Chapter 62 Qin Ren and Liu Qingyue entered one after the other…
Qin Ren and Liu Qingyue entered the passage one after the other and found that the unconscious man had already woken up.
Qin Ren didn't let Liu Qingyue get closer; instead, he walked towards her himself.
Qin Ren asked, "Who are you?"
The man looked at him warily upon hearing this. He didn't answer Qin Ren's question, but instead asked, "Who are you, and where is this place?"
Qin Ren didn't answer his question either, but frowned and pulled out the dagger from his body.
Upon seeing the dagger in Qin Ren's hand, the man finally realized his current predicament.
The man, looking frightened, whispered, "Brother, please don't attack me yet. Let's talk this out."
Qin Ren: "Okay, then you go ahead."
The man glanced at Qin Ren's height, then realized there was another person behind Qin Ren, and knew he had no chance of escaping.
Man: "My name is Xu Xiaoyong."
Qin Ren didn't care whether it was his real name or not; he just wanted him to answer his question properly.
Qin Ren: "How did you end up here?"
The man's eyes flickered for a moment before he finally answered, "I... I'm a businessman. I encountered robbers on the road and ended up here by chance."
"How did you get it? By what means?"
"How...how did I get here? I just...I just randomly pushed open a door and came here?"
Upon hearing this, Qin Ren squatted down in front of him and reached out to grope him.
Upon seeing this, the man immediately shouted, "What are you doing? I don't have any money on me!"
Qin Ren: "Do I look like I'm short of your little bit of money?"
As Qin Ren spoke, he quickly found what he wanted.
He found a blood-stained brass key on the man.
The bronze key looked exactly like the ones Qin Ren and Liu Qingyue had.
Qin Ren: "Where did you get this?"
Man: "Of course, it's mine."
"Really? How many more of these same keys do you have?"
When the man heard Qin Ren ask this question, he didn't know how many others were in the same situation.
To be honest, this thing doesn't actually belong to him.
He lied; he wasn't a businessman, nor had he encountered any robbers.
In fact, he was the robber.
The copper key was something he found on a scholar when he robbed him.
He thought it was worthless and almost threw the key away.
Later, realizing that he hadn't gotten anything good and had even killed a person for it, he put the copper key into his pocket.
As for why he was seriously injured and why he hid in this passage, we have to go back to this afternoon.
The scholar was on his way to take the imperial examination. When he saw him, he killed him and stole his silver and keys.
He was in a bad mood because he hadn't gotten much.
Then, as he was walking back with the silver, he met a butcher from the next town.
The butcher was very sensitive to the smell of blood and noticed bloodstains on his body.
The other person thought he was injured, so they came over and asked him a question.
The man had just killed someone, who was less than two miles away.
Suddenly hearing the butcher ask him a question, he felt guilty and instinctively turned to run away.
The butcher saw him in this state, covered in blood and looking guilty.
The butcher shouted and strode after him, intending to seize him and hand him over to the authorities.
The man had no intention of being handed over to the authorities. Once caught, he became murderous and wanted to kill the butcher as well.
Unexpectedly, the butcher turned out to be a brute, not only incredibly strong but also extremely ruthless.
It's strange, really, that the other person was a butcher, not an ordinary person at all.
The fact that he dared to chase after us shows that he is bold and capable.
He should have backed down then and then found another opportunity to escape.
Unfortunately, he didn't think things through at the time and foolishly got into a fight with the butcher, who then slashed him three times.
Then, when he was wounded and fleeing, he accidentally hid in this passage using a copper key.
He was quite scared at first, but then he found a lot of food in the passage, so he picked up the food and stuffed it into his mouth while slowly walking towards the other end of the passage.
Then, he pushed open a bronze door and saw a strange room.
The room had large windows, making it very bright inside.
He intended to treat his wounds inside, but as soon as he stepped into the room, he heard a burst of intense barking from a dog.
He was scared, so he shrank back.
In that short moment, he began to lose all his strength due to severe injuries and excessive blood loss.
He then struggled to stay upright and did some simple bandaging.
He was a robber who had been injured many times before, so he had some experience in treating wounds.
It was precisely because he could treat his wounds himself and temporarily stop the bleeding that he was able to survive until Qin Ren discovered him.
...
Seeing that the man remained silent and seemed to be pretending to faint, Qin Ren frowned and warned, "You'd better tell the truth."
The man, like a dead pig unafraid of boiling water, remained silent.
He didn't think Qin Ren was a bad person. Given his current state of serious injury, Qin Ren certainly wouldn't dare to do anything to him.
But he soon realized that he had underestimated this person.
In the next instant, Qin Ren plunged his dagger deep into his thigh.
Qin Ren gripped the dagger expressionlessly; he truly couldn't kill people indiscriminately.
But not being able to kill doesn't mean he can't hurt others.
This guy suddenly appeared in his house, so he had the right to take action against him.
The man screamed, "Ahhh, stop, stop, stop! I'll talk, I'll talk!"
Upon hearing this, Qin Ren did not draw his dagger, but instead waited silently for his reply.
Man: "I... I stole it from a scholar."
"Not yours?"
"Yes, yes, the key isn't mine at all."
Where is that person?
"Dead."
"Dead?"
