Chapter 228: Jail Carts

Disclaimer: 

1. This is an unofficial translation and no permission has been obtained from the author/ official publisher. It may be taken down if the author/official publisher requests. 

2. This is a fan work and the interpretation represents only the translator’s personal views without any input from the author. 

3. No permission has been granted to use, publish, upload and/or copy this translation to any other site except for Second Life Translations.

---

Liu Lin however, wasn’t so sure. After a while, he said, “Is that enough? How can someone who became such a high ranking official not have thought of this point? Furthermore… he’s not a fool, surely he can calculate how little we are spending?”

Shi Cheng smiled and said, “So long as he’s not an idiot, he would definitely be able to figure out how much we’ve spent…. For these kinds of matters, even if others don’t, he would definitely be extremely clear. It’s not as though he hasn’t done these sorts of things to others before, so how can he not be extremely clear about it? But we are not trying to impress him with the amount of money we spend, rather, we are trying to use the emotional route – we need to move him!”

Liu Lin was still a bit worried, “I still feel… that it’s too easy? Has no one ever thought of doing something like this before? Not even the official or the others he’s extorted before?”

“Well, we’ve already checked his old home and it does indeed indicate that he’s never thought of this, nor has anyone else thought of it for him.” Shi Cheng smiled and said, “You need to understand that just because you expect something to be done, doesn’t mean that it has. Although we would have expected him to prepare an escape route for himself, the truth is that he hasn’t! Since he has already achieved his high rank, he would only be looking up, rather than behind him. And even if he did look back…. Well, he obviously hasn’t spent too much time planning for a potential retreat.”

The following parts of the text will be scrambled to prevent theft from aggregators and unauthorized epub making. Please support our translators by reading on secondlifetranslations (dot) com. If you are currently on the site and and you are seeing this, please clear your cache.

Nkw Dw’la iwknjzu pyke, “Nlv’p dsv osaau vss xwnb. Fkdnl ol’hl nsxl wr okvb vbkp rzyd, ol pbswze fwpv vau kv! El okzz cwu psxl zyde yaswde bkp sze bsxl, yde tkhl bkx vbl vkvzl elle. Ls xyvvla obyv, vbyv pbswze tkhl bkx psxl qynl aktbv? Ohld kq bl kpd’v pyvkpqkle, kv oswze tkhl wp psxl vkxl? El nyd vbld eayt kv swv, yde vbkdj sq y rzyd. Ls xyvvla obyv, ol nyd yv zlypv cwu swaplzhlp xsal vkxl.”

Fs Nkw Nkd dseele bkp blye, “Gzaktbv, vbld zlv’p es vbkp…. Fldgk yde R okzz pvyu blal. R okzz blzr usw es yduvbkdt usw dlle wp vs es… R nyd yv zlypv cl uswa blzrla. Rv oswze cl clvvla vbyd usw bydezkdt lhlauvbkdt cu uswaplzq.”

Nkw Fld byed’v pyke yduvbkdt qsa y zsdt vkxl, cwv obld bl blyae obyv Nkw Nkd pyke, bl iwknjzu dseele, “Mbyv’p aktbv! R nyd yv zlypv blzr.”

Fbk Ubldt pxkzle yde dseele bkp blye, “Gzaktbv, vbyv oswze cl talyv.”

Nkw Dw’la aykple bla lulcaso.

Mbl dlmv eyu, Fbk Ubldt yde Nkw Nkd oldv swv obkzl Nkw Dw’la iwknjzu pldv psxlsdl cynj vs Wldt vsod vs lmrzykd vbyv Nkw Nkd yde Nkw Fld oswze cl pvyukdt blal qsa y qlo eyup.&dcpr;

Jlnywpl kv oypd’v rsppkczl vs lmrzykd vbl ldvkal pkvwyvksd lypkzu, Nkw Dw’la eked’v csvbla vs vaukdt vs lmrzykd kv kd vbl xlppytl.&dcpr;

Nkw Fld eked’v byhl yduvbkdt vs es, ps bl lmrzsale Tydgbsdt nkvu.&dcpr;

Shi Cheng had directly instructed his people to go to the head of department’s old village to buy the land. Then he went over to share the news with him. Although the head often said that he valued talent, he did have many responsibilities and couldn’t spend all day entertaining Shi Cheng. And since he had only come into contact briefly with Shi Cheng about 20 days ago, he definitely wasn’t close to Shi Cheng. The person Shi Cheng had most contact with was the investigator. 

