The book continues from the above, the last book said that there was a drought in Henan Province on the Wushen Day (28th) of June in the first year of Zhenguan, and after receiving the report, Li Shimin quickly ordered to mobilize a large amount of grain to the affected areas.

However, at this time, the imperial court could no longer raise such a large amount of grain and grass for a while, and when it was at a loss, the Longcheng army was ordered by Chu Mofeng, the king of Xian, to carry millions of loads of grain to the affected areas, and then distributed all the grain and supervised the local post-disaster reconstruction work.

In view of this situation, Li Shimin instructed Chu Mofeng to go to Henan Province to thoroughly investigate the case of embezzlement of disaster relief grain, and then Chu Mofeng led the flower team under his command to set off on the journey to Luoyang, the first stop.

At this time, in Luoyang City, the shopkeeper of the rice shop in Los Angeles was immediately stabbed to death in front of the counter after killing the mysterious visitor, and at the same time, the shopkeeper of the rice store in the affected area was all killed at the same time.

In a house in Luoyang City, a young man was standing on a chair, listening to the report of the next person, nodding from time to time, occasionally asking a few words, and after the next person finished the report, he immediately waved his hand to signal him to retreat.

Then the person went straight into the inner room, came to the bookshelf and pressed it lightly to a certain place, only to hear a 'click', the bookshelf that was originally attached to the wall was split in two from the middle, revealing a secret passage that only allowed one person to pass, and then the person slowly walked in, and when the figure disappeared, the bookshelf slowly closed again.

Walking along the dark passage for a distance, this person came to a stone wall, and twisted the disc inlaid on the stone wall clockwise, and in an instant a door on the stone wall slowly opened, and the man walked in without stopping, only to see that behind the door was a relatively spacious room, and all kinds of blades were hung on the walls of the room, which glowed against the background of the torches on the wall.

The man sat straight on the only chair in the room, and then coughed lightly, only to see a wall behind him flip over, and two men dressed in black walked out of it, one of them walked up to the man, and respectfully gave a salute and said: "Qi Qi master, the people involved are basically removed, but only the Qingcheng rice shop shopkeeper in Qingzhou City has lost his trace, and his subordinates are not good and ask the master to punish him." After speaking, he knelt in front of the man, lowered his head and trembled.

"Well, how can you still run away?" As if he didn't see the man in black in front of him, the man took out a dagger from his bosom and kept playing with it between his fingers.

At this time, another man in black hurriedly stepped forward, and then knelt in front of the man, and said in a sincere and fearful tone: "Report to the master, this time it is not that the subordinates are unfavorable, but when the subordinates led people to Qingcheng Mixing, the shopkeeper Yu Sanshui has disappeared, and then the subordinates and others secretly investigated in Qingzhou City for several days, and no trace of them was found. ”

"Oh, that's it!" The man stood up straight, slowly walked behind the two, stretched out his hand and put his hand on the shoulder of one of them, only to see that the figure trembled slightly, and the man's cold voice came from his ears, "If you do something wrong, you have to find a reason, how do you say I should punish you?" As soon as the voice fell, the man waved his hand, and the two immediately felt a sharp pain in their backs, but despite this, the two still didn't dare to get up, beads of sweat slipped down their foreheads, and they couldn't hold back the pain in their backs, and the two immediately trembled and said: " The subordinates are unfavorable and are willing to accept the punishment of the master. ”

I saw the man turn around and sit on the chair, smiled slightly and said, "Get up, this time I will spare you for the time being, if there is a next time, come and see you." ”

Hearing this, the two immediately got up and saluted the man, and then the man said with a solemn face: "Today, Lao Chen went to Los Angeles to go to Mixing, and he hasn't come back yet, you go to investigate later, retreat!"

Then the man straightened up, returned according to the same way, and after walking out of the inner room, the man walked to the outside of the mansion, looked up at the plaque above the door of the mansion, and showed a strange smile.

