Meeting the girl’s gaze, Lin Fei said, “After the Yuan family’s lantern business declined, they switched to two types of business.”

“Jiangling is a water city. One way is to take advantage of Jiangling’s convenient waterways to operate a fleet and do water transport business.” Lin Fei paused here, frowning, “But there have been many floods in various places in recent years, and the water business is not as good as before. The Yuan family had bad luck. When transporting precious goods, they encountered several storms and damaged a lot of goods, so they lost a lot of money!”

The Yuan family’s bad luck didn’t stop there!

“Last year, many merchants who were engaged in shipping business went out to sea and made a lot of money. The Yuan family was jealous, so they sent the merchant ships out to sea, but they got lost and encountered rough seas. I heard that they lost all their money!”

After hearing all this trouble… Wen Mingtang was silent and said, “The people who run the Yuan family’s merchant ship business are either really unlucky or not suitable for doing business!”

Hearing this, Lin Fei glanced at her and said, “It is said that it was the idea of ​​the one who wanted to dig out the eyes!”

Wen Mingtang: “…With such a descendant, the Yuan family’s ancestors would probably be so angry that they would get up and drag him away!”

It was really better to be a rich and idle person and stop messing around!

Lin Fei’s lips seemed to twitch slightly in response to Wen Mingtang’s sigh, but before everyone could see clearly, he returned to his previous state and continued: “Another business has been very good…”

Before he finished speaking, Lin Fei suddenly stopped.

Facing the urging eyes of Wen Mingtang and others, Lin Fei paused and said, “This business is a bit special. It’s a business of making tombstones for the deceased!”

This business, like the coffin shop and paper money shop, was somewhat taboo.

“The Yuan family has always done well in this business, but because this business is quite taboo, there are often physiognomists who say that this business will bring bad luck to the younger generations of the family, causing them to be in poor health and weak and sickly!” Lin Fei said, “The Third Miss Yuan wrapped in the cloak has a disease from her mother’s womb. Many people in the Yuan family believe that it is because of this business that the Third Miss Yuan has been unlucky.”

Because they believed that Third Miss Yuan was cursed, that bad-tempered man, who Lin Fei said was the Second Young Master of the Yuan family, brought her sister to the capital to see if there was any peerless “expert” who could help resolve the situation.

 As for why Lin Fei targeted the Yuan family, it was all thanks to Liang Hongjin.

“A few days ago, when Zhao You and I were out, we happened to meet your friend, General Liang, outside the city. She was holding a Taoist priest in one hand and shaking him like a chicken!” Lin Fei said.

Seeing this situation, passers-by looked sideways, thinking that Liang Hongjin was a female bully from somewhere.

Fortunately, Lin Fei and Zhao You knew Liang Hongjin. They went over to ask and found out about the good things that the Taoist priest with a mustache held in Liang Hongjin’s hand had done.

“That Taoist priest from Linyuan Temple pretended to be mysterious and claimed to be a recluse sage. There were many single men in Liang’s Guard who were eager to marry, and someone, seeking help from deities, ended up stumbling upon Linyuan Temple by accident,” Lin Fei said. “The Taoist swindled him out of a large sum of money, originally planning to run away. However, upon learning of his position in Gānzhīwèi, he likely became afraid and didn’t dare to provoke officials. Not long after, he actually brought a young woman, claiming that she was sent by the deities.”

“That boy didn’t know why and was very happy. When he took the girl back, he saw that the girl was timid and her eyes were evasive. After asking, he learned that the girl was given to the Taoist priest. The Taoist priest was a sex-hungry ghost and wanted to attack her. Because he was afraid of the officials, he gave the girl to him and threatened the girl not to talk nonsense, otherwise, she would be killed by the ‘official’!” Lin Fei said here and shook his head, “After General Liang knew about it, she naturally went to find him.”

Just when Liang Hongjin was facing the Taoist priest, Lin Fei came over. Since Lin Fei had seen them, he would naturally not let the matter go. He simply settled the account with the Taoist priest.

Later, he learned that this Taoist priest was just pretending to be a god and was actually cheating people out of money. If the victim was a woman, and she was good-looking, he would cheat her out of money and people, claiming that he was a god who had descended to earth and wanted them to sacrifice themselves. Most people realized that something was wrong and ran away, but some people were dumb and only came to their senses after being cheated. Perhaps they were lucky, and the cheated women wanted to save face and never made a fuss, allowing this evildoer to continue to be so arrogant until now.

Later, the Taoist confessed that he had recently met a group of generous foreign guests. The young man had money but no brains, and was so frightened by him that he actually went to help him find a young woman. The one who was sent to the Ganzhiwei under Liang Hongjin was one of them.

“We found two more in the Taoist’s cellar, a total of three including that one.” Lin Fei said this and turned his gaze to Wen Mingtang and others, especially Wen Mingtang who seemed to be thinking about something. After pausing for a moment, he continued, “The accents of those young women don’t sound like local people in Chang’an. I asked them where they came from, and then I learned that they were sold to Chang’an.”

Hearing this, Wen Mingtang and the others could not help but feel disappointed. Tangyuan could not help but sigh, “If that’s the case, even though Second Master Yuan is a bad guy, the missing girls should have nothing to do with him.”

After hearing what Lin Fei said, Second Young Master Yuan indeed had nothing to do with the missing young lady, but how could a man like Lin Fei arrest an unrelated person for no reason?

“I didn’t think much about it at first, but I had nothing to do, so I went to the slave traders with the Ganzhiwei people,” Lin Fei said, glancing at Wen Mingtang, “Your friend, General Liang, said that her friend’s family needed maids, and she wanted to buy a few of them. It’s like saving as many as possible.”

Among these women who fell into the hands of slave traders, those who were sold to decent people as maids were considered lucky. However, many were like those three women, who were sold to some unknown evil ghosts in human skin and tortured.

As a result, when the three women pointed the way to the whereabouts of the slave traders, they found nothing. It turned out that the house where the slave traders originally lived was rented, and he had already given up the lease and no one knew where he had gone.

Out of habit, Lin Fei also suspected whether the three women were lying, but what they said was consistent with what the landlord said. They all said that the tenant claimed to be a slave trader, and he had indeed seen many women who were found in the house. They were in their prime and not ugly.

The owner of the house naturally didn’t know much about what happened behind closed doors. However, the three women who were also locked up inside said that they had heard the slave traders say, “There will be new goods in a while, but the route is a bit problematic, so we have to do it at night.”

Although the three of them were also sold here, they were sent in during the day, so they naturally knew that there must be something wrong if this had to be done at night.

Although they didn’t know if it would be of any use, they told Lin Fei everything.

Lin Fei felt something was not right at the time, so he asked the three of them to talk more and see if there was anything unusual.

The three women who were sold thought about it and felt that the slave traders were not doing the right thing because it seemed that they were not bought in broad daylight.

It might be a coincidence once or twice, but the longest time these women had been in the hands of the slave traders was five months, and it seemed to be the same every time.

Was this a coincidence? they didn’t know.

However, since Second Young Master Yuan was included in this incident, it was natural that Second Young Master Yuan would be taken away for questioning.

(End of this chapter)

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