Seemingly afraid that Qin Ren would be angry, the man quickly explained carefully.
“I, I was a robber. I met a scholar on the road who was going to the capital to take the imperial examination. I saw that he was alone and that we were in the middle of nowhere, so I killed him for the money. I searched his body thoroughly and found only some tattered books, a copper key, and thirty taels of silver.”
Qin Ren: "Where did you abduct him?"
The man mentioned a place whose name neither Qin Ren nor Liu Qingyue knew, but it should not be too far from the capital.
Liu Qingyue, who had been silent until now, couldn't help but ask in a low voice, "Just one key?"
Upon hearing Liu Qingyue's voice, the man instinctively looked behind Qin Ren.
Qin Ren didn't let him see it; he reached out and knocked the man unconscious.
Qin Ren: "Since he killed someone, he should be dealt with according to the law. Let's take him back to ancient times and have the magistrate execute him."
Liu Qingyue: "He knows about the passage and that we can get here too. I think... it's better to let the guards handle it. He killed someone, and he was just a scholar. You are the Marquis here; you have the right to deal with him."
Qin Ren nodded upon hearing this, indicating that he could have his men deal with the person first.
After some time has passed, we will send this person back to the scholar's hometown, which will be a way of giving the other party an explanation.
Qin Ren led his men out of the passage without immediately seeking out the guards to deal with the person in charge.
He and Liu Qingyue cleaned up the bloodstains in the passage and disinfected it with disinfectant.
After waiting until dawn, Qin Ren left the house with his guards and the man.
He ordered his guards to dispose of the man, and the body was temporarily buried in the wilderness outside the city.
The man was in his hometown yesterday, and today he appeared in Qin Ren's fiefdom. The distance between the two places is not just a little bit.
If Qin Ren were to send the person back now, the timing and location would be somewhat unclear.
We can wait a while, and then send the man's remains back, saying that the man escaped here.
Also, Qin Ren wanted someone to find out if what the man said was true.
To find out if a scholar was really killed, it would be best to inquire about the scholar's family background as well. Perhaps we can even find out how the scholar obtained the copper key.
After dealing with the man, Qin Ren took the copper key and went home.
Qin Ren and Liu Qingyue both have keys, and once they have a key, they cannot bind a new key.
Also, the man's key has already been bound, so it's unclear whether it can be bound to someone else.
Liu Qingyue: "Even if we can bind to other people, I think it's better if too many people don't know about the channel."
Even if this person were his mother or brother, Liu Qingyue couldn't guarantee that he would be completely trustworthy.
It wasn't that he thought his mother and brother were bad people; it was mainly because the passage involved too many things.
My brother is loyal to the emperor. If he were to witness the benefits of Qin Ren's world, he would definitely be tempted to do something about it.
Now that Qin Ren is helping Da Yong to gradually improve, Liu Qingyue feels there is no need to involve her brother as well.
The older brother's ideas are quite different from Qin Ren's, and the two of them will likely have a big disagreement, which may not be a good thing.
Then there's the mother. If Liu Qingyue were her only child, she would definitely be willing to send her to the modern world.
But the current situation is that his mother has more than one child.
Faced with enormous profits, Liu Qingyue hesitated to take the gamble between herself and her brother.
If his mother ultimately chooses his brother, it will bring a lot of danger to him and Qin Ren.
Liu Qingyue: "Let's put it in the modern era; let's not use it for now."
Qin Ren also felt that this was a safer approach. If Qi Shi grew old and her health deteriorated in the future, they could send her to modern times for retirement.
But there's one condition: she won't come back.
Only in this way can she be guaranteed not to expose the existence of the passageway for Liu Yuze's sake.
Qin Ren: "Then let's hide it for now and talk about it later."
Liu Qingyue: "Actually, I'm quite curious too. Once a copper key has been bound to someone, it can't be bound to anyone else while that person is alive. But if that person dies, can the copper key be changed to someone else?"
Just like that man, he has now indeed been killed.
Can his bronze key be bound to someone else?
Liu Qingyue was very curious about this, because it might concern his future with Qin Ren.
Liu Qingyue: "If the person who is bound to me dies, I can still bind someone else. I'm thinking that the copper key can be given to my mother or brother, or it can be used for our two children."
When they only had two keys, Liu Qingyue wanted to give birth to her child in the modern world.
It doesn't matter whether he gives birth to a boy, a son, or a girl.
Modern life is clearly better than life in ancient times.
However, if the key can be changed to the person who ties it, then the key can be used by one's own child.
The children still live in the modern world, but can occasionally come to the ancient world to live with them.
Qin Ren: "Let's talk about it later. The child will definitely be born in modern times. The key doesn't necessarily have to be given to him; it can be given to your mother or brother."
Giving it to Qi Shi would be fine, as Qi Shi is a person with good sense of propriety, and Qin Ren thinks that such a person is easy to control.
Giving it to Liu Yuze would be more troublesome, firstly because Liu Yuze is a man.
He rose through the ranks through the imperial examinations, and now, having finally regained his official position, he can finally make his mark in the court.
In ancient times, it was a feudal patriarchal society, so he might not be willing to stay in the modern world forever.
Giving him the key would pose a significant risk, so let's discuss this further later.
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