Chapter 65 Strange Talent
After Lu Heng returned to the palace, he sent someone to escort Wang Yanqing back to the house. It was said to be an escort, but Wang Yanqing was controlled as soon as she got out of the carriage. Wang Yanqing silently glanced at the bright and dark Imperial Guards outside the courtyard and did not speak. She let Ling Xi close the door and lead her into the room.
Ling Xi served Wang Yanqing hot tea and said softly: “Miss, you have been traveling around these few days, you have worked hard. I have prepared water, do you want to take a bath?”
Wang Yanqing shook her head and said: “I want to be alone now, you can go down first.”
Ling Xi bowed, clasped her hands, and retreated. When the sound of the door closing was heard next to her ear, Wang Yanqing let out a breath, and slowly leaned back on the Arhat bed.
Leaning on the pillow, she unexpectedly remembered yesterday’s conversation.
Last night, Lu Heng pushed her back to sleep, but Wang Yanqing pressed Lu Heng’s hand, looked straight into his eyes, and said: “Second Brother, I saw.”
Lu Heng’s eyes were as clear as the moon, and when he heard this, the smile inside them seemed to grow stronger: “What did you see?”
“The county government has closed its doors, and the murderer is certainly in the government office. I originally thought that for such a big event as the county magistrate’s sudden death, everyone would come forward, so I just took this opportunity to see who had a strange expression or who was lying. Unexpectedly, the crime scene gave me a great surprise.”
Lu Heng looked at her with a smile, appreciating and indulging. Seeing his behavior like this, Wang Yanqing was determined in her heart, and she said angrily: “Prefect Cheng, the county deputy, Chen Yuxuan, even you, everyone was lying.”
Lu Heng smiled, knowing when Wang Yanqing would go to sleep, he turned and sat back by the desk, and poured two cups of tea unhurriedly: “Sit down and talk.”
He still had a mind to drink tea! Wang Yanqing was very angry, quickly walked to his side, stared at him, and said: “You already knew?”
Lu Heng held Wang Yanqing’s wrist, but Wang Yanqing refused to move, so he exerted a little force and forced her to sit down: “It’s getting harder and harder to lie to you. How could you tell?”
“There were too many flaws.” Wang Yanqing was furious. She wanted to see who was lying, but in fact, everyone was lying. Wang Yanqing’s mood at that time was beyond words. Wang Yanqing said: “Imperial Guards have been trained, and their ability to cover up is much better than ordinary people, basically there will be no unnecessary movements on the face and body. However, this is rather abnormal. Chen Yuxuan is passionate and righteous and likes to talk. His mouth is never idle, but today when he reported the death of Tao County Magistrate, he kept his head down, and his words were very few as if they were deliberately cut out, as simple as possible. Of course, this may also be to your request. He is afraid of you, so he dares not talk nonsense. The real flaw actually appeared in you.”
Lu Heng looked at Wang Yanqing, smiled, and said amusedly: “It turns out I’m holding them back? I wish to hear it carefully.”
“You are such an excellent person. However, after hearing about the murder case, you didn’t go to find the body but instead listened to the report of the death from your subordinates. With your cautious personality, how could such a mistake happen? County Magistrate Tao’s body was lying on a stretcher covered with a white cloth, and everyone subconsciously thought he was dead. But…”
Lu Heng sat calmly, with interest in his eyes: “But what?”
“But after County Magistrate Tao’s death, the Imperial Guards immediately took control of the scene and prevented people from approaching the corpse. This approach may be for fear of people destroying the scene, but it may also be for fear of being seen that there is something wrong with the stretcher. After Chen Yuxuan finished his report, you said that County Magistrate Tao was not strangled to death and that his reason for death should be suicide. From what I know about you, you wouldn’t say such things in front of suspects, as if you were offering a confession to someone.” Wang Yanqing took a deep breath and said her final conclusion, “Therefore, I suspect that Tao County Magistrate is not dead at all, he was just lying on a stretcher and pretending.”
