[Chapter 172, War in Troubled Times-20]

The two government officials on duty last night had no idea what was going on and were knocked unconscious. Fortunately, Ye Qi didn't lose his chain and saw the eyes of the woman who came to rob the prison clearly, confirming that she was the assassin who assassinated the prince that day. Follow this

This line of Tianxiang Tower will definitely reveal the secret of this assassin organization.

Yu Hanjiang said decisively: "Go to Tianxiang Tower immediately and see if you can find some evidence."

Shao Qingge and Ye Qi went to Tianxiang Tower to show up in broad daylight. Yu Hanjiang asked them to stay in the prefecture to wait for news. He took Xiao Lou and Lao Mo to Tianxiang Tower to collect evidence.

This famous flower street in Jiangzhou is bustling with people coming and going in the daytime, but it is extremely deserted during the day. There is not a single person on the street. Yu Hanjiang strode to the door of Tianxiang Tower at the end of the street, and with all his strength

He patted the door of Tianxiang Tower.

The doorman yawned and complained lazily: "Who are you? You come to the brothel and knock on the door in broad daylight. Are you okay..."

Mo Xuemin said seriously: "This is our prefect, Mr. Yu."

The handyman suddenly jumped up and immediately smiled flatteringly and said: "Master Yu! Ahem, you are here, what can I do?"

Yu Hanjiang asked in a low voice: "Has Aunt Qing come back?"

The handyman shook his head: "Aunt Qing hasn't been back for two days!"

Yu Hanjiang strode into Tianxiang Tower.

According to Ye Qi's description, in addition to maids and handymen, there are fifteen girls in the entire Tianxiang Tower who are officially listed to welcome guests. Most of them are good at singing and dancing. They live on the second and third floors. Twelve people participated in the palace ceremony.

The birthday party included the first group of four people who danced, the second group of five people who performed the sword dance, and three girls who played piano accompaniment.

After Xue Yan's assassination attempt failed and she escaped, the remaining girls and the boss Aunt Qing were taken to the dungeon. Now they have all been rescued except Ye Qi.

In other words, there were as many as eleven women involved in the case, and only Ye Qi was unaware of it.

There were three girls in Tianxianglou who did not attend the birthday banquet of the palace. It was eight o'clock in the morning and they were still sleeping. Yu Hanjiang asked people to wake up these girls, and he took Mo Xuemin and Xiaolou to check

Where other girls live.

The servants of Tianxiang Tower were alarmed and stood up one after another to stop him, but were frightened back by Yu Hanjiang's sharp eyes.

Mo Xuemin said: "The magistrate is investigating the case, everyone else is waiting to get out quickly!"

These servants did not dare to go against the people of the government, so they had to hide aside in fear, discussing privately, what happened to Aunt Qing that actually led the prefect to personally search Tianxiang Tower?

Yu Hanjiang quickly and resolutely searched the rooms of all the girls who attended the palace's birthday party, focusing on Aunt Qing's house.

He found a locked wooden box in Aunt Qing's house and pried it open. It was full of jewelry. There were a lot of gold and silver jewelry. It looked like the woman's private money. Among the large amount of jewelry

, there was a long chain that caught Yu Hanjiang's attention - this chain didn't seem to be a necklace, but it was inappropriate to hang around the waist. What was it used for?

He didn't understand the jewelry used by women, but he had a gut feeling that there was something wrong with the chain, so he handed it to Xiao Lou beside him and whispered: "Madam, look, this thing is a bit strange, and the style of this jewelry seems to be similar to that of the big ones."

The jewelry that Qi women wear is different."

Xiao Lou didn't wear any jewelry and only had a simple and elegant wooden hairpin on his head. He didn't know much about these jewelry. He took it and looked at it carefully and said: "This piece of jewelry has a very special shape and design. I bought it in Kyoto."

I’ve never seen it on the street, and it certainly doesn’t look like an accessory commonly worn by women in Daqi.”

Mo Xuemin came over to take a closer look and murmured: "I seem to have seen it somewhere... By the way, there is a book in my study called "Feng Wu Zhi", which contains records about women's jewelry!"

When he said this, Xiao Lou immediately asked with interest: "Do you still remember the contents of the book?"

Mo Xuemin stepped forward, took the jewelry from Xiao Lou's hand, looked at it carefully, and said: "The book "Feng Wu Zhi" records some customs and habits of four countries. At first, I thought that book was related to the case.

It’s not big. It just introduces the costume characteristics of the four countries. I read it once and put it aside. I have the impression that the jewelry worn by women in the four countries has different styles. This kind of jewelry made of colored stones and silk threads should not be big.

It is commonly used by Qi women, but which country it is from... I can’t remember clearly.”

This can't be entirely blamed on Lao Mo. He spent two days going through Jiangzhou's files over the years. It was not easy to write down the key cases. It was impossible for him to memorize all the books on the bookshelf.

Seeing the guilty look on Lao Mo's face, Xiao Lou hurriedly smiled and said, "Don't worry, is the book still there? Let's check again when we go back."

Yu Hanjiang also said: "Take these jewelry back and compare them carefully with the book."

Lao Mo nodded immediately and carefully put away the jewelry box.

Yu Hanjiang went to search other women's houses and found some similar jewelry, and gave them all to Lao Mo to take back.

He looked down from the end of the corridor on the third floor - there were some carrier pigeons kept in the most hidden part of the backyard, which should have been used to deliver letters. However, no trace of letters was found in any of the women or Aunt Qing's house.

It seems that the boss of Tianxiang Tower acted very cautiously. She burned the letters after reading them, leaving no trace behind.

When Yu Hanjiang returned to the hall, the three girls who had slept in had been woken up.

