ps: Thank you for your monthly passes.

For the city of the king of Xia, the north controls the river Shuo in the south to lead to Qingliang, the water and grass are abundant and the grains are abundant, and the Xia country builds the Haowang Canal here to irrigate agriculture and animal husbandry, so it is also the most important grain production area and animal husbandry area of the Xia country. As soon as the Cheng Kee shops came, the closer they got to Xingqing, the more dense the surrounding fertile fields became, and there were large pastures and herds of cattle and sheep in between.

The city wall of Xingqing Mansion is eighteen miles, it is the largest city in Xia Kingdom, and the moat alone is ten zhang wide, which is quite spectacular. Because it has not experienced military disasters and wars all year round, the city of Guoxia has long been formed outside the moat, and many manors and houses have been built outside the city, and a prosperous market has been formed.

The convoy of Cheng Kee shops paid the value tax at the checkpoint two miles away, and was deducted by the Xia tax collector for one or two silvers, which was not too big or small, and a layer of skin was peeled off in exchange for a tradable pass. This is also because the goods on the car are all in short supply in the Xia Kingdom, otherwise there will be more than this amount.

Cheng Qi had already sent two familiar guys to Xingqing in advance, and he was waiting on the side of the official road at this moment, welcoming the convoy into the Hushan Inn to settle down. Hushan Inn is a large inn outside Xingqing City, there are several miscellaneous courtyards that can store carriages and horses, and it is the inn where long-distance merchants live most often. It is located on the shore of Jinbo Lake outside Qingyang Gate, and you can look at Helan Mountain in the distance and Jinbo 4↙ Lake in the distance, and the scenery is very pleasant.

According to the livelihood methods of Chengji shops in the past, the goods trafficked from Daming are all high-end goods, which can be sold directly to Buddhist temples and magnates, but this time Zhao Ran wants to open a fixed shop, so he can't do this, and he needs to set up a point in Xingqing Mansion to do perennial business and establish an intelligence station for the Qing Pavilion.

As the owner, Zhao Ran naturally didn't need to go to these errands, and Li Laoshi took a few guys to go around the place. They have to follow Zhao Ran's requirements to find a quieter and larger place with convenient transportation, and after they find it, Zhao Ran will check whether the final decision is settled.

Cheng Qi took the rest of the guys to take care of the goods and protect Zhao Ran at the same time - in fact, Zhao Ran really didn't need them to protect him.

Zhao Ran didn't have anything to do in the inn, so he simply asked the store to find a place. He gave two pieces of silver, and let the landlord take him out for a stroll. Since you are here to do something, you must first investigate the terrain clearly, otherwise you will be blind if something really happens.

Cheng Qi sent two men to follow the guards, and Zhao Ran didn't refuse, and the group of four people left the inn.

The "sunset of the lake, the smoke and willows of the fishing village" of Jinbo Lake is a beautiful scenery of Xingqing, but it is not yet dusk, so you can't see such a view. But even so. The scenery of the lake and mountains is also really pleasant, and the head of the place took Zhao Ran and others to walk along the willow embankment, pointing out the streets and alleys and houses while playing, helping Zhao Ran to familiarize himself with the place.

The lake was connected to the moat, and after a short time it came to the edge of the city. Affected by the scattered lakes on the north and south sides, Xingqing Mansion City is long from east to west and narrow from north to south, and there are two gates in the north and south. There is a door in the east and west, and Zhao Ran and they came to Qingyang Gate, one of the south gates.

Enter Qingyang Gate. Walking along Lijing Street, surrounded by a grid of square distribution of Fang City, this pattern is the same as Chang'an, in case of emergency, the Fang City can be closed, so that Zhao Ran frowned, and he had already made up his mind. The intelligence station must not be located in the city, and if something happens, you can't even run away.

After walking around the city for a long time, recognizing the palace and other places, Zhao Ran went out of the city, and when he came back, he enjoyed the sunset scenery of Jinbo Lake. When I arrived at the inn, it was already dark, and the day was over.

That night, Zhao Ran was practicing in his house. He had entered the Yushi realm at the moment, and the improvement of his realm was accompanied by an increase in cultivation difficulties. The cultivation of the Yushi Realm is to fuse the refined essence and merit power, and condense it into the essence qi, if you want to put it intuitively, it is to fuse the two gases into a drop of liquid true power, which requires the consumption of the essence and merit power are not comparable to the Taoist realm.

Zhao Ran took the essence blood of the Xuanjia Turtle, and the essence element was considered to have made up for it to a normal level, but the merit power was now a little shortcoming. If Zhao Ran felt that his merit power could not be used up at all when he was in the Taoist realm, after he arrived at the Yushi realm, this feeling no longer existed, of course, the merit power he obtained every day now could barely support his cultivation, but Zhao Ran, who was accustomed to adding a large amount of merit power, already felt a little uncomfortable with this normal cultivation speed.

