"Why didn't Zhiyuan come with you?" Huo Jingchen looked around the room and asked doubtfully when he saw no sign of his friend.
Huo Yunqi laughed angrily and said: "Brother thought this was Jingzhou, and there was no need to light the clock every day. Zhiyuan was still on duty! I was anxious to see my brother, so I sent someone to hitch a carriage and hurried over. How could I bother to wait for him to rest slowly?
Mu just came here."
"That's it. I haven't been in the capital for a long time and I forgot about it. Blame me, blame me." Huo Jingchen suddenly realized.
"It's okay. He will come to take us back when he gets off duty later. Then you can have a good time together!" Huo Yunqi waved his hand and said nonchalantly.
"Okay, haven't you brothers and sisters talked enough about old times? Sit down and have a rest! You don't want to be too tired." Seeing that they were still standing talking, Mrs. Huo hurriedly asked a few people to sit down.
"By the way, brother, I'm here this time to send you a post." Huo Yunqi thought of something and smiled slyly.
Seeing her malicious look, Huo Jingchen raised his eyebrows and said, "What post?"
"It's the chrysanthemum appreciation banquet hosted by the Xi family in a few days, I tell you! Don't shirk it, you have to go for me." Before Huo Yunyao could answer, Mrs. Huo threatened impatiently, for fear that he would come looking for her again.
Excuses not to go.
"Yes! Brother Chen, you are not young anymore. Look at your sister. She is the same age as you, but your son is already two years old. It's time for you to get married." Huo Da, who had long been unable to hold himself back, said
The lady hurriedly helped.
Huo Jingchen looked at the culprit Huo Yunqi dumbfounded, and the latter gave him a self-righteous look.
"Grandma, mother, I am a soldier who stays in Jingzhou all year round. I am often on the battlefield. How can I find the time to marry a wife? Isn't this a waste of other girls?" Seeing that there was no help, Huo Jingchen said helplessly.
Hearing this, Mrs. Huo became even more dissatisfied and said angrily: "Why can't you get a wife? Your father and your second uncle were fighting abroad all year round, and they married your mother and second aunt. How did you end up here?"
It won’t work!”
Mrs. Huo also said at the right time: "Yes, Brother Chen, we are not forcing you to marry a wife right now. We are just asking you to have a look at each other and make a decision first when you meet a suitable girl. You can't
Keep pushing away like this! When will I see my daughter-in-law if I keep doing this!"
"Brother, I'm just attending a chrysanthemum viewing party. Just go and have a look! I'm not forcing you to hold a wedding right away. Why are you anxious?"
"Is it possible that you have a sweetheart, so you are so resistant? Don't want to go to the Chrysanthemum Appreciation Banquet?" Huo Yunqi rolled his eyes, suddenly thought of an incredible possibility, and said very excitedly.
Hearing this, Huo Jingchen suddenly thought of a girl in a distant place for some reason. The woman who insisted on riding in a carriage even though it was uncomfortable and never complained.
, the majestic woman who gave him the prescription, the clever and quirky woman who gave him the New Year gift.
Seeing that Huo Jingchen was actually silent, everyone in the room looked at him in disbelief, and immediately became filled with gossip.
"You won't be fooled by what I said, right?" After a moment of silence, Huo Yunqi cautiously asked.
"It's nothing, don't think too much about it, I'll just go." Huo Jingchen retorted subconsciously, pretending to be calm.
However, Mrs. Huo and Mrs. Huo couldn't tell anything was wrong with him. They looked at each other in a tacit understanding and saw the determined emotions and meaningful smiles in each other's eyes.
A man in blue suddenly broke in, breaking the laughter in the room.
"The old lady is well, my aunt is well, the second lady is well, Jinghe is well behaved."
Everyone looked up and saw a tall and slender man standing there upright, with a pair of twinkling peach blossom eyes slightly raised, sparkling, passionate and charming, with red lips and white teeth, a face like a crown jade, and a fresh and handsome look.
The image of a handsome young man.
"Jinghe, you're back." Mrs. Huo looked at her nephew whom she hadn't seen for a long time in surprise, and said with a smile.
"Yes! Aunt."
"Yunqi is here too. This kid must be your Dalang!" Wen Jianzhou saw Huo Yunqi watching him silently from the corner of his eye. When he saw the child she was holding, he raised his eyebrows and teased.
"Yes! Cousin, Brother Heng, this is your cousin. Say hello to your cousin." Huo Yunqi responded with a smile and then told his son in his arms.
"Hello, cousin." Brother Heng glanced at Wen Jianzhou who was smiling curiously and whispered.
"Hey! My cousin's dear nephew, come here, this is a meeting gift from your uncle." As he said that, Wen Jianzhou took a wooden box from the attendant and handed it to Brother Heng.
When Huo Jingchen received Wen Jianzhou's meaningful look, he immediately stood up, glanced at everyone apologetically, and said, "Jinghe and I have something to discuss."
"Go, go! Business is important." Mrs. Huo waved her hand and hurriedly hurried the two of them away.
"Thank you, old lady. This is a gift for you. Wen San, give it to everyone." Wen Jianzhou smiled and bowed his thanks, then turned to the attendants on the side.
"Old lady, aunt, second madam, we will leave first."
