili Pu. She is most likely a traitor to the mountain gate as well. That's why Lu Qian left no survivors and killed them all. This is murder to silence witnesses. He's really ruthless."

She continued to sigh, "This Chef Zhang cooks quite well. Oh, and he has a son, I didn't even know that."

She suddenly stopped, staring blankly at the stage below.

Xiao Zhen followed her gaze downwards and saw that a child had appeared on the stage at some point.

The child had a red dot on his forehead, clearly indicating he was wearing makeup, and the beautiful woman in white was holding his hand, pretending to cry.

According to the plot, the child is the younger brother-in-law of the beautiful woman in white. He sees his widowed sister-in-law having an affair and wants to tell her grandmother. This scene shows the beautiful woman feeling sorry for herself and crying to her younger brother-in-law about her suffering.

Zhao Shiqing's gaze, however, fell on the child's face.

"This is Chef Zhang's son. I remember him."

Xiao Zhen looked at him carefully for a while and said to Zhao Shiqing, "He wasn't originally supposed to play the younger brother-in-law. He came on stage at the last minute. Look, he looks very helpless."

If you look closely, you can see that the child doesn't fit in with the stage; he has never acted before and was just put on stage temporarily.

However, all the onlookers' attention was focused on the beautiful woman in the white veil, and no one noticed the child who seemed to be just a prop.

Although she didn't know why the child was on stage, Zhao Shiqing had already decided to take the child away.

She looked at Xiao Zhen: "We don't know if this opera troupe is connected to those assassins, so we can't act rashly. Do you have any good ideas?"

Xiao Zhen narrowed his eyes slightly: "Once they step down from the stage, we'll find a way to lure this child out, and then we'll snatch him away."

This is the only thing we can do now.

Zhao Shiqing patted the cloth bag slung across her body: "Let Xiao Yao go."

As if hearing what she was saying, the little demon meowed irritably. The cat was sleeping soundly, and now it was being made to do hard labor. Mr. Clear Soup, who will stand up for the cat?

The excerpt from the opera on the stage has reached its climax. The beautiful woman in white veils swayed her white veil around the stage, her flowing sleeves fluttering, the white veil like clouds, a breathtaking sight.

The audience cheered loudly, and some even threw coins and silver fragments onto the stage. At this point, the performer playing the child should have stepped down, but the child had not rehearsed and stood there dumbly.

When the beautiful woman in white veils danced next to the child, she almost bumped into him.

Her red lips parted and closed as if signaling the child to leave the stage, and the child, as if waking from a dream, retreated backstage.

Seeing that he had left, Zhao Shiqing stood up and said to Xiao Zhen, "Let's go."

Before leaving, Zhao Shiqing made sure to stuff the last few grapes into her mouth.

Once downstairs, the two hid behind a curtain, and Zhao Shiqing took Xiao Yao out of her cloth bag.

Unfortunately, Big Fatty wasn't there; the child knew Big Fatty.

However, the little demon was not bad either. A moment later, the child chased after her and ran towards her, crying as he ran: "Bad cat, even you bullied me, bad cat, I'm going to beat you to death, beat you to death, waaaaah."

Suddenly, everything went black before his eyes, and he lost consciousness.

Xiao Zhen quickly wrapped the child in a tablecloth, and Xiao Yao jumped into Zhao Shiqing's arms triumphantly. After having a dried fish stuffed into her mouth, Xiao Yao went back into her cloth bag to continue sleeping.

Xiao Zhen and Zhao Shiqing walked out of the teahouse one after the other. Fortunately, the crowd at Dashijian was chaotic, and Xiao Zhen had a human-shaped cloth bag under his arm, so no one looked at them with curiosity.

The two walked smoothly out of the large stone threshold and got back into the carriage they had come from.

The child was still unconscious. Zhao Shiqing had experienced Xiao Zhen's unique secret medicine before; last time, she slept for a whole day and night.

Xiao Zhen said, "I originally wanted to take you to see the military drama, but so many things happened, so we can only watch it later."

Zhao Shiqing patted her head. Yes, she came to see the play about joining the army.

"Hou Qi and Hou Ba are both dead. Are there any other famous actors in the military drama?"

Xiao Zhen thought for a moment, but couldn't remember any of them. After all, it was a matter from his previous life, a long time ago. If Hou Qi and Hou Ba hadn't been so famous, he probably wouldn't have remembered them at all.

But when did these two people die in their previous life?
At this time in his previous life, he was leading Xiao Yue in hiding until several years later when he established the Fengyu Pavilion. Only then did he begin to inquire about things in the capital, but he only kept it within the realm of princes and nobles. People of low social standing, such as Marquis Qi and Marquis Ba, would not appear in the intelligence reports.

The carriage stopped in front of the house. Xiao Zhen got out of the carriage carrying the child. This was Xiao Zhen's first time visiting Zhao Shiqing and Zhen Wuduo's home in the capital. Zhao Shiqing led the way and they entered the second courtyard, where they saw Zhen Wuduo playing chess with Jiang Han.

Seeing Xiao Zhen's fake face, Zhen Wuduo sneered, "Unfilial son, you still know how to come over?"

Xiao Zhen had no choice but to say, "I didn't come because I was afraid of causing you trouble."

Zhen Wuduo: "An explanation is just a cover-up. You're unfilial. My precious granddaughter is the most filial. My granddaughter..."

Zhen Wu rubbed his eyes. Was his eyesight failing due to old age?

How did you see his beloved granddaughter carrying a baby out of that tattered tablecloth?
"Granddaughter, did you pick up a child?"