During the entire Mid-Autumn Festival, as many as twenty-three young ladies were reported missing. Except for two young ladies who found their way back home after the festival, the remaining twenty-one young ladies were all missing.

At this time, Liu Yuan and others, who didn’t know that Lin Fei had taken over the case, were gathered around the beauty lamp that they had won and sighed: “In the final count, we only had a few fewer sticks than the third place. If… Hey! We would have lost a lot of money!”

Liu Yuan wasn’t the only one feeling this way; many others agreed. If the money was returned, it could possibly be used to buy quite a few snacks like lǔyāhuò, táng chǎo bǎnlì, and other treats from the public kitchen’s ‘Accountant Ji’!¹

The beauty lamp, which was hard to find normally, was certainly beautiful. The beauty drawn on the octagonal palace lantern was lifelike, and it only took a long time to become like this.

There were no literati with “refined” tastes here, so after a while, they would get bored with it. So they hung the beauty lamp in the lobby and went on with their work.

While sorting out the files in their hands and chatting, the topic involuntarily turned to today’s lunch in the public kitchen.

“When I was coming back from the toilet and passed by the public kitchen yard, I saw our ‘Accountant Ji’ coming in with food from the farm. Guess what it is?” said the servant who had just gone out. He winked at everyone, opened his arms, stood up, and walked sideways a few steps.

This “sideways walking” movement was so conspicuous that people could guess what it was at a glance, and immediately said in surprise: “Could it be that the crab is coming?”

According to the date, the crabs on the farm should be here soon.

The officer nodded and said happily, “Today I saw Master Wen get a clay pot. This method is not the same as the usual steaming method in previous years.”

When he thought about the crabs made by Chef Wen, it was surely going to be exciting!

Wen Mingtang, who was mentioned by the officers, sneezed, sat down, and began to seriously wash the “crab bosses” in the basket.

There were many ways to cook crabs, steamed, boiled, drunken with aged Huadiao wine, or a warm pot of crab meat which was what she was making.

All of these methods were delicious! After all, crabs were very delicious, and no matter how you cooked them, they couldn’t be bad.

However, since they were in Dayong, and considering that the chefs in Chang’an City could make the first few methods and many people had eaten them, Wen Mingtang decided to make a new style that had never been seen before for the “people in the Dali Temple”.

Here, Wen Mingtang and others were busy cleaning crabs to make crab pot, while over there, Liu Yuan and others, who had been chatting for a while and were still sighing that “the idler one is, the more addictive it becomes”, could not “stay idle any longer”. They then learned that the missing young lady from Jingzhao Prefecture was under the jurisdiction of the Dali Temple.

Not only that, yesterday Lin Shaoqing had already brought a “suspect” to the Dali Temple, and now he was waiting for interrogation!

When they followed Lin Fei into the Dali Temple prison and saw Second Young Master Yuan, they saw Second Young Master Yuan shouting “There are cockroaches” to the jailers!

The jailers over there were also straightforward. One of them was “quick-eyed and quick-footed” and immediately caught up with the running cockroach and sent it directly to reincarnation!

Second Young Master Yuan almost fainted when he saw this action. He pointed at the jailer who kicked him, his fingers trembling: “You…you…”

“What are you talking about?” the jailer asked impatiently, “Aren’t you afraid?” He kicked the cockroach and said impatiently, “Aren’t you afraid of death?”

Second Young Master Yuan turned pale after seeing this scene.

Just at this moment, Lin Fei walked in with Liu Yuan and Bai Zhu.

Glancing at Second Young Master Yuan, Liu Yuan and Bai Zhu couldn’t help but shake their heads: This delicate, pampered young man was quite something! If they said he was timid, he had been willing to spend money without hesitation to save his sister’s life and had frequently talked about gouging out eyes, which hadn’t seemed like a timid person at all. But if they said he was brave, he had turned pale at the sight of a cockroach, which seemed to have nothing to do with being brave.

This Second Young Master Yuan was really hard to like! Lin Shaoqing had already sent people to Jiangling to inquire about Second Young Master Yuan’s past and see if he had done any evil things in the past. If he had, he should just stay in the Dali Temple for a year or so.

Second Young Master Yuan was still unaware of Liu Yuan and Bai Zhu’s inner complaints. When he saw Lin Fei and the others coming in, his pale face eased a little and he called out, “Is Lin Shaoqing here?”

Lin Fei hummed and looked at him calmly.

Seeing this calm look, Second Young Master Yuan was immediately startled and began to defend himself: “I am really innocent. I never sent anyone to kidnap those missing girls!”

Lin Fei said “Hmm” again, looked at him, and asked: “The Taoist priest at Lin Yuan Temple has confessed that you once sent three women to him and asked him to perform a ritual to extend your sister’s life. Is that true or not?”

When Lin Fei mentioned the three words “Lin Yuan Temple”, Second Young Master Yuan’s face turned pale. After Lin Fei finished speaking, his lips trembled when he met Lin Fei’s gaze, and then he stammered: “Lin… Lin Shaoqing is really powerful. I… I’m just worried about my sister…”

What a bunch of nonsense! Liu Yuan couldn’t help but interrupt him after seeing this: “Who here cares whether you worry about your sister or not? What we want to ask is where did you get those three women from!”

That’s right! Second Young Master Yuan, with a pale face, heaved a sigh of relief after hearing this and replied, “I bought them from a slave trader in the east of the city!”

Glancing at Lin Fei who was too lazy to speak, Liu Yuan immediately understood and took the initiative to ask, “What is the address of the slave trader?”

Second Young Master Yuan gave an address.

This address was exactly the same as the one those women reported, but the place was empty!

Liu Yuan frowned and looked at Second Young Master Yuan who was relieved, and said, “What we want to ask is where did you find that slave trader?”

Upon hearing this, Second Young Master Yuan hurriedly said, “The streets in the east of the city!”

What was the difference between this answer and not saying anything?

Liu Yuan: “…”

Seeing his colleague about to get angry, Bai Zhu, who was standing by, said quickly, “What we want to ask is how you know that slave trader,” he said, “I’m afraid there are some issues with the business that this slave trader does!”

As soon as these words came out, Second Young Master Yuan’s face turned pale again, and he stammered, “I… I don’t know either! After leaving Linyuan Temple, we wanted to find a slave trader, but since we were unfamiliar with the place, we asked for directions…”

…

After questioning Second Young Master Yuan, Liu Yuan’s face looked very ugly when he came out of the prison.

According to Second Young Master Yuan’s confession, he really thought that the old Taoist priest was an otherworldly sage, so he wanted to spend some money to buy a few women to replace his sister’s life.

As they were unfamiliar with the place, the group went out to ask around. The next morning, they went to the east of the city and asked around for a long time but didn’t find anyone who knew about slave traders. Just as they were getting worried, a middle-aged man who had been standing on the side of the road for a long time came over and asked them if they were looking for a slave trader.

“We talked for a while, and the middle-aged man said he was a slave trader, so we followed him! When we got to him, we found that they were indeed of the right age and had a decent appearance.”

Second Young Master Yuan paused here and said hurriedly, “This matter has nothing to do with my sister. She didn’t agree and stopped me many times!”

Recalling what Second Young Master Yuan had just said, Liu Yuan couldn’t help but sneer: “Look at this hot-tempered and irritable young master, he actually cares about his sister’s life! But only his sister’s life is life, and the lives of those maids bought with money are not lives at all!”

(End of this chapter)

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Footnote

1. I had to read it some time before understanding what the author is trying to say here. Since Ji Caimai (which refers to his post as purchaser) is also now calculating money and collecting it, they have started called him Accountant Ji.