Chapter 57： distress letter

Since a series of agricultural decrees were promulgated, Paul Greiman has lived a busy and fulfilling life every day. In addition to reviewing the reports on the construction of farmer associations sent by local affairs officials every day, he also rides horses to nearby Lake Town from time to time. Check out the village.

This life of his was broken by a letter from Lord Melon Garnard of Bairding, his "children." The letter was written on a new type of paper produced by Arda. Paul touched the letter secretly proudly. The paper he "invented" has gradually entered people's lives.

At first, the content inside seemed to be nothing. It was nothing more than asking about the health and well-being, and talking about some interesting things that happened in his territory recently, but some sentences were not very fluent, which made Paul feel very toothache. "Really, I don't know, so I thought it was written by a child who just started learning." The Earl shook his head, mercilessly complaining about this "fat child".

Wait a minute, Paul thought for a while. In his memory, the two had communicated through letters before. It seems that the guy's writing ability is not so bad.

Unless, that's the case...

He ran back to his bedroom and began to rummage through boxes and cabinets. After a while of busy work, he finally found what he remembered. It was a box. Regularly arranged rectangular holes.

This is the "secret language" agreed between him and Mellon before, and it is used to hide some small secrets that can only be shared between the two of them in the letters, such as "Last night, my **** was hit by a board again, and my father is a big villain", "Sneakily fell Throwing away the butler’s wine, it’s so funny to see the expression on his face that saw a ghost”, “Today I saw my father sneaking a maid’s ass”, and other things that will end badly if parents see them.

Every time when writing a confidential letter, first spread the wood chips on the paper, fill in the hollowed-out parts with the words you want to write, then remove the wood chips, and fill in other words in the remaining blank space to form an ordinary letter However, because of this, the combined sentences are a bit unsmooth, or sometimes the context does not say the same thing, and others seem a little baffled.

In order to prevent people from seeing through the writing in the same position too many times, the two made many such thin wood chips. In the same set of wood chips, the arrangement of the hollow holes on each of them is different. The party who wrote the letter randomly chooses a piece to use, and the party who receives the letter has to cover it on the letter paper one by one and read it until he reads a fluent sentence.

"The candlestick... flew into... the river... It doesn't look like this."

"The butler...the knight fell...on fire...and this one is not either."

"Delicious yum...mouse... fell into a ditch... try something else."

Paul took out the wood chips in the box and put them on the letter paper one by one to try to decipher the ciphertext. He didn’t see it the first 9 times, but when he finally covered the 10th wood chip, a very fluent sentence in the first half was displayed:

"I overheard the conversation between the housekeeper and them. My father was killed. Now they are going to attack me. Help,..." The words in the second half of the sentence are messy and disorderly.

The terrible information revealed in the cipher text surprised Paul. In order to prevent misunderstanding, he tried to put the remaining pieces of wood on the letter paper one by one, but the combination of the words he read out was not as smooth as the sentence just now.

Paul's heart sank suddenly, and it seemed that his friend had fallen into a conspiracy that could endanger his life. "Father was killed", isn't that what Hansel used to warn himself that "Old Garnard slipped and fell into the water"? At that time, I suspected that this was a conspiracy, because the reform of the old Gardner touched the interests of the vassals, and it was very possible to join hands to get rid of his lord. Now the son of the old Gardner overheard the conspiracy Talk, this matter is a real hammer.

So now the problem came, the other party sent a distress letter, whether to save him or not, the Earl was caught in a dilemma. On the one hand, after recovering the memory of another world, although he has a little indifference to the interpersonal relationship before waking up the memory, it is not so indifferent to the point where a friend is in trouble but ignores it. He recalls the scene when they played together when they were young It's quite touching. On the other hand, his territory is now in the period when reforms and industries have just started, and he really doesn't want to get involved in outside affairs. Another reason is that Gardner is not a sinful family like Greiman. Bairding under his rule is a genuine earldom, and there are five vassals under it: two viscounts and three barons. All the guys in the gang participated in the conspiracy, and he went to save people recklessly. They teamed up to fight him hard, can they beat him?

Let's figure out the situation first, Paul walked out of the bedroom, summoned a servant and said, "Let Chief Hansel come to see me, hurry up!"

…

Butuya, the capital of Bairdin, walked slowly into a tavern by himself, sat down in front of the bar, and shouted: "Boss, a glass of malt wine."

The tavern owner took a clean glass, filled a full one at the wine barrel, put it in front of the guests and said, "Please use it slowly."

After a few sips of wine, the guest chatted with the boss all over the world, from the pirate invasion in the west to the Jiangchen rebellion in the south.

When it was time for the second cup, he casually asked, "It seems that no pirates have been here before. Why are there so many soldiers on the street?"

The tavern owner replied casually: "Are you from out of town? Several barons and viscounts of Bairding are gathered here, and their private soldiers are everywhere on the street."

"Is something serious going on?"

"The soldiers under Earl Garnard were all sent by the royal family to the south to fight against the rebels. His vassals said they were here to protect the safety of the lord and maintain the law and order of Butuya. Humph!"

The last sentence "humph" aroused his interest. It seemed that the matter was not simple, so he asked the tavern owner in a low voice: "From your tone, is there something hidden?"

The tavern owner glanced at him but didn't answer.

The guest put his hand in his pocket, patted the table lightly, and said loudly, "Check out!"

When he took his hand away, there was a coin on the table. If it was a copper coin, it would not be enough for two glasses of ale, but the point is-it was a silver coin.

The boss looked around. At this time, there were only two other customers sitting in the corner of the tavern drinking together. They would not notice this place. He collected the silver coins very quickly.

The guests sitting in front of the bar got up to leave, but they heard the tavern owner say: "I still have my own special brewed beer here, why don't you have a few more glasses?"

The corner of the guest's mouth raised slightly, and he sat down again, "Then I'll try your special brew again! If it tastes good, I'll come back next time." He lightly patted his right hand on the bar table, and it was visible between his fingers. a silver coin.

The tavern owner doubled the amount of beer and brought it over The guest continued to press the right hand on the table, and picked up the glass with the left hand to drink.

The boss lowered his voice and said in a low voice: "Did you hear about the old Earl Garnard some time ago? He wanted to confiscate the territories of the vassals and offended a bunch of his subordinates."

He nodded knowingly.

"Then the earl fell into the water and drowned, but his death was too strange. At least I know that the earl has been very good at water since he was a child."

The guest was surprised and asked in a low voice, "So his vassals killed him?"

The boss immediately shook his head: "You guessed it yourself, I didn't say it."

The guest asked again: "And then? What does this have to do with the private soldiers on the street?"

The owner of the tavern checked again to see if anyone noticed, "After the death of the old earl, his son, Master Mellon, inherited the title. But since then, I haven't seen the little earl leave the lord's mansion. A child who used to be so extroverted often went to Arda to visit the young master of the Greiman family, but for some reason he became reluctant to go out."

The guests sipped their wine while listening to the tavern owner continue to say: "The vassals gathered in Butuya are all relatives of the Ganard family, and the old earl is just such a son." Then he stopped talking.

The guest put down his glass and asked: "If something happens to Little Ganard, will the title fall into the hands of a vassal?"

The tavern owner said with a smile: "You guessed it yourself, that's all I know."

After picking up the glass and gulping down the rest of the wine, the guest withdrew his right hand and left the shiny silver coin underneath on the bar table.

"Your beer here is delicious, I will come again next time!"

As he said so, he walked out of the tavern without haste.