Lu Heng sighed faintly, so to speak, once a person became familiar with many things, it was difficult to do them all. That old fox Cheng Youhai didn’t notice it, but Wang Yanqing found out.
Now that the matter had come to this point, Lu Heng had nothing to hide. He nodded and admitted: “That’s right, he has more life, and he is indeed not dead yet.”
As expected, Wang Yanqing immediately asked: “What in the world is going on?”
Lu Heng raised his eyebrows and asked back: “Qing Qing, what do you think?”
Wang Yanqing felt it yesterday, and seeing the performance of this group of people today, a guess slowly emerged in her mind: “Is it related to the gold mine?”
A smile floated in Lu Heng’s eyes, motioning her to continue. Wang Yanqing took out the stone given to her by the grandson when she was in Hegu Village and said: “That child is still young and has no concept of money or transactions, but when I asked him to exchange the most valuable thing, he did not hesitate to dig out the stone. He doesn’t know what value is, so this cognition can only be taught to him by others, such as his grandparents.”
“What else?”
“I heard that there were gold diggers in ancient times who washed sand in the water day after day, and what was left was alluvial gold. If a river has alluvial gold, follow the current upwards, and with luck, you may find a gold vein. The color of the stone was not very good, but I guess, there must be a small amount of gold in it.”
Wang Yanqing tried to reconstruct the whole sequence of events: “Hegu Village is mountainous, the river at the entrance of the village flows from the depths of the mountains, and there must be gold rock somewhere underground. The gold ore becomes fragments under the erosion of the water flow, and some fragments flow out with the river water and settle in the river bed. Adults don’t pay attention to the small stones by the river, but children dig and pick up things day after day. One day, Li Zheng’s grandson picked up a shiny stone by the river, and he took it home to play with, but Li Zheng and his wife accidentally saw it. When Li Zheng found out that it was alluvial gold, he was both surprised and delighted. They repeatedly told their grandson that this kind of thing was very valuable and they could not tell outsiders, and then they reported it to the court with joy. After the county magistrate, Tao Yiming learned about it, he quickly sent people to look for it along the river. I don’t know the result, but I guess, they should be very lucky to find the gold mine, and the reserves were not small.”
Lu Heng put the tea in front of Wang Yanqing. Wang Yanqing moistened her throat and continued: “However, Tao Yiming became greedy after seeing the gold mine, and he was unwilling to report the gold mine to the imperial court. He was born in poverty and had been working as an official for twenty years without much savings. If this mine lode was reported to the imperial court, someone would soon take his place, and he would be transferred to another impoverished county without any benefits. Tao Yiming was unwilling and moved to the idea of embezzling the gold mine.”
“But he couldn’t digest such a big benefit by himself. To protect himself and find someone to back him up, he quietly told Cheng Youhai, the prefect of Weihui. Cheng Youhai is also a greedy and bold gambler, and as Tao Yiming wished, Cheng Youhai concealed the matter, and together with Tao Yiming, quietly created a disappearance case in the jurisdiction. The people they were targeting were all solitary, homeless men. They took these men captive to the mountains, forced them to mine ore, and at the same time blocked any news from outside.”
“However, this is still too slow. Gold mining requires a lot of labor, but how many beggars, homeless people, and orphans can there be in a county. Even if they kidnapped all the people, it was far less than what was needed for mining. And doing so was not only troublesome but also easy to expose. Even if the magistrate and county magistrate suppressed all cases of missing persons, traces would eventually be left behind. At this time, the news of the emperor’s southern tour came from the capital. Cheng Youhai and Tao Yiming sensed the opportunity and single-handedly planned the disappearance of Hegu Village.”
“They expropriated the young and middle-aged people in the village under the pretense of building a palace, and quietly locked them up for mining, but they claimed that they encountered a mountain torrent on the road, killing the whole village and leaving no one alive. However, Aunt Liu’s persistence exceeded their expectations. Aunt Liu kept appealing and even united with the villagers to ask for an explanation. To calm things down, Tao County Magistrate had to allocate a sum of mining income to the villagers of Hegu Village in the name of funeral expenses to appease the villagers’ hearts.”
