Four hundred blows of the "door drum" awakened the behemoth of Chang'an City, and also awakened all kinds of people in Chang'an City.
The vendors walking along the street began to sell their goods along the street, and their ups and downs of shouting woke up most of the people in Tongjifang. The vendors began to work, selling steamed buns, Hu cakes, mutton soup, hot buns, fried sugar cakes and noodle soup.
The aroma spreads throughout the city along with the cooking smoke.
In a three-story inn, a sleepy young man rolled over in his quilt. The blacksmith downstairs kept banging "ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-dong" early in the morning, disturbing his dreams.
The aroma stubbornly came in through the window crack and slipped into the young man's nostrils. He frowned and his stomach growled in protest.
However, laziness finally defeated his appetite. The young man still did not get up. Instead, he pulled up the quilt and covered his head, turned over and continued to sleep.
But the sound of the blacksmith's hammering was really noisy, like a demonic sound that penetrated the thick quilt and shook the young man's sleepiness away.
The young man suddenly sat up straight, looking as if he was hopeless. He woke up there, then reluctantly got out of bed, put on his boots, and washed himself. The fatigue on his face had been wiped away.
.
He opened the window, and the breeze carried the fragrance of grass and smoke into his mouth and nose. The young man stretched, picked up the long black sheath sword on the table, and jumped downstairs.
Three stories high, the young man landed firmly on the blacksmith's shed downstairs, causing the shed to shake and almost collapse.
The young man slid down slowly and gave a bright smile to the dark man who lowered his head to strike: "I'm sorry, uncle."
The swarthy man was just working on the iron and didn't bother to look up.
The young man turned around and left, looking expectantly at a place, but found that it was not what he wanted. After sniffing hard, the young man walked towards a stall selling sugar cookies.
"Grandma, I changed places today."
"I came out late today, and the old place was occupied." The old woman said cheerfully, "Still the same?"
"As usual, two sugar cakes will burn."
The old woman picked up two sugar cakes, carefully wrapped them in oil paper bags and handed them to the young man. The young man paid two copper coins and ate them while walking with the sugar cakes.
Most of the people living in Tongjifang are foreigners. When young people walk on the street, all they see are foreign faces.
A Persian with a high nose, blue eyes, and a mustache came towards him. When he saw the young man, he came up to him with a look of relief, and said in his not-so-standard Tang Dynasty Mandarin: "Li Xin'an, you
Finally showed up!"
The young man in black chuckled and said: "Alibaba, I didn't disappear from the world. I just met you just the day before yesterday. What are you worried about?"
The man in black in front of him is Li Xin'an, the thirteenth son of Li Linfu, the traitorous prime minister of the Tang Dynasty, and the young apprentice of the Sword Master Pei Min of the Tang Dynasty. In seventeen years, he has grown into a handsome young man with an upright posture.
The Persian Alibaba looked sad, hugged Li Xin'an, who was a head shorter than him, and said flatteringly: "Brother Li, what you promised me two days ago..."
Li Xin'an swallowed the last piece of sugar cake in one gulp, licked off the residue, and said vaguely: "I'll be there in a moment. Don't worry, let me have a sip of tea first."
Alibaba had no choice but to follow him out of Tongjifang and walked to Zhuque Street. They found a tea shop facing the street and the two of them sat down.
Li Xin'an ordered two cups of hot tea, picked up one and sipped it slowly. Alibaba, on the other hand, had no intention of drinking tea. He kept rubbing his hands together and looked at Li Xin'an, but he hesitated to speak.
"Why, you, a wealthy Persian businessman, don't look down on this ordinary tea." Li Xin'an squinted.
"Where is it..." Alibaba said with a smile, and absentmindedly picked up the teacup and took a sip, not tasting whether it was bitter or bland.
The tea guests at the next table were chatting: "Hey, have you heard? The slaves in Yang Guozhong's family who just took office killed people in the street."
"Of course I know. I was there that day. I beat the couple to death for a piece of cloth. Their intestines were spilled all over the floor!"
The tea guest was indignant: "Do you really think that Li Linfu died just at the beginning of the year? I thought he would be a wise prime minister, but in the end he turned out to be like this."