On the investigator’s side, Shi Cheng had made sure to give him plenty of gifts. It was just that Shi Cheng was rather cunning – he had had plenty of experience, and had handled many difficult situations before – so long as he had an idea of what to do, he would be able to handle the situation with ease. In this period of time, he had frequently met with the investigator.

Even though he had given a lot to this person, it was probably a lot less than the investigator was expecting. 

But Shi Cheng was very good with words. Since he had bought the head of department some land, then he naturally should also give this investigator some land. However, in order not to create trouble for the investigator, his gift to him could not exceed that of the head of department.

In order to maintain relationships, one had to allow some wiggle room. It wasn’t good to force others to the point of no return. 

The investigator knew the principle very well. He accepted Shi Cheng’s gift graciously, without appearing to disdain it’s small amount. It was not convenient for him to show his actual thoughts. He needed to closely examine the head of department’s attitude first. If the head felt that the gift was suitable, and was quite content with it, then he could not be greedier than his superior. Like Shi Cheng said, he couldn’t exceed his superior.

And of course, Shi Cheng had played the emotion card with him as well. 

As for the head of department, he had never expected Shi Cheng to help him pave an escape route. When Shi Cheng presented it to him, he had a whole new level of respect for him. Added to other reasons, the head of department accepted the gift and didn’t ask for anything further. Firstly, for him to blackmail Shi Cheng like this wasn’t that justifiable. 

Secondly, he hesitated to push Shi Cheng that hard. If he pushed him to a wall, the head of department worried that he would just refuse point blank and decide to cut his losses and give up his own reputation! Perhaps he would just forfeit his juren title! If you, the head of department want to put me in my place, then let’s see how far you go with it! Surely you can’t kill me? After all, I wasn’t the one smuggling!

The head of department was crystal clear on that point. 

And lastly, Dongchangfu had already anticipated that they wanted to share their glory. The officials there weren’t stupid. They wouldn’t just wait around to share their glory, so they had already sent their reports up the chain. They made sure to clearly explain that there were a few accomplices staying in Hanzhong prefecture. They had sent the dossier over to request for Hanzhong city to assist with the investigations. Etc. 

Because of all these reasons, and because he had already received Shi Cheng’s “respect”, the head of department saw Shi Cheng in a different light. So he called for the investigator to seal the dossier and prepare to bring the criminals over to Dongchangfu.

Shi Cheng, Liu Xu’er and everyone else heaved a sigh of relief when they heard! Although they had planned for it, they still didn’t quite dare to believe that the department of Public Safety would be willing to let them go. Although the situation had been quite frightening, in the end, it really hadn’t hurt them all that much. 

All told, including the land bought for the two officials, as well as all the other gifts, wining and dining them, they had spent about 500 taels of silver. 

Shi Cheng said to Liu Xu’er, “This is really quite good. Although we lost money out of nowhere, it really is quite difficult to avoid such situations in business. It is just money – the most important thing is that we can let the situation go.”

Liu Xu’er couldn’t help laughing. She had long ago come to terms with the situation. After all, it is after going through hardships that one can learn and grow – wasn’t that the case for everyone? She was just a little worried. Their businesses had grown to quite a respectable size. Now that the officials were aware of them, she was afraid they would look for opportunities in future to exploit them.

Shi Cheng smiled and said, “You don’t have to worry about it. Of course it is impossible to go completely under the radar and avoid giving officials even a cent. Anyone with the slightest amount of sense would know that it’s impossible for businesspeople and officials to have no contact with each other. But we really will never have to deal with anything larger than today’s issue… For anything smaller, the few of us have scholarly achievements – our ranks would be enough to block them. As for anything else…” He lowered his voice and smiled, “Feng town still has the very wealthy Gu family. So long as their family is around, we won’t be the main targets.”

He stretched his hand out to Liu Xu’er’s shoulder and smiled, “Relax! So long as I am around, these matters will never affect us in the slightest.”

Liu Sen’s attention was on something else. He had heard that the criminals would be escorted out of the city tomorrow morning. They would all be shackled in jail carts and even paraded around town.