Lu Heng did not comment, and asked: “Cheng Youhai manages such a large place, why did he choose Hegu Village?”
Wang Yanqing had been prepared for a long time and said calmly: “First of all, this place is close to the mining site, so it is easy to deceive more than a hundred people. Secondly, there are people in Hegu Village familiar with the matter, and Li Zheng was tipping off the news in the village to reassure people, so their plan would go much smoother. Three years later, the Liu family’s mother-in-law and daughter-in-law said that they heard a loud noise from the mountains at night, and they said it was an earthquake, but Aunt Liu’s husband thought it was not. Hegu Village stood in the way of the prefect and county magistrate getting rich. Even if there was no labor, the prefect needed to find a way to get rid of these people. It was better to make the best use of everything and trick the men into mining in the mountains.”
Lu Heng nodded and said: “This is just your guess, what about the evidence?”
“This impure alluvial gold, the Li Zheng family who suddenly became rich, and the blood note sent back by Osprey can all prove it. The easiest way to verify it will be to go to Hegu Village to search Li Zheng’s house to see if there is any gold and silver of unknown origin, and then I will know whether my inference is correct.”
The gold sand in the river was first discovered by Li Zheng’s grandson. After Li Zheng reported to the official, Tao Yiming and Cheng Youhai should have promised him a lot of benefits in order to stabilize Li Zheng. The money was just scraps from the prefect’s hands, but for the Li Zheng family, it was already an astronomical figure. The daughter-in-law of Lizheng’s family went in without knowing that, so she suspected that her in-laws were cheating on the pension.
The daughter-in-law complained to Wang Yanqing about this matter, and Wang Yanqing discovered the truth by mistake.
Lu Heng asked: “But this has nothing to do with paper figurines. Since the two of them were looking for money, what happened to the anomalies that happened today and yesterday?”
Wang Yanqing sighed: “Speaking of which, it was an accident. If possible, they didn’t want to make it so complicated. The prefect and the county magistrate are local officials, and it is impossible for the villagers to go to the capital to complain. As long as they suppressed and ignored them, the people would not be able to make a fuss. According to their plan, the people would forget about it after a long time of questioning and no results, and they would destroy the relevant materials of the missing persons. No one would know what happened. But they didn’t expect that the emperor would suddenly go on a southern tour, and the two women of the Liu family would have the courage to file a lawsuit, and they didn’t expect that there was someone like Second Brother who would investigate. Cheng Youhai and Tao Yiming’s plans were disrupted, so they had to rush to make amends. They fabricated a set of paper figurines to perform demon tricks. Second Brother should know the details better than me.”
Lu Heng nodded and sighed: “That’s right, the context is likely right. But you are wrong about one thing.”
Wang Yanqing hurriedly asked: “What?”
Lu Heng stroked the teacup with his fingers and said slowly: “I ought to not be counted as an idler.”
Wang Yanqing was silent and did not speak for a long time. Lu Heng smiled lightly, and complained half-truthfully: “I’m just joking. Why aren’t you cooperating at all?”
Wang Yanqing forced a smile. She could not understand Lu Heng’s joke. Wang Yanqing said a lot just now, and now she finally sighed helplessly and asked: “Second Brother, what are you doing?”
She understood Tao Yiming and Cheng Youhai’s thoughts, but she couldn’t understand Lu Heng’s. Lu Heng asked: “When did you start to doubt Cheng Youhai and Tao Yiming?”
“Last night.” Wang Yanqing said honestly, “Last night, paper figurines suddenly appeared on the roof. When I went to search outside, I noticed that Prefect Cheng had a strange expression. He has always shown the image of a slippery mediocre official who will flatter others with exaggerated expressions and body movements. I was blinded by his appearance and regarded it as normal. But last night, his surprise and fear were somewhat separated. An official who was too scared to even look at the paper face stood at the gate of the county government office, his body motionless. I had doubts in my heart, and I focused on observing Prefect Cheng at the scene of Tao County Magistrate’s suicide today, and finally confirmed that he came for a show.”
