Yang Jiyan shrank back subconsciously. No matter in her past or present life, the man in front of her was always a god, while she had always been a mess like a pile of mud, never catching his eye.
Yang Jiyan clenched her outstretched five fingers tightly, grasped a handful of soil on the ground, and withdrew her gaze from Yu Qizhe's face with reluctance. One day, one day she would stand higher than Yu Qizhe, so that this man would have no choice but to crawl on the ground and look up at her, instead of ignoring her like he did today.
Shen Ping sent someone back from the west gate to report that Zhou Li's whereabouts were found at the west gate. Shengjing has four gates. After nightfall, the three gates in the east, south and north will be locked under curfew. Officials can enter and exit the city from the west gate with their badges if they have urgent government affairs or military reports, but ordinary people are prohibited from passing.
Zhou Li used the badge of the Shaoqing of the Imperial Household Department to ask the City Defense Department to open the city gate. Chen Ping and others were chasing along the official road.
Lu Jin frowned, he didn't expect Zhou Li to actually abandon his wife and children and flee the capital. Although Chen Ping went after him, once a person left the capital, trying to catch him would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.
"What should we do with the Zhou family members?" Lu Jin asked, looking at the women of the Zhou family in the yard.
"Leave some people here to guard. Since Zhou Li has escaped, he will not come back." The Zhou family had already abandoned him, so Yu Qizhe continued, "Take your men to arrest Zhang Changhe, the Minister of the Imperial Household Department, and bring him to justice."
Lu Jin immediately ordered a team of people to stay at Zhou's house for guarding, and took the others to Zhang Changhe's mansion.
Although Zhang Changhe was not clean, he was a timid person. He only took Zhou Li's filial piety over the years and did not get involved in Zhou Li's false report of horse silver and embezzlement. Zhou Li was the main culprit in this case.
Yu Qizhe returned to the Dali Temple and did not torture Wang Huaizhi again. He just told Wang Huaizhi in a calm voice that Zhou Li had abandoned his wife and children and fled the capital.
Wang Huaizhi looked as if he had lost his parents. He had not expected that Zhou Li would flee for fear of punishment. Although the Dali Temple had traced the case to their Taifu Temple, what was needed to investigate the case was evidence. Wang Huaizhi thought that with their years of operations, as long as Zhou Li did not plead guilty, they still had a chance to get away with it.
He couldn't understand why Zhou Li was so frightened by just hearing the rumors that he fled the capital!
Zhou Li was certainly not frightened. Although he seemed to be oblivious to the world outside in his seemingly leisurely position as Shaoqing of Taifu Temple and only cared about the Taifu Temple, he was actually very alert to any disturbance in the officialdom, otherwise he would not have been able to rest easy for so many years.
He was more cautious than others and watched the downfall of Zhu Yu with cold eyes. Zhu Yu became the deposed crown prince and did not dare to underestimate Yu Qizhe, the upstart official. Yang Xu underestimated Yu Qizhe, and his entire family was beheaded. Even the position of Shaoqing of the Dali Temple was replaced by Yu Qizhe.
Those old men in the officialdom who are shrewd and have experienced the ups and downs of their careers are certainly scary, but the most troublesome are actually the newcomers who have just entered the officialdom and are not afraid of tigers, because these people do not follow the rules at all, dare to poke a hole in the sky, have not learned to stay out of things that do not concern them, and are only focused on making political achievements.
Although Zhou Li had made arrangements throughout the years and had many connections in official circles, Yu Qizhe was a young and inexperienced person who did not belong to any faction and was a close minister of the emperor, working only for the emperor. This made it impossible for him to do anything. When he learned that Wang Huaizhi was arrested and taken to the Dali Temple, Yu Qizhe left the Dali Temple late at night and was called back to the Dali Temple. Zhou Li knew that something was wrong, and after a moment of hesitation, he made the ruthless decision to abandon his family and career and leave Beijing to save his life.
This intuition really saved his life and allowed him to escape. Otherwise, if he was a step later, he would have been caught by Lu Jin.
Wang Huaizhi was completely desperate and confessed the hiding place of the account book. In order to avoid harming his wife and children, he even took the initiative to explain how Zhou Li had made money over the years. He not only bought sick stallions, but also deliberately caused sick horses to die and used the loss as compensation. He was also very picky when the state government sent horses to him, and asked the state government to show respect for one reason or another before accepting the horses. If there was a disaster or disease, the horses would be severely damaged, and he could make a fortune by using the corvée to convert silver into silver.
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