Chapter 117: A game of smoke and shadows 1

Mu restaurant, Ningzhuo

"Deputy Sun has been making a lot of underground plans, General. I fear that he has joined hands with the Shi and Sheng family. You must already be aware that the account records you have are fake"

Li Sichan had a few spies placed around Deputy Sun and his henchmen Xiao Peng. He had been alerted as soon as Deputy Sun started making his moves. Deputy Sun's Plans although very smart had a lot of open spots because of the quality of his helpers. 

Deputy Sun believes that he is the smartest one in the room and to support his belief, he didn't keep smart people close. Every single one of his men could be described as muscles no brains, from his right-hand man, Xiao Peng to the lowest thug under him.

Word on the grapevine was that the governor was investigating the doctored accounts books, which to Li Sichan was a waste of resources since nothing in that record was true. In the light of their collaboration, Li Sichan decided to test the waters and check of Lu Yaozhu was worth collaborating with.

Lu Yaozhu came clean, there was no need to pretend otherwise. Li Sichan and Wu Yao had a strong information network, they may have already figured out it was a trick. Since they were joining hands, he should tell them his plan as a show of good faith.

"I am aware of the doctored records, I know that the real records are out there somewhere. I needed a cover to look for the real records without getting caught and decided to pretend to fall for his trick. I needed Deputy Sun to loosen his guard so that I could search for the real records"

Li Sichan nodded, "it was a good plan, governor. According to my spies, Deputy Sun is fully convinced that his plan has succeeded. Getting the records should be easy if Deputy Sun didn't already destroy the real records. No matter how you search, I doubt you would find that record except if you could find someone with the original records"

Lu Yaozhu tilted his head to the side and tapped his fingers on the table silently, "Someone like who, the only other person that would have access to the record would be the head of the Finance Ministry but he is the deputies man. Deputy Sun is smart enough to have already taken the necessary steps to keep everyone from finding out the original records. Except if someone else got hold of the record, then I am curious who has the original records".

"I do", Wu Yao said looking at Lu Yaozhu straight in the eye. Wu Yao had gotten a hold of the real records from a steward at the head of the ministry of finance's mansion. The record had come into her possession three weeks earlier, she had decided to meet with Su Liya after going through the records.

"I won't lie, the only reason I agreed to meet you was because of the records and nothing else but before I hand it over, I would like to find out how you plan to handle this" she continued, eyes focused on him.

Lu Yaozhu glanced at the quiet Su Liya seated beside him and grinned, "it is not my plan but my words so I better leave the explanation to her".

Su Liya was surprised to hear him mention her name, she had only planned on just observing and not saying anything but his words were shoving her to the forefront of their conversations. She glanced at him silently when Wu Yao and Li Sichan looked at her expectantly. 

'Now Look what he has caused, I just wanted to silently observe without getting involved', Su Liya thought as she glared at him. Lu Yaozhu pretended like he did nothing bad, he was smiling at her like he didn't just go out of plan. 

She sighed, "We found the attack on the general strange but since we don't have the real records we can't act yet. I thought that we would be able to investigate properly if Deputy Sun believed that his plan had succeeded. One would expect the doctored account record to whitewash Deputy Sun and the Sun family but that wasn't the case.

"Those records also put him at a disadvantage, which I found strange. Deputy Sun must have wanted to fool the general into believing that the record wasn't doctored. We planned to find the original records and submit them to court"

"Submitting the records might not be able to get deputy Sun removed from office since he already had prime minister Shi's support. My men intercepted secret messages between the two and I fear that they plan on getting the Lu family arrested for treason.

"Deputy Sun and Prime Minister Sun are already making plans with the Bongju bandits. They are just waiting for you to submit an official report to the Emperor. The system is already rigged against you so why don't we help each other out"

Lu Yaozhu blacked out at the mention of treason, never I'm a million years did he think that the Emperor would take such a route. Prime Minister Shi wouldn't be so confident in his actions if he didn't think that the Emperor would support him. Even if the Emperor was envious of the people's love for the Lu family and their power in court, accusing them of treason would be disastrous to not just the Lu family but also the Empress.

Why would he ever make such a risky move such as this? Has the Emperor decided to give up on the Empress completely or was this just another one of his sick moves to make the Empress dependant on him? Lu Yaozhu didn't understand was the Emperor was aiming at but he needed to ensure that nothing went as he planned not just for his family but also the Empress. 

He owed her that much for what she went through because of him. He needed to be responsible for her safety at least this once, she can not always be the one making sacrifices for him.

He was aware of Prime minister Shi's and Imperial consort Shi's secret ambitions, while the Emperor was blind to their secret alliances with Chu state, he was aware of it all. His father always advised everyone to be careful who they brought into their house but the Emperor never listened.

In his greed the Emperor brought a demoness into his home, the shi family may pretend to be loyal to the kingdom but they only act for their benefit. He needed to use this opportunity to draw the Emperor's attention to that.

Lu Yaozhu tapped his chin thoughtfully and said "I have a plan but for it to work, I will need everyone's contribution. Truthfully my plan will be very risky but if executed properly, we will all be able to get whatever we want. What do you say, Miss Wu, Magistrate Li? Are you ready to make a bet? 

Li Sichen glanced at Wu Yao, he wasn't the one the most hurt by the Sun family. Wu Yao lost her aunt and her granduncle hadn't recovered from losing his only child. He was doing this for her so every decision must be her choice. He could see the excitement in her eyes. Wu Yao liked taking risks, as far as it led her to achieve her wishes. 

Governor Lu already had her attention, He looked back at the governor and grinned " we are in"

*****

Four days later, At Ningzhuo.

A small troupe of Imperial guards rode into the town and headed straight for Sun Mansion and Deputy Sun's mansion. The guards were led to the mansion by Lu Yaozhu, which caused quite the fanfare. It was mid-day, everyone went about their businesses, the commoners manning their stalls watched as heavily armed guards and prison carriages surrounded the Sun family mansion.

They watched as old master Sun was led out of the mansion and into the waiting carriage. The next stop was Deputy Sun's mansion, where Deputy Sun was arrested. Both men were transported to the court jail to stay. They would be leaving for the capital the next day.

Back at the governor's house 

Su Liya was informed of the arrest by Rong Rong. The arrest was very public, the news was spread in just a few minutes after it had happened. Su Liya observed the behaviour of the servants around her, she wanted to check their response and find out just how many spies were in their residence.

At the end of her experiment, she found out that only 20% of the servants were compromised. Steward Meng made himself scarce, he must have been scared that he would be arrested too but that never happened.

Every time there was a knock on the door, his heart skipped. It wasn't until Governor Lu left with the Imperial guards the next day that he finally relaxed.

Before leaving with the guard Lu Yaozhu station a unit of his secret guards to keep Su Liya safe