Lu Heng was deeply moved: “Making others feel stupid is really an excellent way to cover up. He is very good at pretending to be a pig to eat the tiger, even I was tricked by him.”
|| “Pretending to be a pig to eat the tiger” (扮猪吃老虎) is a chinese idiom that refers to a person who is scheming and deceitful, deliberately pretending to be a weak person to make the opponent negligent and then using the opportunity to take the final win.
“Really?” Wang Yanqing didn’t believe it, “Is there anyone who can lie to you? Today, I saw that you were like a fish in water, doing it with ease. It’s hard to say who was lying to who.”
“You exaggerate.” Lu Heng said politely and modestly, “When I was in Hegu Village, I really thought he was another idiot. But when I was having dinner in the restaurant that night, I followed Tao Yiming’s experience, and suddenly remembered that Cheng Youhai was a second-class palace graduate in the first year of Jiajing. The emperor is very accurate, and would never put mediocre talents in the second class. After that, I vaguely recalled the evaluation of Cheng Youhai before, and the officials commented that although he was flattering, he was not mediocre and incompetent. I was sure at the time that this old boy was setting me up.”
Hearing this, Wang Yanqing looked at him with indescribable eyes: “Didn’t you say that you were deceived by him? But you obviously saw through it on the first day.”
“Yes.” Lu Heng stroked his hands seriously, “He lied to me all morning, isn’t that enough?”
Wang Yanqing was silent, not knowing what to say for a moment. In the end, she could only sigh: “You have a really good memory.”
An ordinary tutor who had never met him before could remember which year he was a candidate. Lu Heng was in charge of the entire global intelligence system. It was his daily task to look through official information, but he could remember a page he read casually.
What kind of brain was this.
Lu Heng often heard these kind of words. In the past, when others praised him, Lu Heng only felt that the other party flattered him, which was extremely disgusting, but when these words came out of Wang Yanqing’s mouth, they became very pleasant. Lu Heng felt at ease and declined without sincerity: “It’s just normal.”
“And then?” Wang Yanqing was quite curious, “What were you doing these two days?”
“Aside from him, the art of war was about knowing yourself and the enemy. I just saw what this group of people wanted to do.” Lu Heng spoke, pursing his lips in an unclear way, “They give me many surprises.”
Wang Yanqing opened her eyes slightly larger, her body moved toward him unconsciously, and she looked at him seriously. Lu Heng didn’t bother to say it at first, but seeing her admiring and curious eyes, Lu Heng couldn’t hold back, and said slowly: “After I came back from the restaurant, I was sure that something was wrong with Cheng Youhai and Tao Yiming. Tao Yiming cleaned out the room where the files were originally stored, and vacated it for our stay…”
Lu Heng snorted lightly, and sighed: “Such an obvious action. Wasn’t he just waiting for me to go through those files?”
Thinking about what happened yesterday, Wang Yanqing seemed to realize something: “So when you said to go to bed first, and that there was no rush now…”
Lu Heng nodded: “Yes. There were so many files, I couldn’t read them all by dawn. I dislike doing work without reward the most. With such a beautiful woman in front of me, why should I go through dusty files? Sure enough, they sent new clues just after nightfall. After the paper figurine escaped, Cheng Youhai appeared soon after. His clothes looked messy, but the uppers of his shoes were clean and tidy, he had obviously been ready for a while. Paper figurines were generally used for practical purposes. I followed this direction and started from the most obvious topic when I came back. After flipping through a few books, I saw the Qingxu monastery.”
Obviously, this file was placed there waiting for him to read. It would have taken a long time to find it by himself. Lu Heng was not in a hurry, he did not act until Tao Yiming and Cheng Youhai had finished their performance. It really saved him a lot of effort and he even had time to sleep with Wang Yanqing in the middle of the night.
The “beautiful woman”, Wang Yanqing gave him a dark look and said: “Be more serious. So, the paper figurine that appeared on the roof that night was really someone in disguise?”
