Cangzhou border.
Sword Slave City.
After experiencing the chaos a month ago, the reconstruction work of Jiannu City is gradually getting back on track.
Collapsed city walls, burned buildings, and destroyed workshops all require a large amount of financial and material resources to be rebuilt.
This expenditure alone would cost one million taels of silver.
And this is only part of the sword slave's losses.
A large number of workshops were destroyed and Sword Slaves fled. The workshops controlled by the trading houses in Sword Slave City were unable to deliver orders to buyers on time due to these changes, and Tianxuan Mountain had to bear the losses.
Adding everything together, the losses caused by the rebellion in Jiannu City to Tianxuan Mountain amounted to three to four million taels.
Not to mention that a divine peak guard was killed in the battle.
The top management of Tianxuan Mountain was furious. It is said that after the headmaster heard about this, he summoned the old peak master of Ganquan Peak into the mansion overnight, who was about to retire behind the scenes. He pointed at the old peak master and cursed him.
A full three hours.
The yelling in the headmaster's house finally stopped.
According to the disciples who were on duty outside the gate at the time, the old peak master of Ganquan Peak had an ashen complexion with almost no trace of blood when he came out of the Headmaster's Mansion.
…
Zhou Qishen felt bitter when he thought about those rumors.
He was just an ordinary disciple in Ganquan Peak, without much talent or ability. He only managed to enter the inner sect by relying on his close relationship with the Zhou family who was in charge of Ganquan Peak.
Fortunately, he was smart, down-to-earth and hard-working, so he was finally appreciated by Zhou Qinhu and was accepted into his inner circle.
For a disciple with his talent, it is a great blessing to be valued by a guard.
Therefore, in the days to come, Zhou Qishen became more and more conscientious, thinking that no matter what, he would hold on to Zhou Qinhu's thigh.
But he never thought that he would encounter such a change. Jiannu City was destroyed and Zhou Qinhu died in the battle. His only hope was gone. Now he still had the crime of negligence in Jiannu City waiting for him.
If he is not careful, he will be in danger.
"Are they all here?" Just when Zhou Qishen was secretly lamenting his bad luck and misfortune, such a question suddenly came from beside him.
Zhou Qishen was stunned. After he came to his senses, he quickly looked up at the man standing next to him.
The man is in his early thirties, with sharp eyebrows and starry eyes, and a majestic appearance.
He was wearing a black outfit and carried two long swords on his back. The swords were simple and simple. Although they were not unsheathed, Zhou Qishen could feel the slightest hint of sword intent overflowing from the scabbards.
Long Xiao and Chi Lian.
Those are two royal swords from the Yaoguang Sword Pool.
For the disciples of Tianxuan Mountain, it is not easy to be favored by the spirit sword, but the man in front of him can be recognized by two king swords. His talent and character are undoubtedly the talents of a genius.
His name is Xiang An.
The leader among the younger generation in Ganquanfeng.
The personal disciple of Zhou Sheng, one of the three major guards of Ganquan Peak.
It is said that this senior brother Xiang is from the same hometown as the young senior uncle from Qingque Peak, and Zhou Zhenshou's precious granddaughter seems to be enamored with him.
With such an identity, Zhou Qishen was definitely not someone he could offend.
What's more, now Xiang An still has the handwriting of the peak master, and he is ordered to come here to investigate the rebellion in Jiannu City.
It is no exaggeration to say that how Zhou Qishen spends the second half of his life is entirely in his hands at this moment.
Zhou Qishen naturally did not dare to neglect him. After being stunned for a moment, he put a smile on his face, pointed at the group of people kneeling in front of him, and said: "Brother Xiang, the sword slaves who participated in the rebellion that day are all here. …”
After saying this, Zhou Qishen took another careful look at the man. Seeing that there was no sadness or joy on the other man's face, he felt a little flustered for no reason, and added: "We have interrogated them many times, but most of them just followed the rebellion. The absconders don’t know who the mastermind was that day, and it’s difficult to find valuable clues from their mouths alone.”
After hearing this, Xiang An turned his head and glanced at Zhou Qishen, without commenting on his words. He just turned around and placed the two swords behind his back that Zhou Qishen coveted on the desk, and then sat down on the seat that had been arranged.
He did not rush to interrogate him, but opened a piece of rice paper on the table in front of him. Zhou Qishen quickly winked at the disciple serving beside him, who quickly studied the ink.
When everything was ready, Xiang An picked up his pen, looked at the sword slaves in the audience, and said.
"Tell me what you know."
"As long as it is useful, no matter how big or small, I will let you live."
…
It's not that Xiang An doesn't trust Zhou Qishen. In fact, the sword slaves caused such a big trouble. The only way for Zhou Qishen to get rid of the crime was to find out the whole story. Before he arrived, he could have thought of how to pry open these sword slaves. mouth, Zhou Qishen must have tried his best.
