The midsummer night was slowly falling, and there was still a dim light left at the intersection of heaven and earth.

On a dark summer night in the capital, the sky is always purple and blue, and the stars are inlaid on it, like a pearl wind and cool needle inserted in a married woman's bun.

King Jing's Mansion is located in the southeast of the capital, and the huge mansion is blocked by a wall several zhang high, so even if you ride on a tall horse, it is difficult to see the situation inside.

On the periphery of King Jing's Mansion, the south side is the main gate, and the north side is the back door. The east and west sides do not open the door, so there are drainage ditches under the walls.

The wastewater discharged from the palace is discharged into the city through a sewer pipe, and the drainage ditch is connected to the imperial ditch, which is a branch of the moat, and the water eventually flows into the moat and flows out of the city from west to east.

As the night deepened, a few people came to the drainage ditch on the east and west sides of King Jing's mansion. The men were dressed in short clothes, barefoot, with their trouser legs pulled up high, each holding a large bamboo pole in his hand and carrying a pair of burdens on his shoulders.

These are the dredging workers who are responsible for dredging the water and cleaning up the silt in the ditch, because of the rain, there are a lot of dead branches and leaves in the river, as well as rats, cats and dogs that have drowned in the rain, and these things can clog the sewers and emit a foul smell if they are not cleaned up in time.

Therefore, whenever it rains heavily in the capital, the dredging workers must clean the ditch in time and dare not have the slightest neglect. At the base of the outer wall of the palace of King Jing, a stone carved tiger head pokes out every three zhang, the tiger's mouth is wide open, if you look closely, there is a hollow pipe inside, which is used for drainage.

This is the same principle as the dragon used to drain water in the palace, but the level has been changed to a tiger head.

The dredgers used tools made of bamboo poles to clean the ditches, put the cleaned things into bamboo baskets, and then picked them up, and if there was anything in it that could be used or exchanged for money, it would be left behind, and the rest would be dumped into manure trucks and sold to farmers in the suburbs to make fertilizer.

Under the cover of night, these workers quietly scooped up a net bag from under each outlet and quietly put it into the bamboo basket.

Then he took out a new net bag from his bosom and placed it in its original place.

After unclogging the canal, they quietly left again.

No one cared about the whereabouts of these dredgers, who walked through the streets like ants crawling on the ground, humble and weak.

And because of the foul smell of the burden they carried, the passers-by avoided it, and when they saw them, they hid far away, or walked quickly.

But the weak ants quickly walked down the street into a nondescript house.

They didn't enter at the same time, so no one noticed at all.

Even if someone passing by occasionally saw it, they thought it was just a house that was going to dredge the sewer.

After all, it has just rained heavily, and the drain may be blocked by some dead cat and dog, so ask a dredging worker to dredge it.

In Zhaoyi, it is as normal to hire a dredging worker after a rainy day as it is to hire a mason.

After these people entered, they removed the flat shoulders from their shoulders and walked into the hall with two bamboo baskets with their bare hands.

Take off the hat on your head, although the appearance is different, but everyone's eyes are shrewd and strong.

There were already a few people waiting in the room, not gorgeously dressed, but each of them looked leisurely and well-behaved, as if they were of noble birth.

Despite the pungent smell of the things the dredgers had brought into the house, they did not even frown.

"Several masters, they are all here today." One of the dredgers said, "It's a little more than yesterday, and it looks like we're going to have to clean up until the middle of the night." ”

"Yan Gongzi, Shao Gongzi, you two have official business, let's go back to your house to rest, it's enough for me to keep an eye here." An unusually tall man with obvious Western Regions blood said.

"What Grandpa Zhong said, these things have something to do with everyone, and they should be shared together." Said a tall and thin young man with handsome eyebrows on the other side.

"Yes, even if the two of us are going to the palace tomorrow, it doesn't matter, anyway, we will rest in shifts." Another heroic and heroic son said: "There are many helpers for many people, and even if we go back, we can't sleep, and we are always worried about it." ”

It turned out that these three people were Zhong Ye, Yan Yuntang and Shao Nan.

Since they knew that something had happened to Duanwang Shizi, they got together to discuss how to rescue him.

Wei Yining, as a pioneer, has already entered King Jing's Mansion, and he made an appointment with them before leaving, and he will find a way to spread the news.

Since it is impossible to predict what will happen to you when you enter the palace, there is no way to determine what will be used to convey the message.

But the clever Wei Yining thought of using the drainage channel to transmit the news, because no matter how tightly defended, this channel would never be blocked.

In comparison, it is too easy to be found by people about flying pigeons and fireworks.

I'm afraid that before the news is delivered, he has already been caught by the guards of the palace, and it is very likely that he will be killed on the spot.

Wei Yining had already said before leaving, and after he entered, he would first find out the situation of Duanwang Shizi. As long as there is a suitable opportunity, she will pass on the news through this channel as soon as possible.

Therefore, what the people outside have to do is to receive this news, and then find a way to rescue people from King Jing's mansion.

And these dredging workers are the right-hand men of the Shao family and the Yan family, both capable and loyal, and they are all carefully selected.

Their main task is to disguise themselves as dredgers and clean the drainage canals of King Jing's mansion every day.

In order to prevent omissions, they also specially prepared a net bag to hang under the drain.

These nets are woven with transparent fishing line, so you won't notice it until you get close to it.

Even if someone finds out, they will never come up with the real purpose of this thing, but only think that it is a measure made by the dredging workers to better collect debris and reduce siltation.

When Wei Weiyining came up with this method, everyone was amazed when they heard it, and they really couldn't find a more hidden way than this.

Not only is the person delivering the message relatively safe, but even the person getting the message is safe.

There were a few thick candles in the room, and the whole room shone as bright as day.

Both the master and the subordinates began to rummage carefully in these bamboo baskets, even if it was a small blade of grass or a rag the size of a fingernail.

You must know that this is really related to too many human lives, Qian Qianyi, Wei Yining, those innocent children, and even many people they don't know.

A moment earlier, it would have been possible to save one more life.

So everyone doesn't dare to slack off.

()