Lu Heng stroked the teacup with his fingers and looked at her leisurely: “It may also be a living people turned into paper and driven by Taoist priests.”
“Don’t make trouble, it’s not a joke.” Wang Yanqing patted his arm angrily, and asked with a frown, “But at that time, the front and rear roads were blocked, how did the paper figurine disappear in full view?”
Wang Yanqing’s fingers were slender and soft, this strength was not even enough to tickle him, so Lu Heng took it as flirting. He took the opportunity to clasp Wang Yanqing’s hand, rubbing it from fingertip to fingertip, little by little. He was in a good mood, and he didn’t hesitate to explain her doubts: “Qing Qing, who formed the blockade?”
“The Imperial Guards and the government troops…” Wang Yanqing replied automatically, then suddenly thought of something, and covered her mouth in surprise, “You mean, the person pretending to be the paper figurine was a government soldier?”
Lu Heng nodded absently: “Yes. The best way to hide a leaf is to put it in the woods. There are officers and soldiers searching everywhere. That person just needs to take off the outer paper shell and blend in with the crowd. After that, he took advantage of people not paying attention and put the paper shell outside the county government office.”
Wang Yanqing sighed in admiration: “So that’s what happened. Did you figure it out then?”
Lu Heng enjoyed this kind of praise very much, and approved with a smile.
However, the amazement in Wang Yanqing’s eyes didn’t last long and other emotions quickly rose: “Then you still pretended not to know with me after you come back?”
Lu Heng was very calm: “You didn’t ask.”
Wang Yanqing stopped. She felt that he being unreasonable, but there was no evidence. Wang Yanqing restrained herself and asked: “Then what’s the matter with the Qingxu monastery?”
Lu Heng’s brows moved slightly, and there was a hint of meaning in his smile: “It gets interesting from here. Although their previous tricks were superficial, at least they were interlocking and logically consistent, without any major loopholes. However, in the Qingxu monastery, the flaws were becoming more and more obvious. The sacrifice happened to be burned at the two names that I knew. The altar was set up in the palace, but candle tears flowed down from the northeast. There was dust on the table, but the tablecloth underneath was bright and shining.”
Wang Yanqing became puzzled, and asked in a low voice: “Is there anything wrong with this?”
Lu Heng smiled and said: “It’s not wrong. It’s just that I’m a suspicious person, and I’m used to denying everything first, and then deducing evidence no matter what I encounter. When candles are burned indoors, candle tears should flow evenly from all around, but the candlesticks in the apse of the Qingxu Temple all shed tears in the northeast direction. This can only mean that the windows and doors were open when the candle was burning, and the wind was blowing from the southwest that day.”
Wang Yanqing half-understood. Lu Heng felt her soft fingers, her utterly trusting gesture, and added with a smile: “On the twenty-sixth day, the wind blew from the southwest. The Liu family mother and daughter-in-law complained in front of the emperor on the twenty fifth. Cheng Youhai learned that something was wrong, so he hurried to find someone to remedy it. He mobilized craftsmen from all over the house to make one hundred and two paper figurines, which would be completed on the evening of the twenty sixth. He took a paper figurine to scare me, and put another hundred or so in the Qingxu monastery, hurriedly set up the monastery , and led me there on the twenty seventh. To make the candles burn as soon as possible, they had to open the windows to ventilate. They did not want their clever move to be covered with errors, but they left flaws on the candles. Cheng Youhai was an official for many years and knows a lot of skills in solving crimes. He noticed that I checked the dust in the Liu family’s house, so he sprinkled fine soil on the altar to make it seem like it was displayed two or three months ago. But he forgot that it was rainy in the fifth and sixth month this year. If the brocade and paper in the altar had been left in the cold and damp apse for a long time, there should be a musty smell. However, the yellow silk cloth covering the wooden table was dry and bright, without any trace of mold.”
As Lu Heng spoke, he let out a long sigh: “There were too many flaws, it was just clumsy and scary.”