These three people had no idea about Aunt Qing's whereabouts, and they all said that they wanted to attend the palace's birthday party, but Aunt Qing thought that their dancing skills were not good enough and refused to let them go. Ye Qi was called because he was Tianxiang.

The top brand of the building is famous enough.

In other words, only Ye Qi was kept in the dark about the assassination of the prince that day.

Yu Hanjiang frowned and asked, "When was Tianxiang Tower established?"

A girl named Qiu Shuang said: "Tianxiang Tower has been in Jiangzhou for ten years. I heard that a financial backer paid a large sum of money to build Tianxiang Tower. Aunt Qing became the boss of Tianxiang Tower and recruited

There are many girls with outstanding talents.”

Yu Hanjiang asked: "Do you know the origin of Aunt Qing? Where is she from?"

Qiu Shuang thought for a while and said: "It is said that he is from Jiangzhou. His parents died when he was young. He suffered a lot and only returned to Jiangzhou ten years ago."

Yu Hanjiang asked: "How does Aunt Qing usually treat you?"

Qiu Shuang said: "She is very good to the girls. We can share 60% of the bounty given by the benefactors. Moreover, once a customer gets drunk and bullies the girls, Aunt Qing will also take the initiative to help the girls out. She is the leader of this street."

The best boss ever.”

Yu Hanjiang was silent for a moment, then asked: "When did you guys come to Tianxiang Tower?"

Qiu Shuang looked at the two sisters beside her and said, "The three of us, as well as Miss Ye, only came here a year ago."

Yu Hanjiang asked: "Where are the others?"

Qiu Shuang said: "A dozen other girls have only come here in the past two years."

Yu Hanjiang said: "Do you know the girl who used to be in Tianxiang Tower?"

Qiu Shuang said: "When we came, there were several girls in Tianxiang Tower who made enough money and left on their own, and some found people who were willing to marry them. After paying enough ransom, they took back the deeds of sale and went to work as concubines for others.

"

A person named Qiuyue next to her added: "By the way, I heard that the previous prefect fell in love with the top girl in our Tianxiang Tower, Yang Liu, and even married her as a concubine."

Yu Hanjiang looked at Mo Xuemin. Mo Xuemin looked embarrassed - he didn't know about this at all. No wonder his score was only A every time in the Chamber of Hearts. It seemed that he was not careful enough. He had not investigated the family affairs of the former prefect. He was completely

Unexpectedly, the prefect actually married a girl from Tianxianglou as a concubine?!

Yu Hanjiang didn't blame Lao Mo. After all, the previous prefect was already dead when Lao Mo came to this world. Yu Hanjiang was immediately transferred to Jiangzhou. The case hadn't happened yet, so it was understandable that Lao Mo didn't investigate the former prefect.

He looked back at Qiu Shuang, and then asked: "Are there detailed records of the names and whereabouts of the girls who have left Tianxiang Tower in the past few years, the newcomers, the ransomed girls, and the married girls?"

Qiu Shuang said: "We don't know, but there should be records in Aunt Qing's place, right?"

Qiuyue said: "In the two years since we came to Tianxiang Tower, the staff has not changed. There have always been fifteen of us."

Yu Hanjiang glanced at the three of them and finally asked: "Did you really not see Aunt Qing last night?"

The three of them said in unison: "No!"

Qiu Shuang added: "Aunt Qing and the others haven't come back since they went to the palace to perform. We are all very worried and don't dare to go to the palace to find her... Sir, what happened to Aunt Qing?"

Yu Hanjiang couldn't clearly explain that the "Aunt Qing" they were talking about was the leader of the intelligence organization, so he could only say perfunctorily: "She is involved in some cases and is temporarily detained by the government for investigation. If you see other girls coming back in Tianxiang Tower, report to the government immediately

, do you know?"

All three people nodded obediently.

After leaving Tianxiang Tower, Yu Hanjiang returned to the prefecture and went directly to Master Mo's residence with Xiao Lou.

Mo Xuemin quickly found the "Feng Wu Zhi" which introduced the costumes of the four countries from the bookshelf.

Liu Qiao has been paying attention to the progress of the case, and also came to the prefect to inquire about the news. He also made some poisonous powder and gave it to Xiao Lou for backup. If he encounters danger and lacks attack power, he can use poison.

Shao Qingge and Ye Qi heard the movement and followed them. Everyone gathered in Mo Xuemin's study and found that he had a wall of bookcases with countless books in them.

Ye Qi couldn't help but sigh: "How can I remember so many books?"

Mo Xuemin said with a headache: "Most of them are collections of classics and history, there is no need to read them, and some are case interrogation notes when I was a master. I focused on the case-related matters. I didn't pay close attention to the "Feng Wu Zhi" which records clothing and folk customs.

Look, I just flipped through it casually, but I didn’t expect that this book turned out to be a key clue!”

Fortunately, he glanced at it and had a vague impression of the customs and costumes of various countries described in the book. Otherwise, if he missed this clue, it would be too difficult to find the source of Aunt Qing and their jewelry.

Yu Hanjiang handed the book to Xiao Lou.

Xiao Lou sat at his desk and read through it carefully, and soon found the relevant records. He turned to the tenth page of "Fengwu Zhi", pointed at a kind of jewelry on it, and compared it with the jewelry found by Tianxianglou, and looked up.

Yu Hanjiang said: "This is the hair tie of a woman from Yan State."

The teammates around him gasped.

After searching and searching, they actually found out that they were from the Yan country?! Are Aunt Qing and the others all from the Yan country?

Yu Hanjiang realized the seriousness of the problem and immediately walked to Xiao Lou and leaned over to take a closer look.

The patterns in the book are in black and white, and the jewelry is in color, but the shape, design, and structure are exactly the same.
To be continued...