Chapter 15: How dare she deceive him? It was all just her toying with him. ...
When the news of Meng Yu's escape arrived, Lu Xiuyi had just finished his business and was standing with Chu Ze in front of a stall selling hairpins.
In Longtang, a wealthy family was renovating their old house. Chuze had been sending people to keep an eye on it, and today they discovered a large number of broken porcelain shards hidden under the house.
The case concerning the official silver has finally made some progress.
After instructing his men to continue the investigation, Lu Xiuyi was about to return to Longxianglou when he passed a small stall selling hairpins. He saw a hairpin with a trumpet vine flower hanging from it. The craftsmanship was not particularly exquisite, but the design was ingenious, so he stopped and took a closer look.
Just then, the guard staggered up from the front, knelt down with a thud, lowered his head, and said in a trembling voice, "Reporting, reporting to the young master, the young lady, the young lady has run away."
The trumpet vine hairpin slipped from her palm with a soft sound.
It broke into several pieces.
For a moment, Lu Xiuyi was stunned. Then, his face contorted with rage, he kicked the guard in the chest and shouted, "Nonsense! Yan Yan and I are in love. Why would she run away? Someone must have found out my whereabouts and deliberately kidnapped her."
The guard was suddenly kicked to the ground. The vendor watching the show was heartbroken to see that a hairpin had been damaged, but seeing the customer in front of him dressed in a moon-white brocade robe, looking extremely noble, he didn't dare to ask for compensation.
Cold sweat beaded on the guard's forehead, threatening to drip into his eyes, but he dared not wipe it away. He replied tremblingly, as if walking on thin ice, "Yes, yes, young master, I have not uttered a single lie. Indeed, it was indeed the young lady who deliberately sent us away."
Lu Xiuyi's face was as dark as ink, and he pursed his lips without saying a word.
The atmosphere was so oppressive, like the prelude to a storm. The once bustling street was now so quiet you could hear a pin drop. Passersby hurried by, none daring to stop and watch.
Lu Xiuyi gazed into the distance, paused for a moment, and then strode towards Longxianglou.
Seeing this, Chu Ze quickly took out a few taels of silver and handed them to the stall owner. He glanced down at the broken hairpin at his feet and gestured, "This is the money to replace this hairpin. Keep the change."
After a thorough investigation, Lu Xiuyi was completely humiliated. He stood up from the armchair with a gloomy face, his gentle voice filled with almost extreme anger: "Chase her! Even if she dies, bring her body back to me."
The veins on his forehead bulged, as if he was trying his best to suppress his surging emotions, and he spoke each short sentence with extra emphasis.
Upon hearing this, Chu Ze felt a chill run through his body. He had words of advice on the tip of his tongue, but he dared not utter them. He could only lower his eyes and agree.
The guards and all the manpower brought by Lu Xiuyi were gathered together to conduct a city-wide search and arrest operation.
Nearly a hundred people searched day and night for three days, but they couldn't find a trace of Meng Yu.
Lu Xiuyi belatedly realized that she had already escaped from the city that day.
***
"This humble subject only gave that young lady a ride for a few dozen miles. When we reached a fork in the road, they paid the fare and got off. As for which direction they went, this humble subject truly... truly does not know. I beg Your Excellency to investigate further."
Lu Xiuyi's emotions were hard to discern after hearing this.
The room was filled with her traces; the scent of incense she lit filled the air; the paper on the table was covered with her delicate handwriting; even the curtains were tied in a bow by her; and the folded bedding still carried her faint fragrance.
But how could she dare? How could she dare to deceive him for so long?
It turns out that all the tenderness she showed him that day was nothing but a deception she set up to escape him. He had actually believed that she was truly in love with him; he had even thought of and planned for her in every way; he had even wanted to petition the Emperor to elevate her to the rank of concubine.
Little did he know that all of this was just her playing a trick on him.
That's a really good idea.
Lu Xiuyi grew angrier the more he thought about it, and the veins on his hand, which was resting on the chair, bulged.
The driver knelt with his head bowed. The low air pressure made it hard for him to breathe, and cold sweat soaked through his clothes in no time.
"prick……"
Suddenly, he heard the chair move back with a jarring sound, followed by the man's icy voice overhead: "Lead the way."
The driver was startled and hadn't yet realized what he meant when his hands were suddenly lifted and pulled toward the door.
The night was still and quiet, the ground was covered in a blanket of silver. Horses galloped by, kicking up dust and startling birds in the trees.
Lu Xiuyi ordered his men to escort the coachman off the boat, and then rode his horse at full speed to the fork in the road he had mentioned.
One is the road to Anzhou.
One road leads to the capital.
The ship they had been on was ultimately destined for Shangjing.
After a moment's thought, his expression hardened, and he immediately turned his horse around, ordering the Black Iron Cavalry to conduct a thorough search along the route leading to the capital.
But the final clue ended up in a clump of reeds.
According to the coachman who had driven Meng Yu along the way, the three of them got off the carriage near the reed marshes.
The man on horseback remained expressionless. After listening, he glanced around, his gaze settling heavily on the river behind the reeds. He asked, "What's on the other side of that river?"
