Shipin Dalizheng

Zheng Jiu said angrily, "That's not true. You're talking nonsense."

Rong Tang changed his blocking technique to attacking. The Tang sword was a special steel sword, several times sharper than Zheng Jiu's ordinary sword. Even though Zheng Jiu's martial arts skills were higher than Rong Tang's, the sword still broke with a clang.

Zheng Jiu took a few steps back, staring blankly at the broken knife. Rong Tang sheathed the knife with a beautiful posture.

"Zheng Jiu, I respect you as a man. Don't do meaningless things and don't pester me. If you really liked Feng Qingqing, after she clearly rejected you, be graceful and let her go."

Zheng Jiu's eyes turned red and his hands trembled in an instant.

Struggle?

grace?

He is Zheng Jiu.

After a while, he raised his eyes and said, "I am not interested in your private affairs. Let me ask you, was it you who robbed the Cui family grain store in Hejing County?"

Rong Tang's hand holding the knife paused for a moment. Oops, it was still a little numb.

"Master Zheng's words are truly baffling. I just returned from the south and haven't had time to go to Hejing County yet. How is the princess?"

"Don't interrupt. You may be able to fool others, but you can't fool me. There are over a hundred of you in your group, and you came from the northwest, just in time for the Cui family grain store in Hejing County to be robbed."

Rong Tang sneered, "Isn't Lord Zheng the Junior Minister of the Dali Temple? The imperial capital is in such chaos right now, and Lord Zheng isn't trying to support the country and uphold orthodoxy, but is instead so focused on a grain store. So, since you can't find the robbers, you want me to take the blame?"

"Shut up. You know clearly whether you have been wronged or not."

"I really don't understand this. Our family doesn't lack food. Why would we steal it? Are we going to resell it?"

Zheng Jiu was stunned. All the food was distributed to the poor people in the city. They tried their best to hide the little food they got, and the Cui family couldn't take it back even if they wanted to.

When he went to Hejing County to investigate a case at the request of the Cui family, he found out that the food had been dispersed. He didn't know what he felt in his heart, as if the work that was supposed to be done by him was done by someone else first, and he still had to arrest someone.

But if he was asked to do this, he would not be willing to do it, after all, the Cui family is a relative of the Zheng family.

He said with a stern face, "Since no one was killed, I will pretend I don't know about this matter. If it happens again, I will not let it go easily."

He came quickly and left quickly, but suddenly he covered his chest and looked depressed where no one could see.

The first heartbeat of his life died just like that.

Feng Qingqing sighed as she watched Zheng Jiu walking away. He couldn't even tell who he liked, so how much could he like her?

"Now that he suspects you, what will happen next?"

Rong Tang was not at all flustered. "Let him doubt me, it's a good opportunity to see clearly. He is the eldest son of the Zheng family, one of the four great families. He is destined to take a different path from me."

They may even conflict with each other.

"If conspiracy doesn't work, then let's use an open conspiracy. Come with me to meet someone. After meeting him, you may understand Nangong Yan a little better."

Feng whistled softly, and a pure white horse came running from a distance. It was more than ten times more majestic than the horses of Rong Tang and others.

Rong Tang tutted, "So rich."

Feng Qingqing was also a little proud. "This is not a horse you can buy on the market. Its name is Feixue. Where's yours?"

Rong Tang's horse didn't have a name, but now it had to have one. "It's called Er Gouzi."

Er Gouzi let out a long, angry howl, then left him and ran away.

"Hey, hey, what are you doing? Your master hasn't gone up yet?"

The hurt-hearted Ergouzi refused to take him with him. Of course, he didn't know where to go, so he just ran and stopped in front, looking back at the marching route from time to time.

Rong Zhan and the others were laughing so hard that they couldn't stop. After Rong Tang ran for a while, the thinner Rong Wanli gave the horse to his master and ran to chase Ergouzi.

Rong Tang was a little embarrassed, "It's spoiled."

