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The next morning, Yang Wei’s group steamed a lot of coarse grain buns and steamed buns, and generously sent some over to them. The Qin family also benefited, each receiving a large bun or steamed bun.
Zhao Long’s eyes twinkled when he saw this.
When they set off, everyone was together, but Yang Wei’s group had carriages, and the nobles were also riding in carriages, so it wouldn’t be obvious to do it too obviously, so they rushed ahead with their carriages.
The two groups then separated.
Zhao Long was puzzled.
Lu Songli remained expressionless.
However, when they arrived at the planned resting place at noon, they saw Yang Wei and his group had already stopped their carriages and were preparing to cook.
Seeing them, Yang Wei quickly greeted them, “Brother Xu, what a coincidence, we met again. We’re just about to start eating, if you don’t mind, join us for a meal?”
Xu Zheng looked at him silently: No, little brother, you’re being too obvious, you know?
“Come on, come on, everyone sit down, Xiao Wu, set up the table, and bring the food to the guards!” Yang Wei shouted loudly, “You guys have no sense at all!”
Yang Wei had people serve them a pot of braised pork with cabbage, and a dozen white steamed buns, which was more than enough.
After the food was served, he pretended to be in a dilemma and said, “Brother Xu, you see, we still have a lot of food left, can you let them help us finish it? Those nobles have small appetites, they only eat a few chopsticks of each dish. Isn’t this wasteful? It’s a pity that my colleagues and I are full and can’t eat any more.”
Xu Zheng waved his hand helplessly, “Do whatever you want.”
Yang Wei breathed a sigh of relief, he had managed to fix another meal! He quickly had people send food to the Qin family.
Zhao Long leaned over to look, and saw a young man carrying two large basins over, with the dry and wet food separated in a simple way, like a big hodgepodge, which was consistent with Yang, the head guard’s description of having only eaten a few chopsticks.
Lu Mingzhi, Mo Bing, Liu Erxi, and the others were all in the carriages, and rarely interacted with Xu Zheng and the others.
The Qin family ate silently.
Xu Zheng called Yang Wei over, and while eating, said to him, “… You have carriages, you can go much faster. You’ve only traveled such a short distance in a day, when will you reach Lelang County?”
Xu Zheng was frantically hinting. You have carriages, not to mention traveling three to four hundred miles a day, but you’ve only traveled twenty miles in half a day, that’s not enough.
Yang Wei understood, laughed dryly and said, “There’s no way, the nobles can’t stand the bumps, so we have to walk a bit and rest a bit. Maybe after a while, when the nobles get used to it, we can travel a little further each day.”
His heart was filled with tears, he didn’t want this either, really. He has to rack his brains to feed them every meal, is it easy for him?
After eating and drinking their fill, the two groups set off again. Yang Wei’s escort team ran ahead of them again.
But when Lu Songli and the others arrived at the planned lodging place – a dilapidated hut, they happened to meet Yang Wei and his group again.
Xu Zheng looked at Yang Wei with speechless eyes.
Yang Wei scratched his nose and said sheepishly, “Officer Xu, one of our escort team’s horses, I don’t know what happened, it has diarrhea, so we have to stop and rest.”
“Look, it’s that horse, it’s so exhausted that it can’t even walk anymore, let alone pull a cart. We can’t just leave it here, can we?” Yang Wei pointed to the horse kneeling under the eaves, feeling sorry for it.
Xu Zheng took a glance, silently withdrew his gaze, thinking to himself, okay, this excuse works for you, as long as you’re happy.
So that night, they had another hearty dinner, and the Qin family benefited again, enjoying delicious food.
Zhao Long seemed to be sure of something now, a cold smile on his face.
The other servants glanced at each other privately, vaguely guessing something, but since Constable Xu didn’t say anything, they pretended not to know anything either.
After dinner, the three Qin brothers took the opportunity when the servants weren’t paying attention to have a private conversation with Lu Songli.
Qin Heng and Lu Songli whispered to each other, while Qin Zhao and Qin Sheng went out for some air.
“Sixth Sister, it’s too obvious. Can you pass a message to your people?” Qin Heng whispered.
Lu Songli was intrigued, “What do you mean?”
