"Do you still recognize me?" Chen Xu walked up to the middle-aged couple and asked.

"You...... You are...... That Rio-sama? After hesitating for a long time, the middle-aged man finally recognized Chen Xu, because Chen Xu has changed a lot in the past few months, he eats well and dresses well, although he is not fat in vain, but his figure has grown taller and heavier, and his face is no longer the dark, thin and malnourished, but the owner of the foot house still recognized Chen Xu after some careful identification.

"It's good to know!" Chen Xu breathed a sigh of relief, which proved that he was not wrong.

The next thing was easy, after the middle-aged man took the wooden plaque that represented the slave and a contract for the sale of four people, Chen Xu didn't bother to stay in this smoky place and continue to smell the smell of charcoal and metal before leaving, and Ran Feng did a good job to the end, arranging for a coachman in the workshop to escort the family of four in a carriage.

"Thank you to the owner of Ran Fang for today's matter, he will go to Qinghe Town to play when he has time, Chen Moudong invites you to drink!" Chen Xu said after getting on the horse.

"Well, if Lidian is not today, he will be in a hurry to return to Pheasant County, Ran is also going to have a banquet in the evening, and the next time Chen Lidian comes to Wancheng again, he will go to the Lotus Garden, and they will inform me, and then they will have a good time!" Ran Feng is very Jianghu and speaks heroically.

"Definitely, Chen won't bother much, farewell!" As soon as Chen Xu gave up his hand, he took Wang Wu, Wang Qi and Hu Kuan to follow the carriage as soon as he clamped the horse's belly, and Ran Feng stood in place and gave it away.

"Squeak, squeak"

The carriage kept jolting on the uneven pavement, making a slightly screeching sound.

"Chen Lidian, I'm afraid this workshop is not in line with the rules!" Wang Wuze walked beside him and said suddenly in a low voice.

Chen Xu couldn't help but smile a little dumbly: "Hehe, businessmen never follow the rules, if it weren't for the fact that they met Lü Buwei, there would not be today's First Emperor, let alone the situation of Daqin's unification of China, businessmen have a keen sense of smell and subtlety, but their concept is only to make money and make a fortune, so even if you want to add a merchant among the hundreds of schools, it is not an exaggeration, Lü Buwei is one of the best, they get up early and are greedy for darkness, they can't get into the hole, they see profit and forget righteousness, they exploit slaves, They collude with officials, and they do everything they can to make money, but ...... You can't deny that anyone's life is inseparable from them, and the more prosperous the world, the more inseparable it is from businessmen......"

"Chen Lidian, that's not what I said!" Wang Wu interrupted Chen Xu's words with some embarrassment.

"And what do you mean?" Chen Xu turned his head a little depressedly.

"I mean, the number of people in this copper and iron workshop is a bit outrageous, and I just observed that there is a fence at the end of the valley, and it seems that there are cars and horses coming in and out, so there must be a secret hidden secret!" Wang Wu whispered.

Chen Xu thought for a moment and shook his head and said: "Don't be nosy, since this Ran Feng can run such a large copper and iron workshop, and he has collusion with the county governor's mansion, there will naturally be no shortage of secrets, even if he wants to rebel, it is not your turn to worry about me!" ”

"That's what Ridian said!" Wang Wu nodded and stopped making a sound.

Just when Chen Xu and the others were about to walk out of the valley, a dilapidated carriage creaked and creaked behind, Chen Xu stopped the horse and stopped to give way and took a look by the way, and found that it was covered with several shabby straw mats, and two pairs of black, rough and skinny soles were exposed under the straw mats.

"Wait a minute~" Chen Xu couldn't help but want to ask what was going on, but the old man turned a deaf ear, and quickly waved the horsewhip, and the carriage shook and shook past Chen Xu and the others and quickly went away, turned a corner and disappeared at the foot of the hill

"What's going on?" Chen Xu couldn't help but ask.

The shopkeeper of the foot house, who was sitting in the carriage, said: "Lord Lidian, these coachmen are all deaf and dumb people, no matter how loud you shout, they can't hear them, and the car is pulling a newly dead slave, this kind of thing happens from time to time in the workshop, every few days there will be a slave die, and I don't know where I lost it when I pull it out!" ”

"You mean there are often dead people in the workshop?" Chen Xu was stunned.

"It's not a workshop, it's the same in other places, building roads and canals for mining, these workers and slaves are all in danger, we have been back and forth several times in the Qin Chu Chi Road that is being built, and there are buried dead bodies along the road, and some of them are thrown directly into the ravine when they die, and they are quickly eaten by wild beasts and driven away, and the bones cannot be found." Wang Qi next to him said.

Chen Xu lost interest in speaking in an instant, raised his head and sighed and rode forward silently, but he only walked two or three hundred meters, and saw that the broken carriage just now was squeaking and quickly coming towards him, and soon staggered past, and the broken straw mats and dead people on it were nowhere to be found.

"Hey, it looks like the place where it was discarded is not far away!" Chen Xu was surprised.

"Yes, it should be at the foot of the hill ahead!" Wang Wu nodded and said.

