(Thank you for the commuter pass from my book friend!) ）

After Su Jin made an appointment with Lang Shaodong on the secret contact method, he took his leave and left.

Lang Shaodong returned to the hall and sat down slowly, as if he had a dream, in a trance; Looking at the package wrapped in gold and silver on the table, Lang Shaodong's family felt a burst of tightness in his heart, a chill on his body, and secretly scolded himself for agreeing to Su Jin to help him in a daze.

Su Jin said it nicely, this is to show himself a clear way, but in fact, he just wants to be an undercover agent; Lang Shaodong frowned and carefully recalled all the conversations with Su Jin just now, and suddenly he found that there were really many loopholes in Su Jin's words, maybe he was flustered just now, maybe he was afraid, in short, he didn't have time to think about it carefully, and he didn't find it.

Now it is difficult to ride a tiger, if what Su Jin said is true, it means that the imperial court did send someone to investigate the evidence of the crimes of Zhu Shiyong and others, and it is naturally a wise move to save his life and make meritorious contributions to standing in the same camp as Su Jin at this time; But if what Su Jin said is untrue, if he can't defeat Zhu Shiyong, he will have no place to stand in Luzhou in the future, how can Zhu Shiyong and the Chamber of Commerce tolerate him; No one knows their methods better than himself.

Lang Shaodong remembered that his father had talked to him about the methods of the Tang Dynasty before he died, he said that after the Tang Dynasty used despicable means to kill the former president of the Chamber of Commerce, Su Moran, he began to force the merchants to join the Chamber of Commerce.

Lang Shaodong followed his father's legacy and kept up with Tang Jiyuan's footsteps, Tang Jiyuan did not embarrass him too much, and all the industries in the city that were monopolized by him let Lang Shaodong share a small cup; Other small businesses are not so lucky, after they joined the Chamber of Commerce, Tang Jiyuan forcibly assigned the business industry, rice oil cloth village and other money-making industries are monopolized by four or five large households, and the rest of the merchants can only do some small business with a meager income to survive; Although Tang Jiyuan will symbolically share some dividends every year to appease these merchants, compared to the profits obtained, this amount of money is not enough to plug the gaps.

Lang Shaodong's hesitation is also for a reason, he could have taken a closer relationship with Tang Jiyuan, but four years ago he fell behind in the competition for the position of vice president, Tang Jiyuan chose the resourceful Liu Ji and Huang Ji, who had more financial resources than his own, as his right and left hands, which made Lang Shaodong a big blow.

Lang Shaodong thinks that he is not much worse than these two people, especially that Vice President Liu, who looks treacherous and insidious, and he is not a local businessman in Luzhou, but an outsider who moved to Luzhou from other state capitals more than ten years ago.

Lang Shaodong's dissatisfaction is manifested in the words of the two vice presidents on weekdays, they have fallen out many times, and every time they fall out, Lang Shaodong scolds him without a nose and face, which makes everyone very embarrassed; Over time, Tang Jiyuan gradually alienated him, and even now, he was beaten by the prefect's board, and several presidents didn't even let out a fart, and they didn't even have the idea of coming to see him.

What made Lang Yongping's heart even more cold was that Tang Jiyuan and the others knew that this time the grain was something they had to do, but they didn't greet themselves in advance, but let themselves make trouble with the prefect, making it clear that they wanted to see their own jokes, and their own scandal was not so much the prefect's hand, but because of Tang Jiyuan and others.

After thinking about it, Lang Yongping finally made a decision, the Chamber of Commerce is unreliable, Su Jin is also unreliable, he can't be fooled by the trick, everything has to rely on himself, and the first thing to do now is to verify the authenticity of what Su Jin said; If what Su Jin said was true, then he would have to make a decision immediately and immediately draw a line with Zhu Shiyong and others from the Chamber of Commerce; And Su Jin can help if he can, but he must not risk his life.

Thinking of this, Lang Yongping said loudly to the young man standing on the side: "You go and call the old butler, and set up another carriage and wait at the door." ”

After a while, Ma Laosan, the old housekeeper of the Lang family, hurriedly came with the hem of his robe, and Lang Yongping ordered: "Butler Ma, I heard that you have a good relationship with the head of the government Zhao Bantou, and the two of you have eaten flower wine together many times, so the friendship should be not shallow." ”

Steward Ma was taken aback, this matter actually let the Shaodong family know, these money are deducted from the mansion on weekdays, and pleasing Zhao Bantou is also to leave a way back for himself, the Shaodong family is a mean and fragmented person, and it is especially unpleasant for him to do things here.

However, the young owner suddenly talked about it, and I am afraid that it will not be good today.