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Such a traitor who cares about human life! In comparison, I don’t know how much better Li Linfu is than Yang Guozhong, at least he will not attack us ordinary people!"
"Shh, be careful!" His companion quickly covered his mouth, looked around, and whispered: "You don't want your life! If someone with a heart listens to this, you will be the one whose intestines will bleed all over the floor!"
The two people stopped talking about these things and started talking about their family affairs.
Alibaba listened carefully for a while. What he didn't notice was that when the two men talked about Li Linfu, Li Xin'an's hand holding the tea cup remained frozen in the air.
The two people finished drinking tea, paid the bill and left in a hurry. Li Xin'an once again drank tea leisurely and contentedly.
Seeing that Li Xin'an still looked careless, Alibaba finally couldn't help it anymore, slammed his tea cup on the table, and said angrily: "Li Xin'an, what do you want, I paid the money
Yes, your Bloody Clothes Hall is so untrustworthy?"
The voice spread far away, and passers-by and tea-goers in the shop looked at him in surprise, but did not take his words to heart. They just thought that the Persian was out of his mind.
Li Xin'an hurriedly comforted him, sat down, and said with a smile: "Brother, don't be angry. You can rest assured that the Xueyi Hall's sign will not ruin your business."
"Then now -" Alibaba lowered his voice and said cautiously: "Why don't you kill him?"
"Don't worry." Li Xin'an smiled and said, "He is in court in the palace now. I can't just go to the Jinluan Palace to kill him. In that case, what kind of killer can I be? I can become the emperor directly."
Alibaba was stunned and felt that what Li Xin'an said was indeed right. He was being reckless.
"We are waiting here. This is the place that His Excellency Fu Fu must pass on his way home, so it is the most appropriate place to start."
"You want to kill him here? To kill a court official openly in front of people on the street?" Alibaba looked at Li Xin'an in disbelief, feeling that the Tang Dynasty in front of him was a monster.
Where are the killers who kill people in the city?
Li Xin'an narrowed his eyes and said calmly: "Yes, I just want to kill him here in front of hundreds of people! Make his crimes public!"
He took out a piece of paper from his arms, which was densely written with words.
Li Xin'an looked at the piece of paper, his eyes filled with disgust: "If I hadn't investigated Fu Fuge's evidence, I wouldn't have taken so long to go into his house and kill him with a sword!"
Alibaba said eagerly: "There is no need to investigate the evidence or anything. I will pay you to kill him neatly."
The Persian rich man, Darab Alibaba, was in the ceramics business. He had more than a dozen caravans to transport ceramics, silk, tea, cloth, etc. from the Tang Dynasty to Persia, and then transported back fruits that the Tang Dynasty people loved from Persia.
Crops, gems and horses were sold at high prices to make huge profits.
Originally, his business was going smoothly, until a certain old doctor from the Imperial College was seduced by a woman from the Western Regions when one of his favorite students was visiting a brothel. He lingered in bed all day and finally died. The old doctor wrote the emperor's tearful request in a blood letter and transferred all
All brothels were sealed.
The old doctor has never been to such a place in his honest life, but many ministers in the court love to go to brothels to have fun. Such a ridiculous request naturally attracted opposition from a large number of people. However, the old doctor has stayed in the Imperial College all his life.
, and also taught many disciples to serve as officials in the court. Seeing their former mentors so heartbroken, as disciples who received the favor, they could not turn a deaf ear and not help.
As a result, all the brothels opened by people from the Western Regions, Japanese and other foreign races were sealed, at least on the surface.
Those who had connections and backgrounds in the court naturally moved underground, turning from open prostitutes into secret prostitutes.
But it doesn't matter, you can only watch your brothel being closed down, such as Alibaba.
Human trafficking is also an important source of wealth for Alibaba. From the Tang Dynasty to Persia, and then from Persia to the Tang Dynasty, the only way is through the Western Regions. Alibaba will select some girls with outstanding looks from the Western Regions, and either abduct, rob or trade them.
, and took them captive to the Tang Dynasty and Persia to work as prostitutes.
But at this moment, this business could not be done. For this reason, Alibaba was as anxious as an ant on a hot pot. He asked many people to find connections and find a way out, hoping to redeem his brothel business.
