Chapter 6
(11) The Thirteenth Merchant
I'm in trouble.
This matter is known to heaven, earth, Yunniang, and everyone in the city.
Obviously, the young marquis and the emperor also knew about it.
When I woke up early the next day, I lay on the balcony and saw the bloody scene in the city.
"It can be said that: the fragrance of incense permeates Chang'an, and the whole city is filled with gossip."
Yunniang heard my voice and said unhappily, "Hurry up and pack up your belongings and run away. I guess the Emperor's Imperial Guards will be here to arrest you soon."
"That makes sense." After I said this, I went back to the house to pack my luggage.
"Where are you going to hide?" Yunniang leaned against my door and asked me.
I stopped packing my bags, thought for a moment, and said, "I want to go and seek refuge with the young marquis."
When Yunniang heard this, she looked like she was about to faint.
"Are you crazy?" Yunniang threw the melon seed shells in her hand to the ground, walked into the house angrily and yelled in my ear: "Aren't you walking into a trap?"
"It hurts, it hurts..." I wailed, and finally broke free from Yunniang's cheek pinching.
"What do you know? The most dangerous place is the safest place. How come you don't even understand this?" I said, rubbing my cheek.
"I know what you said, and I also know that you are like a moth to a flame."
"Wow, you know what, it feels a bit romantic." I said to Yunniang while holding my bag, "He is the wind and I am the sand. I am the moth and he is the fire."
As I spoke, I began to wander in the ocean of fantasy.
Yunniang paced around the room anxiously, constantly wondering where to send me.
"Well, I'll have someone send you outside the Great Wall. You can hide there for a few years and then come back."
In the end, out of helplessness, I glumly agreed to Yunniang's suggestion and went to stay outside the Great Wall for a few years.
As I stepped out of Yunniang's yard with my luggage, a group of neighbors suddenly rushed over and tied me up.
"What are you doing!" I yelled, and then someone wrapped my head, face and eyes with gauze.
Without saying anything to me, they threw me onto the ox cart and drove me away.
When I woke up dizzy, I had already been thrown into jail.
I was stunned for a few seconds and quickly understood what was happening.
I was arrested and thrown into jail.
I immediately started screaming and crying loudly in the prison.
I don’t know how long I cried, but I was so tired that I fell asleep on the ground in a daze.
When I woke up, I found someone standing next to me.
He wore boots with intricate embroidery and auspicious clouds.
I looked up and saw the young marquis's smiling face.
I felt extremely wronged and asked him tearfully, "Why did you arrest me?"
I questioned him while wiping my tears with my sleeves.
The young marquis also looked aggrieved.
"Please, I'm here to save you. You were arrested and thrown into jail by your neighbors. It has nothing to do with me."
"Wuwuwu. Then when are you going to pick me up? I want to go home...wuwuwu."
Speaking of the neighbors near Yunniang's home, it reminds me of some things that happened before.
I thought of the waiter Gousheng who lived in the drug store next to Yunniang's courtyard. He lost to me in a cricket fight last time and I extorted a large sum of money from him.
I thought of Tiezhu, the man who sold mask toys at the entrance of the alley. During the Spring Festival, Gousheng and I had a fight and overturned his toy stall, but I didn't give him any compensation.
I also thought of the neighbor aunt who kidnapped me. Last time, her child came to Yunniang's house to steal food, and I spread the news to everyone.
"Oh." I wiped my nose and sobbed to myself, "If I had known that I would be severely retaliated by them today, I should have been more vicious."
The young marquis squatted beside me and listened to me telling about the grievances and love-hate relationship between me and my neighbor Yunniang, and he felt a little emotional.
"Your neighborhood relationships are so complicated."
"Do you have a good relationship with your neighbors?" I asked the young marquis.
The young marquis smiled at me innocently.
"I don't have any neighbors. All the land within a hundred miles is mine."
(12) Concealing the truth and hiding it from the world
"Ah, sunshine, you are so kind!"
I used the key that the young marquis pretended to drop on the ground accidentally when he left, and easily opened the doors of the dungeon, and walked out of the empty cell with confidence.
Just as she was mumbling and praising the warmth of the sun, she ran into two busty yamen runners.
The three of us froze in place.
Then, something wonderful happened.
When the two yamen runners saw me, they suddenly fell to the ground at the same time, as if they had fainted.
I was a little surprised and rushed over to check if the two were still breathing. When I got closer, I found that their eyeballs were rolling around under their closed eyelids.
Only then did I realize something, and I left the two of them behind and ran away without looking back.
Less than a day later, I heard the news of my successful prison escape spread throughout the city.
Rumors spread throughout the world about how I, a cunning man, had sneaked out of the dungeon of the Marquis's Mansion, which was heavily guarded, by knocking myself unconscious.
Suddenly, the legend about me, a resourceful and mysterious troublemaker, became more popular across the country.
There are rumors that I know Miao witchcraft and can manipulate people to lose consciousness.
There are rumors that I learned the secrets of the art of incantation from my master and came down the mountain specifically to tease people all over the world.
There are also rumors that I have the ability to go to heaven and earth, and can fly into the sky and hide underground.
But at this moment, I no longer care about other people's meaningless rumors.
At this moment, I was squatting on the bench thinking seriously about how to make myself less hungry without spending money, when Yunniang suddenly appeared at my door.
She kicked open my door, put her hands on her waist and said to me, "Shang Shisan, you have no conscience. You came out yesterday and you haven't come to see me since then?"
I glanced at Yunniang and said, "Shouldn't I be thinking about business?"
Yunniang walked into my room and looked at me with strange eyes.
"Why are you squatting on the stool thinking about your business?" Yunniang asked me.
"Isn't this to stimulate myself to think better and more deeply?" I glanced at Yunniang again and said.
"So have you thought of any plan?" Yunniang asked me.
I shook my head. "No, I haven't figured anything out. I'm so hungry, my head is blank, and my legs are numb. Help me down quickly."
Yunniang rolled her eyes and said, "You are such a loser. You always fail at the crucial moment."
Yunniang raised her hand unhappily to show me the roast chicken in her hand.
"Let's eat roast pork first."
I saw Yunniang brought my favorite roast chicken.
I jumped off the stool excitedly, opened the oil paper happily and started eating.
"I wonder what the young marquis is doing now?" Yunniang said, her hands resting on her cheeks as she watched me eat the roast chicken. "I heard a few days ago that he hasn't been doing well lately. His relationship with the old marquis and the minister of state, Wei Bai, has become increasingly strained. Wei Bai's son, Prince Pingnan, Wei Zhen, even reported the young marquis to the emperor a few days ago, accusing him of embezzling state funds."
I was shocked.
"I never thought that the young marquis, who looks so silly, would embezzle state property?" I took a bite of the chicken leg and continued.
"Wei Zhen said that the young marquis had picked up a few stray cats and brought them back to his mansion a few days ago. Prince Pingnan Wei Zhen said that stray cats were state property and that the young marquis's behavior was a blatant misappropriation of state property, so he reported him to the police."
I was shocked again when I heard this.
"So this is the legendary complicated political situation in the court... wow, this is really exciting." I wiped the greasy corners of my mouth and excitedly pulled Yunniang's sleeve.
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