binnovel Chapter 156 Empty
Chapter 156 Empty
Gu Fengyue was very unhappy. Although all the rice and flour were bought by the other party, he still felt unhappy.
When he told Song Chunlin about this, Song Chunlin felt a little strange: "They can't sell much even if they buy it and resell it, why are you angry?"
Gu Fengyue couldn't explain it, he just felt that those people were not worthy of selling the grain grown by Song Chunlin.
Song Chunlin looked at his awkward expression and raised his eyebrows: "Since you are so unhappy, let's go find something for them to do."
Gu Fengyue's eyes lit up, and he leaned over and whispered, "Are you going to empty the warehouse again?"
Song Chunlin nodded excitedly: "I'll go, you can't go."
"Why can't I go? It's safer for me to go with you."
Song Chunlin refuted him bluntly: "I don't need anyone to help me move things. It will be faster for me to go alone."
Gu Fengyue was choked by the retort, but he knew in his heart that the other party was right. Song Chunlin only needed to wave his hand to collect the things, and it seemed that there was really no point for him to follow him.
Gu Fengyue, realizing that he was useless, remained silent for a rare moment.
Song Chunlin didn't expect that his unintentional words would hurt him, and he patted him on the shoulder as if they were good brothers.
"It's okay. Just stay in the mansion and wait for my triumphant return."
Gu Fengyue had no choice but to compromise, but she still reminded Song Chunlin: "Be careful in everything, and run away if you find something wrong."
Song Chunlin nodded his head rapidly: "Yes, yes, yes, I understand."
Although Song Chunlin said that he would be careful, he actually didn't take the raid on the aristocratic families' warehouses seriously at all. All along the way he was thinking about how to inflict a fatal blow on those aristocratic families.
Easier said than done...it's also quite easy.
Song Chunlin did not go to the warehouses of those aristocratic families immediately. Instead, he swept all the grain shops in the capital. He found any shops that displayed rice and flour produced by his space, and cleared them out. Not only the grain bought from their grain shops, but also the leftover grain in other people's shops was not spared. He just waved his hand and made sure that the entire store was so clean that even a rat would turn around.
The project was quite large, so Song Chunlin kept running until almost dawn and only visited half of the shops in the city. He really didn't have the strength to do the remaining half, so he rushed into Gu Fengyue's house with sweat all over his forehead. Gu Fengyue had been waiting for a whole night and was already drowsy. He woke up as soon as Song Chunlin came back. Looking at the exhausted Song Chunlin, Gu Fengyue felt heartbroken.
Song Chunlin took out a glass of lemonade from the space, gulped down half of it, and his burning throat finally felt a little better.
Gu Fengyue poured out the last bit of warm water, wet a towel and wiped Song Chunlin's sweat. Song Chunlin tilted his head back, enjoying Gu Fengyue's service, and kept muttering to himself, saying how much he had walked that night, how many grain shops he had visited, and how he had collected tens of thousands of kilograms of grain.
"Tens of thousands of kilograms? You only collected the grain from the shop, right?"
Song Chunlin hummed, "It would be too exciting to clear out the store all at once. I'm afraid they won't be able to adapt to it all at once, so let's try clearing out the store first, hehe."
Gu Fengyue felt a little helpless. Song Chunlin was obviously trying to tease that group of people. If those people knew that their shops would be cleared out every day thereafter, she didn't know what expressions they would have.
Early in the morning, the Li family's largest grain store was preparing to open. The shopkeeper asked the waiters to lower the main door. However, after only two doors were opened, a waiter exclaimed.
"Boss, we're out of food!"
The shopkeeper was shocked by these words. He thought the shop assistants were trying to scare him. But when he walked into the shop and took a look, he was shocked to see that there was not a single grain of grain in the entire shop. It was as clean as a new shop.
Looking at the empty store, the shopkeeper looked as if he had seen a ghost.
"Report to the police, quickly, report to the police. Also, send someone back to the mansion to report to the master and ask the warehouse to ship more food over." The shopkeeper had also seen big storms, and he quickly and calmly gave orders one by one.
Seeing how calm the manager was, the others also calmed down and began to work in an orderly manner.