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Finally, Fu Fuge, the Minister of Rites, found him.
The two hit it off immediately, and Alibaba promised to give Fu Fuge 30% of the profits from the brothel business every month. Although this was a huge loss, Alibaba could only reluctantly agree. After all, it is much better to get 70% than not to receive 10%.
Where we are at a loss, it will be good to capture more women from the Western Regions when the time comes.
The brothel reopened as he wished. A month later, he went to Fu Fuge's house and presented a heavy box of gold and silver to the Minister of Rites. However, it was unexpected. Fu Fuge said that the money was not enough. He had promised to take all the business from Alibaba.
30% of the profit. He dangled the pardon document from the government in front of Alibaba's eyes, and said with a sinister smile that if he didn't give it, he would report to the government that Alibaba opened a brothel privately without the pardon document from the government.
He will be beheaded and all his property will be confiscated.
It was then that Alibaba realized that he had been tricked by Fu Fuge.
He had no choice but to break his teeth and swallow them. With a smile, he carried more than a dozen boxes of gold and silver treasures to Fu Fuge's house.
But Fu Fuge still did not give him the pardon document.
Before leaving, Fu Fuge said this to him:
"Alibaba, the two of us are grasshoppers on a rope now. Don't even think about getting off the boat, because I can easily control your life or death."
After that, Fu Fuge became even more aggressive, and his demands for Alibaba increased from 30% to 40%, and finally asked for an equal share. He sent people to intervene in Alibaba's caravan. Alibaba found that his control over his subordinates suddenly deteriorated.
, those people he brought from Persia are now loyal to Fu Fuge.
Alibaba knew that if this situation continued, he would lose all his money, so he wanted to find a way to end the matter.
Babak, his loyal servant who had followed him for many years, said, Master, why don't you find a killer?
Alibaba suddenly realized that yes, only by killing Fu Fuge would this matter be settled and he could make a comeback.
He had been exposed to some assassination business before, but he didn't dare to do it, so he introduced it to others. Now he found his old friend, who recommended someone to him.
That day was the first time Alibaba and Li Xin'an met.
Alibaba didn't believe that such a young man dared to kill someone, but in the blink of an eye Li Xin'an jumped over from a dozen steps away from him and held a sword to his throat. He knew that he had found the right person.
Although this person didn't seem to be very concerned about this matter and kept procrastinating for several days.
Li Xin'an tightly clutched the rice paper filled with evidence of Fu Fuge's crimes, looked at Alibaba, and said coldly: "I have my own rules for killing people. I will never kill someone who is not worthy of death. If I can't investigate clearly, I will kill people at will."
If so, wouldn’t he become a big devil?”
"You've already become a killer, why are you so clean and self-sufficient?" Alibaba muttered secretly, but now that his wealth and life depended entirely on the young man in front of him, he did not dare to say this out loud.
Li Xin'an stroked the "white rainbow" around her waist. This old guy had been stained with the blood of forty-three people in the past seventeen years.
Fu Fuge will soon become the 44th.
He closed his eyes and began to wait for the arrival of noon, which was when Fu Fuge returned home.
In Alibaba's feeling, waiting until noon was like a year for him, but for Li Xin'an who was meditating, it was just a matter of closing and opening his eyes.
The sun hung high above their heads, and the weather in late summer and early autumn still made people feel hot.
The sound of horse hooves was heard in the distance, accompanied by the rolling wheels, and a carriage appeared in Alibaba's sight.
Li Xin'an slowly opened his eyes, looked out sideways, and said with a smile: "Here he comes!"
He took out a few copper coins and handed them to Ali Baba, "Can you please go to the shop facing the street to buy a bowl of mutton soup and grab a seat. I'll be there in a moment."
Just when Alibaba was about to speak, Li Xin'an pushed him to the street without any explanation.
When Alibaba turned around, there were only two pennies on the table behind him, and there was no trace of the young man in black anywhere!
Li Xin'an squatted on a high building on the side of Zhuque Street and watched Alibaba go to the street. He took out a piece of black cloth and covered his face, waiting for the arrival of the carriage.