CH 73

It was not the first time for the Qian family to get furs from the territory of the barbarians. They had already made arrangements about the border crossing. Who knew that King Xidan would suddenly appear that day, saying that he was visiting the frontline officers and soldiers, and wanted to surprise everyone. 

That was quite a surprise indeed, but after this man came over, he didn’t go to see the military camp first, but went to the border gate, just in time to meet the Qian family’s caravan coming through the gate. Then he simply stopped it.

The people in the caravan were quite confused, and at first they tried to reason with King Xidan, saying that these carts were all fur, they could be inspected at will, and there was absolutely no contraband.

King Xidan, who intercepted someone else’s goods, listened to the explanation with a smile, but had no intention of letting go.

“Who said this is not contraband?” King Xidan said, “As we all know, only my barbarians have snow wolves in the entire continent. These snow wolf furs are naturally from my land. You kill my wolves in my territory. I think you are really bold. 

Arrest them all and interrogate them well!”

The caravan couldn’t say anything. The hunting had never been considered, and nothing had ever been prepared in this regard. Although the caravan had martial artists, it was not enough in front of the barbarian army. They were caught all of a sudden, except for one man who was deliberately released to send a message.

It was basically impossible to get this batch of goods back. Even the caravan was locked up and had not been released yet. When the Qian family received the news, they knew that the goods were basically lost.

If only this batch of goods went wrong, the matter wouldn’t be too big. It was normal for caravans to have occasional accidents. It was not a big deal to lose some money, and the Qian family could afford it.

What Qian Manguan was afraid of was that his trade line would be completely destroyed and he wouldn’t be able to ship his goods in the future.

Several important business lines of the Qian family were related to the barbarians. If they really failed, a difficult time would come.

“I heard that the officials at the barbarian gates were replaced, and the caravans were strictly checked for more than a week and a half. The subsequent batches of goods for the Qian family were then detained. It looks like they will lose a lot of money,” Yuan Jiangwen had never seen King Xidan, but he had heard of him, “What’s the matter? Zhiyu, are you friends with him?”

How could the king of a country have the leisure to suddenly take care of a few pieces of fur? The border was impenetrable, and  no matter how the Qian family tried, it was useless.

And this matter happened so coincidentally. Just when Fu Zhiyu came to his senses and wanted to deal with them, the Qian family suffered accident after accident all of a sudden. Yuan Jiangwen couldn’t help but think a little about it.

“We are not friends. At most I just said a few words to him,” Fu Zhiyu was pretty sure. “It was just… a coincidence?”

But he himself didn’t believe this when he said it.

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King Xidan didn’t play cards according to common sense, but this person was the king of the barbarians, not a whimsical child. If there was no reason behind it, he wouldn’t do such inexplicable things at will.

The day after Fu Zhiyu knew about this, the Qian family head begged to allow him to visit. Now his attitude was very different from when he first came.

“It’s my fault for not recognising Mount Tai,” he saluted Fu Zhiyu as soon as he entered the door, “I beg Wang Zhao to forgive me.”

Fu Zhiyu: “……”

He was silent for a while, saying nothing.

To be honest, he didn’t know what was going on with King Xidan, but to say this at this time would be showing his cowardice instead.

“Everything is my fault. Wang Zhao can do whatever he wants. My Qian family is willing to make amends and begs Wang Zhao to let my son live. He doesn’t know anything and has never been involved in anything.”

Fu Zhiyu didn’t know who Qian Manguan’s son was, and he hadn’t seen him before, but he still didn’t say a word, his face didn’t change, and his expression was inscrutable.

Qian Manguan couldn’t figure out what he was thinking, but looking at him like this, he panicked even more, gritted his teeth, and knelt down with a puff.

“I beg Your Highness Wang Zhao to be lenient! As long as you are willing to let the Qian family go, I will do anything you ask me to do!”

Fu Zhiyu: “……”

He had a plan and wanted to see this, but the scene came too fast and inexplicably, so he was at a loss for words.

“Master Qian is joking,” he finally said, “I haven’t seen Young Master Qian. Is there anything wrong with him? What does it have to do with me?”

Fu Zhiyu was telling the truth, but Qian Manguan heard that this meant that he hadn’t forgiven him yet.

“You… don’t joke,” Qian Manguan said anxiously. He was trembling slightly all over, looking at Fu Zhiyu as if he was looking at a demon, “My son Qian Mingchong was stopped in the Chen territory. They said he had stolen valuable things. Now he was thrown into the imperial prison. He always had everything he wanted, how could he steal something!”

Speaking of this, Qian Manguan seemed to be very emotional, his movements were a bit big, and his upper body straightened; but seeing Fu Zhiyu’s expression, he seemed to be splashed with cold water and suddenly knelt back to his original place.

“Chen is a hundred thousand miles away from Jiangnan, and the further it gets, the more it has nothing to do with me.”

“No,” Qian Manguan shook his head and looked at his face cautiously from below. “It was the other side that said… that it was the Qian family who provoked the person that shouldn’t be provoked, and told me to beg for that person’s understanding before this matter was over.”

Qian Manguan hardly had to think about it and immediately came to Fu Zhiyu.

Do I have a friendship with Chen?

Fu Zhiyu asked himself, but no matter how much he thought about it, he didn’t come up with any results.

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“I don’t know what’s going on,” Fu Zhiyu continued to tell the truth. It was impossible for him to do anything for Qian Manguan because this inexplicable matter had nothing to do with him. “What they said over there probably didn’t mean me. Please go back, Master Qian, I won’t see you off.”

