Infinite Puzzle City

Chapter 465 Sword Commentary
After leaving the Zou family’s gate, the entire carriage was filled with 50,000 taels of gold.

These are all the gold that the Zou family promised to Xiao Ran, ten boxes, each box containing five thousand taels of gold.

Even a prince like Li Jie had never seen so much money.

Looking at the large boxes on the carriage in front of him, Li Jie swallowed his saliva and looked at Xiao Ran with envy: "Such a large sum of money is enough for you to squander for a lifetime."

"What do you mean?"

Xiao Ran tilted her head and looked at Li Jie.

Li Jie came over and whispered, "You're not really going to risk your life for the Zou family, are you? Zhang Wumeng is not someone you can easily mess with?" He glanced around and said, "Or do you think the Zou family will let you take the money away?"

“Oh, I want to take this money away, can they still stop me??”

Xiao Ran asked in pretended surprise.

"Hehe, that's all I have to say. Don't disbelieve it." Li Jie raised his head, as if to say, "Anyway, I have advised you before."

Xiao Ran just smiled at this. How could he not know the Zou family's little plan? Even when the old man from the Zou family gave him the scale, Xiao Ran felt that the black swan brooch on his chest was sending him a strong alarm.

It can be seen that the old man from the Zou family has already developed murderous intentions towards him.

But this kind of thing, in fact, is not a big deal to Xiao Ran.

As long as the Zou family doesn't intend to kill me, I won't be lenient towards them.

What's more, if the Zou family knew that Zou Zicheng actually died at their hands, it would probably not be as simple as just having murderous intent.

I'm afraid the reward for this 100,000 taels of gold will be on my head.

After Xiao Ran and Li Jie returned to the palace, Gao Yuting had not yet come out of confinement, so they simply waited for another day.

Sword review is not something that is completed in one day, nor is it something that you can just go up and fight with all your might.

So Xiao Ran was not in a hurry.

There is a saying in Xiangmen, "Fast beats slow thousand"

What does it mean? Quick attack means to interrupt the other person's thoughts quickly when he is least expecting it, set a trap for him, and ask for the information he needs.

The slow trick is to advance step by step and lure people into your trap step by step.

For example, the most classic scam in physiognomy is called burying the sheep's head.

It is said that there was a wealthy family in this area who had a son with epilepsy, and no doctor could cure him no matter how many doctors he consulted.

A fortune teller came one day and said that your son’s epilepsy was caused by someone deliberately harming your son. If you don’t believe him, go dig behind your house and you will definitely find something.

The rich man went back and dug, and indeed he dug out a rotten sheep's head.

Seeing this, most people guessed that the sheep head was buried by the fortune teller.

Those wealthy families are not fools. How could they not see such a simple truth?
The reason is that the sheep's head has been buried for three years.

Three years ago, when a fortune teller passed by, he heard the news and quietly buried the sheep's head.

And then he never showed up here again.

Three years later, when I came back, the place where I buried the sheep's head was already covered with weeds after three years of spring and autumn. The new grass covered the old grass, and no one could tell that the sheep's head was buried three years ago.

At this time, the fortune teller will give you another prescription and take one hundred silver coins from you as a deposit. When your son gets better, he will come back to take another one hundred taels of silver.

Take the silver and run away.

Therefore, the more this happens, the more important it is to control the details. If there are enough details, even the simplest scam can succeed.

After Xiao Ran returned to the palace, the first thing he did was to summon a little ghost to inquire about the situation in the Miracle Pavilion.

He went to the Zou family himself, and the Qiqi Pavilion was responsible for operating the imperial guards leader Chu Tianming.

This guy is a martial arts fanatic and attaches great importance to fame. Xiao Ran's goal is to find a way to drag him into this.

Xiao Ran was originally also having a headache about how to drag him into the water, but then he changed his mind and thought of the Amazing Pavilion.

The Jingqi Pavilion found out the secrets of many officials in Chang'an City, and it is possible that some of them were members of the imperial guards.

When Liu Bingxia checked, he found that there really was such a person, and his rank was not low. He was the deputy commander of the imperial guards.

This guy has a lot of leverage, and he has unclear relationships with the wives and daughters of his subordinates.

He often takes advantage of his position to let his subordinates take turns on duty, and then goes to their homes after get off work, hugging their daughter and wife and having a great time.

Unfortunately, his subordinate was an honest man and had no idea that his daughter and wife had been taken away by someone else.

This matter was done in a covert manner and ordinary people would never know about it.

It just goes like the saying goes, if you don't want anyone to know, then don't do it.

Xiao Ran simply asked Manager Liu to negotiate with this guy, but now he has no idea how the negotiation went.

As soon as Xiao Ran called the little ghost and asked some questions, it turned out that things were going better than Xiao Ran had expected.

"The Amazing Pavilion really gave me a big surprise."

Xiao Ran nodded, thinking that when Manager Dong retired, he could arrange for Manager Liu to take over his job.

Thinking of this, Xiao Ran unconsciously thought of Li Jingqi again.

All the shopkeepers that Li Jingqi recruited were smart people and elite soldiers. It was obvious that Li Jingqi wanted to develop well in this maze city.

But later he was invited out by Yinshan Taoist, who set up a trap in Mengchi and severely deceived the Changchun Association, causing great losses to the main force of the Changchun Association.

"Well, that's a pity."

Thinking of the Taoist priest of Yinshan, Xiao Ran couldn't help feeling a pang of regret in his heart.

It was a pity that he could not kill this good master. If he had obtained his physical body, he could not only greatly enhance his own combat effectiveness, but also see from Yinshan Taoist what these people were planning behind the scenes.

"Hey, my good master, where are you now? We foxes miss you so much!"

