The carriage was shaking so violently that the gauze on the thief's buttocks, which had just been treated, was stained red again.

The thief's face was as pale as gold paper and beads of sweat the size of beans were rolling down his face, but he maintained the most painful kneeling position for him and dared not move.

Judge Ni was not in the carriage.

Instead, it was Chai, the steward hiding in Anhua Temple, who sat there cross-legged, looking at the thieves expressionlessly.

"What do you do for a living?" Chief Chai asked coldly, "You've been scouting the area for so long, but you didn't find anything and you were caught alive?!"

"Normally there's no one guarding their backyard..." The thief was so regretful. He couldn't understand why he was so unlucky to be caught. "I didn't expect them to be so alert. As soon as the whistle was blown, dozens of people rushed out together, and they had powerful crossbows..."

In fact, Zhao Shizhen's 40-step hand crossbow was far from the standard of a powerful crossbow. But in order to reduce their punishment, the thieves could only exaggerate their strength.

"Did they torture you?" Chai, the chief steward, looked at him half dead and snorted coldly, "What did they ask?"

"They just wanted to know what our purpose was, but I swear to Master Yang that I didn't say anything!" The thief patted his chest and said, "When they saw that they couldn't get anything out of me, they treated me as an ordinary thief and sent me to the county government at dawn."

"Hmph..." Chai Chief Steward questioned the thief again and again. Seeing that the thief had said the same thing over and over again, he said coldly, "We can't let you go right away. If the Zhao family asks about the case again, Shuntian Prefecture will have no way to explain it."

"Yes..." The thief secretly breathed a sigh of relief. If the steward said that he could leave immediately, he would worry that he would be killed to silence him.

~~

Manager Chai got off the carriage and got into another one following behind.

Ni Tuiguan was also there. Chai Zongguan briefly told Ni Tuiguan what he had learned, and then said calmly: "It's better for this man to die of starvation as soon as possible."

"That's right. For things like this, the fewer people who know about it, the safer it is." The judge nodded and said helplessly, "Actually, I would rather not know anything."

"What's the point of saying these things at this time?" Chai Zongguan frowned unhappily and said, "Or did Cao Fuyin not explain it clearly to you?"

"Okay, I'm just complaining..." The judge was also depressed when he heard this. "Are you saying you're going to let go? Can I let go?"

Everyone was very stressed and anxious because they couldn't find anything for so long.

But the serious consequences of not finding anything forced the two to calm down and reconsider their next move.

"How about we just give it a try... and look for our Shao Yin family?" the prosecutor said with determination.

"I have investigated these days. Your nephew of Wu Shaoyin came to Beijing with the Zhao family." But the chief steward Chai shook his head and said in a deep voice, "So they were together at that time."

"What do you mean?" Ni Tuiguan looked at him as if he understood.

"I don't want to try anymore." Then Chief Chai said, "Please ask your prefect to take action. Capture one or two of their people. As long as the things are in the hands of these two gangs, we can definitely force them to hand them over."

"This..." After thinking for a moment, Officer Ni realized that it was not a good idea to continue stealing, otherwise it would only increase the risk of being exposed.

He nodded and said, "Okay, I'll go back and report to the governor."

"Hmm." Manager Chai looked at the falling snow outside and said worriedly, "If we don't get this done, what are we going to do with our business in the south next year?"

"Got it." Magistrate Ni nodded and said, "I'll arrest him as soon as possible."

After a pause, he smiled with some relief and said, "Fortunately, Zhao Jin has already gone south to Guizhou, otherwise with him protecting us, it would be difficult for us to arrest him."

"Yeah." Manager Chai nodded. After thinking about it, he felt that this method was very appropriate!

~~

The next day at noon, Zhao Shouzheng was invited to attend a literary gathering at the Yanshenggong residence next to the Western Garden.

The Yansheng Duke's mansion was in Qufu, but according to custom, Yansheng Duke would go to Beijing to pay homage every year, so after the twelfth lunar month he would move into the mansion given by the emperor.

