Shi Ran rode his horse all the way and entered the Yingchun Gate in the east of Beiping City at noon. Entering the city, Shi Ran was not in a hurry to find Fan Wucheng's mansion, but stayed in an inn in the city as an ordinary tourist.

After staying at the inn, Shi Ran first had a hearty lunch, and then slept in the room steadily, carefully freshened up, changed clothes, and swept away the fatigue and dust that had come all the way. ，

As a member of the "Qingyuan" brothers who controlled the Beiping Army, an important shogunate subordinate in the Beiping Army's Jiedu Mansion, a loose official on the five grades in the Later Zhou Dynasty, and the largest in the Beiping Army, and one of the best in the world, Fan Wucheng's mansion in Beiping City is only a three-entry courtyard, but both on the outside and inside, it is meticulously crafted and elegantly built, showing the master's style and status everywhere. Such a mansion can make people feel bright from afar, so that even if Shi Ran, who has just arrived, has not seen the big word "Fan Mansion" on the gate of the house, he can be sure that he is not looking for the wrong place - not to mention that there are four guards holding firearms at the door of the house, with special clothing styles and serious expressions, showing the unique identity of the owner of the house everywhere.

Although he has the handle of the owner of the house in his hand, Shi Ran will not show any words and behaviors in front of other irrelevant people before meeting the person. Therefore, after making sure that he was not taking the wrong path, Shi Ran had already dismounted and walked some distance from the gate, and walked towards the guards with a smile on his face.

The guards guarding the gate of Fan's Mansion had naturally noticed Shi Ran a long time ago, and when they saw him walking towards him with a smile, they knew that this was another guest who wanted to visit the Fourteenth Master. So, the guards, who had long been accustomed to this kind of visit, didn't pay too much attention to this strange visitor, until Shi Ran walked to the left of the gate, and then a guard stepped forward to block his way, and asked very stylized: "Who is here, what are you doing here?" ”

Shi Ran hurriedly clenched his fists and said: "Shi Shijie, a wealthy businessman in Xialu County, asked to see the fourteenth master, and he was annoyed by the captain. -- Shi Shijie is the pseudonym used by Shi Ran on his temporary residence permit.

Presumably he was accustomed to seeing this kind of admiring visitor, Shi Ran's voice fell, and the guard who greeted him had already replied: "The fourteenth master has an order, this is a private house, not an office." If you have any official business, please go to the head office of the 'Datong Commercial Bank' on Yingchun Street early tomorrow. ”

"I am not here for official business, but I have a private matter to discuss with the Fourteenth Master." Shi Ran hurriedly explained when he heard this.

"The fourteenth master has an order, except for his own brothers and sisters, there will be no outsiders, please go back." The guard's refusal was still so neat.

If it is an ordinary visitor, in the face of such a reply from the guard, he will usually try to bribe with some money, and finally lose in front of the guard, who refuses to accept the bribe and insists on his principles, and returns in a huff - of course, not all visitors will be treated like this. For the important business partners that Fan Wucheng has taken care of, these guards will naturally be treated in another way, and a small number of old friends like Cui Yongnian and Qi Nanhai will be directly invited into the house.

But Shi Ran came prepared this time, and his heart was full of certainty of victory. Therefore, he neither bribed him with silver money, nor did he turn around and leave helplessly, but reached out and took out a jade pendant taken from Liu Yunyan and a longevity lock taken from his young son from his arms, handed them to the guard, and said: "I am not an outsider, but I was entrusted by an old man of the Fourteenth Master to give him an important message to the old man." Here are two tokens of the old man, and the captain only needs to hand them over to the fourteenth master, and he will know it at a glance. ”…,

Seeing that the guy dressed as a wealthy businessman in front of him did not take money and bribe, nor did he go out of fun, but he took out a jade pendant and a longevity lock and said that he was delivering a letter for the old man of the Fourteenth Master, and the guard really didn't dare to wait any longer to ignore it - after all, looking at what the person in front of him said, his face was calm, and there was no sign of fabrication or lying, so he really came to deliver the letter. Therefore, the guard hurriedly accepted the official jiashi, took the jade pendant and longevity lock handed by Shi Ran, and said: "In this case, wait here for a while, and wait for a certain person to go to the ceremony." ”

"There's a captain of the labor school." Shi Ran clasped his fists again and saluted.