It was just Xiang An's habit to interrogate these sword slaves again.
He likes to listen to dictation in person and then write things down on paper himself. This process can give him peace of mind and capture some details that he may have missed.
There were more than thirty sword slaves who were captured. After questioning them one by one, it was almost evening.
As Zhou Qishen said, there is not much information available.
All the key points are focused on the group of sword armor survivors who were imprisoned in the sword slaves.
Zhou Qinhu's son Zhou Yue went to the gathering place of the sword armor survivors on the day of the incident, and then he showed up again as a corpse.
This rebellion is obviously related to those sword armor survivors.
But this group of people has been locked up in Jiannu City for so many years without causing any disturbance. They alone cannot do such a big thing.
According to those sword slaves, before Zhou Yue arrived, there was a group of people who came to the place where the Jianjia survivors were, and this group of people was the key to everything.
But after checking the remaining entry records, there was no suspicious person.
It was obvious that the group of uninvited guests had deliberately used false identities, and it was probably impossible to investigate from this line.
The survivors of Jianyue City...
Xiang An wrote these words on the rice paper, his writing paused slightly and his brows furrowed.
Jianyue City.
It wasn't a strange name to him, but he didn't want to recall it too much.
He sighed and rubbed his brow.
Zhou Qishen, who was waiting on the side, saw this and knew that this senior brother had encountered the same problem as him. He did not dare to say anything more, but just lowered his head and waited carefully.
"It's been such a troubled time recently..." Xiang An suddenly sighed.
.
If you think about it carefully, he hasn't returned to Tianxuan Mountain for two months.
Tianxuan Mountain has a close relationship with the imperial court, and the sacred peaks below it also have many cooperations with various departments of the imperial court.
Ganquan Peak, where Xiang An is located, has had frequent contacts with Jian Tiansi recently. Several changes related to gods in southern Xinjiang have been handed over to Ganquan Peak. After changing hands several times, this task finally fell into Xiang An's hands.
Xiang An took his people on a trip to the Luershan desolation and the arrival of the gods outside Wancheng, but there was almost no harvest to speak of.
After finally returning to the sect, he received news of the rebellion in Jiannu City, and was asked by the peak master to come to investigate the matter thoroughly. A lot of things made Xiang An a little exhausted.
He thought about it but still had no idea, so he wrote down the events about Luershan and Wancheng on rice paper.
The resurrected desolation in Luershan made a lot of noise. The remaining aura of the gods was very majestic, but the desolation was nowhere to be found. He found the auras of other gods at the scene, and the numbers varied. It was far more than the gods he thought had come. That place, but the source of which can be explored seems to be related to the ancestral spirit of Long Xiangwei.
Things in Wancheng are even more sinister.
A disciple of Tianxuan Mountain was expelled from his sect, so he was bewitched by the evil god from outside the territory, and slaughtered hundreds of members of the entire family. Two gold-holding guards of the Supervisor Tiansi died there, but the evil god from outside the territory did not know what happened. trace.
This matter involved several Tianxuan Mountain disciples. Xiang An originally wanted to investigate it, but he didn't want a big mess to happen in Jiannu City, so he could only leave the matter to a few fellow disciples and rush there himself. Sword Slave City.
In addition to these sect tasks, Xiang An also has a private matter that worries him...
Pu Zijin, the magistrate of Shuiyang City in Muzhou, died.
One is a leader among the younger generation in Tianxuan Mountain, and the other is the magistrate of a small town in Muzhou.
The identities of the two seem to be incompatible.
But Xiang An knew Pu Zijin's true identity. Like himself and the junior uncle from Qingque Peak, he was an old man from Wuling City.
His death made Xiang An a little uneasy.
He looked at the several things recorded densely on the rice paper. Each one had no clue, and each one gave him a headache.
Thinking of this, Xiang An sighed again.
While he was distressed, there was suddenly a noise outside the door.
"Girl! This is the city lord's mansion! Don't break in!"
"Wherever this girl is going, can you still stop me? Get away!"
The noise brought Xiang An out of his thoughts. He raised his head and looked there, his brows furrowed and his expression seemed displeased.
Zhou Qishen, who had been serving carefully at the side, felt his heart freeze when he saw this, fearing to offend Xiang An, he hurriedly walked towards the door of the mansion, wanting to end the inappropriate noise.
But as soon as he took a step forward, the door of the mansion was pushed open, followed by the silhouette of the disciple guarding the door flying towards him.
Zhou Qishen was startled and hurriedly stretched out his hand to catch the flying disciple. Then he looked at the girl who was walking into the house with an angry look on his face, and shouted angrily: "You are..."
But just as the words came out, the girl ignored him at all, but looked at Xiang An who was sitting on the door of the mansion with a look of surprise.
"Brother Xiang An! You are indeed here!"