But he didn't expect Lang Shaodong to be angry, and said calmly: "You ask him to help me check one thing, and I have a reward after finding out that it is correct, and I will come back and report it immediately if I find it." ”

Steward Ma hurriedly said: "What does the young owner want to check?" ”

Lang Yongping said: "You go and ask Zhao Bantou, there is a messenger named Chen Laogen in the yamen where he is now, if this person is not in Luzhou, you can ask when he left Luzhou and what errand he went." ”

Steward Ma said: "What did the young owner ask this Chen Laogen for?" ”

Lang Yongping paused and said: "This person owes me a lot of copper money, and I didn't see him repay the loan at the end of the year, I want to confirm whether he ran away from the debt, if he is still on an errand in the yamen, don't alarm him, if the person doesn't run away, it's fine." ”

Steward Ma arched his hand and said: "This matter is easy to do, the villain will go and ask Zhao Bantou." ”

Lang Yongping said: "Go to the counter to pay 500 yuan, take it to buy some pastries to find Zhao Bantou, it's not good to talk about the big festival empty-handed, I'll wait here, you go back quickly." ”

Steward Ma was relieved, and went out with a smoke, Lang Yongping sat dead in the hall and waited, seeing that the sun was gradually rising, it was already past the hour, and when he was pacing anxiously, Steward Ma came back panting.

"How? Did you find him? ”

"I found it, the little one went to Zhao Bantou's house and pounced on it, and after asking, I learned that the whole yamen went to Zhu Governor's house to pay New Year's greetings today, so the little one rushed to Zhu's house on the Yuema Bridge, and finally asked someone to call Zhao Bantou out and ask clearly."

"Chen Laogen can be in Luzhou?" Lang Yongping said urgently.

Steward Ma said in his heart: Seeing that his eyes are about to pop out like this, this Chen Laogen must have owed a lot of money to the young owner.

"Back to the young owner's house, there is indeed a person named Chen Laogen in the yamen, but this person is no longer alive."

"What?" Lang Yongping exclaimed.

"Zhao Bantou said that on the eighth day of November last year, this Chen Laogen was sent to deliver official documents to the Suzhou Mansion, but this person is not very active in his brain and does not know how to detour.

Lang Yongping hurriedly said: "How do they know that Chen Laogen is dead? ”

Steward Ma said: "Zhao Bantou said it, the prefect said it himself, and said that someone in Shouzhou saw him die, and an obituary was issued in the yamen, and even the money for the bereavement was personally sent to the Chen family by the prefect Zhu and given to Chen Laogen's blind mother." ”

Lang Yongping couldn't make a sound for a long time with his mouth open, and his mind was in chaos.

"Young owner, how much does this guy owe you?" Steward Ma asked with concern, looking at the young owner like this, I am afraid that there are a lot of them.

"Stand down." Lang Yongping waved his hand.

Steward Ma refused to leave, Lang Yongping promised to give a reward after finishing the work, and he didn't say a word about it.

"Why don't you quit?"

"Young Owner...... The reward ......"

"Reward your mother's legs." Lang Yongping was upset, this guy was still bothering here, and the steward who flew up and kicked kicked the horse fell and gnawed on the mud, and scolded: "Do you think I don't know that you deduct the amount of money in the house on weekdays?" Where did you get the money to go to the kiln and drink flowers and wine? Dog minion, if you don't get out, the master will beat you all over the ground looking for teeth. ”

Steward Ma hurriedly turned around and fled out of the hall, feeling "dog offal" and "dog. Mother. Raising's scolding turned the sky upside down.

Lang Yongping paced quickly in the hall, thinking about whose words were true, now it seems that Chen Laogen's letter has been confirmed, Su Jin and Zhu Shiyong both said so, it must be undoubted.

Zhu Shiyong said that Chen Laogen was dead, and Su Jin said that Chen Laogen was alive, which is difficult to judge.

If Chen Laogen is really dead, why did Su Jin reveal the news that Chen Laogen is alive to Zhu Shiyong?

If Zhu Shiyong really got the exact news of Chen Laogen's death, how could he believe the news?

If Zhu Shiyong didn't believe it, wouldn't Su Jin be doing useless work?

Many questions came one after another, making it difficult for Lang Yongping to decide; Suddenly, Lang Yongping remembered one thing, that Zhao Bantou said that Chen Laogen went to Suzhou to deliver official documents on the eighth day of November, wasn't it the day when the army was forbidden to transport grain out of the city? After Su Jin exterminated the bandits in Bagong Mountain, more than ten days later, according to Zhao Bantou, Chen Laogen had already died in the hands of the bandits, and then how could Su Jin know Chen Laogen's name? How did he know that Chen Laogen was going to deliver the letter?

It's already clear that Zhu Shiyong is lying! In fact, he didn't know Chen Laogen's life and death, or he would rather Chen Laogen was dead; The reason why he sent an obituary and a bereavement pension was to cause public opinion that Chen Laogen died, even if this Chen Laogen was not dead, as long as it fell into his hands, he would let Chen Laogen really die, because it was not an official document sent by Chen Laogen at all.

"Someone, prepare the car!" Lang Yongping shouted.

"Young owner, the car has already been prepared." The young man hurriedly came in from outside the door.

"With the gifts on the table, let's go out to pay New Year's greetings."

"Whose house are you going to? President Don? ”

"Go to the house of the prefect of Yuema Bridge, President Tang and they must be there, but it will save my family from running away."

The young man agreed, picked up the heavy package on the table and stuffed it into the carriage, Lang Yongping had long forgotten the pain in his buttocks, and quickly got into the carriage; The handlebar whip snapped into the void with a crisp whip sound, and the mule cart replied, quickly disappearing behind a pale green willow tree on the street corner.