All the way down the river, about three days of driving, Chu Mofeng and his party arrived in the eastern capital of Luoyang, because this is a private visit to the microservice, the group will be able to show their identity of the objects put away, Liu Feiyan pretended to be a small servant, Gu Zhener and Xiao Ruolan pretended to be a maid, and Chu Mofeng and Yu Wenxiu pretended to be a couple, and entered the eastern capital Luoyang as businessmen.

After entering the city, Chu Mofeng first took everyone to Mingyifang, where there was a mansion, which originally belonged to Yang Xiu, the fourth brother of the former Sui Emperor Yang Guang, and after the Tang Dynasty defeated Wang Shichong, he took back all the mansions that Wang Shichong had rewarded.

After that, although Chu Mofeng did not live here, he still arranged for people to tidy up and take care of it all the year round, which was a lot of secret plans of the Tiance Mansion in Luoyang City, and all of them were completed in this mansion. On the one hand, because Luoyang has become the center of industry, commerce and transportation in the Central Plains at this time, Luoyang, where the wealth of the world gathers, presents a prosperous scene of "the world's boats and ships, often more than 10,000 ships, filling the rivers and roads, business and trade, and filling up the carriages and horses", laying a solid material foundation for the prosperity and development of Luoyang. On the other hand, his perennial idle mansion always has to be visited, and as a businessman, if there is no decent mansion in Luoyang, the locals will look down on it when buying and inquiring.

After the group entered the mansion under the leadership of Chu Mofeng, they did not immediately relax their minds and rest, but inspected the mansion inside and out, and after finding out that there were no secret passages and surveillance, everyone quickly gathered in the study and began to discuss the next plan of action.

Since ancient times Luoyang has come out of a wealthy family, and now Luoyang is a more famous family, with Luoyang Fang as the most, the Fang family has produced a great big man today, this person is the noble Zhongshu Ling, Xing Guogong Fang Xuanling, because Fang Xuanling is the important minister around His Majesty today, so the Fang family in Luoyang City can not help but act a little high-profile, although Fang Xuanling repeatedly instructed, lest the current emperor's brother find out the trouble, but in the eastern capital Luoyang Mountain High Emperor Yuan, the Fang family is still arrogant and domineering.

In the Yirenfang not far from the Mingyi Fang, most of the mansions originally belonged to the second son of Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty, and then was also taken back by Li Yuan, after the Tiance Mansion settled in Luoyang, Li Shimin gave all these houses to Fang Xuanling, in order to avoid the clansmen from being involved in the big dye vat of Chang'an, Fang Xuanling immediately ordered all the clansmen to move into the Yiren Fang, so far the Fang family settled in Luoyang City.

Located in the third mansion from west to east in the fang, the mansion here is slightly dilapidated and thin compared to the other mansions in the fang, this is Fang Xuanling's clan uncle Fang Xu's mansion, at this moment Fang Xu is sitting in the study, his hands trembling holding a letterhead in his hand, and his eyes gradually show anger. After reading the letterhead, Fang Xu slammed the bookcase in front of him, and the inkstone that was originally placed on the bookcase was instantly shaken up, and then fell back on the bookcase, splashing out a little ink in the inkstone.

Immediately, Fang Xu shook the bell on the table, and after a while, a thin man walked in, arched his hand at Fang Xu and said, "I don't know what the third master commands?"

"Quickly go to Qingzhou, be sure to find Yu Sanshui, the shopkeeper of Qingcheng Mixing, and find a way to bring people to me after finding it. I saw Fang Xu say with a hideous face: "If there is any obstacle to this trip, don't worry, ...... all" and then stretched out his two fingers and made a gesture at his throat.

When the man heard this, he immediately bowed to Fang Xu, and then quickly turned to leave. Looking at the figure of the man leaving, Fang Xu said angrily: "Some people don't talk about morality these days, so don't blame the old man for being unkind." ”

Chu Mofeng and his entourage, who had settled down, suddenly remembered that there seemed to be no one in the house preparing to eat, and then the five of them locked the gate and went all the way east along Jianchunmen Street to the south of the city near Xiushanfang.