“The other servants are fine, except for Zhao Long, he’s…” Qin Heng made a snapping gesture.
Lu Songli looked at him in surprise. His expression was cold and ruthless, quite different from his usual refined demeanor.
Qin Heng smiled, understanding the meaning in her eyes. As the saying goes, a benevolent person does not control soldiers, he was not someone with a soft heart. With the loss of the fourth brother and their father, the Qin family could not afford to suffer any more losses. Since Zhao Long had ill intentions, they had no choice but to eliminate him. On this journey of exile, whether it was a criminal or a servant, the death of a person was normal, right? Who said that only criminals had to die?
Lu Songli also thought of a way to discreetly get rid of him, knowing that there were people backing him up.
The actions of the Yang Wei Escort Agency were so obvious, yet he dared to cause trouble. Besides having someone backing him up, there was no other explanation.
The Qin and Lu families had no personal grudges against him, and it wasn’t worth it for money either. All the servants had been taken care of before departure, and the Qin family had nothing to offer. Thinking of retaliating against them at this time, either their minds were messed up, or someone behind the scenes had given them irresistible benefits.
“Big Brother, how do you plan to deal with him?”
Qin Heng’s idea was to find an opportunity, knock him out while he was outside, and let him freeze to death.
Lu Songli felt that this method was a bit risky and could potentially involve Xu Zheng. Moreover, as the deputy magistrate, if Zhao Long was away for too long, Xu Zheng would definitely send other servants to look for him.
It would be better to let him quietly die in his sleep.
Lu Songli shared her own method.
“This method is good, but can it really work?” This method was unheard of, could it really make Zhao Long die in his sleep?
“Let’s try it, if it doesn’t work, we can use your method.”
“Alright.”
At this moment, Lu Songli’s expression showed a hint of hesitation.
“What’s wrong?”
Lu Songli looked at the three Qin brothers, her gaze finally settling on Qin Sheng, “Big Brother, you guys don’t think I’m cruel, do you?” Cough, although she was, but she still wanted to know what they thought.
Qin Sheng looked at her with a bewildered expression.
Qin Zhao: Sixth Sister-in-law, you’ve always been like this, our whole family knows. Even those who didn’t know, they knew it after seeing what happened to the Xie and Zhao families when we left the prison. You’re only worried about this now, isn’t it a bit late?
Qin Heng laughed, “Whether a person is cruel or not doesn’t depend on the methods they use, but on their goals. I also want to kill Zhao Long, and I even came up with a specific way to do it, aren’t I equally cruel?”
“After guarding the northern border for so many years, my hands are also stained with blood and lives. Yes, all of us in the Qin family are like this. Even A Sheng has taken many lives of foreign tribesmen, what can you say about that?”
The next morning, the Yang Wei Escort Agency, as usual, took care of everyone’s breakfast, and both sides set off again.
Xu Zheng and the others were left behind again, and just when everyone thought today would be a repeat of yesterday’s script, at noon, the people from the Yang Wei Escort Agency didn’t wait for them to have another “chance encounter” ahead.
After eating a few good meals in a row, suddenly they had to eat their own dry rations, the Qin family was fine, but the servants were actually uncomfortable with it.
When they arrived at the inn they were going to stay in that evening, they found that the entire inn had been booked by the Yang Wei Escort Agency.
Today was the 24th of the twelfth lunar month, Little New Year’s Eve, the weather was freezing, and the inn was almost empty.
Yang Wei was still very enthusiastically inviting them to eat and drink, and even prepared six rooms for Xu Zheng and the other magistrates and servants, two of which were the best rooms, and the warmest ones in the entire inn, because they were in the middle of the inn, and once the doors and windows were closed, they were almost airtight.
Zhao Long was very satisfied with this, after sleeping rough for a few days, now he could sleep in a top-notch room in the inn, it was really great.
At night, Zhao Long was sleeping soundly in the top-notch room he had chosen. There was originally a charcoal brazier in the room, but at some point, there was another one. At the same time, the doors and windows of his room were tightly closed.
The next day, he didn’t get up for a long time, other servants had no choice but to knock on his door, but there was no response. Later, after forcibly smashing the door open, they found that he was already dead.