Mo repaid the kindness of the Shi family to save their mother with a bowl of hot noodle soup back then, and found the Jiao family's woodland outside the town on horseback, and the ancestral graves of the Xu family are here.

Under the moonlight, the barren graves are full of basil, the crows are croaking, and the traces of the graves and corpses have been erased by the years, only desolate.

Mo Yan took off the paper candle from the horse, lit a fire to worship the ancestors of the Xu family, and in the blazing firelight, he seemed to see the souls of those unjustly killed, and the paper ashes blown up by the breeze drifted into the night sky and gradually disappeared.

"The ancestors of the Xu family, you can rest assured, Mo Yan will definitely find Shou Nan and Fu Nan and rescue them from the sea of suffering, and the roots of the Xu family will not be extinct. Mo Yan swore to Tianming.

After the sacrifice, Mo Yan rode on a fast horse and rushed to the capital in the starry night.

After a few days, the inner street of Xuanwumen in the capital is bustling next to the mule and horse market, and many banner people buy and sell slaves here, and this place is the famous "human market" in the capital. Before the Manchu Qing Dynasty entered the customs, there were people who were traded, and after entering the customs, human trafficking as slavery still existed, and the Han people could be bought and sold as freely as livestock. At the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, the captive Han people were slaves of Manchu ministers, and later the criminals and their families were not included in the banner slaves, and the family members of those who "rebelled and rebelled", men under the age of 15 and mothers and daughters, wives and concubines were given to the families of meritorious servants as slaves, men were coolies, and women were used for their pleasure.

In order to prevent these people from escaping, the "Fugitive Law" was promulgated in the Shunzhi period, stipulating that those who conceal fugitives will be beheaded, and those who are not allowed to raise their heads by their neighbors, ten parents, and hundreds of parents, and those who cannot be noticed by the magistrates will all sit together.

The laws of the Qing Dynasty were so strict that even Geng Zhongming, the king of Jingnan, one of the three feudatories, was forced to commit suicide because he took in escaped Han slaves.

Mo Yan only understood at this moment why his mother never kept her mouth shut about the past, if it was known that she was a slave of the banner family who had escaped, not only would she have to burden her father, but even she would be arrested as a slave.

It's been a few days since I came to the capital, and my mother doesn't know the whereabouts of the female dependents who didn't join the flag slave back then, so Mo Yan came to the "human market" here to understand the situation.

"Is this little brother also here to buy slaves?" a banner man in his forties came over to talk.

"Hmm. "Don't say no.

"You see," the broker introduced, "the girl is fifteen years old, and the price is twenty taels, and the strong men here are all about twenty-five taels, and if you buy more, you can get a nine-percent discount." ”

Mo Yan glanced to the side, there were two middle-aged and elderly female slaves for sale.

"Do you want to buy an old mother? The man hehehe.

Mo Yan flipped his hand, and there was an extra silver ticket of one hundred taels in his palm, and he shook it in front of the broker and said, "I use one hundred taels of silver tickets to buy a message, can you do it?"

The man's eyes lit up, and he hurriedly said: "Hey, little brother, it's not bragging, I'm the most well-informed person in the city, what do you want to ask?"

"I want to know the whereabouts of the people who were not included in the flag slave in a big case decades ago, can you find out?"

When the broker heard this, he thought about it and said: "If the flag slave who did not enter the capital can be found in the official archives, but it needs to be checked."

"No problem. Mo Yan's hand flipped and there were two hundred taels of silver tickets.

"Little brother, please talk in the teahouse. The man pretended to be mysterious, and he had recognized that this was a rare patron.

The two came to a teahouse across the street from Luomashi, and Mo Yan asked for a pot of fine jasmine tea and chatted while drinking.

"My name is Fuchakang, what do you call the little brother?" the broker introduced himself.

"Mo Er. ”

"Brother Mo, let's talk about that case. ”

"Have you ever heard of Dongtai's 'One Pillar Building Poetry Case'?" Mo Yan then recounted the general situation of the case, and finally said, "I want to know the whereabouts of the six female dependents of the Xu family and the two boys, Shou Nan and Fu Nan. ”

"Okay, wrap it around me, where will I find you when I find out?" asked Fuchakang.

