Taiping Inn

When the sky brightened, Li Xuandu and his party finally crossed Wulong Mountain and arrived outside the city of Ping'an County.

The reason for traveling at night was to conceal their presence. They traveled all the way, hiding during the day and moving at night. Even if they took the official road, few people could see them, making it increasingly difficult for the Qingluan Guard to track their tracks. Even if the Qingluan Guard found clues, it would be a long time later, enough for them to walk far away.

The county also had access control, and they needed to show a pass. This was also the place where traces were most likely to be left. Fortunately, Hu Liang was experienced in this regard and prepared more than a dozen passes with different identities in advance. Every time he entered the city, he would change his identity and the pass would be invalid after use. He did not expect the Qingluan Guard to see any clues from this aspect.

As for where these road permits come from, it is actually simple. There are many such unorthodox skills in the Jianghu, such as Wenxiangtang, Wandumen, Tingfenglou, and Bailianfang. Although they are not sects, they are better than sects. They run all kinds of businesses: buying people, killing people, guaranteeing people, kidnapping people, looking for people, getting information, spreading rumors, counterfeiting documents, etc. The four families have their own strengths. For example, Tingfenglou, as the name suggests, is good at getting information, Wandumen is good at assassination, Bailianfang is good at guaranteeing people, and Wenxiangtang is good at forging documents. Hu Liang's road permit documents were purchased from Wenxiangtang, which are almost real. However, the cost is also quite high. Take the road permit document for example, one copy costs one Taiping coin, which is enough to make ordinary people stay away.

This time, the road permit document is a tongsheng status. Although it cannot be directly saved like a scholar, it is also a real scholar status. The soldiers guarding the gate did not dare to make things difficult and let the carriage enter the city smoothly.

After entering the city, Li Xuandu and his party chose a relatively remote inn. After parking the carriage in the backyard of the inn, the owner immediately came to greet them, which reminded Li Xuandu of the Taiping Inn in Huainan Prefecture, Luzhou. However, the owner here was obviously not a hidden master. After seeing Hu Liang and Li Xuandu, two people in the martial arts world, he was very polite, even a little humble. It was true that the heroes of this era were not easy to mess with. They would fight at any time and smash the store to pieces. Not long ago, at the Yuelai Inn on the front street, a foreign swordsman and two local rangers fought over a disagreement. They fought from the lobby on the first floor of the inn to the guest rooms on the second floor, and then from the guest rooms on the second floor to the roof. They beat the inn inside and out, and even the tiles on the roof were peeled off. Afterwards, the foreign swordsman just left. The two local rangers were concerned about their reputation and left two ingots of silver, which was only twenty taels, not even enough to re-lay the tiles. The owner of Yuelai Inn was straightforward. He sold the store to someone else and quit.

With such a precedent, would the boss dare to provoke these Jianghu tycoons? Naturally, he had to treat them as masters and recommend the store's signature food and wine. Li Xuandu had already fasted, so it was uncertain whether to eat or not. However, as a warrior, Hu Liang still had to eat something, especially after he was injured and lost a lot of blood. In addition to taking pills and pretending to be dead and sleeping, he also needed a lot of food. It is said that many enemies on the battlefield often had nine meals a day and three cows a day. This is not groundless, so Li Xuandu ordered a few more dishes and asked the boss to deliver the food directly to the guest room in the backyard.

Not long after, a middle-aged woman came to serve wine and food. She had a slender waist and a graceful figure that made up for her face. After putting down the wine and food, the proprietress looked at the three people. The little girl was fine. Although she had the potential to be a beauty, she had not grown up yet. As for Hu Liang, he looked like a man of the underworld. That was all. But the young man had a beautiful appearance. He did not look like a rough man who traveled around the underworld. He looked like a scholar from a scholarly family.

Hu Liang took the wine jar, slapped off the mud seal, sniffed it, raised his head and asked with a smile: "This wine is good, what's the name?"

The proprietress was most afraid of this kind of rough guy, who didn't know how to be gentle with women, so she couldn't help but be more careful and said softly in Wu dialect: "This is the Huadiao wine we brewed in our store. It's not special, but we didn't cut corners, so it's so mellow."

