Chapter 573 Catching the Thief 4
Meng Yao's eyes were filled with anxiety. "Release her and I'll let you go. I'll be your hostage. I'm the King of the South now. You have a better chance of escaping by kidnapping me. There's still some distance to the customs border. You can't get far with her."
Song Peng, holding Shen Bingxuan, said coldly, "None of you come any closer. Back off! All of you, back off! Do you think I'm so easily fooled? Do you think I'd believe you? Let me go right now, or I really will kill her."
Jiang Fenghua confirmed that she had not seen Ran Heng. She said in a deep voice, "You and Ran Heng escaped together. Don't you want to take your good brother with you? He has been captured by the government. How about this, we will exchange hostages and we will personally escort you away."
Song Peng sneered, "Stop lying to me. Ran Heng betrayed me. He would never leave with me. I wish I could kill him myself. If he wants to die, that's his business. Since you've caught him, just kill him. Behind the scenes, he's done a lot of heinous things, including murder, robbery, and other immoral acts. He's also abducted innocent women and forced them into prostitution. The fish's belly is full of women's corpses. He was the first person to kill them."
He saw that it was Ran Heng who lit the fire and thunder. He had already guessed that he didn't want them to flee to the vassal state. Ran Heng prided himself on being noble, doing bad things while pretending to be a saint. So now he was throwing all sorts of dirty water on Ran Heng. If he wanted to stay, he would ruin his reputation and make sure he could no longer run his study.
His parents would be furious if they knew how many bad things he had done.
Xie Shang said, "Actually, it was Ran Heng who lit the fire mine. He was also the one who informed us that there was a fire mine in the treasure chest. This shows that he did not want you to escape successfully. Even if he did something wrong, he can make amends. The government will give him a chance to reform. If you continue to be stubborn, you will only have one way out: death."
Jiang Fenghua said in a deep voice, "Song Peng, isn't it you who did these heinous things? If your parents knew that you studied hard for ten years and ended up as a bandit, they would be very sad. You made them unable to hold their heads up in front of their fellow villagers for the rest of their lives, and it may even affect the careers of your family members. Don't think that we don't know where your family is..."
"I haven't had a home for a long time, and my family is all dead. Don't threaten me with my family. If you want to find my family, go look in the underworld!" Song Peng was also very calm. He knew that he was doing a business that could lead to execution, and he had long since cut off contact with his family. He was not as stupid as Ran Heng, who often had people bring money home.
Jiang Fenghua's eyes were full of regret. "If your parents knew that you would curse them to die young after raising you for so long, what's the point of living like such an unfilial son? Sigh! I bet Young Master Song has never married or had children! No woman would truly love a man like you. What's the point of your life? What are you doing stealing so much money?"
"Are you born willing to be someone's slave? I truly cannot understand. What is the purpose of being a slave? Surely it's not for power or profit, right? What is it that Young Master Song is greedily pursuing by working so hard to seize money? If you crave power, you should become an official. If you crave money, I suppose you already have it. If you crave women, Young Master Song doesn't even have a woman by his side."
Song Peng suddenly realized that he didn't even know what he was after; his attention was entirely on Jiang Fenghua.
Jiang Jinyan stood behind Song Peng with a crossbow in hand. The next moment, an arrow shot from behind and struck Song Peng's wrist, knocking the knife from his hand.
At the same time, Xie Shang kicked him directly in the head, and Song Peng felt dizzy and disoriented.
He didn't come to his senses until the knife was at his neck.
Xie Shang said, "Tie him up and take him away."
Shen Bingxuan was so frightened that she threw herself into Meng Yao's arms. "Brother Yao, I'm so scared. I thought I was going to die."
Meng Yao quickly comforted her, "Xuan'er, don't be afraid, it's alright now."
Jiang Fenghua then asked Xie Shang, "Didn't you see Ran Heng when you were chasing Song Peng?"
Xie Shang said, "They didn't all run in one direction. After the explosion, I went after Song Peng after we separated."
At this moment, Lin Feng arrived with his men to report: "All the bandits have been captured."
Where is Ran Heng?
Lin Feng whispered, "He's dead. He was stabbed in the back by one of their men and was seriously injured. He asked me to give this to Miss Jiang. It should be the key to Fuguizhai."
Lin Feng then took another key and handed it to Jiang Fenghua.
Xie Shang accompanied Jiang Fenghua back to Fuguizhai, and she indeed opened the door of Fuguizhai with the key.
Jiang Fenghua said, "Ran Heng must have thought he would come back when he left!"
They searched the room and found a box left by Ran Heng, which was filled with silver and some letters. The top letter was addressed to Jiang Ruan, and the others were addressed to his family.
After Jiang Fenghua read it, she said, "He wanted me to give this money to his family, saying that it was all clean money he had earned from doing business. It turns out that Ran Heng had long since given up on helping Song Peng."
From the letter, she also learned that the real reason they left the Great Zhou Kingdom and came to the Southern Kingdom was that Song Peng was caught cheating in the examination hall. Ran Heng was actually implicated by Song Peng, and the two of them were expelled from the examination hall. At that time, the examination hall rule was that once a candidate was found to be cheating, he would never be able to participate in the imperial examination again.
In fact, many other people were also cheating in the exam room. The others were not kicked out, but only the two of them, poor candidates with no power or influence, were caught cheating.
The two were scorned and insulted by others. Later, Song Peng and Ran Heng harbored resentment and conspired to burn down the examination hall before fleeing.
Ran Heng also said that Song Peng had been working for the vassal state, and that there were people behind Song Peng directing him. It was no secret that the vassal state wanted to first recover the Southern Kingdom before attacking the Great Zhou.
Song Peng also transported many women from Da Zhou and Nan Guo to the sea to entertain the pirates.
Jiang Fenghua said, "No wonder Song Peng said they threw many women's corpses into the sea to feed the fish. Song Peng deserves to die."
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Meanwhile, Song Peng and his men were immediately imprisoned in the dungeon, and Jiang Fenghua and Xie Shang were also taken to the dungeon.
Jiang Jinyan said, "Song Peng is very tight-lipped; he still refuses to reveal who his master is."
Jiang Fenghua walked up to Song Peng and said coldly, "If you hadn't been caught cheating back then, which implicated Ran Heng, he would have had a bright future and wouldn't have become your accomplice and been on the run until now."
"It was you who instructed Yang Guaizi to swindle, cheat, burn, kill, and rob everywhere. Your goal is to create chaos in the Southern Kingdom..."
Song Peng chuckled, "I consider myself unlucky to have fallen into your hands. Do with me as you please, don't waste your breath on me, I won't say anything more."
"Do you think you're still alive because you have value? You're a piece of scum. I'd rather tear you to pieces and throw you into the sea to feed the fish than have your flesh dirty their bellies. It's a good thing you didn't take the civil service exam. If someone like you entered the government, who knows how many innocent people you would have harmed."
“There are plenty of corrupt officials in the government, why can’t I be an official?” Song Peng finally spoke up. “Even if you kill me, you can’t save the Great Zhou Kingdom. Just wait and see, the Great Zhou Kingdom will surely perish.”
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