Qingyu Case: Female Minister of Dali Temple

Chen Shao was surprised for a moment when she heard his words, and then she suddenly laughed. She knew that Ding Lisheng would definitely find the murderer, but she didn't expect him to find the murderer so quickly. The Gu family and the Zhu family... Originally, she was going to take action against one of them, but she didn't expect the opportunity to come to her so soon. Suppressing the joy in her heart, Chen Shao asked, "Where did you get the news?"

"My father told me, and he also heard it from others." Liu Deming's face turned red as he spoke.

The first thing Liu Yi did when he heard the news was to go to the prefectural governor's mansion to find Chen Shao and tell her the news. When he entrusted his stall to an acquaintance and was about to go to the prefectural governor's mansion, he happened to see Fu Jiu bringing her family to Huimin Pharmacy and asking them to read out loud the rumor about Quan Shuyu in front of Huimin Pharmacy. Liu Yi knew Fu Jiu and knew that Fu Jiu was someone close to Chen Shao, so he changed his mind and planned to tell him about this matter and let him go back to the prefectural governor's mansion to tell Chen Shao. When he arrived at Huimin Pharmacy and was about to find Fu Jiu, Liu Deming saw him first.

Liu Deming mistakenly thought that Liu Yi was looking for him, and immediately told him that Chen Shao asked them to go to the prefect's mansion and wait for him to come back. Liu Yi saw Fu Jiu talking to Qi Ye and Zhao Liangzhu, so he changed his mind, forcibly pulled Liu Deming aside, and told him about it.

When Liu Deming heard the news, he, like Liu Yi, wanted to rush to the prefectural governor's mansion to tell Chen Shao. Therefore, after arriving at the prefectural governor's mansion, he kept looking for an opportunity, but he never found one. He finally found an opportunity to tell Chen Shao, but when he heard Chen Shao's smile, he realized that Liu Yi had only heard someone say it casually, and he didn't know whether it was true or not. He was so impatient to come and "take credit", which was really a bit reckless.

"When did your father hear about this?" Chen Shao's voice interrupted Liu Deming's fluctuating thoughts. Liu Deming bowed his hands in embarrassment and said, "I was in a hurry and didn't know whether it was true or not, so I hastily disturbed you. Please forgive me."

Chen Shao smiled and said, "This news should be true."

Liu Deming said "Ah" and without asking why, he quickly said: "My father heard someone mention it just before I came to the prefect's mansion. He felt that it was a serious matter, so he asked me to tell you."

"I see." Chen Shao nodded. When he was about to leave, he suddenly asked, "Go back and ask your father if he wants to open a shop in the county town."

"This..." Liu Deming was delighted at first, but then he shook his head and said, "I appreciate your kindness, sir. But my family cannot afford to rent a shop for the time being."

"People always come up with solutions," Chen Shao said without further ado, "Go back and ask your father first to see what he thinks."

Liu Deming nodded in agreement.

Chen Shao said: "Go and get busy. Do your job well."

Liu Deming bowed and said yes.

After watching him return to the students, Chen Shao curled his lips and turned to leave the second hall. The sun was already setting, and the sunset glow dyed half the sky red. He walked to the shade of the tree, looked back at the second hall, and told Li Tianliu, "Go and invite Ding Lisheng to Chengfeng Courtyard."

Li Tianliu raised his eyebrows: "Is his injury healed?"

No one knew better than him how heavy the Yulin guards' hands were. Ding Lisheng was still alive and conscious after being hit by 20 sticks, but it was only because the Yulin guards showed mercy. But mercy was mercy, and the flesh wounds he suffered were not light.

Chen Shao said indifferently: "Whether his injury has healed or not is his business. What does it have to do with me?"

Li Tianliu sighed and asked someone to invite him away.

Ding Lisheng had been waiting for Chen Shao's summons since his attendant told Liu Yi that the Gu and Zhu families had ordered the people to block the road to appeal for justice, and watched Liu Yi relay the message to Liu Deming, who came to the prefectural governor's mansion. When he heard the attendant's report that the Yulin Guards had arrived, he didn't want to waste any more time and ordered his attendants to carry him to Chengfeng Courtyard.

What was lifted was the couch on which he was lying.

He was carried all the way to the outside of Chengfeng Courtyard before he struggled to get up. He put most of his weight on several followers and moved step by step to the main hall.

"Sir," after entering the main hall and pushing away the attendants who were supporting him, Ding Lisheng knelt on the ground, enduring the pain, and cried half in pretense and half in real pain, "Sir, please help me!"

