Lu Jinping only learned after asking, but it turned out that Xiaoxiao was originally the personal guard of her mother Shangguan Wan'er, and she was the commander of the plum blossom internal guard. It's just that after he lost his memory, he never returned to the capital, and now he finally regained his memory, seeing that they were very affectionate, greeting them one by one, and said to Lu Jinping in surprise: "You actually directly led the Meihua internal guard, amazing." Then I'm your subordinate. ”

"Hehe, my mother asked me to take care of it, of course, the crown prince Li Longji also meant this, so I took care of it. In fact, it's really inappropriate for me to be a big man in charge of a bunch of girls, so it's just right for you to come back, so it's better for you to take care of it for me. ”

Xiaoxiao was not polite: "That's no problem, I'll help you command, everything is under your command and dispatch." ”

"That's okay, let's go back to the capital, I have a lot of things waiting for me to be busy, Meihua Neiwei has some new tasks to do, you are in charge, I am alone and lacking skills."

Lu Jinping didn't write about this matter in the strip of cloth tied to the legs of the snow sculpture like the wind, because it was a very important matter, and Xiaoxiao didn't know these important secrets, so she leaned over and asked, "What task?" ”

"The prince asked me to be in charge of the collection of important information in the capital and all over the country, in fact, to supervise whether there are any signs of rebellion among the hundred officials of the imperial court."

Xiaoxiao nodded and said, "There should be no problem with this, leave it to me to deal with." Finding out the news was originally an important responsibility of our Meihua internal guard, when the emperor was in power, he organized the Meihua internal guard to serve as a guard on the one hand, and on the other hand, it was to collect official intelligence information, and continue to expand and deepen it. ”

Lu Jinping said: "That's great. After this incident, my mother was disheartened, and she squatted in the palace all day and night, and she didn't go anywhere, and she didn't tell me about these things, maybe she didn't want to meddle in these things, and now it would be better if you came back and got this network up and running again. The prince has already allocated a large sum of money for us to spy on intelligence. We can expand our reach. Bring in some people who need it. ”

While the two were chatting, the team continued to walk towards the capital, and arrived in the capital in a day. Lu Jinping asked Xiaoxiao: "Where do you live?" ”

"I used to live in the palace and was with Shangguan Zhaoyi. Now Niangniang is no longer in charge of the plum blossom internal guard, you are in charge, of course you will arrange my residence. ”

Lu Jinping smiled and said, "That's good." My Chung Wang's Mansion is very large, so it's no problem for you to stay. Why don't you stay with me? I'll give you a separate yard, and you can help me at any time. ”

Xiaoxiao's eyes lit up and said, "That's great, I can't ask for it." Obey the prince at any time. ”

So, Xiaoxiao lived in Lu Jinping's Zhongwang Mansion, and Lu Jinping arranged a separate place for him to live.

According to Lu Jinping's instructions, Xiaoxiao rearranged the plum blossom internal guard to meet the needs of the new mission. Meantime. Ten martial arts masters were selected as Lu Jinping's personal guards, and he personally commanded them.

A few days later.

Lu Jinping was urgently summoned by Huang Ding, the secretary of Dali Temple, and said that he had important official business.

This is the first time that Lu Jinping has taken over the official affairs of Dali Temple after serving as the Shaoqing of Dali Temple, because he usually assists Li Longji in Jingzhao Mansion. And Dali Temple will not trouble him if there is no particularly important case, so after Lu Jinping received the notice, he chuckled in his heart, is there any big case?

Lu Jinping hurried to Dali Temple. Although Dali Temple was mainly an institution for hearing cases in the Tang Dynasty. Similar to the Supreme Court, but because of the Tang Dynasty, the same body was responsible for solving cases and hearing cases. There is no separation, so Dali Temple also undertakes the review and even detection of some important cases. It is mainly related to the crime of wandering across many places, or some major cases with a wide range of influence, and then it is necessary to send people from Dali Temple to preside over the investigation.

If it is a simple trial case, Lu Jinping will not be approached, because Lu Jinping's research on Tang Law is not very profound. Since you want to move him. Generally, there is such a cross-regional case that needs to be solved, and the state and county cannot coordinate, or cannot carry out the corresponding work, and it is reported to Dali Temple. Dali Temple decided to put Lu Jinping in charge because he was already famous for his ability to solve cases.

Sure enough, as Lu Jinping expected. After meeting, Huang Ding was very polite, although he was the secretary of Dali Temple, but Lu Jinping was a prince, and he was above him in terms of title and taste, so he definitely didn't dare to treat Lu Jinping as his subordinate.

