Volume 2: Eagle vs. Dragon Chapter 84 Who is the Fish?
Seeing that Wu Chengjian still had a puzzled look on his face, Liu Quan said, "You can do what I say in this matter. You can rest assured. Even if you enter the Fortress of Fortresses and the Golden Palace, I, Liu Quan, can ensure that you go in and come back safely."
Wu Chengjian hesitated and said, "This matter is of great importance, and what Lord Quan said is against common sense. Could you please give me some more instructions, otherwise I'm afraid I won't be able to handle it properly when the time comes."
Liu Quan glanced at Wu Chengjian and said, "Do you really want to know? You know, if you really ask for the truth, it may not be a blessing for you."
Wu Chengjian also understood this, but he was not the kind of person who would ever put his life and death in the hands of others. He could pretend to be ignorant when he knew the truth, but if he was asked to be truly ignorant, that would not work.
After Wu Xiaojiu came back from the Wu family mansion, he reported the instructions. Seeing that Cai Qinghua was gone, he went to call the cook next door to cook. After the meal was ready, he brought it back upstairs, muttering, "That Master Cai is finally gone. Humph, although he is your master, Master Zhou, he never does good things every time he comes."
Zhou Yijin seemed to have not heard Wu Xiaojiu's mumbling. He put down the book and ate the food Wu Xiaojiu brought him, but he did not know the taste. Suddenly, he jumped up, pointed at Wu Xiaojiu and said, "Go down!"
Wu Xiaojiu was stunned: "Ah?"
Zhou Yijin shouted: "I told you to get off!"
Wu Xiaojiu was frightened by his sharp eyes. He didn't know if he had said something wrong, and went downstairs with a sad face.
Zhou Yijin covered the entrance to the small building, then raised the lamp, took out a box, and took out a pile of notes from the box. He searched desperately for a long time and finally found it: "Here, here!" His fingers, under the light, found a line of words.
Then he rummaged through the boxes and drawers, found the Four Books from the bookcase, picked out "Mencius" from the Four Books, and from "Mencius" he turned to "The King Hui of Liang - Part One". He then settled on the second page of "The King Hui of Liang - Part One", took out a bottle of medicine and a knife with an extremely thin blade, dipped it in the medicine, and began to shave the pages - this page of paper was obviously of ordinary thickness, but after the edge of the page was dipped in the medicine, he shaved off three layers, and the layer hidden in the middle was surprisingly the list stolen from the "red goods".
The list itself was not so thin, but it had been specially cut and was now thinner than a cicada's wing. Zhou Yijin carefully held the list in his hand, saw the seal below it, and compared it with the notebook. He screamed, slapped his forehead with his palm, and sat down on the floor.
"The Seal of Sui Amuro... The Seal of Sui Amuro!"
Zhou Yijin raised his hand, allowing the dim light to illuminate the seal on the list, which had turned light red due to processing.
"really!"
"He knows... he knows he knows!" Zhou Yijin murmured in his mouth, as if chanting a spell: "But he doesn't know! So... he wants to mess with him, he knows he wants to mess with him, but he lets him do it, and then let him mess it up, until he knows he wants to mess with him, and then..."
“Ridiculous… Ridiculous…” Zhou Yijin smiled bitterly with a strange look on his face: “Master, you thought you were helping Governor Zhu, but you actually committed a big taboo without even realizing it… Haha, haha!”
After hesitating for a moment, Wu Chengjian nodded.
Liu Quan's face darkened: "Okay, since you want to know, I will tell you, so that you can live a clear life." He paused, and then said: "Although the current emperor is not aware of the red goods leaving the palace, the old emperor knows it."
In an instant, two voices sounded at the same time.
One is that in Wu Chengjian’s mind, it was like the collapse of the Pearl River dam and the backflow of , or like a thunderbolt hitting his head, which burst his skull: in an instant, a dozen suspicious details were pieced together, making him understand all the things he didn’t understand at once!
Another sound came from outside where there was suddenly some movement.
Liu Quan frowned and called out, "Hutab? Hutab?"
There was no sound, so he raised his voice again: "Khutabu! Hutabu!"
The door creaked open, and Hutab finally opened it and came in, saying, "Master Quan, you called me?"
Liu Quan asked: "What was that sound just now?"
Hutabu said, "Master, it's nothing. It seems that a mouse ran over and rubbed against the door. Don't worry, there was no one outside the door just now."
Liu Quan waved his hand: "Go ahead."
Hutab said yes and closed the door.
Thanks to this buffer, Wu Chengjian finally came to his senses a little, but his face was still very ugly.
Seeing his expression, Liu Quan smiled and said, "I said, it's not a blessing that you know this."
Wu Chengjian tried to speak, but his teeth knocked against each other and he was unable to speak for a moment.
Liu Quan said: "It seems that you have figured it out, otherwise you wouldn't be like this...Hao Guan, you are good at everything except being too smart. So now, what kind of answer do you want to give me?"
His eyes suddenly became like those of an eagle.
This is the unique oppressive force that comes from people who have held power for a long time.
Wu Chengjian knew that there were only two paths in front of him: one was life, the other was death! And there was no delay. Liu Quan was not like Cai Qinghua. He had already told Wu Chengjian the truth. If Wu Chengjian nodded, he would live, and if he shook his head, he would die.
