Chapter 182 Two Crappy Female Constables
The carriage arrived five miles outside the village where Hunter Jia lived. Shen Yuexi was afraid of alerting the enemy, so she stopped the carriage and decided to walk to the village.
Madam Li was too cold to leave the carriage. Furthermore, Doctor Hua was old, so Shen Yuexi asked both elders to rest in the carriage and left guards to watch over them.
Originally, Li Wan was afraid of the cold and refused to come, but Shen Yuexi played a trick and said that she would let her experience how the female constable of the yamen caught criminals. Li Wan immediately became interested and refused to listen to Mrs. Li's advice.
The two changed into short-collared cotton-padded jackets for easier movement and sneaked into the village with Qiang Lin. While Qiang Lin led his guards to investigate, she and Li Wan crouched behind a dead bush, gazing at a row of cages suspended in the air not far away.
There were more than twenty cages made of woven wire, located behind a farmhouse surrounded by a low wall.
Shen Yuexi muttered to herself, "This should be the cage used to hold armadillos."
This farm is the only one in the whole village that has this strange cage. It must be the hunter Jia.
"Mrs. Shen, why do you want to hang the cage in the air?" Li Wan asked, looking at the cage with interest.
Shen Yuexi rubbed her hands together, blew hot air on them, and said, "Armadillos dig holes very quickly. If they weren't hung in the air and kept on the ground, they would have dug a hole and run away."
Li Wan counted the cages one by one and said, "But there are no armadillos in the cages."
"In this kind of weather, the armadillos are hibernating. Maybe they are inside the farmhouse?" Shen Yuexi answered uncertainly.
She knew not much more about armadillos than Li Wan did, and she had no tools to look up information, so she could only rely on her meager memory.
"Let's take a closer look." Li Wan said and walked towards the farmhouse with great interest.
She grew up in the Pingyang Marquis Mansion and had never had the experience of catching bad guys. She had no idea of the danger involved. She was like a child who had just learned about the world and could leave at any time.
Shen Yuexi had originally planned to wait for Qiang Lin to return. She had always felt that this village was a little strange. There were no fields. How did the villagers here make a living?
But he didn't expect Li Wan to run away so quickly that he couldn't catch her.
It was lunchtime, the weather was cold, and there were hardly any people walking around in the village. Despite this, Shen Yuexi didn't dare shout loudly, fearing that the hunter Jia would hear her.
She had no choice but to get up and catch up with Li Wan, saying to her, "Don't be so impulsive, we are not real constables."
Li Wan replied disapprovingly, "Look how careful you are! It's just a hunter, right? We have more than a dozen secret guards here. How powerful can he be against so many of us?"
Shen Yuexi also felt that she was being too cautious, so she followed Li Wan.
The two men walked through the cage and came to the low wall behind the farmhouse.
Shen Yuexi pulled Li Wan behind the wall and carefully poked her head out. The first thing she saw was the stable in the yard, where more than ten horses were quietly grazing in the trough.
How could a mere hunter have so many horses?
Just as he was wondering, he heard the door of the courtyard creak across the farmhouse, and a man's voice said, "General Jia, the general has an order."
Shen Yuexi was startled. She had come here to catch a bad guy, but she hadn't expected the bad guy to be a general.
A gruff male voice replied, "I'm already preparing to evacuate. What kind of military order does the general have?"
"The general orders you to continue selling sick armadillos to Xiliang without interruption."
Shen Yuexi's heart trembled with fear, and she listened attentively.
"That's totally unreasonable," the gruff man said impatiently. "Mep has been cured. Sooner or later, people will know it was this armadillo that caused it. I'm still taking the risk of selling it. What if they catch me? Hasn't the general considered this?"
"That... the general didn't say. He just said that if you disobey, he... he will..."
"No need to say more," the man said in a gruff voice. "Go back and report to the general and tell him that I obey your orders."
Shen Yuexi held her breath, not daring to even breathe. She heaved a sigh of relief when she heard the door close and there was no movement in the yard.
The information collected now is: Jia the Hunter is a general, and he is selling sick armadillos on the orders of the general.
This general is so despicable. If a person contracts leprosy, they become indistinguishable between human and ghost. It would be better to kill them with a single blow. This general could even come up with such a sinister and vicious plan.
Now the key point is who this general is.
Is it Xiao Beiheng?
Xiao Beiheng had every reason to do this. However, Meipu had fallen ill more than two years ago, so selling sick armadillos could only have happened earlier than that.
Could it be that Xiao Beiheng had already started thinking about dealing with Xiliang two years ago? It felt a little fake...
While I was thinking about it, someone suddenly patted my shoulder.
Shen Yuexi thought it was Li Wan calling her, so she waved back and said, "Don't disturb me, I'm thinking about something."
"Mrs. Chen...Mrs. Chen," Li Wan's voice rang out with tears in her eyes, "That...wasn't me."
Shen Yuexi looked back.
Ahem... Five strange men surrounded the two of them, each holding a steel knife. One knife was placed on Li Wan's neck, while the other had just patted her shoulder and was about to be withdrawn.
This female constable is really unlucky.
Facing the steel knife, Shen Yuexi thought it would be better to be obedient.
The men surrounding them grabbed Shen Yuexi and Li Wan by their collars and dragged them into the yard and into the farmhouse.
Inside the house was a short, stubby man with a short beard, about thirty years old. Seeing Shen Yuexi and Li Wan enter the house, he withdrew his hands from the fire, looked at Shen Yuexi and smiled:
"Just now the sergeant reported that someone was sneaking around the village. Unexpectedly, the mice turned out to be two women. Tell me your names."
The gruff voice matched that of General Jia from before.
Shen Yuexi was not at all panicked. She was used to the ups and downs of life, and said to the man calmly, "My sister and I just happened to be passing by..."
Before she could finish her words, Li Wan stammered, "My name is Li Wan, and her name is Shen Yuexi. Please don't hurt us. We have one thousand taels of silver... and we'll give it all to you."
Shen Yuexi's nose almost got crooked from anger.
This idiot teammate gave away all his money without waiting for anyone to ask.
She glanced back at Li Wan and saw that she was completely terrified. If someone hadn't grabbed her by the collar, she would have collapsed to the ground.
Thinking about the fact that Li Wan was not like her and had never experienced such a thing, it was natural for her to be afraid.
Never mind, I don't blame her.
"Chen Yuexi?" General Jia had no interest in the silver. Instead, he looked at her in surprise. "Your name is Shen Yuexi. What is your relationship with the deposed Crown Prince Xiao Zhuo?"
Shen Yuexi felt that letting the other party know would definitely not be a good thing. So she said, "I don't know him. There are many people with the same name in the world."
Seeing that she was not panicking at all, and not like an ordinary woman at all, General Jia sneered and pointed at Li Wan, saying:
"Don't tell me whether it is true or not, first cut off one of Li Wan's ears."
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