Hu Liang raised the wine jar and took a sip, praising: "This wine is good, it can be said to be good value for money."

The proprietress smiled and said: "As a small business, we dare not bully customers like those big inns, so we can only take the path of small profits and quick turnover."

After Hu Liang chatted for a few more words, he suddenly asked: "Has there been any abnormality in the city recently?"

The woman immediately looked hesitant.

At this time, Li Xuandu took out a silver ingot from his sleeve, gently pushed it in the direction of the boss lady with two fingers, and said with a smile: "Thank you, boss lady."

Money is attractive, and coupled with the warm smile of this handsome young man, the boss lady was immediately moved. No matter what taboos, she reached out to take the silver and said: "There are two families that can be called wealthy families in Ping'anxian City. One is the Sun family, and there have been officials for generations. The other is the Long family. The family has an escort agency, a pharmacy, and a pawnshop. It is rich and powerful, and no one dares to mess with it. But this morning, something happened to the Long family."

Li Xuandu and Hu Liang looked at each other, and immediately thought of the bodies of the eight escort leaders outside the city last night. They knew what was going on, and then Li Xuandu asked: "What happened?"

The boss's wife lowered her voice, "It's a big deal for dead people! As soon as it dawn this morning, someone saw the flagpole in front of the Wancheng Escort Agency of Longjia. The flagpole was broken and the broken flagpole was very flat. Some people said it was a sharp knife. The sword was cut off at once. Immediately afterwards, someone saw the head, escort and trespassers in the escort agency were killed. A total of more than a dozen corpses were neatly placed in the gate. "

Hu Liang asked, "For such a big thing, it should have alarmed the local government for a long time, but when we entered the city, why didn't we see the officers and soldiers blocking the city and searching?"

老板娘答道：“听说是被龙家的人给压下去了，虽说那位龙家管事下了封口令，不许外传，可这么大的事情怎么瞒得住？如今城里都快传遍了.”

Li Xuan remained silent and continued to ask, "What else?"

既然已经开了头，老板娘便竹筒倒豆子一股脑说道：“还有就是在龙府大门的牌匾上，多出了九个鲜红的血手印，在门前的青石板上还用淋淋漓漓的鲜血写了九个大大的'死'字，听说这血就是那些死了的镖头、镖师的心头血，有人说这是恶鬼作祟，定是龙家之有人招惹了不干净的东西， Or if you do evil in heaven, you will cause such a disaster."

Hu Liang took a sip of wine and asked again, "I heard that the Dragon Master Long Xiaoyun is a top-notch master, so he didn't react?"

The woman shook her head and said, "I haven't heard of it. It's said that the master of the Long family has not shown up for a long time. I heard that it was the wife of the Long family who presided over the big and small things of the Long family. After this incident, the people in the Long family are now in panic. I don't know when It's going to ruin the evil ghost's murder."

Although he had made up his mind to ignore this matter, after hearing what the boss's wife said, Li Xuan sighed softly. There were many life and death killings in the world, but most of them were not as bad as his family. Even if there were those cruel and ruthless people, Just like Wu Shiban of Wudao Sect, he would not be like a cat and a mouse to kill people.

Hu Liang said softly, "Old Li, you are all old people, keep calm."

Hu Liang is a man with thick outside and delicate inside. In fact, he only said half of his words. The implication is nothing more than advising Li Xuan not to act irritably.

Li Xuan naturally knows the importance of it. Even if he wants to be a hero, he has to understand the matter. Judging from the current situation, the female sect is coming in full force, and it is probably not just the young swordsman, not them. Two people can stop it.

Li Xuandu also took the wine jar and poured himself a bowl of wine and drank it all in one breath.

直到这个时候，老板娘终于有些回过味来，寻常人等听到这等暴毙十几口人的诡异莫测之事，难免会一惊一乍，可眼前这二位却是没有半点惊惶， It can be seen that it is a wealthy man in the world who has experienced great storms.

When he spoke again, the boss lady was a little more careful and asked, "Do you have any other needs? If not, the little woman will surrender."

Li Xuandu took out half of the almost broken silver from his sleeve and pushed forward on the table, "Thank you."

The proprietress hesitated for a moment, put away the money, turned around and left the guest room.