A life of two souls traveling through time

Chapter 285: Fire in Yujiang City Shop

The next morning, at dawn, the gate of the Li family mansion was already wide open. Li Yunye and Mu Liang walked out side by side. The two brothers had been up all night worrying about the situation in Yujiang City and were both exhausted. Following behind them were Lao Zhou, An Ge, An Yun, and Xiao Xu, the waiter who came to report the news last night. A carriage had already stopped at the gate of the mansion.

Last night, Mu Liang rejected Li Yunye's decision to go to Yujiang City with him. After all, Master Shen is still in Jiangnan, and his brother, as the owner of the famous Li family in Jiangnan, must stay in Qile City just in case. And yesterday, he learned from You Zhizhou that the government had found the trace of Jiuhe, which also made Mu Liang put down the stone that had been hanging in his heart for a long time. At present, Jiuhe's every move is in You Zhizhou's eyes, and it is safer for his brother to stay in Qile City.

"Manager Yang is cunning, and he has Master Shen Shi backing him up. Be careful when you arrive in Yujiang City, and don't let Old Zhou leave you." Li Yunye sent Mu Liang to the carriage and warned him with a worried look on his face.

"Hehe, Mr. Li, don't worry. Although Manager Yang is cunning, your brother Mu Liang is not a fox who will eat nothing." Before Mu Liang could speak, Old Zhou suddenly came up and said to Li Yunye with a smile.

"Brother Muliang is naturally not afraid of open attacks, but the hidden arrows from behind are still pointed at Old Zhou, so you help keep a close eye on him." Li Yunye glanced at Old Zhou with a smile in his eyes, and then instructed.

"Okay, okay. With me, Old Zhou, here, I will make sure that Manager Mu comes back safely." Old Zhou also patted his chest and said confidently.

"Drink less." With Lao Zhou's kung fu, Li Yunye naturally believed what he said, but his only worry was that the old man might get drunk and make mistakes.

"Again." When the topic of drinking came up, Lao Zhou felt like his ears were getting callused, so he muttered and jumped into the carriage.

Seeing this, Li Yunye could only curl his lips helplessly and said nothing more.

"With Brother Mu Liang here, don't worry about the things in Yujiang City. But your stepmother will ask about it later, so you have to deal with it well." Mu Liang smiled with his starry eyes, patted Li Yunye's shoulder, and comforted him in a gentle voice.

"Well, when mother asked, I said you went out of town to inspect shops." Li Yunye nodded and smiled gently at his brother.

"Take good care of the young master and the lady." Looking at the gentle smile on his brother's face, Mu Liang was in a trance for a moment and felt a little reluctant, but he quickly regained his senses and instructed An Ge and Anyun beside him.

"Please rest assured, Mr. Mu Liang." An Ge replied respectfully, and An Yun also nodded silently.

Afterwards, Mu Liang and his servant Xiao Xu got on a carriage and went out of the city. At the same time, Lu Zhi was waiting at the city gate.

It turned out that last night, Li Yunye and Mu Liang had unanimously decided to let Lu Zhi temporarily take over the shop in Yujiang City. Therefore, after Manager Yuan left Li's Mansion that night, he notified Lu Zhi to wait for Mu Liang's carriage at the city gate early this morning.

In Yujiang City, at the busy street corner, the business of Jiangnan Mingli Cloth Shop used to be prosperous every day, but now it has plummeted, with few customers. The bustling pedestrians on the street some ignored Jiangnan Mingli, while others pointed and mocked. The three idle shop assistants were helpless, and they were anxiously thinking that if nothing unexpected happened, Xiao Xu should have arrived in Jiangnan to meet his boss, right?

However, Liushui Cloth Shop, which is diagonally opposite Jiangnan Mingli, is now bustling with customers and is full of laughter and chatter, in stark contrast to Jiangnan Mingli. It is really sad to see that the situations of the two cloth shops have been reversed in just a few months.

Shopkeeper Yang, who secretly came back from Jiangnan Medicine City last night, came to the store for an inspection at noon. Seeing that the shopkeeper turned a blind eye to the poor business, the employees dared not say anything and just did their job perfunctorily.

"Where is Xiao Xu?" Shopkeeper Yang suddenly asked one of the waiters.

"Xiao Xu has taken leave and hasn't returned yet." The guy shook his head and replied.

Manager Yang's shrewd face couldn't help but become nervous. He didn't say anything more to the shop assistants in the shop, but quickly returned to a room in the backyard and kicked Shuichi, a shop assistant who was lazily sleeping on the kang, to wake him up.

"Hey, shopkeeper, what are you doing?" Shui Chi, who was immersed in a sweet dream, was suddenly kicked awake by someone. He immediately sat up angrily, but when he saw that it was shopkeeper Yang, he suppressed his anger and smiled bitterly.

