The Fourth Master was slightly surprised. He hadn't expected to arrive too late. That's right, Ding Changming was the brother of Miss Ding, whom the Fourth Master had met in Yangzhou last year. In the end, he still couldn't save her brother.

Cui Da didn't recognize Ding Changming and was about to speak again when Fourth Master stopped him, asking, "Is there anyone named Li Fang inside?"

Fourth Master's heart sank slightly. He didn't know if this person was still inside. Li Fang was Li Wei's missing younger brother.

"Yes, sir, do you know me?" a very thin young man answered from the crowd. He looked at the Fourth Master in surprise, and couldn't understand when he had met such an important person.

"Do you have any brothers? What are their names?" Fourth Master looked at the young man. Because of long-term malnutrition, he didn't look much like Li Wei.

“I also have an older brother named Li Wei,” Li Fang said.

Fourth Master's eyes lit up; he hadn't expected to find Li Wei's younger brother here.

Fourth Master ordered two soldiers to arrange the civilians in order of height and then lead them out. He himself, along with Cui Da and Li Fang, re-inspected the caves of all sizes. Inside were weapons forged by these laborers.

"Your Excellency, I've heard that they have another treasure hidden here," Li Fang said as he approached the Fourth Master, who was staring intently at the weapons.

"What treasure?" Fourth Master asked, glancing at him sideways.

“I don’t know either. I was one of the first people to arrive here. I was lucky to survive. Once, I overheard them talking about making some kind of robe, which they said they hid here. But I don’t know exactly where they hid it,” Li Fang said.

Fourth Master's pupils contracted slightly, and he asked again, "Then do you know the identities of this group of people?"

Li Fang pondered for a moment and said, "When I was captured and brought here, I worked under the supervision of those men in black every day. They never revealed their identities, but I heard them say 'Master.' Then they said that the Master couldn't wait any longer and wanted to take that position."

"My lord? Can't you wait?" Fourth Master repeated.

Apart from the soldiers who led the civilians out, everyone else began to carefully search the caves of all sizes under the Fourth Master's orders.

"Fourth Prince, has something been discovered here?" A soldier ran up to the Fourth Prince and reported.

Seeing the look of surprise on his face, Fourth Master quickly followed him over to see what was happening, and there was a box made of purple sandalwood being carried out.

"Open it!" Fourth Master looked at the precious purple-gold box, wondering what was inside.

The soldiers used their knives to pry open the lock on the box, then opened the lid, revealing a cloth bundle inside. The cloth was of the finest quality, Suzhou satin.

Fourth Master picked up the cloth bundle himself, then shook it open, revealing a bright yellow garment. When Fourth Master unwrapped it, everyone present was stunned.

What the Fourth Prince was holding was none other than a dragon robe!

Someone is manufacturing weapons here, and even made a dragon robe. This is irrefutable evidence of treason and rebellion.

"Look, there's another envelope inside the box." Cui Da saw a corner of the envelope peeking out of the box.

Fourth Master pushed the "dragon robe" back into Cui Da's hands and hurriedly took out the letter from the box. He trembled as he took out the letter from the envelope, unfolded it, and saw that it contained the birth date and time of Crown Prince Yinren, as well as some words praising his merits.

After reading it, Fourth Master did not show too much shock. Instead, he folded the letter, put it in an envelope, and then put it in his pocket.

"Put these clothes away and take them with you," Fourth Master said.

When Fourth Master and his entourage came out, Al-Hatu had already captured the man in black who had kidnapped Thirteenth Master. It turned out that the masked man had just stepped out of the door with Thirteenth Master when he was ambushed by the soldiers waiting outside the stone gate. Thirteenth Master was unharmed, but the other dozen or so people were all captured.

However, when Fourth Master emerged, these people had become more than a dozen corpses. All of them had bitten off their poisonous fangs and committed suicide.

"Fourth Brother!" Thirteenth Brother rushed to greet Fourth Master when he saw him come out.

"Thirteen, are you alright?" Fourth Master was naturally pleased to see that Thirteen was unharmed. He had already known from the glance he exchanged with Alhatu that he could save Thirteen, which was why he felt at ease and did not follow them out.

"Fourth Brother, who dared to manufacture weapons here? It's practically tantamount to rebellion. It's just a pity that all of them are dead," Thirteen said.

"Who is the masked man?" Fourth Master looked at the corpses lying side by side and saw that Su Fusheng, the prefect of Yangzhou, was lying among them.

“He is the masked man,” Thirteen said fiercely.

Fourth Master stared in astonishment at Su Fusheng's corpse, never expecting that a prefect of Yangzhou would be involved in such a meticulously planned conspiracy that had been scheming for years.

The Fourth Prince entrusted the matter of the weapons inside to Alhatu. His intention was to pack all the weapons into wooden boxes and transport them back to the Governor's Mansion armory to await the Emperor's personal decision.

"This matter requires Uncle and me to jointly write a memorial to Father Emperor," the Fourth Prince said to Alhatu. After this incident, the two seemed to have developed a very good understanding.

“Of course, this matter is of great importance. I never imagined that such a shocking conspiracy was hidden in Yangzhou. If it weren’t for the Fourth Prince coming to Yangzhou to investigate, we wouldn’t have known that Su Fusheng was actually a traitor,” Alhatu said.

"Master, how do you explain those red things?" Cui Da asked at the opportune moment.

Fourth Master smiled and said to Li Fang, "You explain yourself. Thirteen, this is the missing younger brother that Li Wei mentioned."

After bowing to Thirteen and then to Alhatu, Li Fang said, “For the past year or so, the molten iron discarded from weapon forging has been poured into a water source in the cave. That water source is an inner mountain river that leads to an underground water source. Therefore, the rivers outside contain molten iron. As for the corpses in Dead Man's Gully, they were laborers who died from exhaustion due to the heavy labor. Because they worked near the molten iron for a long time, their lungs had absorbed a lot of iron vapor, so their bones gradually began to accumulate iron vapor absorbed through their nostrils.”

"So that's how it is. In other words, the cause of the severe crop failure, as well as the continuous disappearances of Lao Ding over the past two years, are both due to this incident. Su Fusheng is truly audacious," Thirteen said.

"Alright, Thirteenth Prince, we should go back now. We need to write a long memorial and send it to Father Emperor," said the Fourth Prince.