As a descendant of Confucius, Duke Yansheng could not just kowtow and offer sacrifices without doing anything else, so he took the initiative to believe that he had the responsibility to educate the Confucian scholars of the world. During his stay in Beijing, he would regularly invite famous Confucian scholars and young talents to his mansion to hold literary gatherings and encourage later generations.

Although he was mainly trying to make his presence felt, all the scholars were proud to receive an invitation from Duke Yansheng.

A few days ago, the people from Yanshenggong Mansion sent an invitation, but only Zhao Shouzheng was invited. Sanyang was not invited, and no one invited Zhao Hao, a little kid.

This fully demonstrates that the invitation of Duke Yansheng only considers fame, not strength...

Since coming to Beijing, Zhao Shouzheng has helped and given gifts to no less than a hundred people, spending more than ten thousand taels of silver.

Now that his reputation as "Timely Rain" has spread, he is naturally more famous in the capital than his son and his disciples.

So he received the invitation, but no one else did.

Zhao Hao and San Yang both said that he should go, thinking it was a good opportunity to show off.

So Zhao Shouzheng, who was always willing to accept good advice, dressed neatly and took a sedan chair out of Chunsong Hutong.

Unexpectedly, as soon as the sedan chair left the alley, it was stopped by someone.

"Excuse me, is the person in the sedan chair Mr. Zhao, a Juren from Yingtian Prefecture?" asked an official with bird feathers in his hair with a fake smile.

"It's my master." Fang Wen appeared and asked, "What can I do for you?"

"I'm sorry, Shuntian Prefecture wants to ask Mr. Zhao to go back and ask a few questions." The official took out a ticket with a big red seal on it.

"My master was invited by Duke Yansheng to attend a literary gathering at the government residence." Fang Wen tried to make the official give up by saying, "You can go to the government office to listen to the lecture another day when you have time."

"That won't work." The officer waved his hand and had his men surround the sedan chair, saying, "The higher-ups have ordered that Master Zhao must be invited here today."

"What's the matter?" Zhao Shouzheng lifted the curtain of the sedan chair and looked at the official with displeasure.

"It's a case of a theft of a candidate from Yingtian Prefecture. As the person who reported the case, Mr. Zhao should cooperate with Shuntian Prefecture in the investigation." The officer smiled and held out his hand, saying, "Please come in."

"Hmm..." Zhao Shouzheng glanced at Fang Wen and sat back in the sedan.

Under the urging of the officials, the sedan bearers reluctantly lifted the sedan and walked along the Dongdan Archway towards Shuntian Prefecture.

~~

In the west courtyard of the Zhao Mansion, Zhao Hao had been having nightmares for the past two nights and was now lying on the kang to catch up on his sleep.

The three disciples and Zhao Shizhen were doing geometry problems outside, while Zhao Shixi continued to practice boxing with the men...

Just when everyone thought that the day would pass peacefully as usual, Fang Wen ran in.

"Did you see clearly who went in?" Wang Wuyang asked in the main room, looking at the lifted door curtain.

"I didn't see it clearly." Wang Dingjue said.

"That's Xiao Fang..." Hua Shuyang said.

"Well, there is no one else except him." Zhao Shizhen also agreed, so the four of them continued to concentrate on the competition to see who could solve the proposition first.

After a moment, there was a rustling sound inside, followed by the master's angry shout: "Well, you come to bully me, do you think I have no one around?"

The four of them hurriedly dropped their pens and ran in, only to see their master with a sullen face, changing into outdoor clothes with the help of Fang Wen.

"Master, what's wrong?" the eldest disciple asked hurriedly.

"Your master has been captured." Zhao Hao put on his boots, stepped on the ground with both feet, and said with a dark face: "I'm going to get him back now!"

"We will go with Master!"

"I'll call my brother too!"

"Go, all of you!" Zhao Hao nodded heavily and gritted his teeth and said, "Spread the news. The more people you bring, the better!"

Although he was angry, he did not dare to be arrogant at all.

That was Shuntian Prefecture. He had no idea whether he could get the person out...

Since everyone has something to hide, let's just make a big fuss. The bigger the fuss, the safer it will be!

ps. The third update is here, please give me monthly votes and recommendation votes~~~