Compared with the east and west cities of Chang'an, the eastern capital of Luoyang is to follow the layout of the former Sui, and has not changed much, so there are three markets in Luoyang City, which are located on the north side of Houzaimen, the South Market between Tongli Fang and Yongshan Fang, and the North Market between Jingxingfang and Dunhoufang. At present, all kinds of important commodities such as gold, silver, jewelry, porcelain, fur, silk, etc. are gathered in Nanshi from all over the country, and then sent from here to all parts of the country and even to the Western Regions, Dongying and other places.

Luoyang City's largest rice line Luocheng rice shop, is located in the South City, this is also Chu Mofeng's first place to investigate, after the five people entered the South City, along the way did not attract the attention of others, after all, as a commercial center of Luoyang, there is an endless stream of merchants who come to buy every day, some with a whole team of guards, some with beautiful wives and concubines, like Chu Mofeng, it is even more countless, so when I saw the five people entering the South Market, the merchants in the market were still as usual, shouting loudly and began to peddle their goods, in order to attract Chu Mofeng's attention。

The five of them inquired on the occasion of purchasing, and then followed the guidance of the merchant, and went straight to the door of the rice store in Los Angeles, only to see the rice store that had been open in the past, but this time the door was locked, Chu Mofeng saw this and glanced at Liu Feiyan, who was dressed as a small servant, and the latter nodded knowingly, and left everyone directly, and one of them got into the crowd without paying attention.

I saw Liu Feiyan walking to a stall with a big grin, picking up the vase placed on the stall and playing with it carefully, and then suddenly asked: "Shopkeeper, dare to ask why the Luocheng rice shop on the other side doesn't open the door?"

The vendor who sold vases was a good person, and when he heard Liu Feiyan ask, he immediately looked around, and then whispered to Liu Feiyan: "Little brother, I'm afraid I'm going to let your master run for nothing today." ”

"Why did the shopkeeper say that? Could it be that something happened to this rice shop?" Liu Feiyan couldn't help but be stunned when he heard this, thinking to himself that the shopkeeper of this rice shop had already absconded? If so, wouldn't it be impossible to trace.

When I was thinking about it, I heard the vendor whisper: "Little brother doesn't know, a few days ago, the shopkeeper Zhao of the rice store in Los Angeles was killed in the store, the murderer walked into the store in broad daylight, and killed the shopkeeper Zhao, and then went away, so far the murderer has not been caught. ”

Hearing the vendor mention the murder of the shopkeeper, Liu Feiyan couldn't help but be shocked, this death is strange, wouldn't it be extremely troublesome to die without proof, thinking of this, Liu Feiyan hurriedly smiled at the vendor and said: "Thank you, the shopkeeper, the little one will go to report to my master, see if you can find another place to purchase food, and say goodbye." With that, he bowed his hand to the vendor, then turned and left the place.

Walking quickly to Chu Mofeng's side, Liu Feiyan whispered in his ear, only to see Chu Mofeng nodding slightly, and then said softly: "Let's go, go to the Zhao shopkeeper's house to investigate." The five of them immediately left Nanshi, and after some inquiry, they learned that the shopkeeper Zhao lived in the Xiushan Fang near Nanshi before his death, and everyone hurried to the Xiushan Fang located on the southwest side of Nanshi.

According to the direction indicated by passers-by, everyone found Zhao's mansion in Xiushanfang, only to see white lanterns hanging on both sides of the mansion door, and a white strip of cloth hanging on the plaque above the door. Seeing this, Chu Mofeng whispered: "Feiyan, you and Zhen'er and Ruolan are waiting outside for a while, I will take Sister Xiu'er to go in to investigate, if there is any danger, I will use the sound dart as a number, and the three of you will need to come to the rescue at that time." ”

The three of them nodded, and then watched Chu Mofeng and Yu Wenxiu walk to the door of the Zhao Mansion, and the person in charge of welcoming guests at the door saw someone coming, and immediately arched his hand at Chu Mofeng and Yu Wenxiu and said: "The two of you are really embarrassed, the house is holding a funeral today, if you come to visit my master, please go back." ”

