…… And an assassin?!

The main room where the banquet was held suddenly became very chaotic and bloody.

Some people wanted to draw their swords, some wanted to rush up and fight these servants, and some people were struck in the waist and abdomen, but they didn't breathe for a while, and struggled to escape, so the handmaidens made up for another arrow.

Finally someone rushed to a servant girl, and the dark-skinned, rough-looking woman did not have a trace of pity or fear, but put the crossbow machine against his face and pulled the machine wide!

"Ask for ......"

"Spare Me ......"

Blood stained the floor of the golden planks red, slowly flowing into the texture.

Still gasping for breath, still wailing.

Fifty maidservants, five hundred crossbow arrows, more than twenty guests, including the Cui family's servants and coachmen outside the door, there were only sixty or seventy people in total.

As for the ladies and ordinary servants, they are insignificant.

But female soldiers can be nervous and can waste crossbows, so it's normal to use more crossbows, and it's not wasteful.

She also had a few female soldiers who had never used their crossbows, and if she encountered any wrestlers or swordsmen, she should be able to deal with them.

Lu Bai walked out from behind the screen again, his eyes calmly staring at the bloody, almost steaming room.

She remembered all the number of guests, and how each of them was dressed and looked, and she had to make sure that every one of them was in the room.

…… And that little Langjun.

He was hit by two arrows in the chest, but he was not out of breath, half of his face was soaked in a pool of blood, and the other half of his face still looked full of youth, and his two eyes looked at her blankly, as if he wanted to ask something, but he couldn't.

Lu Bai bent down, stretched out a hand like snow, lightly covered his eyes, and with the other hand, he took out a short sword from his bosom and plunged it deep into his chest.

Chapter 257

This night is actually irrelevant to the people of the drama city.

But Qu Liu is a little different.

Their handyman, who gets up to sweep the streets at a bad time, usually gets up early, and he is no exception.

Today, the Lu family held a wedding banquet, and the Cui family gave them a little reward money in advance, asking them to clean the road from the city gate to Cui's mansion. He took the dozens of dollars, and did not spend them casually like others, but collected them in a precious place.

The city is not at peace now, and he must be vigilant.

So not long after he fell asleep, he heard someone knock on his broken window, and immediately got up.

"Get up quickly," said the little officer, "there is work to find you!" ”

This row of dilapidated brick houses was built in a small alley not far behind the county guard's mansion, and it was inhabited by people like them, whether the nobles needed helpers, servants, or coolies to handle dirty work, and the servants could always find such a group of people if they were less than fifty steps out of the house.

He got up quickly, and the rest of the handymen quickly got up after a grunt.

"What do you command?"

Under the swaying firelight, the little official had a gloomy face, staring at the group of cowering handymen in front of him.

"I have found a good job for you, and each of you will get a hundred wages, and the reward will be calculated separately!" He said, "As long as you do it, don't move your mouth, if you say one more word to let the nobles know, your life will not be guaranteed!" ”

Most of the handymen's faces were filled with excitement for a moment, and only Qu Liu asked again uneasily.

"Do you want the little people to sprinkle or ...... Or is it something else......"

The little official glared at him coldly, "What else have you done!" You're bold, don't be scared to pee your pants for a while! ”

They did go to sweep and clean, but instead of sweeping the streets, they cleaned the Cui Mansion where the banquet was held today.

An entire street was lit up by firelight, and the soldiers, dressed in full armor and armed with halberds, escorted many weeping old and young women and children out of Cui's mansion and passed by them.

Qu Liu glanced at them, and then turned his gaze to the mansion they were about to enter.

There's blood everywhere here.

Some of them flow out of the body naturally, fall to the floor, and slowly turn into a pool; Some soaked through the clothes, and wiped the depictions on the floor as the deceased struggled and writhed; Someone stepped on a pool of blood and tried to escape in a panic, leaving a series of bloody footprints;

There are also many vague bloody handprints on the wall clothes, wall pillars, floors, desks, and thresholds.

