Chapter 239

Xu Ran couldn’t help giving him a thumb up and walked over to ask him, “Lu Qi, what position do you have under King Yan? You even helped him recruit people on the road.”

Lu Qi smiled mysteriously, “Have a guess! What position would someone like me have?”

Xu Ran stroked his chin and started to think seriously. The first presumption was naturally a doctor, but he had never seen a doctor managing this kind of thing. Xu Ran excluded this first. Putting aside the fact that he knew medical skills, his kung fu was quite good too, he also looked like a scholar and he was so dutiful. Xu Ran suddenly thought of the type.

He blurted out, “Mastermind?”

Lu Qi nodded, then shook his head. “I prefer to be called Master.”

Xu Ran taunted him, “Aren’t the two similar?”

“But don’t you think Master sounds better than Mastermind? Mastermind doesn’t sound like a decent person, while Master gives one the feeling of devising strategies.”

Xu Ran snorted disdainfully, “Aren’t they doing the same job?! But then again, as a Master, you are also quite leisure. Are you not in Yanzhou all these years? Could King Yan manage without you?”

Lu Qi waved his hand. “Don’t underestimate King Yan. He was cultivated by the old prince himself, who raised him as the heir since he was a child. The old prince is the warlord of Great Xia Empire. Do you think how inferior King Yan can be? Besides, my task is to find Second Young Master. As long as I bring Second Young Master back to Yanzhou, my mission is accomplished.”

Xu Ran shook his head. “Although the old prince is a warlord, that worked on the battlefield. Does he know schemes and plots of framing people in court?”

Lu Qi shook his head disapprovingly, “You’re wrong. The old prince is not only a warlord, but is strong in his ability to win the hearts of people. Gao Quan and the adoptive father of Second Young Master are two good examples, who risked their lives to protect Second Young Master just because of an order from the old prince. The old prince also left King Yan a lot of capable talents and soldiers before he died, otherwise Yanzhou would not be so good now.”

Xu Ran said, “I can’t assert whether Yanzhou is good or not now, but I’m quite curious about the old prince. Tell me your impression about him.”

Lu Qi recalled attentively, “The old prince was gone at earlier years. At that time, I was still young. I remembered some words from the old prince. He gave King Yan three orders. The first thing was to manage well Yanzhou, which, at that time, was a desolate and poverty-stricken place, with not many people and little land. What’s worse, being robbed from time to time by barbarians, the civilians lived a miserable life. That’s why the old prince required the prince to manage Yanzhou in a good way after he inherited the throne, which was his unfinished dream.”

At this, Lu Qi’s expression was full of nostalgia. To prevent him from thinking too far, Xu Ran quickly asked, “What about the other two things?”

When Lu Qi was reminded by Xu Ran, he quickly came back to his senses and said, “The second thing is to find Second Young Master, take him to Yanzhou and let Second Young Master find his origin. King Yan had accomplished the first thing. The second one would be completed after Second Young Master arrived at Yanzhou. As to the third thing, it was to wait for the old emperor to die.”

There were no outsiders nearby and other people were also resting, so Lu Qi said it recklessly.

Xu Ran frowned and asked, “How come the third thing sounds so strange?”

Lu Qi explained: “The prince said that the most regretful thing in his life was helping the dog emperor win the war, and be bitten by him instead. He said that if he was able to choose again, he would definitely kill the dog emperor. The Great Xia has a history of hundreds of years, only came out one such bad emperor, who had snatched the throne from his own brother. Shame on him! Thus, he would look forward to the new emperor. Only when the new emperor ascends the throne, will the ignored talent of King Yan be of use.”

Xu Ran pouted and let Lu Qi look towards the direction where Tangtang and Guoguo were standing. Lu Qi looked at him in confusion, “There might be no hope for King Yan. If he wants to exhibit his talent, he has to count on the next generation. Don’t you see that even Guoguo can fight with the bandits?”

Lu Qi could not help but defend for King Yan, “King Yan is now thirty three years old. He’s not old.”

Xu Ran pointed to himself and said, “I’m only thirty-three too, but my sons are thirteen years old.”

Okay! Now Lu Qi was speechless. King Yan’s eldest child was only ten years old, and he was a brother. The younger son was only eight years old, too far away from being able to go to the battlefield.

The two forgot about the time as they talked. Liu Tong and the others waited and waited, without seeing them. As they were too anxious, Liu Tong asked Tangtang and Guoguo to call them.

Xu Ran, being reminded by Tangtang and Guoguo, immediately looked up at the sky and found that the sun was already halfway down and there was still some distance away from town. Thus, the two immediately stopped talking, hurriedly called Liu Tong and the rest into the carriage, and continued their journey towards the town.