At first, they all thought it was just a low-probability event. Fortunately, there was not much grain stored in their store, and most of it was old grain. A small part was bought from low-priced grain stores, so the loss would not be too big if it was lost.
But what no one expected was that half of the more than 300 grain shops in the capital, big and small, had lost their grain. All of it was stolen, not even a grain of rice was left.
The head of the Li family was busy listening to reports from his subordinates all morning about the thefts in various granaries. The Li family mainly deals in grain business, and their stall is the largest, so naturally the losses were the most serious.
The head of the Li family did not take the matter to heart. He thought that even if the other party emptied their grain shop, it would not matter. He would not even want to feed the dogs with those melons and dates. It was a pity for those he had just bought. They were of such good quality, and he had not sold even a kilogram of them. Now they were gone just like that.
Up to this point, people still didn't take this matter to heart. It was just a few grain stores that had lost their food. As their family was wealthy and powerful, they naturally wouldn't take this small amount of money to heart. After reporting to the government, they all came back and did what they had to do.
The Jingzhao Prefecture was not so happy. In just one night, hundreds of grain stores in the capital were robbed. Although the amount of grain in each store was small, it added up to a lot. The Jingzhao prefect made a rough calculation and found that it was actually tens of thousands of kilograms.
However, it is absolutely impossible to transport so much grain easily relying on manpower alone. To be able to empty so many grain stores overnight, could it be that the other party is a gang?
But that doesn't make sense. The people in the patrol camp are not pushovers. With so many people smuggling food, it's impossible not to be discovered.
The prefect of Jingzhao was overwhelmed. There were too many burglary-inflicted shops and he did not have enough staff, so he ran to the patrol camp and robbed dozens of strong men to help him investigate.
The patrol camp is now under the charge of the General of the Household under the command of the Grand Marshal. When he heard that such a big thing had happened in the capital, he broke out in a cold sweat. Therefore, in the face of the Jingzhao prefect's scolding, he had to keep his tail between his legs and remain silent. He sent people when he was asked to do so, and did not dare to say a word in rebuttal.
The news of the collective theft of more than one hundred grain stores soon spread to the ears of the people. People said all kinds of things at once, and some even speculated on what kind of person was so powerful that he could emptied hundreds of grain stores overnight.
After a whole day of visiting, not only the people in the patrol camp had no clue, even the officials from Jingzhao Prefecture were confused.
The door locks of all the robbed shops were intact, there were no signs of forced entry into the doors and windows, the roof tiles had not been touched, and there were not even signs of any large objects being dragged on the ground.
This was very puzzling. They couldn't understand how the other party got in and took away all the food in the shop when the doors and windows were intact.
It would have been fine if they took away just one shop, but they took away food from hundreds of shops. How could tens of thousands of kilograms of food just disappear out of thin air?
The Prefect of Jingzhao and the General of the Household naturally did not believe that the other party did not leave any traces. They all thought that either the other party was well-trained and acted in a gang, or it must be a ghost.
"Let's not talk about how they stole the food first. Let's talk about how they were able to take away so much food. Did the people in your patrol camp really not notice anything?"
The General of the Household said unconvincedly, "They emptied more than one store. Our people change shifts every quarter of an hour. A quarter of an hour is not enough for them to transport all the food away, right? Moreover, since the border war began, His Majesty has long ordered us to strengthen the protection of the capital. We have doubled the number of patrols, and the time has been shortened by one stick of incense. How can anyone empty all these stores in such a short time?"
As the General of the Central Army was talking, he became a little uncertain. You said there were so many people on patrol, and the timing was dense enough. What method did those people use to avoid the patrol camp and take away the food easily?
No matter how you look at it, these behaviors are not very reasonable. The prefect of Jingzhao even reviewed the geomancy map with the General of the Household. After they finished reviewing, they found that with such intensive patrols by the patrol battalion, the locations of those grain stores were basically covered by their soldiers. It can be said that every less than a quarter of an hour, a team of soldiers passed by the doors of those grain stores.
In this situation, let alone emptying the grain shop, even prying open the door would be terrifying.
The more the Jingzhao prefect reviewed the situation, the more cold sweat he broke out in, and in the end he could even feel a chill down his spine.