"Has Xiao Xu taken leave to visit his relatives yet? " Shopkeeper Yang asked nervously with a gloomy face.

"If he didn't come back, then he didn't come back. I guess this kid is getting lazy because his shop has no business..." Shuichi yawned nonchalantly, and slowly got off the kang while grinning. But before he could finish his words, he was slapped on the head by Shopkeeper Yang:

"Do you think everyone is as bad as you? Aren't you afraid that he is..."

"What is he?" Shui Chiben covered his head in pain. Seeing that Manager Yang stopped talking halfway, he looked up and asked curiously.

"Oh no, oh no, this kid might have gone to Jiangnan to file a complaint." Shopkeeper Yang sucked in a breath of cold air, his face instantly turning pale.

I was indeed careless. At this critical moment, I actually allowed the shop assistant to take leave to visit his relatives. The boy only asked me for ten days of leave, but now more than half a month has passed and I still haven't seen him. Such a long time is enough for him to go to Qile City.

"No way! That Xu kid has always been timid and weak, how dare he go to Jiangnan alone to file a complaint?" After hearing what Manager Yang said, Shui Chi was shocked at first, but soon returned to his usual nonchalant look and said with a smile.

"Do you know where he went to visit his relatives?" Shopkeeper Yang realized the seriousness of the situation, ignored the ruffian's words, and asked hurriedly.

"I don't quite remember, but I didn't go to Jiangnan." Shui Chi scratched his head and replied vaguely.

"I remember that Xiao Xu came to Yujiang City to live with a distant relative of his, who was selling sesame cakes in the south of the city. You can go and ask him." Shopkeeper Yang glared at the other party angrily and ordered impatiently in a low voice.

Seeing that Manager Yang had an unhappy expression on his face, Shui Chi didn't dare to say anything more.

"Hey, Brother Chi is up. Where are you going?" When the three shop assistants saw Shui Chi appearing from the backyard in a grand manner, they all came up to him with a fawning look on their faces and pretended to be nice to him.

In the past few months, under the tyranny of the gangster Shuichi, the guys had to please him, otherwise they would be beaten up if they made him unhappy.

"Go out and find out where that Xu boy has gone." Shui Chi glanced at the guys surrounding him, and then asked, "Did he tell you?"

"He did mention it, and it seems that he went to Wangcheng. Anyway, it's not far from Yujiang City." One of the waiters reacted quickly and replied hurriedly.

"I also remember that it was near Yujiang City. I didn't expect that the kid hasn't come back yet." After hearing the clerk's words, Shui Chi muttered to himself and left the cloth shop.

After watching the water ruler go away, the three waiters showed worried expressions. It seemed that the young man's absence for a long time had aroused the suspicion of the shopkeeper.

"Boss, the grandson did go to Jiangnan, and he even secretly told his cousin before he left!" Half an hour later, Shui Chi hurried back to the backyard of the cloth shop and angrily replied to Boss Yang.

Upon hearing this, Shopkeeper Yang became anxious. He had naturally thought about the day when his crime would be exposed, but he had not expected it to come so soon. Now he was afraid that he would not be able to complete the task assigned by the Tenth Master. If the people from the Li family came, Wangcheng's plan would certainly fail. After all, even though Shopkeeper Lu had a good relationship with him, he was a fence-sitter. He would only side with whichever side was beneficial to him.

"Boss, I think we should run away." Shui Chi was just a ruffian after all, and naturally he started to panic when he thought that someone from the Jiangnan Li family was coming.

"I have to run, of course, but I can't let the famous Li family from Jiangnan get away with it." Seeing that his revenge on the Li family was about to fail, Shopkeeper Yang was really angry. He was unwilling to escape like this.

"What are you going to do, boss?" Seeing the cruelty in Manager Yang's eyes, Shui Chi asked nervously.

Shopkeeper Yang did not speak immediately, but looked at the water ruler with a sinister smile.

At midnight, when everyone was asleep, a fire suddenly broke out in the Jiangnan Mingli Cloth Shop on the busy street. When the night watchman in the city found it, the shop was already half burned and about to spread. The awakened people nearby came with buckets of water to put out the fire, but the late autumn was dry and the cloth shop was full of flammable cloth and wooden utensils. So even though the soldiers and civilians in the city worked together to put out the fire, the Jiangnan Mingli Cloth Shop and the two shops next door had already become a pile of broken tiles and ruins.

Fortunately, the two shops next door were unoccupied. The shop assistants at the famous Li Cloth Shop in Jiangnan were all people from outside the city. Now that business was slow, the shops closed early, and they all went back home to live. Only Shuichi lived in the backyard cloth shop during this period.

However, when the fire broke out tonight, the water ruler was nowhere to be seen, and the house of Manager Yang of the famous Li Cloth Shop in Jiangnan was also deserted.