"Shichahai" and the "Yongfu" inn opposite the first. Mo replied.

"Yo, that's near the mansion of the Minister of Military Aircraft and Lord Shen, so let's talk back after three days, this" Fu Chakang looked at the silver ticket in Mo Yan's hand.

Mo Yan handed him a hundred taels of silver and said, "Pay you one hundred taels first, and then give the remaining two hundred taels after the matter is completed." ”

"The little brother is really old-fashioned, no problem, you just wait for the good news. Fuchakang nodded approvingly, put away the silver ticket and got up and left the teahouse.

In the next three days, Mo Yan roughly figured out the situation of Heshen's mansion and the housekeeper Liu Quan. This mansion with Qianhai and Houhai in the east has excellent feng shui, "the crescent moon river surrounds the house like a dragon, and the west mountain looks like a tiger in the distance", it is said that this is the famous contemporary feng shui master Lai Buxiang said after this house, no matter what, the people who live near here do live longer than the rest of the capital.

This housekeeper Liu Quan, nicknamed Liu Baldzi, was originally Niu Hulu Changbao's family, since Chang Bao died of illness in Fujian, he always protected and accompanied the young He Shen and He Lin brothers and never left him, until He Shen was fifteen years old and had the ability to stand on his own, and after driving his stepmothers out of the house, he acted as the housekeeper of Hefu. When He Shen was eighteen years old, Feng married into the He Mansion and called him a housekeeper, but He Shen thought that there were only "two maids" in the family, and it was not appropriate to call him a housekeeper, so Feng always called him "Quan'er".

At that time, there was a "maidservant" who should be the mother, Mo thought about it.

It is said that now Liu Quanyin has become the leading nouveau riche in the capital because of Heshen's enlightenment, and there are more than 100 real estate properties under his name, as well as money shops, pharmacies, and account bureaus, and his life is also extremely luxurious.

Mo Yan wandered around the neighborhood for two or three days, but never saw Liu Quan come out.

On the evening of the third day, Fuchakang finally came.

"Brother Mo, the matter finally has an eyebrow, Jiangsu Dongtai's 'One Pillar Building Poetry Case' is a big reversal and shocking case, it took a lot of twists and turns, you know which level of officials now have to deal with it" Fu Chakang wanted to speak and stopped.

Mo Yan understood what he meant, and pushed the two hundred taels of silver ticket over, and Fu Chakang quickly folded it into his arms.

"The father and son of the Xu family in Dongtai Zhangcha Town were exhumed and killed, the grandsons Xu Shitian and Xu Shishu were beheaded, the old woman Miao died in prison after being escorted to the capital, Xu Shukui's daughter Xu Suniang and the eldest granddaughter-in-law Lu took the three-year-old man and the one-year-old Fu man into the flag slave, and the youngest granddaughter-in-law Shen was assigned to the armor man as a soldier, and committed suicide because she could not bear the humiliation. Xu Suniang's family who did not join the flag slave was Niu Hulu Changbao, the deputy commander of the Fujian soldiers and horses, that is, the father of Admiral He Shen, the current minister of military machinery and the opposition, who later heard that he had escaped, and his whereabouts are still unknown. ”

"What about the Lu family and the two children?" asked Mo Yan.

"I didn't join the military department, a general named Na Lahong, who is not in the capital now, many years ago the whole family followed the deputy officer of the military department, Wang Taiyu, to the Ryukyus. ”

"Are you saying that Lu and his two children are still alive today?"

"It is recorded in the family register, at least at that time, they were still alive, and they couldn't be found after going to the Ryukyus. ”

"Do you know this place?" asked Mo Yan.

"I don't know much, the Ryukyu Kingdom is an archipelago between Taiwan and Dongying, since the Ming Dynasty took Ryukyu as a vassal country, they have come to the capital every year to pay tribute, and the Qing Dynasty also has envoys stationed there, and it takes a few days to get over by boat. Fuchakang explained.