Chen Shao looked at his pale face, raised his lips slightly, and asked, "Tell me, what do you want me to do for you?"

"The Gu family, the Zhu family, and the Qi family, they want to persecute me!" Ding Lisheng knew that Liu Yi could not hide the fact that she had heard people mention that the Gu family and the Zhu family had harmed him, so his second step was to confess proactively.

There are three meanings to actively confessing. First, to clear the suspicion that he told Liu Yi. Second, to make Chen Shao mistakenly believe that there was internal discord among the Gu, Zhu, Fan and Qi families. Third, even if he could not clear his suspicion, he could not make her misunderstand that the four families were at odds, but it more or less represented his loyalty. No matter which meaning it was, they could become allies against the four families.

"What is the evidence?" Chen Shao asked slowly.

Ding Lisheng immediately took out the note that Fan Chuanrong handed him and said, "This is something that Mr. Fan sent to me secretly."

Chen Shao looked at the contents of the note, then looked at him, "How did Mr. Fan know that they were plotting against you?"

Ding Lisheng didn't bother to hide it. "The Gu, Zhu, Fan and Qi families are all in Jiangnan Road, and their relationship has always been closer than that of other noble families. To use a popular saying, the four families always advance and retreat together. Now the leaders of the four families are all the eldest sons of the previous generation, and the ones who go out and do things are Second Master Gu, Second Master Zhu, Second Master Fan and Third Master Qi. They always advance and retreat together. So when Second Master Gu, Second Master Zhu and Third Master Qi plot against me, they will never leave out Second Master Fan."

Chen Shao, who had a better understanding of the four great aristocratic families, nodded secretly and asked, "Why did they plot against you?"

Ding Lisheng said with great sorrow, "I think it's because after the Wen family got into trouble, I warned them to return the land they had occupied from the people as soon as possible. I had good intentions, but they mistakenly thought that I wanted to use the young master to suppress them, so they quarreled with me for a few words and even said that they would never let me off easily. I just thought they were talking nonsense in anger, but I didn't expect that they actually wanted to persecute me."

"It's true that they plotted against you," Chen Shao said disdainfully, "but it's also true that they plotted against you. If you hadn't done those things, they wouldn't be able to do anything to you, even with their all-powerful means. In other words, it was your own misconduct that gave them room to plot against you."

Ding Lisheng said tremblingly: "My lord, what you have taught me is that I will strictly control my subordinates in the future and prevent them from making the same mistake again."

Chen Shao glanced at him, then looked at the note in his hand again, "How long will it take for your injury to heal?"

This is... done! Ding Lisheng suppressed the joy in his heart and quickly replied: "Sir, please tell me what you want. I can still hold on."

Chen Shao said slowly, "Luoyanju belongs to the Wen family and the Ren family. The Wen family has already paid the price, and I still have some use for the Ren family. Don't worry about them for now. Next, should we check the other gardens?"

Ding Lisheng naturally cooperated.

Chen Shao looked at him and said, "Then tell me, among the remaining gardens, which one is more suitable to check first?"

Ding Lisheng wanted to say that he would follow her arrangements, but when the words came to his lips, he suddenly realized that she was testing him, or trying to force him to tell who those gardens belonged to. As his mind raced, he secretly looked at Chen Shao, trying to tell from her expression whether Lei Dehou had told him about those gardens. But she was looking at him, her expression calm, without any emotion. He quickly retracted his gaze and said tentatively: "I think, I think we should not start with those gardens."

Chen Shao asked: "Why?"

Ding Lisheng lowered his head and said slowly, "The several gardens where the incident occurred are not far from each other. Since Luoyanju belongs to the Wen family and the Ren family, the other gardens must also belong to other noble families. Instead of focusing on those gardens and trying to find the murderer, it is better to start directly with the noble families."

Chen Shao directly revealed his purpose: "You mean, start directly from the Gu family and the Zhu family?"

"I think that starting with the Gu and Zhu families is the most appropriate choice." Ding Lisheng knew that he could no longer hide his weakness at this moment, otherwise he would inevitably displease her. When she had dealt with the Gu and Zhu families, she might turn around and deal with him. With this idea in mind, Ding Lisheng said honestly, "The Gu and Zhu families are the strongest and most intimate among the noble families in Hongyuan County. If you investigate the Ren and Zhou families first, and then investigate them, it will inevitably make the two families, who were originally in the same boat, work together more closely. With the Yulin Guards here, I believe that even if they work together, they will not be your opponent, but it will not be easy to deal with them without bloodshed."

