When Xie Yixiang heard this, she could only sigh secretly, and then she came to her senses, what do these major military affairs have to do with herself? She immediately gathered her mind and explained to this Master Du that the purpose of this time was to track down a "human kitchen case" and find an old man and a young man who arrived in Ningyi a few days ago.

Master Du looked at the portrait of the girl she took out, and couldn't help but mutter: "This matter is a little difficult to do. Since the siege of the city by the rebels of King Heng, the rebels outside the city have adhered to the principle of 'only entering but not leaving', and often let the people into the city, but in order to exhaust the food and grass in the city. In this regard, Fang Tieyi had his own calculations, saying that one more person in the city was one person, so that he could have more strength, and asked the soldiers guarding the city to just let the people into the city, and they did not do a detailed investigation. Therefore, if you want to find an old man and a young man who have been in the city for a few days, there is no relevant record in the yamen, and the villain has never seen the girl on the portrait of Miss Xie San. However, the entire city of Ningyi has been trapped by the rebels, and no one can get out, if there is really an old man and a young man who came to Ningyi a few days ago, he must still be in the city now, but he doesn't know where he is. ”

Xie Yixiang nodded slightly, secretly thinking in her heart, and asked Master Du if she could arrange a few servants for her to help with the search. Master Du shook his head vigorously and sighed, saying that although King Heng's rebels had not attacked the city, the grain and grass in the city had run out, and the people were already in turmoil, and there were only five or six hundred soldiers defending the city and more than 30 officials in the yamen, all these days were maintaining law and order in the city, and they were so busy that they couldn't mobilize people. And the only thing Master Du can serve here is to arrange a place for Xie Yixiang to live behind the yamen, and at the same time instruct the cook in the room to prepare an extra food for her every day.

Hearing this, Xie Yixiang also knew the difficulties of Master Fang and this Master Du, and it seemed that if he wanted to continue to investigate this "human kitchen case", he could only rely on himself. Then Master Du took her to the residence in the yamen, but it was a fairly clean guest room, and when Xie Yixiang unpacked her bags, Master Du got up and said goodbye. Who knew that it didn't take long for Xie Yixiang to finish sorting out his personal salute, when he heard a knock on the door, it was Master Du who went and returned, and turned back again. Xie Yixiang had to open the door, but saw that Master Du's face was very strange, and said mysteriously: "Please also ask Miss Xie San to deign to be noble and go to a place with the villain." ”

Xie Yixiang couldn't help but be surprised, and when asked, this Master Du refused to say it clearly, and only said that he would know if he went. Xie Yixiang knew that this person was a person from the pro-army governor's mansion, and he must not take it lightly, so he took Chaoli with him and went with him. I saw Master Du leading her all the way back to the back hall of the Yamen, then turned to the courtyard on the left, and passed through a corridor, which was where the Yamen's room was located. Seeing that there was no one around, Master Du measured his footsteps in the open space, as if he was calculating the direction, and then squatted down to dig away the dust on the ground, and suddenly revealed a three-foot square plank.

Xie Yixiang's heart became more and more vigilant, and immediately asked in a deep voice, "What are you doing?" Master Du didn't answer, but directly uncovered the wooden board on the ground, and smiled at Xie Yixiang: "Miss Xie San, please take a look." Xie Yixiang cautiously stepped forward to take a look, only to see that under the wooden planks was a huge cellar, which was full of shelled rice, which actually filled more than half of the entire cellar. Master Du took out a cloth bag from his arms, climbed down the wooden ladder at the entrance of the cellar, filled a bag full of rice with the cloth bag, climbed up and handed it to Xie Yixiang, and said with a smile: "Don't look at the thousands of catties of rice in the yamen, if the soldiers and officials guarding the city are allowed to eat openly, they can only support it for five or six days at most, so Fang Tieyi will hide this batch of rice here, and he doesn't dare to say anything." As for this small bag of rice, it was a little bit of the villain's heart, and he didn't dare to get too much, otherwise Fang Tieyi would be suspicious. I also hope that in the future, Miss Xie San will be able to take charge of the ...... No, I can say a few kind words for the villain in front of the first deputy commander, and transfer the villain back to Jinling to be an idle errand. ”