Wang Yanqing was silent for a long time, and suddenly felt a chill down her spine: “I think it’s you who is the scariest.”
Wang Yanqing didn’t go to the Qingxu monastery because of the her sudden period, but according to Lu Heng’s description, she had already felt Lu Heng’s terrifying observation and reasoning abilities.
Cheng Youhai could notice that Lu Heng checked the dust, could arrange for his officers and soldiers to vanish leaving an empty shell and play tricks, and could remember to forge dust on the altar. No matter how you looked at it, he was not a mediocre person. Cheng Youhai was not foolish at all, on the contrary, this person was very deep-minded. If he was exchanged with an ordinary official, they would be like a headless chicken, and Cheng Youhai would have led him by the nose a long time ago.
However, Cheng Youhai’s strong opposing awareness was still lost to Lu Heng. It can only be said that for every mountain there is a taller mountain, and among the strange, there is one even stranger.
Wang Yanqing cast herself in admiration, and asked: “Since the altar of the Qingxu monastery is fake, then the evidence of Tang Sai’er’s portrait and the White Lotus were also deliberately placed there for you to discover? But in the files, it was clear that a villager reported to the police, saying that he saw a Taoist priest of Qingxu moanstery carrying something while walking at night…”
“Fake.” Lu Heng said, “I checked the astronomical records of Weihui Mansion. There was no moon on that day, and they were walking at night. How did they see Taoist priests carrying things?”
Wang Yanqing was speechless for a while, and asked after a long time: “Cheng Youhai pretended to be a paper figurine, forged an altar, and sent someone to report a false case. What on earth is he trying to do after so much fuss?”
“Man dies for money, bird dies for food. He is an official in the court, what else can he do?” Lu Heng smiled and said, “Do you think he doesn’t know that there are flaws in the scene he hastily arranged?” He knew, but he didn’t care, or it was part of his plan. The Liu family’s mother and daughter-in-law reported the case and directly brought the matter to the emperor. Hiding gold mines privately is a capital crime with punishment of ransacking one’s family and killing them. Once found out, neither he nor his family can escape. The emperor’s beliefs were well known throughout the court, so he wanted to forge a mysterious technique to push the crime of missing more than a hundred people to strange forces and chaos. But the emperor is a believer, not stupid. Cheng Youhai also knew that the paper man theory was untenable, so he prepared follow-up tricks. He secretly hid the portrait of Tang Sai’er in the Qingxu monastery, killed Tao Yiming after the incident, disguised himself as the county magistrate and colluded with the White Lotus, and kidnapped more than a hundred people. At that time, the court’s attention would be attracted by the White Lotus. Who would stare at the missing villagers? There was no change of commander before the battle, Cheng Youhai would be convicted of negligence at most, and afterward he would be able to encircle and suppress the remnants of the White Lotus. If the plan was successful, he would become rich and famous.”
Wang Yanqing understood that Tao Yiming and Cheng Youhai seemed to be working together to deal with the aftermath, but in fact Cheng Youhai wanted to make Tao Yiming a scapegoat, while Tao Yiming hesitated to expose Cheng Youhai to protect himself; Lu Heng seemed to follow Cheng Youhai’s design to solve the case, but in fact he already knew their plans, and intentionally accompanied them in acting. During the half-day tour of the Qingxu monastery, the three officials seemed to be cooperating in investigating the case, but in fact, each of them had their own ulterior motives and acted on their own. Wang Yanqing regretted missing this scene.
Wang Yanqing sighed slightly, and asked: “Where did the real Taoist priests of the Qingxu monastery go?”
“They are probably dead.” Lu Heng said flatly, “I asked Fang Ji to go to the back to find traces of Taoist priests, but I was actually looking for places to bury a corpse. They rummaged all afternoon on the mountain and finally found it.”
No wonder Chen Yuxuan was by Lu Heng’s side just now, and Fang Ji was missing. Wang Yanqing finally sorted out what happened during this period of time. She sat upright, looked at Lu Heng fixedly, and suddenly became serious: “Tao Yiming and Cheng Youhai were originally grasshoppers on the same rope, but now they are suspicious of each other. Second Brother, what role did you play in this?”