"Let's go, let's see!" Chen Xu pinched the horse's belly and accelerated forward, a group of people also hurriedly followed, and turned a corner along the foot of the mountain for only two or three hundred meters, and saw a big pit, which was full of dumped slag, gravel and all kinds of garbage, and this garbage pit was still public, and there were several cars dumping slag in the woods on the other side, and there were two twisted corpses lying among the messy gravel and broken wood, and not far away, there were buried dead people, and a pitch-black arm or foot could be seen in the slag.

This slag pit covers an area of hundreds of acres, and it has been piled up for many years, and it is no longer known how much slag and slag have been accumulated, and below, it is not known how many dead slaves have been buried.

Chen Xu stood on the edge of the pit and observed for a long time, and sighed slightly: "Let's go!" ”

"That guy just moved!" The youngest son of the shopkeeper suddenly pointed to a corpse below and whispered.

"Don't talk nonsense!" The owner's wife quickly covered her son's mouth in horror.

But everyone heard this, and they all looked down intently.

"Hey, Chen Lidian, it seems that he is really angry, his legs and feet just moved!" Wang Wu also said in surprise.

"Go down and get him up!" Chen Xu turned over and dismounted.

"I'll go, I'll go!" Hu Kuan, who had been following him and never spoke, suddenly stood up, rolled up his sleeves and walked slowly down the slag, fortunately, after the person was thrown down, he rolled over but seven or eight meters before being blocked by a broken log, so he did not roll to the bottom of the pit, Hu Kuan carefully spent a few minutes or walked to the side of the corpse, stretched out his hand and touched his nose for a while, stood up and shouted happily: "Lord Lidian, really alive!" I'll carry him on my back. ”

These slag gravel are dumped casually, so they are very unsolid, and they will collapse down with a bang when they step on it, so it took Hu Kuan more than ten minutes to carry the person on his back, and with the help of Wang Wu and Wang Qi, after climbing out of the edge of the pit, Hu Kuan was already soaked with sweat, his face was pale, and his legs were constantly trembling slightly.

This is a middle-aged man of about forty years old, black and thin, with unkempt hair like other slaves, there is hardly a trace of excess flesh on his body, his ribs are clearly visible, his clothes are completely broken, and his body is full of scars from slag, and his whole body is cold, but he still has very weak breathing, and his pulse is almost broken.

"Carry the carriage first, and hurry back to the city to find a doctor for treatment!" Chen Xu waved his hand, and several people hurriedly carried this person into the carriage.

"Chen Lidian, there is another one below, do you want to go down and have a look?" Hu Kuan asked.

Chen Xu glanced at Hu Kuan and shook his head and said, "There's no need, let's go quickly, this person can't be saved if he doesn't hurry up!" ”

It's not that he doesn't save him when he sees death, but it's impossible for the dead to be so lucky, they can come back to life as soon as they meet themselves, plus the bottom of the pit is twenty or thirty meters down, even a big living person has broken more than ten bones and fallen to death, and it takes more than twenty minutes to go down and come up, maybe this guy who is still panting can't wait to hang up.

Half an hour later, a group of people hurriedly returned to Wancheng, under the leadership of Hu Kuan, found a healer, and after some simple diagnosis and treatment, fed some hot water and decoction, the slave's breathing stabilized, and his pulse slowly began to recover.

Leaving this worker slave at the doctor and instructing the good life to take care of it, Hu Wan took Chen Xu, Wang Wu, Wang Qi and the family of the foot to the county governor's mansion to find the officials who handled the sale of labor slaves.

"To undo their slavery?" A steward asked in surprise.

"They were innocent in the first place, and now that I have brought them the trade documents and slave books, can't I restore their status?" Chen Xu asked.

"It's not that they can't, but their original place of origin has been cancelled, and I can't find any of their household registration information here, how can I restore your identity?" The little official said after reading a large number of bamboo slip records according to the time of the sale.

The shopkeeper suddenly felt like a thunderbolt from the sky, and the shopkeeper said eagerly: "My lord, there will be no household registration record for us, we have been in the city for three generations, and all of them are innocent people......

"Chen Lidian, I think we still have to find Gao Yao, he and Ma Gongzi and others did it together, I think what did he do or simply cover up the truth, otherwise it would be impossible to have no record?" Hu Kuan whispered beside him.

"Then let's go, go find Gao Yao first!" Chen Xu reluctantly stood up and prepared to leave with a group of people.

"Wait a minute, everybody!" The little official hurried to catch up.

"What?" Chen Xu turned around.

"How many people know Gao Gongzi?" The little official asked cautiously.

"I know, I met in the lotus garden last night, these people are the ones he arranged for you to sell to the copper and iron workshop outside the city, since you can't get it, I can only find him, if he can't do it well, then I can only discount his legs!"

Ga~ Chen Xu's coaxing words directly frightened this little official and almost sat on the ground, and he stayed for a long time wiping the sweat on his forehead and said: "I really can't be the master of this matter, wait a minute, I'll go to Gao Gongzi to verify, if it is indeed a mistake, it will definitely be able to restore the original household registration!" ”

"There you go!" Chen Xu waved his hand and asked this guy to hurry up and find Gao Yao, so as not to run around by himself.