"Let's go, let's go." Mrs. Huo smiled and waved her hand.
Two tall men, one cold and the other gentle, strolled in the huge Duke Huo's mansion.
As soon as he entered the study room, Wen Jianzhou lay down on the chair and wailed.
Seeing his exhausted look, Huo Jingchen felt funny and distressed at the same time, so he poured him a cup of tea with rare thoughtfulness.
"How's it going? Is there any clue?"
Hearing this, Wen Jianzhou straightened up immediately and said seriously and seriously: "It's okay, things are not as simple as we thought."
"oh?"
"According to my secret investigation in Liuzhou, Song Yu doesn't know anything about Shi County. These days, he has been busy with the autumn harvest and has no time to care about other things."
With that said, Wen Jianzhou took the tea handed over by Huo Jingchen, took a sip, and said slowly: "So, I went directly to Shi County and found that the current Shi County Magistrate did not have the title of County Magistrate at all.
real power.”
"And the power of Shi County is now in the hands of the county prime minister, and this county prime minister Liu Dahei happened to be promoted by Chen Wen before."
Thinking of the arrogant and domineering Liu Dahei he had seen in Shi County before, Wen Jianzhou's face gradually darkened.
"Then what?" Huo Jingchen silently glanced at Wen Jianzhou, who was obviously angry, and asked in a low voice.
"Then, I have been sending people to follow Liu Dahei, and I found that he would go to a small courtyard every day. After checking, I found that there was an outer room where he kept, and this outer room was actually Chen Wen's former concubine!"
"Chen Wen deliberately regarded his concubine as a brothel girl, and then gave the banquet stall to Liu Dahei. In fact, he planted a spy next to Liu Dahei."
"Furthermore, after investigation by the people below, I found that Liu Dahei trusts this concubine named Liniang very much and will tell her almost everything. Liniang happened to be pregnant recently."
"This made the middle-aged and childless Liu Dahei very happy. Liniang took the opportunity to say that she knew a big business and pretended to transport tea to Beidi, but in fact it was full of weapons."
"Liu Dahei thought that Li Niang was a beautiful girl who was harmless to humans and animals. Unexpectedly, she turned out to be a female spy who eats people without spitting out their bones." Wen Jianzhou laughed mercilessly at the thought of Liu Dahei, who was as brainy as a pig.
"King Xin's men?" Huo Jingchen thought for a moment and asked in a low voice.
Wen Jianzhou's face became more solemn and said: "No, I found out that she is from another force. I originally thought she was someone placed by King Xin around Chen Wen, but Chen Wen accidentally placed her under Liu Dahei."
around."
"However, I discovered that this Liniang has a close relationship with Beidi. It can be said that she is a female spy specially arranged by Beidi."
"This Liniang is the right-hand man of the Second Prince of Beidi. She was sent to the largest brothel in the capital with many other female spies at the age of thirteen. She is secretly an obedient brothel girl, but in fact she has been collecting news from all over the capital.
.”
"In the end, she was favored by King Xin, who trained her to be one of his own and placed her next to Chen Wen. Unexpectedly, it was the conspiracy of the Beidi people!"
When Huo Jingchen heard this, he was silent for a while and then asked: "What's going on with Prince Xiang?"
Wen Jianzhou slowly exhaled a breath and said seriously: "King Xiang's favorite concubine turned out to be a spy for the Beidi people. And this concubine deliberately blew the pillow in front of King Xiang, saying that she had a tea business with the Beidi people.
If you need to send someone to sneak around Jingzhou, you can make a lot of money."
"Prince Xiang has been running the position of Zuo Shilang in the Ministry of War recently, and wants one of his own to sit on it. Those old tricksters in the court will not move until they see benefits. No, in order to gain support, Prince Xiang needs a large sum of money."
"But Prime Minister Zhang did not agree with King Xiang's deployment of personnel in the Ministry of War at this moment, so naturally he would not provide him with money. King Xiang was furious, so he agreed to the idea of pampering his concubine."
"I didn't expect that all this was a conspiracy by the Beidi people."
Huo Jingchen disagreed and immediately questioned: "Impossible, the power of the Beidi people is not that strong. The current commander of the capital is Lu Xiu. He has always been sharp. The capital under his jurisdiction is like an iron barrel. The actions of the Beidi people
It's so big, there's no way he wouldn't notice it!"
"What if there is a mole?" Wen Jianzhou said slowly.
Huo Jingchen immediately stared at Wen Jianzhou sharply, gritted his teeth and said, "What did you say?"
"I discovered that Yihongyuan, the largest brothel in the capital, is actually the property of King Xin, but the madam seems to be from another force."
"The mysterious man specifically asked the madam to reveal this news to King Xin. On the surface, he said that King Xiang had colluded with Beidi and wanted to resell weapons to Beidi, so he lifted the shell of the tea leaves. When King Xin heard this, he immediately came up with an idea.
You just happened to be awarded the title of General Weiyuan because of the great victory in Jingzhou."
"No, he thinks it's a good time. Not only can he prove Prince Xiang's crime of colluding with Beidi, but he can also get rid of you, the biggest competitor of the left minister of the Ministry of War. After all, King Xin has always wanted to place people in the Ministry of War."