The night He Nan left from Shanhe Mansion, he did not leave the city immediately, but returned to his residence first.
He lives in the deepest part of an alley some distance away from Shanhe Mansion. This alley is inhabited by low-level officials like him who came from other places to work in Beijing.
As soon as he opened the courtyard door, he looked up and saw a man standing in the shadows with a lantern waiting for him in front of his cabin door.
When He Nan saw this person, he suddenly stood still, raised his right hand in a gesture similar to stopping, and whispered: "It's okay, I'm one of my own." After about a few breaths, he seemed to be talking to himself again. Said: "Okay."
The person standing under the shadow of the eaves couldn't help but laugh out loud and asked: "What are you muttering to yourself over there? Are you possessed by an evil spirit? Where is the dancing master?" The voice of this person was a crisp male voice, probably similar to He Nan At the same age, he is a boy of about seventeen or eighteen years old.
He Nan looked at the young man in the shadow and said angrily: "If I hadn't performed the great dance just now, your head would have been gone."
The young man snorted disdainfully and said, "Is there anyone in Bai Yujing who can take away my head?"
He Nan closed his eyes and said a little speechlessly: "I remember when we first met, you were chased and beaten for several streets by a group of restaurant waiters... and you still had to say shamelessly that no one could take it away. Your head?”
When the young man holding the lantern heard what He Nan said, his face turned red under the weak candlelight of the lantern, and he coughed twice in embarrassment: "That was all a matter of old sesame and rotten millet many years ago. Now, Just don’t mention it…”
He Nan joked: "Thankfully you are known as a master thief, but you are chased away like a street rat by the common people... But you were a thief before, so it is not an exaggeration to say that you are a street rat, right? You rat."
The boy's name is Ni Tu. He used to be a thief, known as "the thief of robbers". Some people were disgusted with his behavior and called him "Ni Tu". This thief-within-a-thief neither steals from the poor nor from the rich, he only engages in the shady business - such as strange thieves, habitual thieves, illegal shops, etc., and every time he makes a move, he always succeeds, and he can be called a fellow killer. In his own words, "Robbing the rich and giving to the poor, or being a thief has nothing to do with me. I am not a hero, I am just a thief... I was born to eat this kind of food. How could the most powerful thief go there?" Stealing from ordinary people? Only thieves who can pry goods out of the pockets of their peers and pluck money out of their hands are the most powerful thieves, and they deserve to be called 'magic thieves'."
Nitu curled his lips and said: "What a common man, he is obviously a thug in a black shop... Okay, I won't quarrel with you, I can't fight you anyway."
"It's good to know." He Nan showed a triumphant smile, "By the way, how did you do what I asked you to do?"
Ni Tu fiddled with it in his arms for a while, then took out a bunch of crumpled banknotes and handed them to He Nan. This stack of banknotes contains both odd and whole parts, with denominations ranging from one tael to fifty taels, but overall there are more small denominations.
One tael of silver is equivalent to about one thousand copper coins, which can buy about two stones, which is about four hundred kilograms of rice or nearly fifty kilograms of pork. The purchasing power can be said to be considerable. However, metal was heavy and difficult to carry, so the imperial court established some banks to print and issue banknotes and undertake exchange business. The business of Shengguo is very developed. So far, a total of seven kinds of banknotes with different denominations have been issued, namely one, three, five, ten, fifty, one hundred taels and one thousand taels. The number of printed coins is proportional to the face value of the banknotes. Inversely proportional. Among them, one thousand taels of silver notes are very rare. Only royal nobles and wealthy merchants have the opportunity to see and use them--of course, not very frequently.
As for silver notes... ordinary people have little chance to use them. Let's take He Nan as an example - He Nan is the prime minister of Shanhe Mansion, with an eighth-grade rank - and the eighth-grade official's annual salary is four About ten taels, and these forty taels are about eight times the annual income of ordinary farmers and twice that of ordinary craftsmen. Farmers, craftsmen and low-level officials obviously had little spare time to exchange their money into banknotes, not to mention that the money in their hands was only a very small amount of scattered silver, most of the copper coins, and general equivalents such as grain.
The only groups that have the opportunity to use banknotes are nobles and wealthy businessmen, as well as some practitioners in the criminal industry - after all, the most profitable methods in the world have been written into the "National Law" of the Sheng Kingdom.
Of course, the banknotes in He Nan's hands were not saved by himself - he was from an ordinary background and had only been the Prime Minister for more than half a year. He could not have accumulated such a huge sum of money. It was difficult, so I gave him this meeting gift - a full three hundred taels of official silver. Three hundred taels was enough for a small family to live a life of adequate food and clothing for several lifetimes, but it was nothing more than a casual reward given by Qi Dan to someone he was interested in wooing.
