Chapter 18: The Reappearance of the Enchanting Shadow (Part 1)

  Li Zhuangzhu finally understood that Zhang Shu's previous judgment was correct. The young innkeeper, who looked unassuming, actually had a deep military background. However, he relied on his numerical superiority and his usual arrogance, and didn't take this young man from the wilderness seriously at all. In one night, he even drove the master out.

  It's fine now, just looking at the team of soldiers coming in a line, there are no less than a thousand people, and there are at least this number of people responsible for surrounding them. Although Li Zhuang thought that his own strength was enough to dominate most of the time in Jianghu, but facing the imperial court, facing the army, to be honest, the power he had was not even worth mentioning.

  It's too late to say anything now that things have come to this. The army is already at the door, full of killing intent. Is he and his over a hundred subordinates going to die here? He does have confidence in being able to kill his way out of the encirclement, but if he leaves, what about his son? What about his subordinates? Besides, there's an old saying: "A monk can't run away from his temple." Is he just going to abandon the foundation of the Sleeping Tiger Manor?

  A large group of people had already arrived at the entrance of the inn, and the general who led them waved his hand. More than twenty soldiers immediately came out and gathered in front of the gate of the inn.

  "Where is the person in charge here?" A small team leader-like soldier didn't care about the big men with bad eyes touching their swords, and loudly asked.

  Li Zhuangzhu suddenly had an epiphany, and fortunately, he hadn't done anything to the shopkeeper or the villagers yesterday. These people came up and asked the shopkeeper, clearly still unsure if he was safe, which meant they weren't the ones the shopkeeper had brought in, otherwise they wouldn't be asking like that. Ah, it must have been that postal soldier, Li Zhuangzhu thought of the postal soldier who had galloped past yesterday and exchanged greetings with Qin Yifan from afar, and suddenly understood the key to the situation.

  He gave Zhang Shu a wink, and Zhang Shu immediately understood, taking a step forward with a smile: "This military officer, the boss has gone fishing in the back mountain, do you have something to find him?" Of course, Qin Yifan's whereabouts that night couldn't escape the eyes of the people they had arranged, so they naturally knew where he was.

  When answering, Zhang Shu kept congratulating himself that it was fortunate that he had only driven them out yesterday and hadn't used force; otherwise, today would be the end of all one hundred or so people.

  Not far away, the people of Sheng Nv Feng were still watching the excitement. They could completely stay out of it and at least they didn't drive their masters away. They appeared here, not unrelated to the good color of the young master's temperament. If he hadn't always wanted to bring that fox spirit with him, how would he have known about things here? But who would have thought that a disciple of Sheng Nv Feng would actually be a frivolous woman who could be seduced by the young master at will?

  "What kind of people are you?" The squad leader pointed at the surrounding burly men with unsavory looks: "What are you doing here? You even brought your tools, are you planning to do something nefarious here?" A big hat was slapped on them right away. Planning nefarious deeds is a serious crime, if convicted, it's enough to get everyone in Wudang Mountain Villa, including those inside, bound and executed in the autumn after the trial.

  "Hey, hey! General, you can't just say anything!" Zhang Shu desperately made a round of apologies and put on a smiling face: "We're here on official business, on behalf of the Five Cities Military Commander Han of the Imperial City."

  "Are you done? Is there any official document?" The squad leader's expression was serious and professional. Although even Zhang Shu wanted to hit him, no one dared to take action.

  "This is a bit inconvenient, we're doing it secretly!" As he said this, his hand secretly slipped over a silver ingot.

  Unexpectedly, that little team leader was ungrateful. With a flip of his hand, the silver ingot flew up and down in his palm, and he coldly sneered with a slanted gaze: "What does this mean?"

  He muttered a word of discontent under his breath, but Zhang Shu's face still wore a careful smile: "Brothers, you've worked hard, please have some wine."

  "Ah!" The team leader's face seemed to change into a playful smile: "Treat us to drinks? That's quite thoughtful." The expression on his face was no longer cold and distant: "However, with so little money, treating this many people to drinks seems a bit insufficient!"

  Zhang Shu was so angry that he wished he could slap himself in the face. What kind of place is this, who are these people, and how can they use such a method to shoo away those few yamen runners? Now it's even better, just looking outside there are tens of thousands of people, asking them to drink once will not be something that can be settled with a small amount of money.

  Just as Zhang Shu was in a dilemma, a hurried horseshoe sound came from the other end of the official road. It sounded like only one ride, but it seemed that the person on the horse was very anxious, and the horseshoe sound was very urgent.

  Everyone's attention was drawn to the sound of horseshoes, and they looked over in that direction. Before long, a figure appeared on the official road. Seeing the large group of people on this side, the knight on horseback whispered "not good" but still urged his horse to come over. Mr. Li also saw the knight on the other side, gradually seeing his face, and finally let out a soft sigh of relief.

  The knight finally arrived in front of the crowd, if Qin Yifan was there, he would definitely recognize that this knight was Li Shiyeh, who came from the county town to build this mountain village for Qin Yifan.

  After all, he was still an official, and after showing his identity to the military officer in charge of the team, the military officer didn't make things difficult for him and let him into the inn very quickly. The small team at the entrance of the inn had already withdrawn back to their unit under the indication of the leading military officer. The surrounding encirclement hadn't changed a bit, possibly also waiting for the command of the leading military officer.

  The landlord and Zhang Shu also entered the inn when the small team retreated. Li Shiye came in and saw the landlord, then looked around, didn't see Qin Yifan's shadow, and his face turned pale: "Where is Master Qin?"

  "Qin?" The master of Li's house didn't even know Qin Yifan's surname. Mr. Li's heart skipped a beat, wondering if these guys would handle the situation without asking any questions. He felt a bit anxious: "It's the boss here."

  "He went fishing in the lake behind the mountain." Zhang Shu didn't dare say more, although this sentence was a straightforward truth, but there were many hidden implications that he didn't dare to tell Li Shiye.

  "Phew!" A long sigh of relief escaped from Li Shiy's mouth, as if he had patted his own chest to calm himself down, soothing his wildly racing heart: "It's okay, it's okay! You left in a hurry and forgot to brief me, but fortunately, nothing major happened!"

  "What's going on?" Li Shaozhu jumped out, and it was only when he followed his father that he discovered that the teacher of the county magistrate in this county town was actually a distant relative of his own family. It was really very coincidental, if not for his father's chance encounter, he wouldn't have known that he had such a connection with the officialdom here. This was probably also one of the reasons why his father dared to act recklessly after coming here!

  "No matter what you do here, never offend the boss of this place." Li Shiyeh finally delivered this belated warning to their ears. However, for them, it was not exactly good news.