Chapter 1425: The higher the cultivation, the lazier the person

Chen Guanlou took out the cargo list and the investigation report on the cargo sales.

"You had someone do this, and they did it very well. This batch of goods is worth at least five hundred thousand taels, not two hundred thousand."

Chen Guanlou:...

Damn it!

He had been played by his little apprentice.

"I don't do business, how would I know these pieces of junk are so valuable."

"It's not that you were cheated. The goods are indeed only worth two or three hundred thousand taels locally. But once transported to the Northwest, they start at at least five hundred thousand taels!"

Oh!

So the little apprentice hadn't played any tricks; he was very honest.

Chen Guanlou instantly released his apprentice Zhang Kang from the death row cell and commuted his sentence to a fixed-term imprisonment.

"What you've said is still not a reason to dispatch me."

Chen Guanlou made his attitude clear: he didn't want to move; he was just lazy!

The higher the cultivation, the lazier the person.

Suddenly, he could understand why martial artists above the Ninth Rank didn't wander around the Wu Lin, but all hid away to cultivate in seclusion. On the contrary, those half-baked guys were the ones causing trouble in the Wu Lin every day, trying to build a sense of presence.

"The Marquis wants to see you," Chen Guanqi said, stating the truth directly.

Chen Guanlou didn't understand. "What for? I'm not an official."

"I don't know. Why don't you go ask him yourself? Anyway, with your speed, it won't take more than a few days. How about it?"

Chen Guanlou pondered for a moment. "You're not lying to me?"

"How would I dare lie to you about such a thing? You can doubt my ability, but you cannot doubt my character. I might lie to anyone else, but I could never lie to you."

Chen Guanlou slumped in his chair. "When do we set off?"

"Now!"

He immediately rolled his eyes; it would be better to just kill him.

He had only been back for two days, hadn't even returned home, and now he had to go to the Northwest again.

He took the three molds and left under the cover of night.

The main army's headquarters had moved to a new location, already close to the grasslands, with nothing else around.

Backed by tens of thousands of troops, a temporary market town had formed a dozen miles away, specifically to do business with this bunch of soldiers. There was a kind of distorted prosperity—the prosperity brought by war.

There were many camp followers, of all shapes and sizes, but none were pretty. The best were only of average looks.

Chen Guanlou took one look and refused to look a second time.

Ninety-nine percent of the pedestrians on the street were soldiers. The rest were merchants and villagers who had run over from nearby to find work and earn money.

He wove through this temporarily formed market town. Taking advantage of the fact that it had just turned dark, he drank two bowls of lamb offal soup and ate a few jin of lamb. His whole body felt warm.

The proprietress of the lamb restaurant was very flirtatious and bold, her clothes disheveled, trying to seduce him.

The boss was laughing foolishly on the side, not knowing if there was something wrong with his brain or if he was thinking of setting up a honey trap.

He decisively rejected the proprietress.

Flirtatious was flirtatious, but unfortunately, she wasn't pretty. The wind and sand on the plateau had wrinkled her cheeks, making her look old!

This damn weather—one moment it was hot enough to go shirtless, and the next moment one had to wrap up in a big cotton-padded coat.

Once it got dark, there were no more pedestrians in the temporary market town; they either went back to the camp or crawled into some woman's quilt.

Chen Guanlou took the opportunity to enter the camp and find the commander's tent. Unsurprisingly, there was no one there!

He searched for a while and found a member of the Chen clan, a clan brother of his generation. He had the clan brother lead the way.

"After all these years, how come you haven't aged at all? Is the Martial Path really that magical?"

The clan brother seemed to be a chatterbox.

Chen Guanlou laughed. "I just age a little slower. When you left, I was twenty. Look again, does this face of mine look like it's twenty?"

"It does! If someone said you were eighteen, people would believe it! I'm a year younger than you, and now that we're standing together, others would think we're father and son. You bastard, will you still be this young in ten years?"

"Don't worry, I will definitely age! If you want to be my father, keep dreaming!"

"Hahaha..."

The two brothers laughed out loud.

No one would have guessed that Marquis Pingjiang was actually living in a small soldier's tent.

As soon as they met, Chen Guanlou asked him, "Are you that afraid of death? Hiding among ten thousand troops, and you're still afraid someone will kill you."

Marquis Pingjiang acted as if he hadn't heard, just stretched out his hand, signaling him to take the things out.

Chen Guanlou took out the three molds.

Marquis Pingjiang looked at them carefully, called over his trusted subordinate, and instructed: "The things have arrived, we can start the next step of the plan."

The subordinate took the order and carried away the three molds.

"Thank you for your hard work!" Marquis Pingjiang finally spoke to him.

"You called me here just for the molds?" Chen Guanlou sized the other person up; he hadn't seen Marquis Pingjiang in years, and the Marquis was older now. There wasn't much meat on his body, and he looked gaunt and thin.

Seeing the other person swallow medicinal pills, he couldn't help but frown.

"When did you start taking medicinal pills too? At your age, aren't you afraid of pill toxins?"

Marquis Pingjiang shook the pill bottle and said with a smile: "These are good things, produced by the Jade Spring Palace. They nourish the body and strengthen the health, better than health-preserving decoctions. No wonder emperors throughout the ages have been obsessed with taking medicinal pills. The Jade Spring Palace has some real stuff. I heard you have a pretty good relationship with Pure Yang Zhenren."

"It's alright! I can get a discount when buying pills." Chen Guanlou said truthfully.

No matter how good the relationship was, it was limited to getting a discount. There was no deeper relationship. Don't count on him!

"That's good!"

Marquis Pingjiang took a puff of his water pipe, his expression very relaxed.

"Are you curious why I don't live in a perfectly good commander's tent and insist on living here? You guessed right, I am indeed afraid of death."

"Did the Emperor send someone to kill you again? The imperial court has already started immigration, why are they still targeting you?"

"Not so! It's not the Emperor who wants to kill me, but the Xiliang people on the other side."

"Why?" Chen Guanlou couldn't figure it out.

"What else could it be? It's just that I pitted them miserably; so many people have died over the years, and they want revenge."

After speaking, Marquis Pingjiang laughed out loud, laughing very smugly.

"Are you sure it's the Xiliang people who want your life, and not someone using a borrowed knife to kill?"

"Are you trying to say the Emperor is using the Xiliang people's knife to kill me? Hmm, that's possible. The Emperor wouldn't think of this, but Xie Gechen definitely would. Regardless of who wants to kill me, I'm going to live to a hundred; how could a few assassins kill me? I called you here this time because I want you to kill someone for me."

"Kill who?" Chen Guanlou didn't mind helping to kill someone. He was just curious what kind of person would make the Marquis want to kill them, to the point where he couldn't just crush them with the army but specifically needed him to do the killing.

Marquis Pingjiang tapped the tabletop. "It's this person."

Chen Guanlou suspiciously picked up the document on the table—a file, the personal life story of one of the major generals under his command.

"If I'm not mistaken, he's a major general under your command. You need me to do it to kill him? You could just summon him directly and execute him on the spot."

"If things were really that simple, why would I need your help?" Marquis Pingjiang said with great disdain. "This person has a deep background and has repeatedly disobeyed orders. I've long wanted to get rid of him, but every time, someone protects him.

This person is a nail planted by certain people beside me. In the past, I could barely tolerate this nail. But now, I can no longer tolerate it!"

"But you can't use assassination, right? Doing so, aren't you afraid of causing panic and a crisis of trust?" ===== CHAPTER 1426 =====