After Fuchakang left, Mo Yan began to think about his plan, he had to rush to the Ryukyu Kingdom as soon as possible, before that, it was best to give Liu Quan a little hardship, it was easy to kill him, but it was too cheap This guy, his mother's face was burned by him with a brazier, and he simply burned his money shop, pharmacy and account bureau, and then waited for the return from Ryukyu to continue settling accounts.

The next morning, Liu Quan, the chief housekeeper of Hefu, finally appeared, this person was over fifty years old, with a fat figure, no hair on his bare brain, and he looked arrogant.

He boarded a Hefu carriage and went to the east of the city, Mo Yan rode a horse and quietly followed, out of Dongzhimen until Tongzhou, it turned out that Liu Quan's Hengyi and Hengze two money shops were here.

At dusk, he saw Liu Quan board the carriage and return to the city, he first found an inn to stay, anyway, he couldn't enter the capital tonight, and the city gate would be closed and curfew.

In the middle of the night, Mo Yan took out a set of black night clothes from the storage bag and changed into them, his face was covered with black veil and sneaked out of the inn, and he first came to the Hengyi money shop in the south of the city.

But all the money villages are hired to have a nursing home, Liu Quan has a lot of power in black and white, naturally there are some people in the rivers and lakes who are willing to rely on their lives, and there are two nursing homes in the Hengyi money shop, although they are not first-class masters, but their martial arts are not weak, and they have been aware of it since Mo Wan climbed over the wall and landed.

The door of the back room had been latched, and Mo Yan took out the spirit short sword from the Earth Lung Valley and slashed lightly along the crack in the middle door, and easily cut the wooden door latch like cutting tofu, and then pushed the door in.

"Dare to burglarize! Suddenly, there was a loud shout in the room, and a single knife slashed head-on.

Mo Remnant's fists and feet are not very good at sword skills, and when he saw a knife coming from his face, he waved the short sword and cut the single knife into two with a "poof".

At this moment, a long sword stabbed obliquely, the internal strength was full and the martial arts were not weak, Mo Yan had to retreat to the courtyard after retreating, he came to take revenge on Liu Quan, and he didn't want to hurt others, so he moved his mind, and there was a fiery red short whip in his hand, which was refined by the tentacles of the fire centipede.

Two guards rushed out of the house, and one of the sword-wielding men shouted, "Which one are you, who dare to come to the Nine Gate Admiral's money shop to steal, and you are impatient?"

Mo Yan heard that his accent was also from Yunnan, so he opened his mouth to advise: "You have good martial arts, so why do you work hard for Liu Bald?"

The man saw that Mo Yan knew who the owner of the money shop was and still dared to steal, and knew that a fight was inevitable, so he shouted and stabbed straight at the sword like a rainbow. Mo Yan really swung the short whip and swept it in the air, more than two zhang away, he actually knocked the long sword and half of the single knife in the hands of the two people away at the same time, and the two guards were taken aback and were stunned for a moment, the two of them were proud of their high martial arts, but they didn't know that they couldn't pass a round in the hands of this robber.

"Haha. Mo Yan blew out two true bubbles and wrapped them in each other.

The two of them writhed and struggled in the bubbles, no matter what, they couldn't tear through the invisible true qi film, Mo Yan sneered and stepped forward and pointed at their sleeping holes, and then grabbed one hand under his armpit and jumped over the wall and threw it in front of another store.

After returning to the money shop again, he searched around, but found no one else, so he went to the counter and swung his sword to cut the iron lock, swept away the silver tickets and silver inside, about tens of thousands of taels, and put them all into the storage bag, and then broke the oil lamp and began to set it on fire.

Immediately afterwards, he came to the money shop in Hengze in the north of the city, and the nursing home in this house slept very dead, and was thrown outside in a dream. A meal of looting the storage bag added tens of thousands of taels of silver, and he also lit the fire mercilessly.

Mo Yan looked at the raging fire ignited by Liu Quan's two money shops, and was so happy in his heart, Liu Bald, let you break the bank first, and then settle accounts with you after Lao Tzu came back from Ryukyu.

That night, he lay down in the Tongzhou Inn and slept beautifully.