Pick up a princess to be your wife

“Brother Ertie, you need to think long-term. As the saying goes, troubled times produce heroes. Who knows if you, Li Ertie, will become a hero in the future? If you become a hero, wouldn’t you be able to choose any woman like He Xianzhi?” Li Mu said with a faint smile.

"hey-hey."

Li Ertie raised his hand and touched his head.

He wouldn't even dare to dream of marrying a woman of He Xianzhi's caliber.

But coming from Li Mu's mouth, it actually came out as if he could choose whatever he wanted?

"If such a good thing really existed, wouldn't we be laughing in our sleep?"

"Only by daring to think can you dare to act, and only by daring to act can you have opportunities. For example, before this, you never thought that you would one day be dealing with Zhou Wanfu, did you?" Li Mu said with a smile.

Li Ertie no longer blamed Li Mu for being ungrateful; he gave Li Mu a thumbs up with some admiration.

“I used to think you were just a little capable, but I never expected you to be so ambitious. By the way, can you really get the grain?” Li Ertie asked.

"No problem at all."

"It's dangerous outside the city. I'll bring my brothers to protect you as you leave the city."

Li Ertie is indeed very loyal and has plenty of courage.

“There are his men in the city. I just need to give him the goods, and he will naturally send someone to deliver the grain,” Li Mu said.

"Oh."

Li Ertie nodded, then asked curiously, "Who is this important person you're talking about?"

"I cannot disclose that information."

"understood."

Li Ertie thought that most of the people Li Mu knew were rebel leaders or similar figures.

If the authorities find out that Li Mu is colluding with the rebels, his whole family will suffer.

The rebel leader who captured Baiyujing was named Wu Fengxian, but now war is raging everywhere, and there are countless people who hold military power and act independently.

Some were powerful landlords who squandered their wealth to recruit soldiers and establish their own independent regimes.

Some were mountain bandits or outlaws who would break into a county town and use it as a stronghold.

Since Li Mu cannot reveal the other party's identity, then the other party is definitely not loyal to the imperial court.

These past few days, the Zhou family father and son have been busy collecting grain and haven't come to the Li family to cause trouble.

Once things calmed down in the city, Li Mu exchanged the antiques given to him by He Xianzhi for points.

Li Mu himself still had two thousand points, but he was reluctant to spend a single point, so he tricked He Xianzhi into giving him capital.

Li Mu found a deserted, dilapidated courtyard on the outskirts of the city and purchased 10,000 jin of grain from the system.

He also prepared a large number of empty sacks to use to store fake grain.

When Li Ertie saw the grain piled up in the yard, his eyes widened in disbelief.

"You're quite something, brother. The grain has arrived in just two or three days. It seems you have quite a bit of influence."

"I'll have to trouble you brothers to fill all these sacks with soil. Miss He will come to collect the grain early tomorrow morning."

"Brothers, did you hear me? Get to work!"

At Li Ertie's command, a dozen or so brothers immediately got to work.

The group got to work.

"Master, what are you doing?" one of his men asked.

“This is a plan that Brother Li Mu came up with to deal with Zhou Wanfu,” Li Ertie said.

"Deal with Zhou Wanfu? Are we going to bury him alive with these sacks?"

Li Ertie slapped his subordinate on the forehead.

"If only it were that simple. Anyway, I trust Brother Li Mu; he'll definitely be able to take down Zhou Wanfu."

"Since the goal is to take down Zhou Wanfu, I'll be the first to support it!"

"That bastard! He bought grain one minute and stole it the next! He's a scoundrel! Brothers, give it your all!"

Everyone was burning with rage, and since they were all barefoot, the thought of opposing Zhou Wanfu filled them with righteous indignation.

Although they didn't know the specifics of the plan, they figured following the boss was the right thing to do.

A dozen or so people worked from the first morning until the second morning, and the yard was piled high with sacks.

The following morning, He Xianzhi personally led a horse-drawn carriage team.

"Are you all ready?"

"The pile in that corner is real grain, exactly 10,000 jin. The rest is just dirt."

"Load it onto the truck and take it back."

After loading all the sacks onto the carriage, He Xianzhi left.

Even without Li Mu's prompting, she knew roughly what to do.

She deliberately led the convoy on a detour through the city and drove very slowly.

What should have been a journey of two or three quarters of an hour took her at least an hour.

Wherever the convoy went, it attracted many locals to stop and watch.

"This is the carriage of Jubao Pavilion. What's inside?"

"It's obviously filled with grain."

"Why is Jubao Pavilion transporting so much grain to Luyang? With so many carts, it must be seventy or eighty thousand catties, right?"

"It weighs at least 100,000 jin."

"Could it be that Yao Pass is about to be breached, and the He family is preparing to move from Lingnan Road to the southwest?"

"Who knows."

……

The news that He Xianzhi had transported 100,000 catties of grain back to Jubao Pavilion quickly spread throughout the city.

After a short rest, Li Mu continued preparing fake food.

At noon and in the evening, He Xianzhi made two more trips to Li Mu's place.

Ten thousand catties of the grain were genuine, all of it white rice. He Xianzhi's conjecture was similar to Li Ertie's.

Li Mu probably knew the leader of a separatist force in Lingnan Province, otherwise he wouldn't have been able to get 10,000 catties of rice.

Inside the Zhou family's side hall.

Zhou Wanfu lay on a recliner, with two concubines attending to him, thoroughly enjoying himself.

He recently made 100,000 taels of silver for nothing, and he was overjoyed.

However, the fact that he had given Magistrate Yu 100,000 taels of silver left him feeling somewhat resentful.

He had to find a way to get the 100,000 taels of silver back, otherwise he would feel like he had suffered a huge loss.

"Father, He Xianzhi somehow managed to get his hands on hundreds of thousands of catties of grain today, and it's said to be all rice," Zhou Feng said urgently as he strode into the side hall.

"Hmm." Zhou Wanfu nodded lightly.

"Do you think the He family knew in advance that Yao Pass might not be able to be defended, so they gathered all the grain from Lingnan Road and prepared to send it into the southwest?" Zhou Feng asked.

“Luyang County is located in the southeast of Lingnan Road. Even if the He family wanted to transfer all the grain from Lingnan Road, they couldn’t possibly go around to Luyang County,” Zhou Wanfu said after thinking for a moment.

With that thought, Zhou Wanfu slowly sat up and opened his eyes.

If He Xianzhi wanted to leave, he would have left directly. Why bring hundreds of thousands of catties of grain to Luyang?

The Jubao Pavilion has a total of over a hundred people. Even if they wanted to stockpile grain for the winter, they wouldn't need hundreds of thousands of kilograms.

“Father is right. Jubao Pavilion wouldn’t bring over hundreds of thousands of catties of grain for no reason. Could it be that they also want to do grain business?” Zhou Feng asked doubtfully.

"Are you sure what He Xianzhi got was really grain?" Zhou Wanfu asked.

"Everyone in the city saw it, it can't be fake, right?"

"Strange, why are antique dealers dealing in grain? Are they really trying to steal our business?" Zhou Wanfu wondered.

He vaguely sensed that something was wrong, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it.