Yu Zhou.
It's been five days since Luo Wei's group arrived. Every day, Luo Wei spent his time taking a leisurely stroll through the streets with the secret guards, leaving Qi Zi to take care of Wei Lan at the inn.
Today was the sixth day since they'd been here. Luo Wei, Ten, and Eleven sat at a tea house by the side of the street.
They've been drinking, eating, and playing everyday. Ten and the guards had no problems with it themselves, naturally, but they worried for Luo Wei. If he kept this up, how was their young master going to report back to the emperor? The guards couldn't hide anything from the emperor. Would they actually have to tell Emperor Xing Wu that Luo Wei had just spent his time playing?
At the secret guards' daily struggle of wanting to say something but stopping themselves at the last moment, Luo Wei could only smile. He knew what they were thinking, and was grateful that they worried about him. This meant that they were hoping that he'd succeed. There were some things that Luo Wei just couldn't straight out tell them, though. Yu Zhou's waters ran deep, but for Luo Wei, it only took a single glance to see the grains of sand that settled in its depths.
The area where the north and south parts of Yu Zhou converged was rich in ore. Historically, the commoners who served here were very well off. The junior chancellor, Liu Shuang Shi had managed this area for years, making it one of the largest sources of wealth for Long Xuan's faction. Zheng Jing Feng, the one who eventually ascended as Emperor Ping Chang's minister of revenue was still in Yu Zhou at this time. He currently served as the adviser at Yu Zhou's magistrate. The very reason that this Yu Zhou case had ended without being solved in Luo Wei's past life was because the senior chancellor's faction had, at the every end, not been able to see that this little adviser was the real master of Yu Zhou.
"Ten," From the upper floor of the teahouse, Luo Wei pointed down at a group of Yu Zhou Magistrate's runners, "How many times have you seen this group of people?"
Ten replied, "We've seen them everyday, twice at day on this street."
Eleven added, "Same people, carrying the same sedan. Who are they escorting back and forth? No official has an address registered here."
Luo Wei laid it out, "The man in the sedan is named Zheng Jing Feng. A failed scholar who'd tried for the imperial exams for ten years. He's an adviser at Yu Zhou's magistrate now."
"An adviser?" Ten asked, "Why would a simple adviser need a team of runners escorting him everyday?"
"This proves that he'd not just an adviser," Luo Wei watched as the little dark blue sedan was carried further and further, his lips holding a smile with some unknown meaning. He'd delayed telling the secret guard about Zheng Jing Feng for a few days, mainly so that Emperor Xing Wu wouldn't question why he'd known about Zheng Jing Feng right from the start. If he'd known everything from the start and still put up pretenses to bring people to Yu Zhou, Emperor Xing Wu would think that Luo Wei's tactics are too devious. He'd think Luo Wei had played dumb to gain more favor, and maybe that suspicion would even carry over to his father, Luo Zhi Qiu.
At this point, Ten and Eleven seemed to have understood why Luo Wei had brought them here everyday.
"You're going to go to his house tonight," Luo Wei instructed Ten, "Take a look around, best to see if he's got some account books or the likes hidden away somewhere."
"Understood," Ten and Eleven accepted the orders. This sort of business was easy for secret guards like them, maybe even too easy.
"But don't scare him off or set off any alarms," Luo Wei poured more tea for the two of them, "It's still early, let's sit for a little while longer."
When you know the answer to a riddle that no one in the world can solve, you'd feel as if this wasn't a difficult riddle at all. Luo Wei looked content and self satisfied as he sat at this exquisitely designed tea house and watched the bustle of the market. The voice of a songstress below accompanied by an ensemble of strings and woodwinds drifted past them. No one would know that behind Luo Wei's pleasant expression, he was imagining what this street would look like on the day that the emperor raged as this Yu Zhou case was uncovered.
Half an hour later, at the magistrate, Zheng Jing Feng received a secret message from the capital.
"Luo Wei might already be in Yu Zhou, be cautious."
Zheng Jing Feng hurried into the study of Yu Zhou's magistrate. A moment later, the entire force of the magistrate was mobilized, searching every hotel and inn in the city for a youth from the capital.
TRANSLATOR'S NOTE:
Double update today!