Chapter 103: The problem with having nosy neighbours 2

Mu's Restaurant, Ningzhuo.

The waitress handed the badge over to her manager, who stood by the counter going through the sales record. She tapped the table to get his attention, she smiled and relayed Baozhai's words to him when he looked up. Then presented the batch to him, the manager looked down at the batch and glace back at the governor's wife.

The Duchess of Wu sent drawn a portrait of both the Lu family's batch and the governor wife. Everything matched with her portraits so he dismissed the maid and walked over to Su Liya.

"Welcome to Mu restaurant, Your Highness. I am the manager Mu Chen, I will lead you to the governor's box"

Baozhai nodded and replied, "thanks, lead the way Mu"

Mu Chen gestured to the step leading to the second floor of the restaurant, "Please come this way".

Su Liya nodded and they followed Mu Chen up the stairs to the private too at end of the hallway. Mu Chen unlocked the door, pulled the door open, walked into the room and stepped aside for Su Liya and Baozhai to walk in.

The room was quite similar to the traditional private room in modern times, it was a normal-sized room with a square-shaped table at the centre of the room and four heated seating mats placed around the table. There were two open windows in the room, which brightened up the room and made it airy.

Although the room hadn't been used in a while there wasn't a single spec of dust which spoke of the proper management of the restaurant and hard-working staff. 

Su Liya took a seat facing the food while Baozhai stood behind her. A guard from the governor's mansion loitered for seconds, it wasn't a face she was familiar with so he could not be one of Lu Yaozhu's men. She got familiar with his men during the journey to Ningzhuo, so he had to be one of the steward Meng's Little spies.

She had suspected that they were a few of them placed around her, she took note of his face and sent him away from the room. As he left to keep him from getting suspicious of her visit to Mu restaurant, she asked " What are the local dishes you have on the menu?"

Mu Chen saw the lurking guard and understood what she was getting at, he played along with her a began to explain most of their chef's special. The guard left a few minutes later when he didn't see anything out of place. 

Mu Chen waited a few minutes for the guard to leave the door before falling on one knee, balled up his right fist and rested his fist on his heart "Mu Chen greets your Highness".

Su Liya wasn't yet used to people bowing to her and waved him up quickly, "no no no please don't act so form a_"

"It is your due respect, your highness. I was given orders by the Duchess to help you during your stay in Ningzhuo. How may I help you?"

Su Liya looked intently at the door and back at Mu Chen, "have the servants come in with my orders, to throw the snitch off"

Mu Chen nodded, "Yes your Highness". He left the room only to come back minutes later with three waiters following him behind with her order.

Dongyi watched the food with great concentration as the waiters carried them in, he hasn't had anything to eat since morning.

Steward Meng called him in to follow the new madam before he could eat his breakfast. He couldn't reject the orders since Steward Meng had him on a leach. He placed his hand on his tummy as his tummy rumbled silently. 

Su Liya needed an excuse to send the guard away, well mostly steward Meng's spy. She could only order some food for the guards that came with her. It was a risky move but worked, the guards were led to a private room at the side by the waiters where they were served their meal.

With the guards out of hearing distance, She could talk freely with Mu Chen. "Fengyin tells me that your family has been in Ningzhuo for decades, so you must be familiar with the officials and nobility, from these parts. Tell me all you can about the local officials starting with the previous governor"

Mu Chen sat on the mat opposite Su Liya and said "The previous Governor surnamed Sun is the youngest son of the northern branch of the Longxi's Sun family. Although they are only a distant branch of the illustrious scholarly family that has produced four imperial Tutors to the crown prince. They had made a name for themselves in these parts but are now in decline. 

"The members of the recent generation are all corrupt people leaders and haven't achieved much, the previous governor was the fourth son of the family and apparent heir to old master Sun since he was the only son of the legitimate wife. However, after the Embezzlement crimes, he was banished to the war front and stripped of all his wealth.

"Following his arrest, his elder brother born of the Eldest master of the Sun family's first concubine was temporarily put in charge of the government"

Su Liya nodded "he is the present deputy right". She received a nod from Mu Chen, she took a sip of warm tea and muttered "I met him, don't like him. He seems like the greedy sort".

"That is because he is greedy but unlike the previous governor, he is smart enough to hide his actions. His speciality is to snatch peoples land and mismanage the city's funds. I suspect that he is somehow connected to the northern bandits since he likes to use them to chase the common folks out of their lands and them acquires them at a very low price"

Su Liya balled up her fist "so real estate fraud and misappropriation of public funds. All textbook crimes of corrupt politicians, he can not be doing this alone?"

"He isn't, he had the head of the provincial ministry of works and finance covering his tracks. Oh and also the head of Ningzhuo's battalion"

Su Liya looked up, "he also has his claws in the military, typical!"

"Yea but that is not the end of it, your Highness. He has the Shi family protecting him but as far as I know, this union was only made recently. His made protectors are his wife's family the Lau family. The Lau family own the tin mines and took over the contracts initially belonging to the Wu family and are now the main suppliers of tin to the capital"

A light sparked in her mind on hearing that, "that can be fair to the Wu family, how are things in the Wu family?"

"Not very good, when they lost the imperial contract their financier took a nosedive. Since they lost one of the major contracts but luckily they still have their silver mines but Deputy Sun has been trying to hold them down. I suspect his acquiring the lands around the mountainside with hopes that he will stumble upon a mountain with benefits. There are rumours that there are a few Mountains like that in these parts"

"We can not have that now can we, tell me more about the Wu family?"

"The Wu family is one of the richest families in the North, they have a few political officials but are mainly into business. The Previous governor was married to the only child of the Wu family but she and her child died in childbirth.

"They were the main family protecting the previous governor but after losing the royal contract, things have gone downhill. The death of his only child cribbled old master Wu, he hasn't been in the best of health."

"So the Wu family doesn't have an heir?"

"No, they don't"

Su Liya found that a little odd, the Wu family weren't mentioned much in the original novel. As far as she could remember, the Wu family was only mentioned when the new Emperor got on the throne and commanded the investigation into the officials in Ningzhuo.

The New Emperor, who was the original male lead did that to clear the Lu family's name after being accused of treason, which although they were later pardoned was a huge dent in their reputations. During his investigation, it was discovered that the Wu family was cheated out of the royal contract by the new governor of Ningzhuo.

Who as she remembered was also surnamed Sun, which had to be the present deputy Sun. Zhu Fengyin mentioned that before being arrested for treason. Lu Yaozhu was accused of corruption, was all these planted by Deputy Sun and the Lau family. Then maybe if she found out what Deputy Sun and the Shi family was up to, she could prevent Lu Yaozhu from getting arrested and the fall of the Lu family.

She looked up at Mu Chen, "can you get someone into the Sun family and the Lau family. Is that possible?"

Mu Chen rubbed his chin silently for some seconds then nodded "I can't make any promises but I will see what I can do. The Lau family are recently hiring, I can order one of my men to go in and investigate but getting someone into the Sun family won't be easy."

"You don't need to get someone in, we can turn someone over. Money makes the world go around, offer as much as you can or get dirt on one of the high ranking maids. Any method will work"

"I will put someone on that".