Xiao Ran tilted his head back and couldn't help but let out a long sigh.

The second in command thought that Xiao Ran was thinking about his master. He could not help but nod secretly: "I didn't expect that the young master is quite filial."

The next day, Xiao Ran still didn't wait for Gao Yuting to come out, so he simply gave up waiting.

Gao Yuting had reminded herself before that she must be careful before she came out of confinement, but the situation was changing too fast now. It was right for her to be careful, but she must lure Zhang Wumeng out as soon as possible.

Xiao Ran asked the second in command to stay at home to look after the house. In order to prevent Zhang Wumeng from stealing, Xiao Ran also specially called Eunuch Li over to let the second in command serve him.

Although Li Jie was very unhappy about this, after all, Eunuch Li was his amulet.

But what can be done? Eunuch Li’s current master is Xiao Ran.

I followed Li Jie into the carriage and arrived outside Yanzheng Gate.

Today is already the second day of the sword review, but there are still crowds of people outside the door, including many wanderers and jugglers, making it very lively.

It’s a pity that Xiao Ran doesn’t have time to appreciate it today.

Take a horse-drawn carriage and drive directly into Yanzheng Gate.

This is a privilege only enjoyed by royal family members.

Others, even princes and ministers, had to walk in.

After getting off the carriage, there were six or seven arenas in the distance that were full of people. Li Jie accompanied Xiao Ran to an arena with fewer people and waited.

The man on the ring was waving his two swords, dancing so fast that his figure split into two and cut the wooden stake in front of him into six or seven pieces on the spot.

As soon as this set of sword skills was finished, there was a burst of cheers and applause from the audience.

"Zhang Maohei, Group C, 66."

Several judges sitting nearby whispered to each other for a while, and then called out each other's scores.

A, B, C, D
Among the four lists, Group C is actually considered to be relatively outstanding. Upon hearing this, the man named Zhang Maohei smiled and was quite satisfied with his results.

With this achievement, whether he joins the army, becomes a bodyguard, or even travels around the world, he will at least have a reputation and will not be looked down upon by others.

Besides, this is just the first round and not the final result. There is still a chance to move up from Group C to Group B.

Then several more people came up one after another.

But these people couldn’t even make it into Group D and were all eliminated by the judges.

Naturally, this also caused boos from the audience.

Especially the ordinary people who were watching the show, they were hiding below and eating melon seeds. It was more lively than watching a play during the Chinese New Year.

Xiao Ran and Li Jie watched for a while from the audience, and Li Jie suddenly felt a little bored.

In fact, Li Jie himself is quite strong. When they first met, this guy even dared to launch a sneak attack on him.

But now he hasn't taken the blood pill for too long, and Li Jie's own strength has been greatly reduced.

It was fortunate that he did not practice the Blood Transformation Sutra to the fifth level. Otherwise, if he reached that level and stopped taking blood pills, he would not only lose all his strength, but would also be disabled if he did not die.

So Li Jie had no interest in these unqualified guys.

As for the experts, most of them have either completed the first review on the first day, or waited to come back in the next two days.

There are not many masters like Xiao Ran who are stuck in the middle of time.

Just when Li Jie was getting a little impatient, a group of people came over from a distance.

"Oh, it's true that enemies often meet on a narrow road."

Xiao Ran turned around and took a look, and it was true.

A group of people walked out from behind the crowd. One of them was Wang Luzhong, the young master of the Wang family who was beaten up by Xiao Ran and his wife in Hongbin Building that day.

In addition to Wang Luzhong, there were six or seven people following him. These people were dressed in gorgeous clothes, wearing jade belts around their waists and rings and pendants on their bodies that jingled.

Even the boots on her feet were woven with gold threads and decorated with jade.

These people stood beside Wang Luzhong, and every step they took revealed their innate dignity and composure, as if they were born to be above everyone else and look down on all living beings.

"Oh, it's the little uncle. I haven't seen you for a long time. Your skills are becoming more and more unfathomable. Your nephews can't tell your depth anymore."

The leading young man smiled and bowed to Li Jie, but from his words and actions it seemed that he did not take Li Jie seriously at all.

Li Jie frowned. These people were the children of the current emperor, and Li Jie did not dare to offend them rashly.

After all, the dynasty will eventually fall into the hands of one of them.

Faced with the ridicule, Li Jie could only play Tai Chi: "My dear nephews, you are here to participate in the sword review, right?"

"Uncle Wang, what are you talking about? How could we get involved with such crude warriors? We are just bored and come here to stroll around casually."

The skin of these princes is fair and delicate, even whiter than that of young girls.

Obviously, they all practiced the Blood Transformation Sutra.

It is no wonder that they look down upon sword reviews, thinking that sword reviews are just a means used by people in the martial arts world and are indeed not worth mentioning compared to the miraculous effects of the Blood Transformation Sutra.

Wang Luzhong's gaze turned and locked onto Xiao Ran. Last time at Hongbin Building, Xiao Ran beat him up so badly that he had to lie in bed for many days.

If it weren't for the Blood-Transforming Meridian and the constant nourishment from blood and food every day, I'm afraid anyone else would never be able to get out of bed in this lifetime.

"Humph, you are here to participate in the sword review, right? Today I am going to make this clear. No matter what you are rated, I will take it down today."

The rules of sword reviews are that if someone is dissatisfied with someone else's sword review, they can challenge it.

This has been mentioned in the previous article, so I won’t elaborate on it.

Wang Luzhong obviously came prepared today, and he wanted Xiao Ran to get off the sword review list.

Xiao Ran was startled when he heard this, and immediately looked Wang Luzhong up and down with a strange look, thinking: "When I feel sleepy, someone comes to give me a pillow? There are such good people in the world? "

(End of this chapter)