Who knew that Chu Mofeng waved his hand, glanced at the welcome angrily, and thought that if he didn't know that your master was dead, the little master would not have come over, thinking of this, Chu Mofeng suddenly sighed and said: "Hey, it's really jealous, I just ordered a grain deal with the shopkeeper Zhao last month, I didn't think that the transaction had not been carried out, and the shopkeeper Zhao went to the west first, this time after I learned the news, I hurried from Qingzhou, in order to be able to send a shopkeeper Zhao, please make it convenient for the little brother, can you go in and pass it on?"

As soon as he heard that he had come to offer his condolences, the welcome guest immediately saluted Chu Mofeng and said, "This gentleman is noble, please give me a name, and the villain can go in and report to the master's mother." ”

"Wencheng firm, Gao Wencheng. Chu Mofeng didn't think about it, and said a name that he hadn't mentioned for a long time. Immediately, Yingbin saluted Chu Mofeng and Yu Wenxiu, turned around and ran towards the mansion.

After a while, I saw the welcome running out again, and shouted loudly into the mansion: "There is a guest here, Gao Wencheng, the shopkeeper of Qingzhou Wencheng firm, and his wife came to condole." As soon as the words fell, the welcome made a gesture of invitation to Chu Mofeng and Yu Wenxiu, the two nodded when they saw this, and walked into the Zhao Mansion, only to see a coffin placed in the main hall of the courtyard, and behind the coffin was a table for worship, on which were placed all kinds of tributes and incense candles, Chu Mofeng saw this and pulled Yu Wenxiu to the spiritual seat of the Zhao shopkeeper, respectfully gave a salute, and then walked forward to look at the remains of the Zhao shopkeeper.

Then the two came to the widow of the deceased, and said with a solemn face: "Madame's Day mourning is changing." ”

Luocheng rice shop shopkeeper Zhao Sibao original wife died of illness at an early age, after Zhao Sibao's business became bigger, he felt that there was no one around him who could say something considerate, so he married a second wife, this daughter was originally the owner of a wine shop in Luoyang City, after marrying Zhao Sibao, he handed over the restaurant to the next person to take care of, and he was at home with a husband and children, because Zhao Sibao and the previous wife did not have a son and a half daughter, Zhao Sibao died, and his original family business was owned by the second wife, which at first also made everyone suspect that the woman hired a murderer.

I saw that the woman called Zhao Qin's family saluted Chu Mofeng and Yu Wenxiu and said, "The matter has come to this, and the slave family can only hold up their spirits and take care of the aftermath for my master." Since the two of them are distinguished guests from Qingzhou, they might as well go into the house with the slave family. ”

Chu Mofeng and Yu Wenxiu couldn't help but glance at each other when they heard this, and they were a little surprised in their hearts, the two of them were pretending to come to condole, why did this Zhao Qin really think that he was from Qingzhou, thinking of this, Chu Mofeng nodded at Yu Wenxiu, and the latter immediately understood what Chu Mofeng meant.

The two followed Zhao Qin's to the study, only to see Zhao Qin's family look around before closing the door, and then closed the door with his hand, and then turned to Chu Mofeng and said: "Qin Yingxue, the head of the Luoyang Carriage and Horse Shop in the eastern capital, and the head of the Luoyang Terminus of the wandering son, has seen His Royal Highness the Xianwang and Yuwen Woman. ”

At this time, Chu Mofeng, who had only taken a sip of the teacup, squirted out the tea in an instant, and looked at the woman who claimed to be Qin Yingxue with confusion, only to see Qin Yingxue take out a token from her arms and respectfully hand it to Chu Mofeng.

After taking the token and examining it carefully, Chu Mofeng threw the token back to Qin Yingxue, and then he breathed a sigh of relief and said, "You are not good at sitting in the carriage and horse shop, why did you marry the shopkeeper of this rice shop?"