There was a look of despair on Qian Manguan’s face, but before he could speak again, he was taken away by the soldiers at the door who received the order.

Fu Zhiyu instructed: “If he comes in the next few days, don’t let him in.”

The soldiers at the door nodded in understanding.

No matter who did this, the Qian family would have to chill for a few days first.

Fu Zhiyu had not been idle these days. While checking the inexplicable disaster of the Qian family, he looked at Luanzhou’s documents.

The governor of Luanzhou had been removed, and many of the documents left behind were so terrible that Yuan Jiangxing couldn’t read them. A large part of this responsibility belonged to Fu Zhiyu, so he was also going through them.

In the past three years, he was really not familiar with Jiangnan. At most, he had taken his mother out a few times. What he saw was very superficial. Only after reading the documents did he know that a city of this size was not easy to run.

After all, Yuan Jiangxing was a military general, and some civilian tasks were difficult for him to do. Sister Yuan Xi’s husband had studied before and he was also brought in to help.

Fu Zhiyu looked at the documents methodically, but the Qian family was in a mess.

According to the news received in the past few days, several trade lines on the barbarian side were annihilated and all of them were interrupted. Not to mention the loss of money, the future business had become slim.

Money was one thing, but Qian Mingchong was Qian Manguan’s favourite son, the one he had high hopes for since he was a child. He planned to hand over all his family business to Qian Mingchong when he got old.

When something happened on the barbarians’ side, Qian Manguan was glad that his son didn’t take that trade route, but who knew that the Chen border would suddenly become a problem and find a chest of night pearls in the Qian family’s carriage, saying that it was a treasure stolen from the Chen imperial family and was worth a lot of money. A good caravan of merchants was arrested as horse thieves.

Stealing imperial things was a felony no matter how you put it. In the best case, the culprits would be exiled, in the worst case beheaded. This time, the Qian family could do nothing even with all its money. The officials who used to have shown some mercy were now incorruptible. At most, they just said that this was a death order from above. The Qian family offended someone who shouldn’t be offended, so they didn’t have to bother here, they had to reach an understanding with that person for this matter to be over.

Qian Manguan wanted to smack himself in the mouth with regret. How did he know that Fu Zhiyu, who seemed obedient and not very smart for three years, had such a trick up his sleeve. Even the current emperor of Jilin didn’t have the ability to ask the barbarians and Chen to protect him, right?

No one knew that such a big thing would happen just because of the testing attempt of the incense burner during the sacrifice. 

But the incense burner thing wasn’t something that he had done alone, the Deng family was also involved, so why should they be okay?

Qian Manguan held his breath, only to feel that it was very unfair. After he was forcibly expelled from Fu Zhiyu’s mansion, he didn’t go home but turned around and went to the Deng mansion.

But unexpectedly, the Deng family wouldn’t open the door to him.

This time Qian Manguan was really angry. He had been friends with the Deng family for more than ten years, and once he was a little suppressed, he couldn’t even get in. It made him feel cold, and he even dropped the beads in his hand on the spot.

“Tell Deng Qian to come out!” He didn’t leave either and lost his temper directly in front of the Deng mansion, “Don’t think it’s alright if he doesn’t see me. I think it’s a matter of time before his bad luck starts!”

The gatekeeper stopped him while explaining: “It’s really not what you think, it’s really not, don’t make trouble here, don’t let people watch the joke…”

There was such a noise at the gate that even the people passing by had been attracted. Qian Manguan was willing to go out of his way and didn’t care about people watching, but this was the Deng family mansion after all, it was not good to have people watching to see the joke.

After a while, someone came out of the gate.

“Uncle Qian, please calm down first, and let’s talk about it when you have a sip of tea inside.”

Qian Manguan glanced at the man, took a deep breath, then waved his hand and told the people under his command to stop.

“Jinghe?”

“It’s me,” Deng Jinghe said with a very decent smile on his face, “Please come inside first, the tea is already made at home, the good Biluochun. The Deng family is not what you might expect these days.”

Qian Manguan glanced at him suspiciously, thought for a while, and still went in.

As soon as he entered, he felt that it was very quiet and there was no one in the hall. At this moment, he asked Deng Jinghe, “Where is your father? I have something urgent to discuss with him.”

Deng Jinghe sat down in his seat slowly and calmly, but what he said was very shocking.

“Something happened to my father,” he said. “It happened a few days ago. It was said that a girl in the brothel felt cheated by him and held a grudge. My father collapsed in the gutter. The doctor said he was poisoned. Although his life is not in danger, he has been asleep and hasn’t woken up yet.”

“What?” Qian Manguan looked shocked, “Impossible! Why is there no news outside?”

But he thought about it carefully, and it was true that Deng Qian hadn’t been seen outside in the past few days. In the past, this man had to go to the brothel every day to have fun, and it was rare that he hadn’t been there for so many days.

He originally thought that Deng Qian had received the news and was avoiding the limelight. Who knew something like that had happened.

“It’s not something honourable, how can you say it to the outside world?” Deng Jinghe said, “Uncle Qian, besides, you also know that many people have received the news of the Qian family’s accidents. If something happened to our family, adding fuel to the fire, what do you think the outside world will say?”

The more Qian Manguan thought about it, the more terrifying it became, and a cold sweat began to appear on his face.

He collapsed into a chair all of a sudden and muttered, “Who is this Fu Zhiyu…?”