Chapter 687: Chapter 687: Yao Po Chapter 687: Chapter 687: Yao Po Lu Erbai also noticed that Carpenter Yao was gone. He hurriedly turned his head and asked the young man, “Yao Po, what happened? Where’s your dad?”
“My dad, he’s been detained by the Office.”
Lu Erbai’s eyes widened, and even Shu Yu was taken aback for a moment.
Detained by the Office? But the guard had clearly told her that they had simply driven the person away.
Yao Po gave a wry smile, “Uncle Lu, you know that my dad wanted to see the governor. Early this morning, I accompanied my dad to the entrance of the county office, hoping to meet the governor. But the officers at the gate wouldn’t let us in; they drove us away. Not long after we left, suddenly, we saw the constables from the Office rush over and they grabbed us.”
“Why, why would they arrest you?”
“They said there’s been an incident at the county office, and they need to arrest anyone they find suspicious. My dad had been lurking around outside the Office for so long, they claimed he must have had some ulterior motives and wanted to harm the governor. They wanted to bring us back for questioning,” Yao Po said indignantly. “We recognized those constables, how could we be suspicious? They were just looking for an excuse to seek credit in front of the governor.”
Shu Yu was puzzled, “Seek credit? What credit?”
“The constable who arrested me lives not far from here, and his wife is on good terms with mine. So he took advantage of the chaos to let me go. The constables didn’t come after me, and after I escaped, he found an excuse to come back.”
“He told me that the county magistrate is in trouble, and so is the group associated with him. Once the county magistrate is taken away, quite a few positions will open up below, and then those officers who are usually on the fringes might get used. So now they are jumping up and down, trying to earn merits by not letting any suspicious person go. They bring them in for questioning first and release them later if they find nothing. It’s not just my dad; since yesterday afternoon, they’ve arrested quite a few people, even the local tyrant Boss He was caught.”
Shu Yu, “…”. Hmm, what should she say?
Mrs. Yao finally stopped crying. She wiped her tears and said, “Our Old Yao has always been upright and honest; surely nothing’s wrong. He will be released. I, I’m just worried about him suffering in there–the methods the constables use to interrogate prisoners are not gentle at all.”
Moreover, their Old Yao had been originally sent to this place as an exiled prisoner.
What the Yao Family worried about was also what Lu Erbai worried about.
Seeing him at a loss, Shu Yu couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow and looked at Yao Po, asking, “Brother Yao, when Uncle Yao wanted to see Mister Qi, did he have something to hand over to him?”
Yao Po was taken aback, he hesitated and gave her a glance, but didn’t reply.
Lu Erbai quickly said, “This is my daughter Erya, Yao Po. My Yu is very trustworthy, you can tell her anything.”
Yao Po’s eyelids twitched. Was it that he didn’t trust Shu Yu? He didn’t even trust Lu Erbai, okay??
Shu Yu almost laughed thanks to her father’s antics, she coughed lightly to calm the anxious Lu Erbai, and said to Yao Po, “I can meet with Mister Qi. I have a token from Mister Qi; not only can I have your dad released, but I can also take him to meet someone. But I need to know what you have at hand first. If I make a rash introduction and you come up empty-handed, I might be the one who ends up in trouble.”