"Your Royal Highness, according to the investigation of the Luoyang wanderer, Zhao Sibao had frequent contact with some former Sui widows and widows who lived in Luoyang during his lifetime. Hearing this, Qin Yingxue said slowly to Chu Mofeng: "And there is news that Zhao Sibao was also involved in the previous disaster relief food case, and his subordinates originally wanted to investigate these days, but who knew that this person was killed, and it was because of the sudden fact that his subordinates did not have time to report it, and I hope His Royal Highness will forgive him." ”

Chu Mofeng on the side waved his hand when he heard this, and then said with a smile: "You don't have to blame yourself for this matter, it's just that this king is very strange, shouldn't this disaster relief grain be deployed by the local grain Cao? Why can Zhao Sibao intervene?"

"Your Royal Highness, Luoyang's grain Cao is a member of the Zhongshu Ling Fang Xuanling, but why Zhao Sibao can interfere, his subordinates are still confused. Qin Yingxue thought for a moment and said the doubts in her heart, "If it is said that this Fang Liang Cao is using his power for personal gain, wouldn't it be the injustice of the trapping lord, and the Fang family is a big family in Luoyang, which makes his subordinates incomprehensible." ”

"It's okay, this king came here to investigate this matter thoroughly, you don't care about the rest for the time being, just wait for Zhao Sibao's aftermath and continue to control Luoyang's wandering system." Chu Mofeng nodded slowly, thinking to himself, Lao Fang, Lao Fang, we are all people who have been fighting with His Majesty for many years, you must not let Your Majesty deal with you because of this matter, I hope what I guessed is wrong.

Then Chu Mofeng and Yu Wenxiu, under the leadership of Qin Yingxue, left the study straight and returned to the front of the mourning hall, only to see Chu Mofeng saluting Qin Yingxue and saying: "Lady of the Zhao family, the grain deal that I discussed with the Venerable Husband before, let's talk about it again after the Venerable Husband's affairs are dealt with, I hope you also take care of your health, and you will say goodbye to the Humble Jing first." After speaking, the two of them saluted Qin Yingxue again, and then turned around and left the Zhao Mansion.

After walking out of the gate of the mansion, Chu Mofeng, Yu Wenxiu, Liu Feiyan and others converged, and the five of them immediately went to Nanshi to book a table, and then returned to the mansion of the only Mingyi Fang.

After returning to the mansion, Chu Mofeng gathered the four of them together, looking at the steaming tea in front of him, Chu Mofeng suddenly fell into deep thought, according to what Qin Yingxue said, there seems to be those old and young people in this matter, and there are vaguely the figures of the Fang family, so how many people are involved in the seven state capitals of Yan, Yun, Qi, Qing, Lai, Deng, and Yi that have been affected by the disaster, these are all unknowns now, and the only way to do this is to open the situation in Luoyang first, and maybe we can find out the remaining people.

Thinking of this, Chu Mofeng looked at Liu Feiyan and the others in front of him and said: "Tonight, Feiyan and Zhen'er will find a way to sneak into the Luocheng rice store to see if they can find valuable clues, Ruolan and I will go to Luoyang Liangcao Mansion to explore the way, as for Sister Xiu'er, I have to bother you to go to Qin Yingxue again to see if there are any clues in the Zhao Mansion, everyone takes their own safety as the first priority, if it can't be done, they must evacuate quickly." ”

The four of them nodded when they heard this, and then they heard a knock on the door of the mansion, Liu Feiyan, Gu Zhen'er and Xiao Ruolan hurriedly ran to open the door, only to see that the fixed table had been delivered, and the three of them settled the bill and brought back a few food boxes, and after a full meal, the five of them each found a room and began to rest.

It was night, and five figures in night clothes took advantage of the vast night to run in three directions in the city......

As the saying goes, coercion and temptation are easy to come by, and look at Chu Mo Fengliang Cao's mansion to eavesdrop on the information, and then look at Liu Feiyan Luocheng Mi Xing unexpectedly found out that I want to know what happened next, and listen to the next decomposition......