Chapter Twelve Under Cover of Darkness

  Moreover, Li Meng is now curiously looking around everywhere, matching his image, and in the eyes of others, he is a standard country bumpkin who has come to the city. Everyone who passes by Li Meng frowns and avoids him, if not for his tall stature, someone would have shouted at him to drive him away long ago.

  Li Meng spent a few coins at the steamed food stall and bought several steamed buns. However, no matter how he looked at them, they seemed to be similar to mantou. What made him quite delighted was that these steamed buns were actually made from white flour and looked whiter than yesterday's flatbread, which really increased his appetite.

  As expected by Li Meng, the city of Jiaozhou was not too large, with an estimated population of around 2,000 households. This would be smaller than a town in a developed area today. Li Meng even doubted whether Xue's companions had exaggerated when they said that Jiaozhou was a big city. However, Li Meng also wryly discovered that he himself felt the city was not small after all, perhaps because he was getting more and more used to this era and gradually integrating into it.

  Jiaozhou's central area is the government office, looking very majestic, but due to the tradition of officials not repairing the government office over the years, it looks unusually old and dilapidated. In comparison, the surrounding houses and courtyards seem much more majestic, with blue bricks and black tiles, and many families' walls and doors still have some decorations, this should be Jiaozhou's wealthy area.

  Two streets away from the Zhi Prefecture government office, there is a fruit shop that sells pastries and dried fruits, doing business with these wealthy families in the city. The storefront is neat and elegant, and the clerks standing at the door and inside the counter are relatively well-dressed.

  The fellow at the gate was looking around when he saw a tall, big man with tattered clothes and a full beard walking towards the gate. He hastily shouted:

  "Be off with you! This shop isn't a place for someone as poor as you..."

  The words had not been spoken yet, but were swallowed back down. The poor man walked over with big strides, his tall stature giving off a kind of oppressive aura. Just as the tension was building up, the poor man let out a hearty laugh and asked:

  "Hey little brother, I have a relative working at the Mu Xun Jian's residence. Can you tell me where the Mu Xun Jian's mansion is?"

  The shop assistant at the fruit stand said the address with a look of impatience, hurry up and get rid of this poor guy, or else standing in front of the store is really affecting business.

  After dark, the city of Jiao State was only more bustling than Xue's home for a short while, and soon fell into darkness and silence. Inside the city, except for the sound of the night watchmen's rattle, there were only a few barks of dogs.

  Li Meng circled around the city of Jiao State and arrived at the gate of Mou Xun's house after dark. This saltworks inspector was indeed a fat and oily one, among the rich residences surrounding the state government office, the Mou Xun Inspectorate was the most majestic, what the fruit shop clerk said was not clear but it was really easy to find.

  There was a narrow alleyway between Mou Xun's residence and his neighbor's, which was a dead end. Neither the night watchman nor anyone else would come here.

  Li Meng hid in the darkness of the small path, even if someone passed by, they wouldn't notice him. In Mou Xun's mansion, there were loud noises and laughter, apparently a banquet was being held.

  The aroma of wine and meat wafted into the alley, Li Meng swallowed a mouthful of saliva, but at this time what came to mind was that day when he walked down the small road and encountered the salt shop owner's life-and-death struggle. After returning to the Xue family's thousand-household village, the scene was in disarray, with old people wailing and crying out to heaven. This wine and meat were actually the flesh and blood of those poor commoners!

  As the night deepened, the entire city of Jiaozhou fell into silence. The sea breeze blew through at night, and Li Meng, wearing a single shirt, felt a bit chilly, but he still stood there motionless.

  Around three o'clock in the morning, the night watchman walked past the alley entrance, beating his clapper quickly, and didn't even turn his head to see if there was any movement inside this dead alley.

  As the sound of the gong faded away, Li Meng stood up and stretched his numb hands and feet. He reached behind him and pulled out something wrapped in cloth from his waist, revealing a broken knife blade about one foot long. It was the waist knife he had picked up after fighting with the salt smugglers, originally three feet long, but Li Meng had snapped it off to make it easier to carry, leaving only the one-foot-long blade.

  He bit the knife in his mouth, and Li Meng climbed up against the walls on both sides. Fortunately, there were no glass shards on the wall in this era, so Li Meng easily flipped over the wall and fell into the yard.

  After falling, a roll, some noise came out, Li Meng hurriedly hid to one side, but didn't disturb anything. To put it bluntly, this was just an inspection mansion for the salt administration. Although the inspector of the salt administration was a lucrative position, the official rank was only ninth grade, a minor official who had just entered the mainstream.

  His mansion was very large, and there would be no strict precautions. Li Meng thought too much, but after entering the yard, Li Meng felt a bit wrong, because he didn't know where the patrol lived at all. This mansion was also a multi-entry courtyard, who knew where Mu Yan Wang lived.

  No matter in the past or present life, Li Meng did not know the layout of this ancient mansion. In modern times, he had no contact with it, and in the Ming Dynasty, as a rural villager, he had never seen its face.

  The place he jumped down should be the location of the woodshed, and after walking a few steps inside, he found that it was indeed pitch black and couldn't find his way. He couldn't help but feel anxious in his heart, thinking that if he continued to struggle like this, he might not be able to find his way out. If he wandered around randomly, he would alarm others, and being alone, he feared he wouldn't be able to escape. If he went out, he could come back the next day, but the night was long and he was afraid that something else might happen.

  At this moment, the door creaked open and a man walked out, yawning. He went to the wall, seemingly to relieve himself. As he was yawning for the second time, he suddenly felt a chill on the side of his neck. His heart skipped a beat as he suddenly came to. There was a knife blade at his neck. His mouth was firmly covered by someone behind him, rendering him speechless. Li Meng whispered in his ear:

  "Shut up and mind your knife."

  A foul smell wafted over, and everyone had wet their pants. At this point, who could still care about that? They just nodded cautiously, indicating they knew. Li Meng continued to say:

  "Take me to Mu Xun's bedroom."

  It was actually that easy. To say, a salt control inspector of a state and county, what kind of strict precautions could there be? After all, it's just a ninth-grade local tyrant. The man had his hands tied behind his back with a cloth strip by Li Meng, a cloth ball stuffed in his mouth, and Li Meng's knife pressed against his neck, walking forward cautiously.

  The people fear officials like they fear tigers. This Magistrate Mu may not have thought that someone would enter the city, let alone his own mansion, to his disadvantage, and he had no defense at all.

  Arrived at a room's door, could see inside the window faint candlelight flickering...

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  It's on the new book list, thank you Meow and Zhang Junbao for the recommendation. Please collect it and recommend Lao Bai's work to make Lao Bai's ranking higher on the new book list, thank you everyone.