The nine of them needed at least four rooms. Xu Ran did not want to make do, nor did he want his kids make do, so all the rooms he ordered were first-class ones. With the high price, there would come the better service.

Traveling outside, Xu Ran had put quite a lot of money in everyone’s pockets, including Baozi. In his assumption, nobody would expect that a kid would have money with him.

Xu Ran and the others seemed to be down on their luck today–they ran into another gangster inn.

Things went like this. As the inn had no other guests, the moment they entered, the shopkeeper had been paying attention to them. It just so happened that Xu Ran was kept speaking. Naturally, he took Xu Ran as the boss of this group of people. At night, when they fell asleep, he blew narcotic smoke into their room.

However, Xu Ran coincidentally woke up and sensed that something was wrong. He covered his nose and Liu Tong’s nose. Xu Ran only had two hands, so he didn’t care about Baozi.

After they waited in the room for a while, someone pried open the door bolt and entered, and then he started flipping around, obviously looking for their packages.

However, to be cautious, Xu Ran had put the package on the head of the bed. After searching for a while, the guy couldn’t find it anywhere except for the bed. Then he walked towards them.

As soon as his hand touched the package, Liu Tong grabbed his wrist and forcefully twisted it, which broke the man’s wrist directly and made him utter a scream.

At the same time, miserable screams came from the room next door. It seemed that there was not an only invader, but several of them took action at the same time!

The person was subdued by Liu Tong. Xu Ran carried Baozi out of bed, lit the candles and saw clearly the one who was kneeling on the ground–the shopkeeper.

Xu Ran smiled, “Manager, it turned out that this is your formal job. You must have earned a lot out of it! A lot of passers-by have been trapped by you, haven’t they? How many lives you have taken away?! Should we send you to the yamen, and let you be truly taken care of?”

After Xu Ran finished his words, and before this person could answer, Tangtang and Guoguo had marched a person into their room, who was the waiter of the inn.

Lu Qi and Gao Quan also marched people over. Xu Ran handed Baozi over to Tangtang and clapped, “Manager, it seems that all of your staff are here! It really is a generous gesture.”

Seeing that everyone had been caught, the shopkeeper felt scared. He knelt on the ground and begged Xu Ran for mercy, “Dear masters, it must be devil that made us do it. Please spare our lives!”

After the shopkeeper, the staff also followed suit and begged for mercy, asking Xu Ran to spare them.

Xu Ran said, “I’m afraid that we’re not the only victims! Before us, who knows how many people you have harmed? How can I forgive you?”

The meaning of Xu Ran’s words was that he would not let them go. Seeing that the mercy was not given, the shopkeeper wanted to resist. However, Liu Tong had been watching him. When he tried to get up, Liu Tong gave him another kick, which made him behaved nice finally.

Xu Ran meant to send them to the yamen. As it was still night, they had to wait until dawn. However, they couldn’t keep looking at these people.

It was possible for them to escape even while being tied. Xu Ran said to Lu Qi, “Lu Qi, use some medicine to make them unconscious, then tie them up. When the day breaks, we will send them to the yamen.”

The shopkeeper wanted to refute, but before he could speak, Lu Qi gave him a slap and he fainted directly.

Xu Ran had only seen this scene in TV dramas. “Lu Qi, what did you do to him? Why did he faint so quickly?

Lu Qi said, “It’s just a click on his sleeping acupoint, which can let them sleep for two hours. If we drug them, it won’t be easy to explain, and they might even bite back at us.”

As he answered Xu Ran, he knocked down the other three people.

Gao Quan went to the firewood shed and fetched ropes over. Then they tied up the pack of people.

It was time for them to go back to their respective rooms to sleep, but Xu Ran was a little worried. He asked, “If we just send them over to the yamen like this, will people in the yamen believe us? After all, these people are the local ones in the town, and we are just outsiders.”

Other people were also stumped. After all, they did not lose anything, instead they tied the people of the town up and sent them to the yamen. In addition, this inn had been open for a long time. Though similar things had happened before, the inn still existed. It was uncertain what relationship these people had with the yamen. It was feared that they might bite them back.

The more Xu Ran thought about it, the more he thought it would not work. He scratched his head fretfully.

Other people have not dealt with such a thing. Although Lu Qi had seen a lot, it all happened to others. He had never been wronged, so he had never experienced this feeling.

The reason why Xu Ran was so worried was because of Mr. Hu’s incident a few years ago.

He pounded his head and walked around the room. After walking for a while, he was suddenly thrilled by an idea, “I got it. Come on! Come on! Let me explain to you, we can…”