Lu Heng smiled slightly, as if he didn’t understand: “What?”
“After I fell asleep last night, I vaguely heard someone going out. That person was you, right?” Wang Yanqing quietly watched herself as a miniature reflection in Lu Heng’s eyes, “What did you go out for?”
Lu Heng was thoughtful: “Sleeping shallowly is not a good problem, it seemed that I should get you some calming medicine for some other day.”
“Second Brother.”
Lu Heng sighed slightly: “It’s not a good thing to ask for the root reason. You guessed it right, I went to find Tao Yiming.”
“Why?”
“To talk to him and ask if he wanted to cooperate.”
It really was him. Wang Yanqing couldn’t describe the feeling in her heart, and sighed: “It’s really from your tricks that the two of them are separated.”
“How can this be called tricks.” Lu Heng said lightly, “I am saving him. When I went to find him last night, he was still pretending to be on my side, but today he was really hung on the beam. If it weren’t for me, he’d be a hanged man by now.”
Wang Yanqing asked: “What did Cheng Youhai do?”
Lu Heng took a sip of his tea, and showed some rare appreciation: “He is indeed capable and knows how to solve cases. He put drugs in Tao Yiming’s teacup, and after Tao Yiming fell asleep, he sent someone to hang Tao Yiming’s body on the beam, and pour out the water in the teacup. Tao Yiming was hung alive, and he was unable to call for help when he found out, so even if a coroner was called for an autopsy after death, he would only show symptoms of hanging himself. This method of death is the most difficult to distinguish, the boundary between suicide and homicide is very blurred, and with only one evidence — the tea was destroyed by them, so no matter who came, it could only be determined that Tao Yiming committed suicide. Fortunately, I sent someone to keep an eye on Tao Yiming and untie him from the beam in time, otherwise, he would have to go to the Hall of the King of Hell to appeal for grievances.”
Wang Yanqing gasped, a thief-catcher became the thief, that was the scariest thing. Wang Yanqing regretted it from the bottom of her heart: “He has such talent, why didn’t he become an honest official?”
“If he was an honest official, when would it be his turn to be promoted?” Lu Heng said, “Do you think Tao Yiming is a good person? They are all just as bad as each other. There are no good people who can stay in the officialdom.”
Holding the teacup, Wang Yanqing suddenly asked: “Then what about you?”
“Me?” Lu Heng couldn’t help laughing, and looked at Wang Yanqing with a smile, “Qing Qing, what do you think?”
Wang Yanqing said with a serious face: “I’ve always wanted to ask, since you’ve seen through Cheng Youhai’s tricks long ago, why didn’t you expose him just now?”
“Too much trouble.” Lu Heng shook his head, “If I expose him now, he will definitely not be caught without a fight. I only brought these few people. If he counterattacks, I can’t stop him.”
“No.” Wang Yanqing stared at Lu Heng closely, “Others may be caught off guard, but you definitely won’t.”
Lu Heng laughed: “I’m just an ordinary person, Qing Qing, you think too highly of me.”
“Because you are an Imperial Guard.” Wang Yanqing said, “The officials and ministers in the capital can’t beat you. I don’t believe that you can’t control a mere magistrate.”
Lu Heng sighed, so to speak, acquaintances are troublesome. He said: “Yes, I can, but I don’t have to. Wouldn’t it be better for him to follow me back to the palace obediently, saving time and effort?”
“Just because of this?” Wang Yanqing mustered all her thoughts to ask the question, and said in a stern voice, “What exactly do you want to do?” ”
Lu Heng kept silent and looked at Wang Yanqing. Wang Yanqing’s eyes were discerning, and she was also looking at him seriously. Lu Heng looked at her for a while, then laughed lightly.
He was smiling all night, but only at this moment, his smile was sincere.
Lu Heng reluctantly clutched Wang Yanqing’s hand, and sighed from the bottom of his heart: “What should I do, Qing Qing, I like you more and more.”