The blood gathered and slowly flowed out of the brightly lit house, spreading in all directions.

The door to the main chamber had been opened, and the night wind rushed in with impunity, rolling up the bloodstained wall coat as if it were a conjuring flag, telling the dead what had happened here.

Even Qu Liu, a veteran who has been on the battlefield and can be called a veteran of a hundred battles, is shocked by all this.

Because this is not a war.

It was a murder.

The little officer had already hurriedly ordered them, and the corpses had been carried away, but the room needed to be cleaned up, and it was conceivable that they would be very busy this night.

But no matter how busy they are, they can't compare to the group of people in this city.

They are destined to never sleep, such as Tian Yu.

Not all of the twenty or so guests lived in the city, so it was a laborious search to find them;

But there are also a few of them who come together as brothers, a family, so it saves a little effort.

After instructing the captains who went out of the city, Tian Yu immediately sent someone to send a letter to Kong Rong. After all this was arranged, he hurriedly led his troops to surround Cui's mansion.

Then Tian Yu saw a very strange Lu Bai.

She wore a dark green Luo skirt made of Shu brocade, and the golden thread-like wisps exuded brilliance under the lamplight, reflecting her whole person in that trance but not real halo.

But she was carrying a short blade in her hand, and sticky blood was slowly dripping and falling on the corner of her skirt, and then Tian Yu found that all the way out of the hall, the corner of Lu Bai's skirt was already soaked with blood.

Behind her, the female soldiers dressed as handmaidens were pulling out their crossbow arrows from the corpses strewn all over the ground, wiping them clean with a muslin cloth, and putting them back in the boxes they carried with them.

"They are stained with blood and can't be put back into the crossbow machine," Lu Bai sensed his gaze and explained, "They need to be cleaned, greased, and polished before they can be used again." ”

“…… You killed them? ”

Lu Bai stood on the steps, looking at him calmly.

A gust of wind rose, and although the thick corners of her skirt could not be blown by such a gentle autumn wind, her hair gently brushed over her face that was so white that it was almost transparent.

A trail of blood from nowhere followed her hair and gently rubbed it on her face.

"They betrayed my sister, and they betrayed Qingzhou," Lu Bai paused, and a dimple appeared on his cheeks, "Sir, am I acting recklessly?" ”

No, she didn't act recklessly.

In addition to killing these scholars who turned their backs on Kong Rong, as well as Liu Bei and Lu Lian, and cut off Yuan Tan's hand stretched out to the North Sea, Lu Bai had another secret reason for doing this - she wanted to cut off the possibility of making peace between Kong Rong and Yuan Tan.

Tian Yu even felt that Lu Bai acted like this, not only wanting Kong Rong to stand up and completely break with Yuan Tan with a clear banner, but also wanting to force him in this way.

Her plan still seems a little immature, not very detailed. After a massacre, he and Kong Rong are still needed to complete the aftermath.

But what if even this kind of "inconsiderateness" was taken into account by her, and turned into a disguised ploy to force him and Kong Rong to show their attitudes?

If Lu Bai really chose such a path after considering all aspects, what kind of person is she? A man with a deep mind, a ruthless man, and a constant suspicion and vigilance even for his allies.

There was a light behind her, and her expression was very blurred.

Tian Yu couldn't help but didn't speak, didn't ask such a question, and didn't confirm with her. He hoped that Lu Bai didn't have so many thoughts, she was just coerced by the Cui family again and again, and angrily used this drastic way to fight against these scholars who wanted to use her as a hostage and hold Lu Lian hostage.

"You ......," he let out a long sigh at the end, "do you know what it means for you to do such a thing?" ”

Lu Bai was stunned for a while.

The girl who followed her sister all the way from Chang'an to the plains, and then came to Xuzhou from the plains, suddenly followed back for a while.

But she quickly regained her senses, so the complicated look quickly disappeared with it.

