Qingsong thought so, and secretly wrote a letter without Cui Wendong's knowledge, and had someone send it to Cui's house overnight.
-
The memorial requesting merit for An Jingzhong was sent to the capital at full speed, but after ten days, there was still no response, which made An Leiting feel a little uneasy.

At the suggestion of Lu Qiyan and Xiao Luoan, An Leiting submitted another memorial, detailing An Jingzhong's recent hard work and achievements in the army, and even vaguely mentioned that An Jingzhong was innocently implicated in the previous matter concerning military supplies and medicinal materials.

On the second day after An Leiting's memorial was sent out, the person Lu Qiyan sent to investigate An Jingzhong's clearance of the floating army came back and said that there was some progress on the matter.

"What's the reason?" Lu Qiyan asked.

The person who came to report was named Gu Zhen, one of the secret agents trained by the Wen family. Ever since Lu Qiyan went to the border to work as the head of the Wen family, Gu Zhen and several secret agents had followed him.

For Lu Qiyan's dispatch, so that he can work for the Wen family.

Gu Zhen cupped his hands, but spoke hesitantly, "It would be better if you can go and take a look at this matter yourself."

Seeing Gu Zhen, who was always quick and efficient, so hesitant at this moment, Lu Qiyan's heart sank. After finding an excuse, he left the military camp and followed Gu Zhen.

The two went north all the way to the border with the neighboring country.

Lu Qiyan had been here before, when he occupied Changzhou City and determined the new national borders, and he vaguely remembered that there were several villages here.

Compared with the barren land further west and north, this area can be said to be a rare place with a river passing through. The land on both sides of the river is flat and fertile, suitable for farming.

Therefore, even though this place has suffered from wars and been fought over many times, many people are still reluctant to leave.

Now that the war is over, the common people are relieved. More and more people come here to settle down and cultivate the land, and the village is much larger than before.

But the further Lu Qiyan walked, the more he felt something was wrong.

It was the time for autumn plowing and planting of winter wheat, but looking around, there was no one in the fields.

When we got closer to the village, the scene before us was even more shocking.

The original scene of rows of houses, happy people and curling smoke from cooking fires is long gone, replaced by ruins everywhere.

Moreover, the entire village had obviously been burned down, and all the houses and the surrounding trees were charred.

But even so, it still couldn't cover up the bloodstains that could be seen everywhere on the ground, and these bloodstains had already dried up and turned black due to being exposed to wind and sun, which was shocking to look at.

It is obvious that this place has experienced massacres that are unimaginable to ordinary people.

Lu Qiyan frowned and gritted his teeth as he continued walking inside. After crossing the entire village, he did not find even a single living creature in the village.

"I have already searched carefully. Not only this village, but also the two nearby villages are the same. No one is spared." Gu Zhen said.

"Yeah." Lu Qiyan responded, feeling annoyed.

Three villages were massacred and looted. The number of the enemy must be over hundreds. If an army of this size breaks into the border, it is impossible not to be discovered, and it is even more impossible not to report it.

However, the military camp did not receive any news.

Moreover, the bodies here were cleaned up so cleanly, it was obvious that someone wanted to hide this matter deliberately.

And that day, An Jingzhong brought back an inappropriate number of heads and ears...

Combining these events, it seems that those who massacred these innocent civilians were not the enemy's stray soldiers, but the one hundred elite soldiers that An Jingzhong led to suppress the bandits a few days ago.

As for why An Jingzhong massacred civilians, it was probably because he felt that the number of bandits was too small to count as his achievement, so he thought of finding some more people to make up the number?
But he and Xiao Luoan had told An Leiting and An Jingzhong many times about this matter. It was just a show. The number didn't matter. As long as there were enough, it would be fine. The second prince would help with the rest. So they could rest assured. But An Jingzhong...

Massacre civilians to gain credit for yourself!
How dare he, how dare he!
Lu Qiyan was furious. His eyes turned red with rage and his teeth were chattering.

After a long time, he exhaled the foul air in his stomach and closed his eyes.

The scene of fire in the night sky appeared before my eyes. The sounds of tragic wailing, crying for help and begging for mercy seemed to ring in my ears, as if I could rescue those unarmed people who were brutally massacred in their sleep from the sea of ​​suffering with just a stretch of my hand.

But as soon as he opened his eyes, the scene just now disappeared completely, leaving only endless desolation.

Lu Qiyan exhaled again, his face gloomy, he stood up straight, clasped his hands, and bowed upright towards the four directions of east, south, west and north.

May the deceased rest in peace.

And the instigator...

He will never let it go easily!
Lu Qiyan gritted his teeth, got on his horse after leaving the village, and headed towards the military camp.

The first thing Lu Qiyan did after returning to the military camp was to find Xiao Luoan and explain the matter to him.

Xiao Luoan was stunned for a long while after hearing this. He was also full of anger and he crushed the cup in his hand into pieces. "This An family is rotten to the core!"

An Jingzhong is a brainless and reckless man. He dared to do such a thing without considering it thoroughly. Judging from his usual personality, he probably would not do the finishing work after the massacre.

I think the people who can do the subsequent cleanup are An Leiting's subordinates, and An Leiting must have known about this matter a long time ago.

But he never made it public and concealed it completely, pretending that nothing had ever happened. He was even angry because there was no response from the capital to his request for the title of An Jingzhong.

Treating human life like grass...

Xiao Luoan was furious.

Lu Qiyan calmed down at this time and said, "Does the Third Prince want to do something big?"

"What's the big deal?"

"A big event that started with murder..." Lu Qi Yan said.

"Oh?" Xiao Luoan raised his eyebrows, "It sounds very interesting."
-
The big pot of mutton soup was sold for more than ten days in a row, and the business was so popular that it exceeded Xia Mingyue's imagination.

After some time of experience in setting up stalls and doing business, Honglian has become more efficient and diligent in his work.

Xia Mingyue was quite satisfied with this, and assigned Honglian more work as long as she could handle it.

Honglian felt that she had been put to a legitimate use, and she was happy. She worked even harder, and was concerned about Xia Mingyue's daily fatigue. Therefore, she took the initiative to go to the central kitchen early every day to get all the ingredients and goods needed for the day's stall.

The central kitchen receives orders from franchisees on the first day, prepares everything before the next morning, and distributes items one by one according to the orders.

When we arrived at the big pot mutton soup stall, everyone in the central kitchen was on high alert.

After all, this was the stall that Madam Xia went to personally, so there couldn't be any negligence in anything.

But when he saw that the person who came to pick up the goods was not Zhuang Cui, but Hong Lian, his expression changed. (End of this chapter)