After Lu Jinping came in, he had already greeted him at the door, and first bowed and said, "Meet the prince." ”

Lu Jinping also hurriedly returned the salute and said, "I don't know if the adults are in such a hurry to call me, is something wrong?" ”

Huang Ding nodded, his face was a little heavy, and after beckoning Lu Jinping to sit down, he was not in a hurry to speak, and after the attendant served tea and withdrew, he said: "There is a penal colony in Shudiba Prefecture, which has been connected with some murders, and the local officials cannot solve it, and the people are panicked. However, if this case is not investigated in time, if a similar case occurs, these thousands of exiles may eventually riot and cause chaos. ”

In ancient times, exile was a severe punishment second only to the death penalty, that is, the convict was sent to some remote and barbaric places thousands of miles away to serve hard labor. Let them suffer from being uprooted from their homes. At the same time, they also suffered physical torture, and many died of exhaustion in the penal colonies.

The exiles of the Tang Dynasty generally carried out a criss-cross method, that is, those from the north were sent to the south, those from the south were sent to the north, the east was sent to the west, and the west was sent to the east, crisscrossing and crisscrossing.

Therefore, in the frontier area of the Tang Dynasty, there are all kinds of penal colonies. The Bazhou area belonged to a wild land in the Tang Dynasty, and the prince was demoted to Bazhou back then, and finally died by Wu Zetian. There are also penal colonies in Bazhou that are used to hold exile prisoners, and felons who have been sent here for thousands of miles to serve their sentences.

Because these places are located in remote and uninhabited wilderness, let them reclaim the frontier, so there are not too many guards of soldiers, and under normal circumstances, the people exiled here are not ready to escape, because in ancient times, the transportation was extremely inconvenient, if you want to escape, it is almost very difficult to escape on foot, as long as the checkpoint is set, you will soon be caught.

Therefore, there were not many soldiers in the penal colonies, and if for some reason thousands of exiles fled in terror or even rioted, it would be a very severe and virtuous thing. The most feared thing by ancient kings is that there will be a rebellion, once someone climbs the heights and raises their arms, revealing the pole and revolting, it is likely to cause other groups of people to respond and flock to follow, like a snowball, it will be bigger and bigger, once it becomes the climate, it will be difficult to clean up.

Seeing that the situation was urgent, local officials reported the matter to Dali Temple, because of the panic caused by the serial murders in the local area. In this case, of course, the best way is to solve the case, and then arrest the real culprit, so as to calm the panic among people.

This is also the reason why Huang Ding called Lu Jinping.

Lu Jinping knew what the other party was trying to do when he heard it, and hurriedly said, "What happened in Bazhou? Please speak directly. ”

Huang Ding hurriedly handed a letter on the coffee table to Lu Jinping and said, "What I just said is all on it, take a look, I'm afraid I won't be very clear." ”

Lu Jinping took the thick letter, unfolded it and began to read it, it was written in half-white and half-literate, although there were some places that I couldn't understand well, but I could roughly guess what it meant.

After reading it, Lu Jinping's brows were tightly locked.

The case seems to be a bit tricky, and it's no wonder it's causing panic in the area.

It turned out that there were three murders in the penal center, and in all three cases the deaths were all felons held in the penal camp. Moreover, when the body was found, most of the head had been gnawed away and mutilated. No one heard them screaming or anything like that, and certainly no one witnessed it.

When the murder was first discovered, they thought it was a beast. Because there were many wild beasts in this area, the officers and soldiers organized a round-up to hunt this man-eating beast, and at the same time strengthened the vigilance of the penal colony.

However, after the security was strengthened, they went into the mountains to search, but they did not find the fierce beasts that hunted and killed, and after the security was strengthened, the penal center once again had the terrible incident of the exiles being eaten off most of their heads.

At this point, the penal colony began to panic, and they all wondered if it was a ghost or a demon or something like that.

Of course, the officials of the penal colony did not dare not agree with it. So it was agreed that it was a wild beast that had infiltrated the penal camp and eaten people, so several experienced hunters in the area were invited to help hunt them.

However, after these hunters came, they carefully inspected the scene and found that there was no trace of tigers, bears and other beasts that could eat people.

And this assertion further confirms the speculation in the hearts of these felons in the penal camp. That is, it is likely that something beyond the control of demons and monsters is at work. But in this kind of wild place, there are always all kinds of terrible legends, such as mountain demons, evil demons, and so on.

Of course, the officials guarding the penal center would not believe such a ghost heresy easily, and began to wonder if it was an insider who committed the crime.

However, I really can't figure out who the murderer will be? If they said that they were going to kill someone, they could completely suspect that someone inside had done it, but judging from the hunter's observation, it was clear that half of the head had been bitten off by force, and there were obvious traces of gnawing. It can't be a man, it's a beast.

Therefore, the garrison officers urgently requested assistance from the local garrison, and mobilized troops to increase the vigilance. At the same time, hunters and local people were organized to go into the mountains to hunt for murderous beasts.

The search lasted several days and resulted in a lot of prey, including several tigers and bears, but they did not know if the tigers and bears they hunted were the culprits in the two murders. (To be continued.) )