“Jie, should we go and have a look?” When Liu Sen had found out, he had immediately headed home to ask Liu Xu’er. 

Liu Xu’er thought for a moment and said to Liu Lin, “We should probably go and have a look? Sanshu…. Liu Yun’er…. We should at least witness this, so that we can explain the situation to ye,nai, dabo and sange?”

Liu Lin was very solemn. He was quiet for a long moment before nodding, “We should go and witness this.”

Shi Cheng sat at the side, sighing and shaking his head. 

Early the next morning, they went to the street. They weren’t sitting in the carriage – Liu Xu’er just wore a scarf around her face. She walked between Shi Cheng and Liu Lin. Liu Sen was in front of them. 

They had just left the lane their residence was on when they heard the clamor from a distance away.There were people congregating on both sides of the street. It was clear that the spectacle would reach them soon. 

But because it was still early, and because the street Shi Cheng stayed on wasn’t the main street, the only ones here were those who stayed in the neighbourhood. The street wasn’t tightly packed so Liu Xu’er had a clear view of everything. In the first cart was Liu Changgui!

Her heart sank! She immediately held on tight to Shi Cheng’s hand. 

It was only natural, after all, this person was her relative in this lifetime.

Liu Lin’s expression wasn’t any better. Face white, his eyes were glued to the cart. 

In the case built against Liu Changgui and his group, the main culprits were Jia shi’s xiaoshushu, Jia De, Jia shi’s lover in Binzhou as well as Jia shi herself. 

Everyone had already heard that Liu Changgui had smuggled a few times before herealised the danger and quickly looked for a replacement. As such, his crime was not the heaviest – he was just an accomplice. As for Jia De, Jia shi – they had all been arrested in Dongchangfu. Only Liu Changgui and the rest were based here. 

As the jail carts made their way slowly to them, everyone could start to clearly see what was going on. Each of them were placed in their own individual carts. The one in the first cart was Liu Changgui, and behind him was Liu Yun’er! Then after that was Fang Yun, with another two unknown faces after them. Each of them wore heavy stocks and chains around their necks. Their heads were so weighed down, they couldn’t hold them up easily. Heads lowered, they each sat in a corner of their carts. 

When the jail carts were right in front of Liu Xu’er and the rest, they suddenly stopped! Probably noticing that something felt different in the crowd’s gaze, Liu Changgui slowly lifted his head up. 

Liu Lin involuntarily called out, “Sanshu…”

There were still streaks of blood on Liu Changgui’s face, and his expression was wooden. But now that he saw them, his eyes lit up! His body started to shake! His chains started to clang along with his tremors. It was a rather shocking moment.

“Lin! Xu’er! You are… You are all here… Lin! Help me look after the children! My children! The house… the children are in the house! Help me take them out… I’m begging you, bring them to ye, nai….”

Liu Xu’er’s face turned away. Liu Changgui was behaving like a desperate stray dog. That expression… She really couldn’t continue to watch it or to hear it anymore.

The instant she turned away however, she immediately saw Liu Yun’er! Liu Yun’er’s car had stopped right in front of Liu Sen!

Liu Yun’er had a similar desperate appearance. She looked rather wretched – her clothes were a mess, and her hair was tangled. There were filthy things on her head, and her face was also streaked with dirt. When she saw Liu Sen, her eyes similarly lit up! As if seeing a life saving rope! She was originally curled in the corner, but now, she flung herself over! That shocked Liu Sen into taking a step back. With wide eyes, he stared at her. 

Liu Yun’er’s action had been too sudden. The chains around her neck heavily struck the bars of the jail cart, causing her to moan and fall over backwards. 

But she was past caring about pain. She climbed up and started to shout at Liu Sen, “Senzi! Senzi! I am your jie. Look at me! I am your jie, Liu Yun’er! Save me! I know that you have a way to save me! You are a juren, juren! You definitely have a way to save me! I’m begging you Senzi, I know you are my best didi! Save me, save me! I can only count on you!”

Liu Sen backed up another couple of steps. This time it wasn’t in shock, but in chilling calm! It was an expression that didn’t suit his young face! With an icy gaze, he looked at her. After staring for a while, he said coldly, “I only have one jie, Liu Xu’er. As for other jies….” He slowly shook his head. Eyes drilling into Liu Yun’er, he uttered, “I have none.”