Chapter 41 second quarter

Zhao Yan ran wildly all the way, and ran to Cao's subordinate who stored the internal files in the Shaofu in one breath.He wasn't physically fit, and his lungs were aching from running this distance, so he had to slow down and breathe slowly to calm down. Although this place is called the Shaofu Cao family, it is actually just two dilapidated wooden houses, divided into left and right sides.The window lattices and door frames are crooked, and the gray and gray tiles of the roof are piled up in a mess. The last heavy snow has crushed several holes on them, and they have not been repaired in time, so they are only half covered with a piece of sackcloth.

Thinking of the last heavy snowfall, Zhao Yan couldn't help feeling sore, it was the day when Concubine Dong passed away.How helpless and desolate she died that day, and she didn't even know where her body was buried in the end.From then on, every time Zhao Yan saw the snow, he would feel his heart ache, because every crystal that fell from the sky might be the tomb of Concubine Dong. Zhao Yan took a deep breath and pushed open the wooden door.No one would be interested in a run-down place without a lock on the door.After he stepped in, a strong musty smell of bamboo paper filled his nostrils. The room was not dark, because there were several big holes in the roof, and several beams of light fell down, illuminating several cones on the ground of the house. shaped snow.

There are huge volumes of internal documents of the imperial court, and only a small part of them are accumulated here.But even this small portion filled the whole room to its brim.Dozens of wide-mouthed wicker baskets and wooden boxes are full of bamboo slips, wooden slips, and silk paper, some of which are woven into rolls, and more are scattered here and there.These things are unorganized and messy, and the person in charge of carrying them is simply careless. But then again, in this era, it is rare for someone to collect these useless things that cannot be eaten or drunk and stored in one place.

Zhao Yan rolled up his sleeves and began to bend down to check.During his time in Shaofu, he learned a lot from Kong Rong.For example, policies, regulations, imperial edicts, etc. are issued by the emperor on silk, and court documents such as chapters, tables, books, and certificates are written on wooden slips or hemp paper, and the following are the official records of Cao Cao, all using bamboo slips.So he can just stare at those bamboo and wooden slips, and leave the others alone. Even so, the workload is not small.In such a cold weather, Zhao Yan was sweating profusely from finding it. He turned back and forth for more than an hour, his eyes were sore, but he still found nothing.

Zhao Yan sat for a while, thumped his numb thighs, and suddenly a thought flashed through his mind.What he was looking for was the record marks of fabrics from various places in Shaofu. This is not a daily writing, and it is often not easy to count. Therefore, its carrier should not be Jane, but should be engraved on gold and stone. The previous thinking was wrong. Thinking of this, Zhao Yanfu got up again and started writhing in the room.At this moment, footsteps suddenly came from outside the house.Zhao Yan was shocked. He never thought that the Shaofu Cao family, who usually doesn't want mice to come, would come here for the first time today.

Strictly speaking, he was trespassing in the recording room. If he was serious, it would be considered a crime. Xu Duwei would doubt it again, and Zhao Yan didn't want to cause trouble for Chen Qun.He looked around, and suddenly found a big wooden box in a dark corner, the box was huge, he lifted the lid of the box and jumped in. He just jumped in when the door was pushed open with a creak.Zhao Yan quietly lifted a seam of the box lid, and saw a man and a woman entering the room.The woman he knew was Tang Ji, the widow of the deposed emperor Liu Bian. The man seemed to be a soldier, and he seemed to be a little younger than Tang Ji.The officer turned his back to Zhao Yan, unable to see his face clearly.He was tall and tall, two heads taller than Tang Ji, but his arms were raised and lowered for a while, making him look awkward.

"Could it be that Tang Ji couldn't bear the loneliness and wanted to remarry?" Zhao Yan thought to himself.It is not surprising that a widow remarries again, but it is the first time since the Han Dynasty that an imperial concubine has moved her mind. But Tang Ji's first sentence broke Zhao Yan's conjecture: "I heard that you went out of the city with Guo Jia and Yang Taiwei yesterday?" It can't be the tone when meeting a lover. The officer quickly bowed and said, "This is an official business, so I dare not be lazy." "Yeah, it's another snowy night. It's really hard for you to always perform official duties on a snowy night." Tang Ji's words were full of sarcasm.After she finished speaking, she raised her head, looked towards the sky through the hole in the roof, and murmured, "I don't know the wind and cold last night, but it was as cold as the night when sister Dong died?"

Hearing this sentence, the officer became even more uneasy, and involuntarily took a step back.Facing the concubine of the deposed emperor, he was always restrained.Hearing Concubine Dong's name, Zhao Yan, who was inside the box, also flicked his wrist, barely holding the lid of the box. Tang Ji did not continue to ask, she leaned her thin body against the wicker basket, and looked directly at Sun Li's young face: "You went out of the city last night, did you find a few portraits and gave them to Guo Jia, what are the paintings inside?" Based on the information in a few sentences, Zhao Yan judged that the relationship between the two people was similar to the relationship between coercion and coercion.But Tang Ji didn't seem to use any excuse to blackmail the other party, but kept stimulating the other party's shame and guilt.

Most importantly, Zhao Yan felt that the strange relationship between the two seemed to be inextricably linked with Concubine Dong's death. So he held his breath and continued to listen quietly without noticing anything strange in the box. Regarding Tang Ji's request, Sun Li hesitated.Those portraits should hide very important information, otherwise Guo Jia would not have collected them solemnly.It was both strange and embarrassing for a princess to ask about such a military matter. "Guo Jijiu is not allowed to be leaked, I have no right to tell others." "You don't have the right to sit and watch the death of a concubine." Tang Ji continued to press, her chin slightly raised, her brows straightened, making her look like a sharp and delicate dagger.

