At five o'clock, the sound of the fifth watch rang for a while, but the sky was still dark, and only the houses that needed to get up early in the city were lit up sporadically.

The county hasn't woken up yet.

As soon as the city gate of Shuyang County was opened, the cold air outside the city seemed to rush in immediately, and the guards guarding the city rubbed their hands together and sighed in their palms, and heard the sound of horses' hooves in the distance, mixed with the sound of wheels turning.

Someone came into town so early?

Generally, those who enter the city come from the countryside to sell goods, but the countryside is far away, and not every household has a horse-drawn carriage, even if it is early, it is impossible to go out before five watches.

You must know that there is a barren mountain outside the city, and I don't know if there are any evil things at night.

Therefore, even if the city gate is opened at the end of the day, under normal circumstances, people will not enter the city one after another until after the end of the day.

The guard listened intently for a moment, and saw that there seemed to be more than one carriage.

I am afraid that those who came from other countries hurried overnight and entered the city at the time when the gates were opened.

It's so bold that it doesn't sound like a crowded convoy, and it looks like it was sleeping out last night.

The carriage moved at a fast pace, and it was not long before it approached the city gate.

A modest but spacious carriage was in front, driven by a coachman, followed by a simple carriage, and two people sat outside.

The carriage stopped at the city gate, and the curtain was lifted, and two girls, one tall and one short, came down from it.

The tall girl is dressed in red, with red lips and white teeth, and looks handsome, and the shorter one is dressed plainly, and her appearance is quite attractive, but her complexion is darker.

These two girls can see at a glance that one is a young lady from a big family, and the other is not like a maid, but it looks like a girl from an ordinary family.

At this time, the smaller carriage behind it also stopped, and a girl came down from it. This girl is wearing a blue maid dress and a double bun, and she looks like a maid at first glance.

It seems that this is a serious maid.

But I don't know how the two girls in front of me got together because of the disparity in their identities.

The guards of the city quietly looked at South Africa Creek and Yu Xia with curious eyes, and at the same time checked the carriage slightly, and found that there was nothing suspicious and let them go.

After the carriage entered the city, it went west, bypassing the rows of street shops and the neat and imposing high-eaves houses in front of it, and stopped in front of an alley, at the end of which there was a small ditch, and on the edge of the ditch there was a row of low and dilapidated huts.

The alley was so narrow that the carriage could no longer move forward, so Yu Xia and South Africa Creek got down from the carriage and let the others wait where they were, and the two walked in on foot.

Gu Dabaoliu's address is the third from the left by the river.

Yesterday, after the end of the Xuanshi Conference, they came to Shuyang County overnight, estimated that the city gate had been locked, and slept in the mountains and forests for a night.

The two walked to the door of Gu Dabao's house, knocked lightly, and waited for a while, but there was no sound inside. The two looked at each other and knocked harder, but there was still no response.

Is there no one at home?

At this time, it was still dark, and the cool air at night had not yet dissipated, and there were already a few women who had squatted by the river to wash their clothes in the morning, and when they saw two people, they had already secretly looked, and when they saw that the two knocked on the door and did not knock, someone opened their mouths and asked them:

"Are you looking for this family?"

Yu Xia turned her head to look, but saw that the person who was questioning was a sixteen or seventeen-year-old girl, wearing a thick cloth jacket with a few patches on it, and some chilblains on her hands, who seemed to be a girl from a poor family.

Yu Xia arched her hand to the girl and asked, "This girl, do you know this family?" We are friends of Gu Dabao, he asked us to come over and sister his sister, why does it seem that there is no one in their family? ”

After listening to Yu Xia's words, the girl's face was a little strange, "I am their neighbor, Gu Dabao is not at home these days, and I am taking care of his sister." It's just that a few people came over yesterday to say that Gu Dabao was a friend and picked up his sister, you guys are a step late. ”

What the?

Yu Xia was shocked when he heard this.

As far as she knew, Gu Dabao did ask a neighbor to take care of his sister temporarily before coming over to participate in the Xuanshi Conference, but he only entrusted the matter of picking up his sister to South Africa Creek, why did this girl say that his sister had been picked up by someone else?

Yu Xia had a bad premonition in her heart.

"What do those people look like, and when did they come?" Yu Xia asked hurriedly.

When the girl saw Yu Xia's appearance, a look of doubt flashed on her face, and she raised her eyes to look at South Africa Creek standing in the distance, opened her mouth but did not speak.

Yu Xia knew that this girl didn't trust herself.

"This is a handwritten letter written by her brother, we are indeed friends of Gu Dabao, and we were entrusted by him to come to his sister." South Africa Creek came over and took out the letter written by Gu Dabao himself.

The girl glanced at the letter, but because she was illiterate, she couldn't tell the contents, but she saw that South Africa Creek was dressed and magnanimous, and she thought that she was a young lady from a big family, and she didn't look like a bad person, and she already believed most of it in her heart.

The girl's face turned a little pale, and she said uneasily:

"Yesterday a man and a child came and took out a purse that Gu Dabao was carrying...... That purse had a special meaning to him, and he never left him...... It was because of this that we believed what he said and asked them to take Xiaobao away. ”

Yu Xia and Nan Nanxi glanced at each other, and saw a look of worry in each other's eyes.

"Where did those two come from? Is there anything special about that purse? Why do you believe what they say so easily? ”

The girl was stunned by Yu Xia's series of questions, and she didn't know how to answer for a while, and another woman in her thirties who was washing clothes on the side listened to it for a long time, and then turned her head and answered:

"It was the purse embroidered by his sweetheart for him, and then the marriage between the two didn't work out somehow, but Gu Dabao was still very tight about the purse, and once he accidentally lost it, and he was so anxious that he didn't eat or sleep and found it for two days before he got it back, otherwise we wouldn't know about it."

"The two people who came to pick them up are very particular about dressing, they are all good materials, the man is about thirty years old, he looks quite ordinary, he can't be remembered, the child is five or six years old, his skin is very white, as if he has never been in the sun."

"Yes, yes," the girl who had spoken to them before immediately nodded in agreement, "Those two people are very face-to-face, and they are definitely not our Shuyang natives." ”

Yu Xia's brows furrowed even deeper after hearing this, as far as she knew, Gu Dabao didn't know the two people they were talking about, one big and one small.

Where did these two people come from? Where did you get your purse? How did you learn about the situation at Gu Dabao's family? Why did they take Gu Dabao's sister, and where did they take people?