He Nan had long wanted to leave, and these three hundred taels of silver were a bargain that fell from the sky. But three hundred taels of silver is not a small amount. If you go to the bank to exchange it for a silver note, it will definitely be registered. What's more, these three hundred taels of silver are all silver ingots stamped with the royal seal. Bai Yujing Nei dares to exchange them for him. All the banknotes are issued by government banks. Who can guarantee that there are no spies among them? An ordinary pawnshop or firm would never dare to accept this official money. In desperation, he found his friend who was a thief but acted with integrity.
Since he is a thief, he must have a place to sell his stolen goods. A top thief like Ni Tu is even more cunning. He Nan gave him the three hundred taels of silver in order to ask him to exchange the silver notes in the more reliable black market where stolen goods were sold. Of course, there are no traces of anything flowing out of the black market, otherwise the government would have taken advantage of it long ago - in a sense, this money is the "cleanest".
He Nan carefully counted the amount of the banknote, but then asked doubtfully: "Why is there only more than two hundred taels? Where did the rest of the money go?"
"When I went to sell the stolen goods, I fell in love with a treasure and bought it with the remaining money." Mi Tu touched in his arms again, and finally took out a long black object and handed it to He Difficult, "Here, it's for you."
He Nan curled his lips and said, "It's really yours... spend my money to buy something as a gift to me." However, curiosity drove his eyes to look at the weird-shaped item.
This is a brand-new cigarette rod about one foot long, carved into the shape of a giant black python winding around. The tail of the giant python is a three-inch straight cigarette holder, and the body is coiled to form the main body of the cigarette rod. At the end is a huge snake head with red and golden eyes. There are slightly raised edges on both sides of the snake head, and it is tilted towards the sky. Open its huge mouth - the huge mouth of the python is the pipe for holding tobacco. The entire cigarette rod seems to be made of jade, which is very luxurious and heavy. The snake's two eyes are made of red agate inlaid with tiny gold beads. Under the candlelight, they are like living creatures, lifelike; and the fine black scales are made by famous craftsmen at first glance, and they feel like snake skin, which makes people feel involuntarily. Feeling numb all over.
"Did you really buy this thing for less than a hundred taels?" He Nan looked at Mi Tu questioningly, "No matter how it seems, you can't buy it for a hundred taels... If you ask me, ten taels More than twice as much.”
Ni Tu said with a proud look on his face: "I thought you had the ability to recognize people, but I didn't expect that you also have some eyesight in recognizing objects. This gadget was made by the famous jade carving master 'Gubieshan' and is made of rare Made of black jade, 'smoked jade'. What's the market price? It's okay to say it's priceless, after all, it's a treasure intended for dignitaries."
Upon hearing this, He Nan was really frightened, and his eyes almost burst out of his eyes. "How did this thing end up in your hands?!"
"Young master has been traveling around the world for so many years, what kind of treasures have you not seen?" Ni Tu's tone was very disdainful, as if he was dissatisfied with He Nan's surprised expression. But he added, "But this treasure is indeed one of the most amazing things I have ever seen... You also know that people in our line of work must be very sensitive to valuable things. I am very sensitive to these things." It’s like having telepathy… I guess this is a talent.”
Ni Tu is indeed He Nan's best friend, and even his boastful and boastful expression and tone are almost exactly the same. He looked at He Nan as if he was a little impatient with his verbose words, so he got to the point, "Of course I have to go to the safest place to cash these banknotes for you. Of course there are a lot of good things in that kind of place. It just so happened that I heard the boss of the black market pawn shop and a "pocket" bragging about a priceless treasure in their hands. This thing was probably an unexpected gain from a snitch, and it was sold to the pawn shop after a few hands. I went to the store. After I cashed the banknotes and went out, I entered his warehouse that night and fell in love with it at first sight. You know, I have also done some research on gold and jade jewelry. This thing has It's so good. How can I be wrong? In addition, the boss said something about Master Gu and Smoked Jade during the day. Ninety-nine percent of it is this little thing. Anyway, it will fall into the hands of thieves. It is better to take advantage of others than to take advantage of me. So I took the sheep and led it out."
Mi Tu talked about this long paragraph with his eyebrows dancing and saliva flying. Unexpectedly, He Nan's focus was not here. Instead, he asked: "Pocket? What did the boss say to the pocket?"