If Sun Li had the courage to look up at Tang Ji, he would find that this girl was not as tough as she appeared.Her eyes wandered every time she spoke, and she swallowed her saliva from time to time. Occasionally, the fingers of her right hand would pick up the front of the skirt and rub it hard. Tang Ji knew in her heart that, strictly speaking, Concubine Dong's death was really to be blamed on her, Yang Xiu, and Empress Fu, and none of them had the right to criticize Captain Sun.But she had to put on a dignified look to squeeze something out of his mouth.This approach is a bit despicable, but Tang Ji has no choice.

This work started from the moment of Concubine Dong's death.Yang Xiu believes that Sun Li is a soft-hearted man with a heart of loyalty and a strong sense of morality, but he succumbs to reality, and his ambivalence is worth using.Under Yang Xiu's arrangement, Tang Ji began to meet Sun Li "inadvertently" on various occasions, and every time she taunted him unceremoniously, making him gradually doubt and feel guilty about his actions, thereby controlling him, Let him become an eyeliner in Cao Junzhong. Tang Ji heard about the portrait from Yang Biao.Yang Taiwei said that after Guo Jia got the portrait, his expression was very strange. Unfortunately, he had no chance to see the content, but it seemed to be related to Deng Zhan who left Beijing mysteriously.Yang Xiu instructed Tang Ji to contact Sun Li as soon as possible to find out the inside story.Tang Ji had no choice but to take the initiative to find Sun Li and ask him to come to this rare room. Sun Li remained silent, and Tang Ji decided to take another approach.She slowed down her voice to relax the pressure a little: "Lieutenant Sun, people can make mistakes, but they can't make mistakes again and again. I might as well tell you that those portraits are related to the safety of the emperor. If you are really loyal to the Han Dynasty , you should know the pros and cons.” Sun Li was finally persuaded, and he opened his mouth with difficulty: "There are five portraits in total, and all of them are portraits of people." "Whose?" Sun Li shook his head: "I don't know." "Where did you find these portraits?" "In the snow on the roadside near Xudu, it should be left by General Deng." "Deng Zhan?" "Yes, he left the city the day before, and it is said that he went to Wen County." Tang Ji's face faded into a pale pale.Deng Zhan, Wen County, portrait, these three words come together, it is easy to think of a terrible fact: Guo Jia has doubts about the identity of the emperor. "Guo Jia...did you say anything after getting the portrait?" Tang Ji's words were slightly flustered. "No, but Guo Jijiu held the portrait and looked at it for a long time, which caused us to delay our pursuit of Dong Cheng." Sun Li replied slightly complaining.He didn't know the inside story of his superiors, and he always regretted that he didn't catch up with the team of robbers. The distraught Tang Ji asked a few more random questions and left.She must enter the palace immediately and tell sister Fu and the emperor the news.Sun Li was asked to stay in the house for a while, so as not to be seen by the two of them going in and out together.He himself maintained the previous standing posture in the room, and it took a while before he left. After they left, Zhao Yan opened the box and stood up.From the passage just now, he discovered three things: one is that Tang Ji is not as peaceful as he imagined, and this Princess Hongnong seems to be planning something, or represents some kind of power; the other is the death of Concubine Dong , has a direct relationship with that young lieutenant. While thinking about it, Zhao Yan raised his legs and stepped out of the box.His fingers accidentally touched a cold and hard object, and he grabbed it casually, only to find that it was a flat copper talisman.This copper talisman is topped by a pannacle, with a shovel-shaped bottom and uneven surface.On the top is written two bird scripts: weaving.The bottom is divided into two columns, with many characters engraved on one side and various graphics engraved on the other. Undoubtedly, this is exactly the weaving room record that Zhao Yan was looking for.It was hidden in a large pile of bamboo and wooden slips, and it would have been impossible to find it if Zhao Yan hadn't changed his mind.If Zhao Yan found a treasure, he quickly picked it up and looked at it carefully.He first found the diamond-shaped symbol on the left column, and then used his finger to draw to the parallel right side, where four official characters were etched: Bing Hanoi On. Wen County, Hanoi, Bingzhou.So, that piece of fabric should be from Wen County. Zhao Yan suddenly remembered.In the conversation between Tang Ji and the officer just now, it seemed that there was a major incident in Wen County, which alarmed Guo Jia to ask in person——Is there any connection between these two incidents?Is it really just a coincidence? This is really a breakthrough.But Zhao Yan felt a headache.It turned out that he was suffering from too few clues to start with, but now he suddenly had a lot of clues, and he was confused. He didn't know whether he should try to contact the captain next, or follow Tang Ji, or check the weaving company in Chawen County. origin. He carefully pushed aside the messy bamboo slips and fished out the copper talisman.Accidentally, with a "pop", a piece of bamboo was picked up by the copper talisman and fell to the ground.Zhao Yan leaned over to pick it up, and glanced at it casually.The bamboo piece was as wide as two fingers, and there was a line of small characters written on it: "On the fourth day of the fourth year of Guanghe, the summer and the seventh month, the beauty Wang was born in Zheguan, the prince Yichen Yu, for this record." The gap between the characters "Prince" and "One" is a bit bigger, and there are traces of scratching and smearing with a scraper. "These internal files are really messy." Zhao Yan sighed.He knew it was from the palace records.Concubines of the Han Dynasty were not allowed to give birth in the palace, and had to go out to the palace. This bamboo slip is probably the record of the Huangmen who was in charge of serving.These birth records were actually mixed with the documents of the weaving room, which shows how confusing it was when moving the documents. Now his mind is full of Wen County, and he has no time to think about it, so he threw the bamboo slip away and left the house in a hurry.