Xie Yixiang came to her senses at this time, and after a little weighing, the bag of rice in her hand was as much as five or six catties, and with her own food, saving some food could last for ten days and a half months. She couldn't help sneering: "It is said that only the state officials are allowed to set fires, and the people are not allowed to light lamps. Presumably, the food that your Lord Fang has hidden is far more than this?" Master Du hurriedly waved his hand and said: "Miss Xie San, don't misunderstand, the grain and grass in Ningyi City have indeed been exhausted, and only here is the only place in the yamen that still hides these rice, so naturally it is to be left to the soldiers guarding the city and the officials in the yamen." If it is distributed to the people in the city, it will undoubtedly be a drop in the bucket and will not play a role at all. But if the soldiers and servants are hungry because of this, how can they have the strength to resist the rebels of King Heng?"

Hearing Master Du's strong words, Xie Yixiang was not polite to him at the moment, so he put away the bag of rice, and couldn't help but say: "As the so-called people take food as the sky, for the people who live by farming all the year round, they have been watching the sky for thousands of years, and the quality of the harvest is all up to the will of heaven, so they should store grain in the year of harvest, so that their family will not go hungry in the year of famine; Therefore, Lord Fang's move can be regarded as in line with the way of heaven, and he should not be harsh. ”

When Master Du heard Xie Yixiang's words, he suddenly came to his senses, stroked his palms and smiled: "Wonderful, wonderful, Miss Xie San is really smart! Since even Fang Tieyi knows that he is hiding some grain in the yamen, let alone those people in Ningyi City? The villain went to tell Fang Tieshan, and told him to immediately take the sergeants to search from house to house, find out the grain hidden by each household, collect it and distribute it uniformly, and make up for the 'surplus' and make up for the 'shortage'!"

At that moment, Master Du left happily, and Xie Yixiang went back to the guest room of the yamen to rest. In the next two days, Xie Yixiang stayed in the guest room of the yamen, and searched alone in the city for the girl in the portrait and the old man in the cloak. Because this was already the scene in Ningyi City, and there was no help from the officials in the yamen this time, she didn't dare to make a big show, so she could only quietly visit in private. However, after questioning dozens of people in the city, they all said that they had never seen the girl in the portrait.

And after two days of searching, Xie Yixiang knew that the situation in this Ningyi City had really reached a miserable point. The original restaurants, teahouses and shops have long been completely abandoned, as if they had been looted. In addition, the people of the city, many of the poor, have become refugees, and they have gone to the streets to beg for food, and if they are hungry, they will boil all the bark, grass roots, and leather jackets and felts to fill their stomachs. And those who are a little more well-off only dare to cook something in the middle of the night to satisfy their stomachs, for fear of being known by others, so they snatch them all. The disputes and brawls that arose from this were even more numerous, and if it weren't for the sergeants and officials patrolling the streets back and forth, I was afraid that the entire Ningyi City would have already become a pot of porridge.

Later, Xie Yixiang also began to despair, not because there were no clues in this "human kitchen case", but because of the situation in Ningyi City in front of him. She couldn't help but secretly said in her heart: "That day, Yang Zhutou and others in Shaoxing Mansion dissuaded me, saying that there are countless people in the world who look similar, and it is indeed too hasty to conclude that the old and young in Dongyang Pass are the missing girls of Li Butcher's family based on just one portrait." Moreover, although the old man and the young man told the soldiers of Dongyang Pass that they were going to Ningyi City to visit their relatives, who knew whether their words were true or false? If the old man was really the murderer of this case, then it was very likely that his words were suspicious and led him astray. ”