Although the person asking the question spoke in a flat voice, without revealing any emotion, the oppressive feeling coming from the driver still made him breathless. He knelt on the ground and said tremblingly, "Reporting to my lord, the opposite side is Qingjiang Town."
"Are there boats going there on weekdays?"
"Before the road was built, there were boats going there, but not many, because Qingjiang Town was barren and the people were poor, and most of the people going there were visiting relatives. Now that the road is built, a ride in an oxcart only costs a few coins, and the boat fare for such a short distance is not much, so gradually there are no boats anymore."
As the driver was speaking, a melodious song with a sense of vicissitude drifted from afar. No one knew what language it was in, so the others couldn't understand what it was singing.
Lu Xiuyi looked up and saw a covered boat slowly drifting towards him from the bend in the river, bathed in the morning light. He glanced at the driver, his expression as if he had spat on ice.
Before he could even ask a question, the driver seemed to feel a knife hanging over his head. He hurriedly kowtowed repeatedly and explained in a trembling voice, "Please, Your Honor, investigate thoroughly! I, I would never dare to lie. Since the road was repaired, there has indeed been no ferry across this river for several years. I don't know why a boat came today."
Upon seeing this, Chuze immediately went to the shore and waved to the boatman to come over.
The boatman was a young old man who had spent most of his life in Qingjiang Town and had never seen much of the world. When he suddenly saw a group of armored black iron cavalry standing on the shore, he panicked and instinctively wanted to row away. But when he thought about it, he realized he hadn't done anything wrong, so why should he run away? Even if he ran away, he would probably be falsely accused of a crime.
Thinking of this, he calmed himself down a little, gripped the oar tightly with trembling hands, and rowed toward the shore.
As soon as they reached the shore, before the boatman could even speak, two black-clad cavalrymen lifted him up like a duck. He panicked instantly and hurriedly said in a trembling voice, "My lords, I have always been law-abiding and have never done anything immoral. Please spare my life!"
Upon hearing this, the two black-clad cavalrymen remained expressionless, simply carrying him quickly through the reeds.
The boatman was thrown under Lu Xiuyi's horse's hooves.
He braced himself on the muddy ground with his hands, his head almost touching the ground.
Lu Xiuyi gave him a cold look: "When did you come here to row the boat?"
The boatman had expected these officials to ask about some earth-shattering case, but to his surprise, they asked such a mundane question. He was taken aback and quickly replied, "I've been doing this for decades. A few years ago, after the road to Qingjiang Town was repaired, fewer people took the boat, so I stopped for a few years. A few days ago, my wife accidentally injured her leg and couldn't go to work. Our family income is meager, and we're struggling to make ends meet, so I thought I'd go back to my old ways."
Upon hearing this, Lu Xiuyi's furrowed brows relaxed slightly: "Have you given these three a ride these past few days?"
As they were talking, the three Black Iron Cavalrymen unfolded the portraits in their hands.
The boatman raised his head slightly.
The girl in the portrait on the left has two braids, is pretty, and has a smile like a girl next door.
The girl in the middle portrait has eyebrows like distant mountains, eyes like autumn water, peach-blossom cheeks and almond eyes. She is truly beautiful and unparalleled.
The portrait on the far right depicts an elderly woman. Although her eyes show signs of age, she possesses a unique quiet and dignified air.
The boatman looked them over one by one and shook his head: "Sir, I have never carried any passengers."
Lu Xiuyi's expression remained unchanged, but his curled eyelashes trembled slightly. He gripped the reins with some disappointment and was about to turn the horse around when he heard the coachman say, "The girl in the portrait in the middle has an exceptionally refined air. A few days ago, I carried a girl wearing a veiled hat. Although I couldn't see her face, I felt that her temperament was very similar to that of the girl in the portrait."
Upon hearing this, Lu Xiuyi's heart leaped into his throat, but he was still unsure whether the person was Meng Yu.
He was about to ask a question, but before he could speak, the boatman spoke up, confirming her identity: "There were three of them in the group. Strangely, the girl was either mute or not; the girl next to her talked non-stop the whole way, but she didn't say a word."
"What did you say?"
The boatman was lost in thought when a chilling voice suddenly interrupted him. Startled, he stammered tentatively, "The girl next to me... she was talking a mile a minute..."
Before he could finish speaking, Lu Xiuyi interrupted impatiently, "The previous sentence."
The oppressive feeling from those in power weighed heavily on him. The boatman thought he had said something wrong, and his heart sank to the bottom. "Well, I wonder if that girl is mute."
"Where did they disembark?" As soon as the question left his mouth, Lu Xiuyi realized that he had asked something unnecessary. There was nothing on the other side of the river except Qingjiang Town.
Sure enough, the boatman replied in a trembling voice, "I...I ferried them to the other side, and they got off the boat."
When did this happen?
"Just three days ago, around 3:45 PM."
***
There are only two roads to take from Qingjiang Town: one leads to Yinjiang, and the other still leads to Shangjing.
By this point, Lu Xiuyi was almost certain that their final destination was Beijing.
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