Scientific Travel

He had quite a few poisons that could prove his identity, but everyone knew they were poisons, so who would dare to test them? Even if there were an antidote, it wouldn't work, since everyone knew that there was no absolute antidote for Black Soil's poisons.

Li Pingle previously sold goods in cooperation with the head of Yuwa Pavilion, splitting the profits 30/70, with the head of Yuwa Pavilion receiving 30% and Li Pingle receiving 70%. He was the only one who knew Heitu's true identity.

Sadly, he died last year.

There aren't many people powerful enough to rival Zou Guangyu. Li Pingle traveled to three cities and only managed to find four.

Zou Guangyu was just a county magistrate; what truly made people wary was the Zou family behind her.

The Zou family has produced three officials of the second rank, and currently there is one surviving official of the third rank in the imperial court.

In each generation of the Zou family, only one member would become an official in the imperial court; the rest would choose to become merchants.

The person who should have entered the court as an official in this generation was originally Chen Xusheng, Zou Guangyu's older brother. However, he died unexpectedly, and it was Zou Guangyu's turn to enter the court as an official.

The Zou family lacked the talent for officialdom, but possessed a remarkable talent for business.

Each generation selects one person to serve as an official in the imperial court, merely to make the path of business easier.

After obtaining an official position, all the underhanded tricks of his competitors quickly disappeared. Without trouble, he naturally opened more and more shops.

The more shops one owns, the richer one becomes. The richer one is, the more generous one can be when bribing officials. The more generous one is, the higher one's official rank will be. The higher one's official rank, the fewer troubles one will encounter when opening shops. The fewer troubles one will encounter when opening shops, the more shops one can open.

This theory was conceived by Zou Yi, the first member of the Zou family to serve as an official in the imperial court, and one of the three officials who held the second rank. Had he not died young, he might have even risen to the first rank.

Even now, the Zou family still operates according to Zou Yi's theories.

Apart from Zou Guangyu.

She was a once-in-a-century business genius in the Zou family. By the age of eight, she owned eight cloth shops, three grain shops, and a pawnshop. All of these shops were built with an initial capital of only 1000 taels of silver, and it only took two short years.

From that time on, she was groomed to be the next head of the family.

When she was 15, Chen Xusheng died. Zou Guangyu locked herself in her room for a month. When she came out, she insisted on breaking off the engagement and giving up the soon-to-be-obtained position of head of the family, instead choosing to become an official in the imperial court.

As it turned out, she was also very talented in being an official. She spent money to get herself a seventh-rank official position, and from then on, she had a smooth career, eventually rising to the fifth rank.

He later offended someone and was demoted to the position of county magistrate.

Few members of the Zou family believed her; everyone knew that Zou Guangyu was extremely tactful in her dealings with others, so how could she possibly offend anyone so easily?

Regardless of what others speculate, it's a foregone conclusion that Zou Guangyu will be demoted to the position of county magistrate.

Since then, she seems to have lost the will to climb the social ladder, and after more than two years she is still just a county magistrate.

Later, the Zou family simply gave up on her and selected a new person to enter the court.

However, the Zou family is the most united. Although they abandoned her, they would not stand idly by if something really happened to her.

Six days have passed since Wang Moyu went missing. Li Pingle has barely slept these past few days, spending his time either on the road or thinking about how to make others believe that he is Heitu.

The harder I try, the more heartbroken I become. I used to try my best to hide my identity, and I was very successful at it. That's why I can't prove my identity now.

There's a reason why Hei Tu hasn't appeared in recent years and everyone thinks he's dead.

When he was popular, many people impersonated him, and a lot of fake products circulated on the market. It wasn't until he collaborated with Yuwage that those people stopped trying to impersonate him.

Later, he stopped selling new products for a long time, and many people thought that something must have happened to him, so he started selling counterfeit goods again.

The reason given this time was that they had fallen out with Yuwage, so they would no longer sell to him.

Many people believed it at the time, only to find out after buying it that it was all fake. The so-called poison, which supposedly kills on contact with blood, was barely enough to kill a rat.

The people selling counterfeit goods are very clever. They move to a different location after each sale, effectively eliminating the possibility of anyone discovering the product is not as advertised and coming back to confront them.

Later on, everyone just assumed that Heitu was dead. Otherwise, why would so many people be selling counterfeit goods under his name? He never came out and said anything.

It's easy to prove that a living person is dead; all you have to do is for them not show up for a long time.

However, it is very difficult to prove that a dead person is alive.

The wilderness is especially dangerous at night. During the day, the temperature is too high, so wild animals stay in their dens and only come out to hunt at night.

Li Pingle had only eaten two of the pancakes he brought. To keep them fresh for longer, he had made them extra dry, as eating too many would make him thirsty. They were still over a hundred li away from the next city, so he had to be careful with his water intake.

Li Pingle changes his horse at each new location, and this is the fourth one he has changed so far.

"Ow~~~"

Several wolf howls came from afar, followed by a series of wolf howls that seemed to echo one after another.

Li Pingle didn't have time to let the horse rest any longer and quickly ran in the direction where he hadn't heard any wolf howls.

This horse is smart; it knew there was danger and ran much faster than usual.

Taking advantage of its momentum, Li Pingle ran for more than 50 kilometers.

The person they're going to find this time is Zhao Shanglan. With her power, she doesn't take the Zou family seriously at all.

Of all these people, she is the most likely to help Li Pingle, but she is also the one Li Pingle least wants to contact.

Zhao Shanglan isn't very bright, but she's incredibly lucky; every choice she makes is always right.

Originally, the throne should have gone to the Crown Princess, the third princess, and that was the consensus among both the court officials and the emperor. However, Zhao Shanglan did not side with her, but instead sided with the thirteenth prince, Cui Wuji.

Everyone assumed that she simply chose someone randomly because she didn't want to get involved in the factional struggle.

According to the law, an emperor can only be between 15 and 40 years old. Once he is over 40, he will retire and become the retired emperor.

At that time, the old emperor was already 37 years old and had three years left before his retirement. When the old emperor retired, the thirteenth prince, Cui Wuji, would only be thirteen years old, so it was impossible for him to become emperor.

Unexpectedly, in the year the old emperor was about to retire, Crown Princess Pei Ke suddenly fell seriously ill and died within three days.

The selection of a successor would take a year, so the old emperor had to serve for another year.

The person chosen this time was the fifth prince, who served as crown prince for an even shorter period of time, less than half a year, before dying of a stomach ailment.

Only princes or princesses who were 14 years old or older could participate in the selection. After two crown princes and princesses died, the thirteenth prince, Cui Wuji, finally reached the age of 14.

That year, he surpassed the other eleven candidates and won the position of crown prince.

The old emperor had long wanted to retire, but fearing that delay might cause unforeseen changes, he abdicated the throne to Cui Wuji the day after Cui Wuji's fifteenth birthday.