It wasn't long before they arrived at Fengming Villa. The once magnificent villa was now in ruins, with most of the houses damaged. It was said that Princess An suspected that her son was killed by Madam Du, so she sent people to settle the score after burying her son. By then, Madam Du and her son had already evacuated safely, and the concubine had no way to vent her anger, so she destroyed the villa.

Standing in the second courtyard, which was overgrown with weeds and only had dead branches and broken poles left, Rong Zhan shouted loudly, "Jiao Qing, the uncle is here, come out."

Unexpectedly, many unfamiliar faces appeared from every corner, each of them looked like a skeleton, looking at them numbly, and some of them were holding axes in their hands.

Rong Zhan was shocked. This situation was too familiar. Could it be that he was really desperate and had to eat others?

The others spread out to search, and soon they really found two people, or to be exact, one and a half people.

Jiao Qing was better off. Although he looked darker and thinner, his features were still recognizable. He fell to his knees and cried bitterly, "Young Master, I was so scared! As soon as they came, they snatched our food and tied us up. They wanted to eat us!"

The controlled person retorted hoarsely, "No, we are not going to eat them."

"Then why tie us up?"

Jiao Qing's questioning left the man speechless, but Rong Tang had a keen sense that they were in a state of ideological struggle. On the one hand, they knew cannibalism was wrong and against human nature. On the other hand, they were starving, their rationality slowly fading. They might not eat humans right away, but within a few days, their animal instincts would overwhelm their human instincts, and Jiao Qing and the others would ultimately die.

"Why don't you go to the porridge distribution at the West City Gate? Even if you can't eat enough, you won't starve to death!"

The crowd fell silent. Jiao Qing said angrily, "Young Master, this group of people has offended the Marquis of Yong'an. Even the uncle who now holds power in the imperial capital wouldn't dare to go and get the porridge."

The group of people became agitated with fear, as if they were afraid that they would be betrayed by the crowd.

"Then why don't you run away?"

After asking, Rong Tang realized that if they could run far away, they would definitely not stay near the imperial capital. It seems that the farther away from the imperial capital, the more dangerous it is.

He had an idea. These people could offend Marquis Yong'an, so they must be locals of the imperial capital. He wondered which lord's house they came from.

Jiao Qing seemed to know what his master was looking for. He pointed at a slovenly man with long hair covering his face and said, "He is the leader of this group. I heard them call him the Prince."

Rong Tang was surprised. That was a son of a noble family. He went over to push aside the man's hair to see who it was, but the man was like a frightened bird. "Don't look at me. I don't know you. I'm not the prince either."

Even though he couldn't see his face, Rong Tang still recognized it, "You are Prince Hu!"

The talented and wealthy man who was once famous in the imperial capital for his poem "Fifteen miles south of the city, there is Hujiazhuang. Eight hundred acres of fertile land, and cattle and sheep everywhere", finally fell to the point of having to eat grass roots and tree bark.

Prince Hu cried loudly, "It's not me, it's not me, I'm not Prince Hu. I'm not a bad person, I've never done anything bad. The Marquis of Yong'an killed my father because our Hu family is the prince's maternal family. The whole court is madly saying that the prince has committed treason, but what does this have to do with my family? We are not the prince's confidants, and he has abandoned us. Woo woo, the grain shop I opened only sold affordable grain, I have never done anything cruel."

Rong Tang believed this. Prince Hu had just entered the business world. Whether you said he had not yet started to learn bad things or that he was originally kind, he had indeed not done anything that was harmful to others.

Even the grains that people outside the West City Gate use to save their lives are mostly bought from him at low prices. People like him should not starve to death.

"Is there anyone else in your family?"

Prince Hu sobbed, "No more. On the day my house was raided, I happened to be taking people hunting. Later, the housekeeper risked his life to run out of the city to find me, saying that my father, my mother, and my sister were all killed. It's all Fu Qingshi's fault. If he hadn't broken off the engagement, my sister would have been safe if she had married into the Fu family. It's all his fault..."

Rong Tang pushed the half-man in front of him, and Master Hu stopped talking abruptly.