However, now that he was in a foreign country, there was no way to improve the generation of merit power for the time being, so he could only continue to rely on the source of the Junshan region for cultivation. The biggest difference between merit power and spiritual power is that spiritual power is generated in heaven and earth and can be "touched", while merit power can only be "sensed" and automatically generated from the body due to merit, so although it is thousands of miles away from Junshan, the merit power in his body is still endless.

So Zhao Ran has already begun to think about how to obtain greater merit after returning to Wuxian.

The next day, Li Laoshi continued to go out to find a suitable place, while Zhao Ran continued to wander around under the guidance of the ground. In the future, Li Laoshi came to tell Zhao Ran, saying that the place had been found, but there was a place, and Zhao Ran needed to make a decision.

The first place is an old warehouse, which is not small, and belongs to the Receiving Division. The acceptance division is the Yamen of the Xia State in charge of the storage of the warehouse for the recipient, this warehouse has been abandoned for many years due to its age. Li Laoshi inquired from a Xia magnate who had often dealt with him in the past, and as long as he offered a sum of silver to the envoy, he could sell it at a lower price.

Zhao Ran was very interested, but after asking, he gave up, because this warehouse was not only located in the city, but also the property of the government, and he couldn't hide from it, and where would he bump into it by himself.

The remaining two places are outside the city, one is a carriage and horse shop, the place is not small, but the facilities are simple, the owner is not well managed, and is ready to change a business to make a living; the other is a house, belonging to a family of Lu Ze (the title of the nobleman of the Xia Kingdom), because of the empty mountain, this generation of Lu Ze plans to sell the house, but the price is high, and no one cares about it for half a year.

At that moment, Li Honest led him, and Zhao Ran wanted to see it in person.

Zhao Ran was more interested in the carriage and horse shop, and continued to operate it as a side business after the plate was settled, and the coming and going of people was also conducive to the collection and transmission of intelligence, so he went to see the carriage and horse shop first.

The carriage and horse shop is on the periphery of Guo City under the city, and it is quiet, but the traffic is a little remote, and the houses are also very simple and old, especially Zhao Ran can't stand the pungent smell of the manure tank in the backyard. After turning around, I have already rejected it in my heart.

After leaving the carriage and horse shop, Li Laoshi took Zhao Ran back to Guo City under the city, and the mansion of Lu Ze's family was in Guo City. This house is located on the bank of Jinbo Lake by the Yuehe Bridge, across two streets is the most prosperous commercial market in Guo City, but the Yuehe Lane is relatively quiet, it is a quiet place in the middle of noisy.

The name of the owner of the house is very bold, the surname is Liang, the name is Xingxia, it is said that he is the descendant of the Xia Kingdom, and he is Lu Ze of the Yeli Department, and this title can be regarded as the upper class figure among the nobles of the Xia Kingdom. It's a pity that the Liang family of these two generations has no successful figures, and the family business is in decline, so that they have to sell their ancestral house to maintain the family.

After waiting outside Liang's house for a while, Liang Xingxia rushed over. The party has been established for several years, and it has been passed down to the present, in fact, it has been completely sinicized, although Liang Xingxia is a nobleman of the Yeli Department, but it is actually no different from the Han people. Zhao Ran originally thought that this dilapidated nobleman would talk to him, but after meeting, he found that he had no consciousness of being a nobleman at all, and his words and deeds were no different from those of a businessman.

After seeing the number of rites, Liang Xingxia asked the servants to open the gate of the house and led Zhao Ran in to visit.

This house occupies a large area, front and back, but also with a cross courtyard and a garden, neatly tidy and clean, the maintenance is also very good, the wood and floor bricks and stones of the house are good goods, the pavilions and water pavilions in the garden are complete, and there is a rockery is actually a whole piece of natural lake stone, at a glance to the ancestors of the Liang family must have also been brilliant.

Such an ancestral house is naturally worth a lot of money, and Liang Xingxia's opening price is 7,000 taels of silver, no wonder it has not been sold for half a year.

Zhao Ran liked this mansion very much, but the price was expensive, which made him hesitate, and he almost had the idea of casting the second layer of the Great Forbidden Technique. It's just that the spell can't last, even if Liang Xingxia is coaxed to sign and draw at a cheap price in a short period of time, after Liang Xingxia recovers, there will be all kinds of troubles, so he dispelled this idea and asked Mr. Li to come forward and bargain with Liang Xingxia. (To be continued......)