Lu Bai didn't answer Tian Yu's question immediately, her gaze turned to an ancient tree in the courtyard that was slowly shedding leaves.

Those leaves will slowly fall off this autumn and be buried under the trees by the snow when the winter snow comes. But next year, spring will come, and the branches will still be full of flowers of unknown color.

None of this will be a problem, the only one who has a problem is her.

"I know." She smiled and said, "Today, I understand what my sister said. ”

This bloody purge began with a wedding banquet, Lu Lian's sister Lu Bailing fifty female soldiers, all dressed as maidservants, carrying crossbows, lying behind the wall clothes, waiting for the guests to drink and be hot, and kill together when they neglected to take precautions, and the thieves were all ambushed during the banquet......

Since then, no one will come to Lu Bai to say goodbye, on the contrary, if the people of Qingzhou see their children crying, they will mention Lu Bai's name.

"Cry again! If you cry again, let Lu Bai catch you! ”

But for the wealthy who had been murdered, they had too much to deal with to even resent the woman who had arranged and carried out the murder—because there was someone more worthy of their hatred than her.

Among these Beihai scholars, some people are indeed connected with Jizhou, and letters have been searched at home, but some people are just moved by those hardcore pro-Yuan factions, and they hesitate to fall to Yuan Tan.

These people were very convenient to meet on weekdays, and they did not leave any letters, so they could only be testified by family members or servants.

But even so, there are still a few families who are cautious and manage the servants and maids in the family are extremely strict, so they can be sure that they just went to a banquet in a daze, and they didn't know about the connection with Yuan Tan at all, and they died very unjustly, and they wanted to ask Kong Rong for justice.

…… But Kong Rong didn't give them justice, Kong Rong didn't even come forward in person to show any attitude, those landless people and celebrities who fled here have jumped out!

If those families can prove their innocence, not only will the prestige of Kong Rong and Tian Yu be challenged, but Kong Rong will also be forced to give these families better compensation, which must include official positions and farm property!

These scholars, who were determined to take refuge in Kong Rong in exchange for the revival of their families, became the most high-profile group in this turmoil, and they did everything they could to coerce and induce those families who had confessed their sins to identify them, and then they managed to match their testimony with a complete set of evidence—including secret letters with almost false handwriting and plausible words, or a box of gold cakes marked by the mark of the plains.

The family that was accused of fabricating the crime was naturally furious, wanting to refute these crimes and want to regain their innocence, but they were already prisoners, and the only adjudicator was Kong Rong.

The eldest prince of the Yuan family may want to save them, but he is too far away.

At the end of such a trial, Kong Rong listened to the testimony from all sides, and also looked at the evidence of the letters and property, and finally he magnanimously decided that except for the chief evil who had already been killed, these wealthy clans did not need to be punished by the Yi clan.

Some of them had their homes raided, all their belongings, their subordinates, and their servants confiscated, and they were driven out of Beihai to work in the salt pans by the sea of Donglai, while others were lightly spared with little punishment other than removal from office.

The vacant positions were quickly occupied by the newly attached nobles of Beihai, and a very strange chain of resentment was formed in Beihai: the scholars who had been driven to Yantian and their relatives resented those who remained in the city and were merely dismissed; The dismissed scholars resented the landless scholars who had done whatever it took to replace them.

Kong Rong used this simple and rude, but not very righteous method, to replace a group of family officials in the end, and also held Beihai a little tighter.

All this slowly calmed down, and when Yuan Tan was finally about to start marching into the army, the people of Qingzhou finally heard a good news.

Guan Yu and Lu Lian's soldiers and horses had already arrived in Huaiyin, and as long as they repelled Yu Ban, they could restore the supply lines of the counties south of Huaiyin to Xiapi.

Of course, they had to be faster, because Cao Cao was constantly repelling reinforcements from Xiaopei, Donghai, and Langya.

- No one knows how long Xiapi can hold out.