Chen Shao deliberately questioned: "If we deal with them now, they won't join forces?"

"Yes." Ding Lisheng raised his head, looked at the note in her hand and said, "But we can ask the Fan family for help."

Chen Shaoshun followed his gaze back to the note in his hand: "Tell me about your plan."

Ding Lisheng pondered for a moment and said firmly: "The faster we deal with them, the better. Otherwise, once the news leaks out, it will be extremely difficult to deal with them."

Chen Shao asked nonchalantly: "How do you say the faster the better?"

Ding Lisheng was embarrassed: "This... Your humble servant, I don't have any idea either."

Chen Shao looked at him quietly for a moment: "Go back and rest, I'll think about it first."

Ding Lisheng wanted to urge her, but when he saw that she seemed impatient, he quickly swallowed the words back in his mouth, replied respectfully with a "yes", and reluctantly left the main hall, being carried away by his followers.

Watching him walk out of Chengfeng Courtyard while calling out "slow down" all the way, Chen Shao slowly retracted his gaze and looked at the note in his hand again. There are no eternal friends or eternal enemies in the world. The Gu, Zhu, Fan and Qi families plotted against Ding Lisheng, and the Fan family plotted against them behind their backs. Under the current situation, this is the most normal thing.

It's just a matter of how to deal with the Gu family or the Zhu family...

Li Tianliu suddenly came forward, took the note from her hand, looked at it for a while, and said irresponsibly: "It's not easy to deal with them. This note was given to Ding Lisheng by Mr. Fan, and I think the handwriting is not concealed. Give this note to the Gu family, the Zhu family, and the Qi family. You don't have to do anything. They will deal with the Fan family on your behalf. The Fan family will definitely drag them into the water to protect themselves. Then you don't have to do anything and you can reap the benefits."

Chen Shao asked back: "What if they don't deal with the Fan family?"

Li Tianliu raised his eyebrows and said nonchalantly, "Then it's none of my business."

Chen Shao glanced at him and said, "If you really have nothing to do, go get the carriage ready and get ready to go out."

Li Tianliu threw the note on the coffee table next to her hand and turned away.

Chen Shao picked up the note and told Chan Yi, "Go tell Quan Shuyu to prepare 10,000 taels of silver and go with us to Huimin Pharmacy."

Quan Shuyu is in the study.

Chan Yi finished relaying her words, and Quan Shuyu said, "We don't have that much silver."

"I'll go tell the young master." Chan Yi just turned around and saw Chen Shao who followed him to the study room. She immediately said, "Young master, we don't have 10,000 taels of silver in our account."

"You really don't know how expensive firewood, rice, oil and salt are, as you are not in charge of the household." Chen Shao said self-deprecatingly, "I will go to the Wen family first and embezzle some silver from the Wen family's treasury to deal with the emergency."

At this point, she added, "After you finish checking the account books of Fenglong Commercial Bank, stop what you are doing and go and clean up and count the assets in the Wen family's several vaults."

The whole book is good.

After taking the silver from the Wen family's treasury, it was already getting dark when he arrived at Huimin Pharmacy.

The whole family has been taken away by the Ren family.

Even so, in order to avoid trouble, Chen Shao let Quan Shuyu wait in the carriage for a while, then got off the carriage alone and went into the pharmacy.

Inside the pharmacy, there were more than ten people waiting to get medicine.

While waiting for the medicine to be dispensed, the topic they discussed was exactly what the whole family read out outside the pharmacy that afternoon.

Seeing her, everyone shut up tactfully.

Chen Shao also pretended not to hear and asked with a smile: "It's already dark, uncles and aunts, can you go home after getting the medicine?"

The brave woman replied, "We live in the county town. The moon is bright recently. We can get the medicine and get home quickly by the moonlight."

"That's good." Chen Shao nodded, turned around and said to Qi Ye and Zhao Liangzhu who came out from behind, "The pharmacy will have to be equipped with a few wards and carriages. If there are seriously ill patients who need to come for treatment every day, we can just let them stay here temporarily to recover before going back. For those who are waiting here to get medicine after dark, it's fine if they are close to home, but if they are far away, we have to arrange for someone to send them back. Since it's a pharmacy, we can't let people get injured after seeing a doctor."

Qi Ye and Zhao Liangzhu thought about the ten thousand taels of silver and nodded.

The people who were waiting to get their medicine couldn't help but praise the chef.

Chen Shao chatted with them for a while on the pretext of asking for their opinions. After gaining enough favor from them, he took Qi Ye and Zhao Liangzhu out of the pharmacy and went to Shiweizhai.