"Well said, well said." The guard and Shi Ran said a few polite words, then turned around and walked into the gate of Fan's mansion.

At the same time that Shi Ran galloped out of Lu County to Beiping City, Fan Wucheng, who had just finished breakfast in his house and was about to go to the head office of the "Datong Commercial Bank" next to Jiedu Mansion, also learned the news of the disappearance of Liu Yunyan's mother and son, their maids, and seven servants from Fan Xiaowu, a confidant who came to report the news.

Due to the meticulousness and swiftness of Zhang Yan and others' actions, as well as the paralysis and slackness caused by the fact that Liu Yunyan's mother and son have lived in Huaishu Street, the county seat of Luxian County, for more than a year, Fan Wucheng arranged for Fan Xiaowu to secretly pay attention to and protect Liu Yunyan's mother and son's henchmen in Lu County, and Fan Xiaowu did not notice the abnormality in the Liu Mansion at the first time, and did not see anyone come out of the Liu Mansion until yesterday for a whole day, and Fan Xiaowu realized that something might be wrong. So, he quietly went to the willow house yesterday night to find out the situation. It turned out that the Liu Mansion was empty, and the whereabouts of Liu Yunyan's family of seven were unknown and unknown.

In fact, Fan Xiaowu can't be blamed for this. Because it is about his future and fate, and about his wife and children, Fan Wucheng does not dare to hand over the matter of paying attention to and protecting Liu Yunyan's mother and son to ordinary subordinates, and the only ones who can reassure him are those who are relied on by him as confidants. As Fan Wucheng's confidants, these relatives are well known to the "Qingyuan" brothers, the shopkeepers and associates of the branches of the "Chase Commercial Bank", and many important business partners of the "Chase Commercial Bank". No matter which person is sent to Lu County, it is impossible to avoid everyone's eyes and ears. Therefore, Fan Xiaowu's public identity in Lu County is that the head office of the "Datong Commercial Bank" is stationed in Lu County, and is responsible for the exchange and transfer of information between the head office and the Lu County branch. While this identity provides Fan Xiaowu with a good cover, it also restricts his freedom of movement to a certain extent, making it impossible for him to keep an eye on the movements of Liu Zhai and Liu Yunyan's mother and son

In addition, in order not to attract the attention of others, Fan Xiaowu did not arrange his residence in Luxian County to be too close to the Liu Mansion, but rented a small mansion on the street that intersected with Huaishu Street where Shi Ran used to drink tea and monitor the Liu Mansion while drinking tea inside. Because this house is diagonally facing Huaishu Street, Fan Xiaowu, who lives in it, can't directly observe the situation of the Liu Mansion, so he can only take the opportunity of going out to run errands and passing by the intersection of Huaishu Street to take a look at the movements of the Liu Mansion - because of this, after getting the news of the disappearance of Liu Yunyan's mother and son, Fan Wucheng did not be too harsh or angry with Fan Xiaowu.

As the object of protection, in order to cooperate with Fan Xiaowu and show him that her family is safe and sound, as long as the weather conditions allow, she will take her children to stay on the street for a while in a roughly fixed period of time, so that Fan Xiaowu, who often passes by the intersection of Huaishu Street, can see her mother and son. Even when it is not suitable to take children out to play in rain, snow, wind and frost, she will let her personal maid go to the street for various reasons, giving Fan Xiaowu a signal that everything is normal. Therefore, when Fan Xiaowu did not see Liu Yunyan's mother and son outside the gate of the Liu Mansion on Huaishu Street yesterday afternoon, nor did he see his personal maid, he immediately became suspicious. It's just that at that time, he was still followed by the local chief shopkeeper who invited him to the branch to talk about business, and he couldn't get out for a while. Therefore, it was not until the evening that he returned to his residence after finishing his business and had the opportunity to go to the willow house to find out. At this time, Liu Yunyan's family had been kidnapped by Zhang Yan and others for almost a whole day, and even if he Fan Xiaowu had great ability, it was impossible to find their whereabouts. …,

However, after all, this Fan Xiaowu is a confidant cultivated by Fan Wucheng, and his intelligence and wit are not bad. So, after the initial panic and confusion, he quickly calmed down. After calming down, Fan Xiaowu carefully recalled what he had seen and heard from morning to night, especially what happened near Huaishu Street, and gradually sorted out the clues, and after linking the brawl that happened not far from the intersection of Huaishu Street, the wide carriage blocking the intersection of Huaishu Street, and the several beggars who had been circling at the intersection of Huaishu Street for several days and had suddenly disappeared, etc., he finally came to the conclusion that the "Liu Yunyan family" was premeditated and abducted.

