Shen Chen had expected that Old Lady Wei would do this, so he didn't say anything else. After agreeing, he said, "In that case, how about we separate at the villa? You stay at the villa for one night, and wait until the next day when I arrive in Beijing, and then go back to Beijing on your own? This way, you won't be noticed."
Mrs. Wei thought for a moment and agreed: "That's right, I want to take Mingjing to see the other village and let him get familiar with the people there. Since you said so, let's do it this way."
Aunt Hua came up to add more tea. Shen Chen watched her finish and then left. He suddenly said, "There is one more thing..."
When he said this, he stopped and looked at Wei An.
Old Mrs. Wei and Wei An looked at each other and then looked at him.
After a while, Shen Chen said, "Something happened at the Xie family..."
Because Wei An had caught a cold on the ship and was uncomfortable with sailing, his health had not been good, so many of the letters were given to him.
Xie Liangcheng was also familiar with him, and Shen Chen also played a role in the decision of what Xie Liangcheng did in Jingxi, so Wei An handed it over to him and did not ask too much.
Now hearing that something happened, she was stunned at first, then she put down the cup and asked worriedly: "What happened?"
The power of Master Xie II and his group had been completely eliminated along with the demise of the King of Chu and Princess Changying. Those officials who had once been affiliated with the King of Chu were also held hostage by Xie Liangcheng through bribery. There was no reason for anything major to happen.
But what is most lacking in this world is accidents, and Wei An was very worried.
Shen Chen sighed, his tone not very good: "Xie Liangcheng is missing."
Missing
What does it mean to be missing
Xie Liangcheng stayed in Jingxi, and Jingxi was in the hands of the Xie family...
Shen Chen rubbed his forehead and raised his eyes to look at Wei An: "Don't worry, the news I received is that Xie Liangcheng disappeared in Datong."
Datong.
The Xie family has gradually stopped doing the things that the second master Xie did before, and has gradually started to clean up their mess. They have gradually let go of those shady businesses, and now they rely more on the escort agency to make money.
Although working for the escort agency is more dangerous, it is a hundred times easier than mining and selling ironware outside the Great Wall.
But even if it is a hundred times easier, if you walk by the river often, you will still get your shoes wet.
Xie Liangcheng went missing while escorting a batch of tea.
Shen Chen told Wei An carefully: "It's not a robbery. After the Xie family found out that they had lost contact with him, they checked it out first, and then they found out that the customer who asked them to escort this escort disappeared for no reason."
But this is tea worth at least three hundred thousand taels. The profit from this business is so huge, how can an ordinary person give it up so easily
Unless, unless they didn't care about the tea and the profits in the first place, and there were no customers from outside the country, this was a trap from the beginning to the end.
Moreover, it was a trap targeting the Ping An Escort Agency, or to be more precise, it was a trap targeting Xie Liangcheng alone.
But who is the one who wants to plot against Xie Liangcheng
If it is the enemy of Ping An Escort Agency...
However, Jingxi did not have any escort agency that could rival the Xie family, nor any family that could compete with the Xie family.
The letter from the Xie family also said that the group of tea merchants claimed to be from Wuyi Mountain. Because they had recently contacted a line outside the Great Wall, they decided to take the risk and go outside the Great Wall to do business.
He was also afraid because he heard that there were many fierce bandits outside the Great Wall, so he found the famous Ping An Escort Agency in Jingxi to escort his goods.
But after the incident, when the Xie family wanted to look for these tea merchants, they unexpectedly found that the shop was empty. It turned out that their so-called shop in Jingxi had only been rented three months ago.
This group of people just disappeared without leaving any trace, as if they had never existed.
Now the Xie family realized that something was wrong and contacted Shen Chen and Wei An in time.
Seeing Wei An was anxious, Mrs. Wei asked Shen Chen: "So how much information do we know now?"
"Not much." Shen Chen said truthfully, "I only know that the gang has been paying attention to Ping An Escort Agency for a long time and is familiar with many of the escort agency's rules. This batch of tea is worth 300,000 taels of silver. They promised to give Ping An Escort Agency 20,000 taels of silver after the mission is completed. This is a considerable sum of money, and it is worth letting Xie Liangcheng personally supervise this trip. They should have come for Xie Liangcheng from the beginning."
And it has been planned for a long time.
Wei An quickly recovered from his shock and worry and calmed down. There was another problem. They should know about what Ping An Escort Agency had done in the past. They also expected that Ping An Escort Agency would not dare to make a big deal about it. The imperial court had banned trade because of the tense relationship with the Tatars and because the Tatars were cunning by nature and always passed off inferior goods as good ones, and even took the excuse of trade to plunder.
The money earned by the Xie family was originally problematic.
It's just very secretive and happens to be on the fringes.
Now this group of people obviously know the Xie family very well.
But not many people know the Xie family.
Wei An and Shen Chen looked at each other and said, "Check the local government."
Her eyes were clear and her mind was sharp: "Investigate the local officials who have vested interests, including their relatives. Maybe they want to support their own people to take the position, so they want the Xie family to give up the position. And..."
"And the remnants of the past." Shen Chen took over her words: "Don't worry, I have already thought of these, and I have asked Han Bo and Xue Song to do it personally. No matter who they are, their purpose cannot be just to kill Xie Liangcheng. They must have gone to such great lengths because they knew that we were behind it. Ordinary people would not be so generous."
After he finished speaking, he added: "Besides, this batch of tea can't have flown to Jingxi out of thin air. With so many things, there must be clues to trace. I know all of this, so you don't have to worry. I told you this because I knew you would know it sooner or later, and I was afraid that you would worry and have doubts."
But Wei An was still worried.
As Shen Chen said, the people behind the scenes spent so much effort, it is impossible that they were just trying to save Xie Liangcheng's life. It is more likely that they were targeting Xie's business line, or simply Xiang Zhuang's sword dance aimed at Pei Gong, targeting her and Shen Chen. But Xie Liangcheng is missing now, how those people will treat him is really unpredictable. If Xie Liangcheng is really bad... ..
There was a sudden flash of fierceness in her eyes.
She was really kind-hearted in this life. It seemed that it was her kindness that made these people think she was easy to bully, and they bullied her again and again.
If they were really so ignorant of their own life and death, then she wouldn't mind letting them see what true cruelty looked like.