Dad, open the door. I'll bring your mistress back for you.

"My little Jiu will definitely like that revolving lantern across the street. I promised to bring her a lantern back when I left home at noon. I'm going to help her win it back."

Several people came down from the second floor of the teahouse, and the one walking in the middle and talking was Shen Chengliu, the sixth son of the Shen family.

Sitting in the corner, Shen Chuning was thinking about how likely it was that Shen Chengliu would recognize her in this outfit.

After all, her sixth brother is the one closest to her.

After thinking it over, Shen Chuning still felt that sitting in the teahouse was too dangerous, so she dragged the fifth prince out.

"Hey, I think I saw my Xiaojiu." Shen Chengliu said to the people around him and was about to chase him out the door.

The person next to him stopped him and said, "Didn't you just say that Miss Nine was not feeling well and stayed at home? Are you planning to chase her and flirt with her?"

Shen Chengliu punched the person next to him and said, "What nonsense are you talking about? Maybe I saw it wrong, but the back figure is too similar. Regardless, we still have to win the lantern and go home quickly."

……

Here, Shen Chuning took the fifth prince to a dark alley nearby, and secretly stuck her head out to observe the movements of Shen Chengliu and his group.

I felt a little relieved when I saw Shen Chengliu join the crowd of people guessing riddles.

"Sister Aning, didn't Brother Hanzhi tell us to stay in the teahouse and not run around?" The Fifth Prince looked up and asked.

"If I hadn't run away just now, I would have been dragged back home by Sixth Brother. Your sneaking out of the palace would have been exposed, and then Zhou Er would have been in trouble too. I did this for his own good."

The fifth prince nodded, not quite understanding.

Shen Chuning continued, "Besides, let's go back to the teahouse now. If you don't tell me and I don't tell anyone, who would know that we ran away?"

After Shen Chuning finished speaking, she pulled the fifth prince back to the teahouse.

But before he took two steps, his mouth and nose were covered, and he lost consciousness.

……

When Zhou Lin got the revolving lantern and returned to the teahouse, he saw only an empty corner.

Zhou Lin was shocked and his hand loosened, causing the revolving lantern to fall to the ground.

He quickly ran to the table where Shen Chuning had just sat, and saw a note pressed down by a teacup on the table.

It says [The ruined temple at the foot of Yonggu Mountain, come here yourself].

Zhou Lin grabbed the waiter who was clearing the table nearby and asked, "Where is the person who was sitting here just now?"

The waiter trembled and said, "Sir... Sir... I... I don't know."

"Someone was kidnapped in your store, how could you not know?" Zhou Lin asked with bloodshot eyes.

The shopkeeper behind the counter saw the commotion and hurried over to smooth things over.

The shopkeeper squeezed in between Zhou Lin and the waiter and said to Zhou Lin, "Sir, please calm down. I will remember the young man and young lady sitting here. They walked out on their own and were not kidnapped."

Zhou Lin glared at the shopkeeper, not believing what he said.

The shopkeeper felt the knife-like gaze and shuddered. He immediately raised three fingers and swore, "If I tell a lie, I will close this teahouse tomorrow. The two people who were sitting here before did leave on their own. The guests at the tables next to me can testify to this. If they were kidnapped, how could there be no noise at all?"

"I saw it. The young lady seemed to have something urgent to do, so she dragged the young master out. Don't blame the shopkeeper. They really ran away on their own." The guest at the next table spoke for the shopkeeper.

Zhou Lin seemed to have grasped a life-saving straw. He turned around and asked the person who had just spoken, "When did they leave? Did you see clearly which way they went?"

The man thought for a moment and replied, "They've been gone for a while. I only saw them go out and turn left, but I don't know where they went."

"Thank you." Zhou Lin took out a silver ingot from his sleeve and placed it on the table. "Please have some tea."

After saying that, he walked out the door and ran to the left.

Not long after walking, he saw the dim alley and Zhou Lin carefully identified the footprints on the ground.

The footprints on the ground were messy and disorderly, and many people had stayed here, but Zhou Lin still found several traces of dragging among the messy footprints, and a pearl flower fell on the ground.

Zhou Lin recognized that this was the pearl flower that Shen Chuning wore on her head when she went out today.

Zhou Lin's heart sank, and he quickly ran back to the teahouse. He took out a few banknotes and slapped them in front of the shopkeeper, "Do you have any horses in the shop?"

“Yes… yes, yes… but there are so many people outside, you can’t ride out.”

"Stop talking nonsense and go get the horse."

Zhou Lin wrote on the piece of paper that he had just used, asking Zhou Lan to go to the Shen residence to report his safety and saying that Shen Chuning would stay at the Zhou residence tonight.

The shopkeeper brought the horse over, and Zhou Lin took off the jade pendant and the paper and handed it to the shopkeeper, "Take this jade pendant and go to General Dingguo's mansion to find Young Master Zhou."

"Yes... yes... sir." After saying this, the shopkeeper collected the silver bills and jade pendant on the table and ran to the backyard.

Horses galloped across Suzaku Street, kicking up clouds of dust, and shouts and curses came from the crowded crowd behind Zhou Lin.

……

There is a Panlong Village on Yonggu Mountain, which is the same village that was wiped out when Zhou Lin followed General Ji to suppress bandits.

Zhou Lin didn't dare to inform the Shen family at first. After all, the Shen family were a family of scholars, and there was nothing they could do except worry after knowing the news, so Zhou Lin just sent someone to find his eldest brother.

In the dilapidated temple at the foot of Yonggu Mountain, there was a fire burning in the middle, and several men in tattered clothes and with disheveled hair and faces were sitting around the fire, warming themselves.

Shen Chuning and the fifth prince were tied up and thrown to the ground.

"Third brother, do you think the guy named Zhou can come?" The person closest to Shen Chuning and the others was using a stick to pick up the branches in the fire, and the fire made crackling sounds.

"I've followed him for a few months, and he basically keeps to himself. Today is such an important day as the Lantern Festival, and he's able to take these two people out and watch them so closely. It must be very important to him." said the person sitting in the middle.

"But I heard that he has started studying and preparing for the imperial examination. Will it be of any use for us to find him?"

"Why is it useless? Don't forget, he is the son of General Dingguo. Do you know how many soldiers General Dingguo has? Hundreds of thousands of them. Isn't it easy for him to do what we are doing?"

"But the Zhou family army is all in the north, and General Zhou didn't even bring his personal guards with him when he returned to the capital."

"That's none of my business. If he doesn't help us get things done, none of us will survive."

……

It was already late at night when Zhou Lin arrived at Yonggu Mountain.

"Who are you?" Zhou Lin kicked open the door of the dilapidated temple.