When Fan Wucheng got the news from Fan Xiaowu, his first reaction was that his relationship with Liu Yunyan was known to the crossing team, and the people of the Intelligence Department secretly arrested Liu Yunyan and others in order to get solid and reliable evidence. However, Fan Wucheng quickly denied his speculation. In his opinion, if the team does not have evidence of their personal relationship with Liu Yunyan, they will definitely conduct a secret investigation first, and then take action after obtaining conclusive evidence, rather than rashly arresting Liu Yunyan; If the team already has empirical evidence that they have a personal affair with Liu Yunyan, they can openly and openly arrest Liu Yunyan, who is still a wanted criminal of the Ministry of Intelligence, in the name of arresting the suspect, instead of engaging in this kind of laborious secret arrest.

Therefore, after some thought, after going through the possible enemies and enemies of himself and Liu Yunyan, and carefully analyzing the strength and ability of each possible enemy or enemy, Fan Wucheng finally locked the biggest suspicion on the body of "Feiyantang". Although this result was a little surprising to Fan Wucheng, it was reasonable to think about it. First, "Feiyan Hall", as a large-scale and powerful secret spy organization, had both reason and ability to do this after the entire army of the Youzhou Branch was wiped out and the hall master Liu Yunyan disappeared for no reason. Second, the Intelligence Department has recently captured dozens of spies from the "Feiyantang" one after another, and according to the confessions obtained by Lao 28 from these arrested "Feiyantang" spies, the other party's large-scale northward operation was personally deployed and commanded by Zhang Yan, one of the head of the "Feiyantang," and it is very likely that he himself is still hiding in the territory of the Beiping Army. For this reason, Lao Twenty-eight made a big move, mobilized almost all the liliang who could mobilize to search for Zhang Yan and his comrades, and the shame of being slipped out of his nose by the other party with a snow. And with the "Feiyan Hall" moving north, especially Zhang Yan and a large number of spies from its main hall who knew Liu Yunyan entering the Beiping Army, the chances of Liu Yunyan, who had been hiding in Lu County for more than a year, were becoming more and more discoverable. In this way, it is not impossible for Liu Yunyan to be recognized by the spies of the "Feiyan Hall" and taken away by the other party.

Thinking of this, Fan Wucheng couldn't help but fall into a dilemma. As a matter of public interest, he should immediately report the relevant situation to the committee, so that the Ministry of Intelligence can determine the possible hiding place of Zhang Yan and his comrades, and quickly launch action to catch this fish that slipped through the net and remove the threat posed by the "Feiyantang", a hostile secret spy organization, to the Beiping Army and the crossing team. In terms of selfishness, he could never let the committee and his brothers know about his relationship with Liu Yunyan. Otherwise, he may not only face the tragic situation of being separated from his wife, but also lose the trust and respect of his brothers. At that time, although he may not be worried about his life, he will definitely be despised by the whole team. Not only will he lose all his status and power, but he will also be marginalized and become a stranger to his brothers - this is something that Fan Wucheng cannot accept under any circumstances.

So, after some ideological struggle, Fan Wucheng finally decided not to publicize the matter. Instead, he used Liliang, which he could use in his hands and could be trusted at the same time, to find out the whereabouts of his wife and children as much as possible. Of course, Fan Wucheng also thought that "Feiyantang" might take the initiative to come to the door and put forward some harsh requirements to himself. It's just that he hasn't come up with a foolproof way to deal with it for a while, so he can only deal with it on the spot and deal with it carefully.

Therefore, when the guards brought the token and Shi Ran's words to him, Fan Wucheng immediately realized that his previous inference should be correct, and it was likely that the person who kidnapped his wife and children was his old master, "Feiyan Tang". Whether his wife and children can return to his side safely depends on the outcome of his negotiations with the messenger sent by the other party for a while. So, Fan Wucheng tightly clutched the jade pendant he gave to Liu Yunyan on last year's wedding anniversary, as well as the longevity lock that his son personally hung around his neck when his son was full moon, suppressed his eagerness to see the visitor outside the mansion, and said to the guards in as calm a tone as possible: "Take the guests outside the door to the study, and the master will see him there." ”