"Pocket does not mean a real pocket, but a slang term for the pawn trade. It refers to laymen who are rich but do not know the goods and are easily deceived." Ni Tu answered He Nan's questions.
"Then you won't keep such a valuable treasure for yourself? Are you going to give it to me?" He Nan squinted at Mi Tu, looking a little unbelievable.
"I don't smoke dry cigarettes, so what's the use of this thing? You love cigarettes so much, but it's worth every penny in your hands." Mi Tu didn't take this to heart and said nonchalantly, "If I want it, What kind of treasure can't be stolen? To be honest, I'm not very interested in gold and silver treasures. I just simply think that stealing - especially stealing from thieves is very interesting. In other words, I may be a thief just for the sake of the first time. Le'er. But I'm not going to accept your little one hundred taels, just think of it as a farewell gift you left for me before you left."
He Nan didn't tell Mi Tu that he was leaving, but he wasn't surprised that Mi Tu could guess this. After all, no one would exchange money for banknotes when they have nothing to do. Only people who want to travel far away would. Act like this. At this time, he was quite touched - his brother thief had specially stolen a very good treasure for himself before he left - although it was stolen from the black market, he didn't feel guilty, but this kind of theft The behavior is still not recommended.
"Speaking of farewell gifts, not only do you give it to me, I also want to give you another one -" He Nan also took out a small gadget from his arms at this time, which was a wooden sign with the word "大" engraved on it. "After I leave, you will be the new leader of a big gang."
No matter how unruly and sophisticated He Nan was, in the final analysis he was still just a boy who was half eighteen years old. Naturally, he yearned for the loyalty of thousands of Jianghu gang brothers. He always likes to make friends, and he knows all kinds of religions. Since coming to Bai Yujing, he has made many friends. There are many of these people who are like teenagers, but they are all brave, courageous and outstanding people. Even Zhu Zhaoer often comes to join in the fun with them.
He Nan was the first person to put forward his opinions. Several close friends hit it off and established this "big" gang. Yes, the name of their gang is "Yida". At first, a big gang was just a small fight among teenagers, but as time went by, there were more and more "gangmen" in a big gang, and they were all energetic and passionate young people in their teens. them. The spirit of a young man can make you heart-to-heart with a glance, and kill with a smile - a few people headed by He Nan have established some decent gang systems, most of which are related to brotherly loyalty - such as sharing blessings and sharing hardships, etc. oath. As the founder of a large gang, He Nan was naturally the first "leader" and even made a wooden token with large characters engraved on it.
There are only a few dozen people in a large gang so far, and there is nothing to be proud of in the position of "leader". But in the eyes of these teenagers, it is the greatest sentiment and memory, and its meaning is extraordinary. At this time, the handover of the "leadership" positions between He Nan and Ni Tu also symbolized the farewell of brothers. Both of them couldn't help but have red eyes, and a few lines of tears quietly flowed down the corners of their eyes.
Just as the two brothers were saying goodbye, an inhuman voice came from the air. The clear female voice broke the sad atmosphere between the two: "It's getting late, we should hurry up. Set off."
Hearing this female voice, Ni Tu suddenly approached He Nan and whispered, "The voice of the girl urging you to leave is nice, but is it my brother or sister?" Mi Tu was several months younger than He Nan, and it was obvious that he was in trouble at this time. He took advantage of He Nan in his words.
He Nan casually wiped the wet tears on his face and raised his voice: "You come in first, we will leave immediately." As soon as he finished speaking, he saw a man dressed in red floating in quietly from outside the courtyard door.
When you saw Hongyu's appearance, you couldn't help but praise her, and said jokingly: "I thought I was a younger brother and sister who had a bad image and dared not see people. It turns out that it is a fairy who has fallen from the mortal world."
He Nan smiled. Of course he did his best to take advantage, but he took advantage of two people at once: "I'm afraid you, the fairy sister-in-law, don't care about recognizing a cheap husband like her."
Hong Yu had known for a long time that He Nan would show such a dishonest look, but at this moment He Nan was holding the black arrow that Li Yushi had given him to dispatch the hidden arrow, so he turned his head away as if he didn't hear it. He said coldly: "I am not familiar with you, but if we don't leave the city and wait for dawn, it will be difficult to leave."
Seeing Hong Yu's warning, He Nan knew it was time to leave, so he leaned over and whispered a few words to Ni Tu, patted his shoulder and left on horseback with Hong Yu.
He had been living in this small and old courtyard for four or five years, and a group of half-grown-up men had also lived here for four or five years with their drunken dreams. But now there is only a young man standing in front of the courtyard with a lamp, unable to leave for a long time, as if waiting for someone to return.