Whether it's Cai Qinghua, Zhu Gui, or the guy called Guangxing, they are just a group of people who have not yet truly taken power. The man in front of him, and the people behind him, if they have a strong enough motive, can immediately wipe out Wu Chengjian's existence from this world.
Even if there will be consequences...
But the matter at hand was earth-shattering! Wu Chengjian would never be able to refuse it!
For this matter, not to mention Wu Chengjian's life, Heshen could kill all the lives of all the guarantors in the Thirteen Hongs without even a frown!
Although Wu Chengjian's neck was stiff, he nodded under Liu Quan's ferocious gaze.
Liu Quan laughed and even learned a very unstandard Cantonese phrase: "La Zai!”
Wu Chengjian didn't even know how Liu Quan left. When he came to his senses, he found himself collapsed on the straw. The bedding that Cai Qiaozhu had someone bring in was torn into pieces before he realized it.
He suddenly laughed, and laughed like a madman at the unlocked prison pillar and the mottled prison wall.
He laughed so crazily in the middle of the night, as if a ghost had crawled out from the depths of hell, making the jailers outside laugh so hard that they felt scared.
The prison boss was afraid that something had happened to him, so he couldn't help but run in asked, "Officer Hao, Officer Hao, what happened to you?"
Wu Chengjian was in the cell, jumping around like a monkey, and said with a smile, "Old Lu, am I like Sun Wukong?"
The prison boss had been in charge of this prison for most of his life and had seen many prisoners executed, but he was frightened by Wu Chengjian's appearance and said, "Officer Hao, what's wrong with you? Are you crazy, or are you pretending to be crazy?"
Wu Chengjian said with a smile, "I am Sun Wukong. Can't you see that? I am going to cause havoc in the Heavenly Palace. I am going to pull down the Jade Emperor from his throne. The Buddha in the West Heaven said that the old Jade Emperor is too ignorant. It would be better to replace him with someone else. Old Lu, do you think I am powerful?"
"You're crazy, crazy!" the prison boss said, "You said I was clearly providing you with good food and drink, but you suddenly became crazy for no reason... How can I explain this to others?"
Ye Youyu brought Dongxue with her, prepared some morning tea and breakfast, and went out early in the morning. However, she met Zhou Yijin who came to pick her up. She was a little surprised because Zhou Yijin didn't say that he would accompany her today, but she didn't ask.
When they got outside the cell, the head of the prison said, "Oh my, Master Zhou, I'm so sorry. Officer Hao...he's crazy!"
Dongxue, Wu Xiaojiu and others who came with him were all shocked.
Zhou Yijin asked: "What's going on?"
"This... we don't know anything!" The jailer said, "After you left yesterday, Master Zhou, we all got drunk. Then at night, Hao Guan suddenly went crazy for no reason. He shouted that he was Sun Wukong and was going to cause trouble in the Heavenly Palace. It was so early in the morning, and I didn't even have time to report the wrongful sentence."
Ye Youyu looked at Zhou Yijin, and Zhou Yijin said, "I'll go in and take a look first. You guys stay outside."
He pushed the door open, then closed it and walked into the cell. He saw Wu Chengjian slumped there, his body stiff. He saw Zhou Yijin coming but did not stand up.
But Zhou Yijin saw the look in his eyes and knew that there was nothing wrong with his sanity. He looked inside the cell and saw that the bedding was broken and the coffee table was overturned. He kicked away a few pieces of debris, sat down next to Wu Chengjian, and asked, "What's going on?"
Wu Chengjian said in a toneless voice: "After you left yesterday, Liu Quan came."
Zhou Yijin's heart shuddered - the jailer didn't mention anyone coming to visit him, either because he didn't dare to say it, or it was more likely that Liu Quan had made some arrangements so that the jailer didn't know what had happened. Obviously, when it came to controlling such matters, Liu Quan's methods were still far superior to Cai Qinghua's.
Zhou Yijin asked, "Did he reveal his true colors to you?"
Wu Chengjian saw Zhou Yijin's extremely solemn expression and suddenly asked, "Why are you here today?"
When the two looked into each other's eyes, their minds understood each other.
Wu Chengjian asked: "You... guessed it?"
Zhou Yijin took the coffee table next to him that was missing a leg, padded it with something, and took out a sachet with a waterproof oil silk bag hidden inside. He then took out the page of the list from the bag, placed it on the coffee table, and pushed it over.
At this time, the dawn light had already penetrated through the small window of the cell. Of course, the lighting in the cell was mainly dependent on candlelight.
Wu Chengjian glanced at the list and said, "I've seen it before, but I can't see anything."
Zhou Yijin pointed to the "Seal of Sui'an Room", moved closer to Wu Chengjian, and whispered in his ear: "When Emperor Qianlong was a prince, he lived in Chonghua Palace, and the name of his study was Sui'an Room."
Wu Chengjian said "oh" and figured it out. He then smiled bitterly, "We have always focused on the popular goods. Ever since that thing was put into the warehouse , you guessed that someone was going to move Yihe Bank. Cai Shiwen exposed this matter because he wanted to kill someone with a borrowed knife - to use the knife of the Governor of Guangdong and Guangxi to kill me, Wu Chengjian, and avenge himself. We went a step further and guessed that your master had bigger plans and deliberately targeted you and me. It was just a bait, and their real purpose was to make peace with us! However, we still didn't expect..."
He suddenly couldn't continue.
Zhou Yijin added: "We didn't expect that someone had a more far-reaching plan - it turns out that the fisherman is the one being fished."