"General Zhonglang, look at this..."
The General of the Central Army looked towards the Prefect of Jingzhao in horror, and an outrageous thought emerged in both of their minds at this moment - could this thief who appeared and disappeared so mysteriously really be a ghost?
When the two of them thought of this, they shuddered at the same time.
However, the matter was not over yet. After sleeping for a morning, Song Chunlin entered the space in high spirits. He did farm work in the space for half a day and came out at dinner time. Gu Fengyue had dinner with him. After they were full, they chatted for a while. Seeing that the time was almost up, Song Chunlin slowly left the Marquis' Mansion and started towards his first goal of the day.
There were not many shops left that had grain from his space. Song Chunlin finished work early in the evening. Passing by the door of a grain shop that had just been emptied yesterday, he casually scanned it with his mental power and found that grain produced from his space was put on display again. So he entered the shop again without hesitation and collected all the grain that had just been delivered to the shop today. Looking at the shop that had been emptied again, Song Chunlin clapped his hands with satisfaction and left happily. He was going to check the next shop.
The next morning, the owner of Li's Grain Store was frightened again. This time, he had experience, so he called the same waiters from yesterday. The waiters looked at each other, then went to work with strange expressions.
The head of the Li family had just been quiet for a while yesterday afternoon, but early this morning, his subordinates came to tell him: Your grain store has been robbed again.
The head of the Li family was so angry that he almost vomited blood.
"You damn thief, it's not enough that you stole from me once, you actually dared to do it a second time!" The head of the Li family was so angry that his voice was sharp and high-pitched. He paced around the room in anger, and in the end, he was still not satisfied, so he went to the Jingzhao prefect in person, pointed at the Jingzhao prefect's head and cursed him.
Although the Jingzhao prefect was a fourth-rank official, he was not qualified to face the giant Li family. Therefore, facing the anger of the head of the Li family, he could only carefully coax this gentleman.
"Our people are already investigating as quickly as possible. This will still take time, right?"
"Time? How long does it take for Jingzhao Prefecture to catch such a petty thief?"
The prefect of Jingzhao was feeling miserable, for how could he have known that the thief would be so arrogant? He had just stolen the night before yesterday and did it again last night. Thinking about how he had personally supervised the patrol with the General of the Household last night and had specially dispatched additional personnel to focus on monitoring those grain shops, he did not expect that another shop would be robbed early this morning.
The strangest thing was that there were several shops that had people guarding the door from beginning to end, with shifts every hour. They thought this was foolproof, but when the guys from the grain shops came to open the door in the early morning, everyone was dumbfounded.
When the store was being taken down yesterday, the store was clearly filled with rice, flour and cereals. How come, after one night, all the rice, flour and cereals were gone?
The soldiers who took turns guarding the grain shop the whole time felt a chill on their backs, and told them solemnly that they did not slack off or doze off during the whole process, and they even dared not take their eyes off the door of the grain shop. They stared at it like this, so how did the other party get into the grain shop and steal the grain right under their noses?
After hearing the Jingzhao prefect's narration, the head of the Li family was also confused, and the other heads of the families who came to the government office to seek an explanation were also confused.
No, this doesn't sound like something that can be done by human power. Could it be that there are really ghosts at work?
One of the family heads trembled and said, "With such great magical powers, why did he only steal our food?"
"Yeah, my house has been robbed twice."
"Me too, me too."
"Alas, luckily there aren't many things in my shop. The total weight is less than one thousand kilograms. How could those people have such great abilities just to steal one thousand kilograms of food?"
Speaking of this, the prefect of Jingzhao fell silent. He thought about how these noble families had driven up the grain prices some time ago. It was possible that they were being retaliated against by someone. However, he could not say this for fear of being beaten up by this group of people.
In fact, he didn't need to say it, as anyone with a decent brain would have realized that the other party was targeting them.
Among the crowd, Zhao Fei had a thoughtful look on his face. He thought about the treasures that were stolen from his mansion. Someone later told him privately that some poor people took gold and silver beads to the gold shop to exchange them for money. If he guessed correctly, those gold and silver beads were most likely the ones that were stolen from his mansion.