Inquiry and News

Leaving Tongyang County, Zheng Qian found a large tree in a forest a dozen or so li outside the city to settle down, planning to set off for the commandery capital, Ziyang City, after dawn.

The night passed without incident.

Before he knew it, it was already the next day.

As the first ray of morning sunlight appeared on the horizon, Zheng Qian opened his eyes.

He stared blankly at the rising sun in the distance for a long time before stretching and lightly leaping down from the tree.

Since coming to this world, he had either been locked in a dark and sunless prison or hiding at the bottom of a similarly dark and damp well, and had hardly seen the sun. It could be said that he had been extremely miserable.

Now, it was finally all over.

Half an hour later, after a simple wash and a bite to eat, Zheng Qian headed towards Ziyang City.

Ziyang City was directly north of Tongyang County, connected by an official road about five meters wide.

Although the sun had just risen, there were already many people on the road.

However, most of these people were small vendors and villagers from the surrounding villages.

Selling fresh fruits and vegetables, selling the fur and meat of wild animals, selling firewood, buying things in the city...

Most of these people pushed small carts or simply carried things on their shoulders, with only a few ox carts and donkey carts.

As a modern person from the 21st century, Zheng Qian was seeing the lives of ancient people for the first time.

At a glance, most people's clothes had patches, and they were all very thin.

Clearly, these people at the bottom of society could not even satisfy their basic needs for food and clothing.

This made Zheng Qian unable to help but feel some emotion for those trolls on the internet in his previous life, who were not satisfied even though they were well-fed and clothed, and were still attacking this and that online.

Some people even yearned for the life of ancient times, feeling that they could use their modern knowledge to act arbitrarily and have women flocking to them.

But if they were really placed in ancient times, not to mention whether they could remember a few useful pieces of modern knowledge, the various exorbitant taxes would be enough to overwhelm them and leave them no time to think about anything else.

Not to mention that ancient times valued agriculture and suppressed commerce, making the industrial base almost non-existent, rendering most modern knowledge completely useless.

That was digressing.

Zheng Qian didn't think he was a savior and didn't have the time or energy to help these people at the bottom of society do anything.

And so, he walked and looked around, not too fast but not too slow, and after about three hours, he appeared outside Ziyang City.

Ziyang City was indeed a commandery capital, several times larger than Tongyang County, and the city walls were also much higher, reaching a height of seven or eight zhang.

"Ziyang City, Commandery Governor Mu Tingzhou! Li Family! I hope they can bring me some good news..."

After standing outside the city for a while, Zheng Qian muttered to himself and walked towards the city.

His appearance had changed a lot. His skin was darker, the bridge of his nose was straighter, and he had a pair of mustache under his nose.

In this ancient time with extremely underdeveloped information, these changes were enough to make him look like a completely different person than before.

He didn't want to do this either, but he couldn't help it.

Although his current strength was enough to run rampant in Xishan Commandery, there were still several experts in this commandery capital with the same level as him. Although they most likely wouldn't be his match, what if?

He had to remember that he was still an escaped death row prisoner.

As the saying goes, two fists are no match for four hands. Although he was very confident in his own strength, he would never underestimate anyone. Who knew what methods those aristocratic families that had been passed down for hundreds of years were hiding.

Soon, Zheng Qian, holding a fake travel permit, easily entered the city after paying two wen for the entrance fee.

"It's really lively enough..."

Next to a wide avenue of fifteen or sixteen meters, Zheng Qian looked at the endless stream of pedestrians, merchant caravans, and vendors in front of him and couldn't help but mutter to himself.

After standing and watching for a while, he strode forward along the street.

His first priority now was to find a place to stay, and then to find out some basic information about Ziyang City.

For example: the layout of the city, the distribution of power within the city, the location of the Commandery Governor's mansion and the Li Family, and so on.

As the saying goes, money makes the world go round.

Zheng Qian, who had plundered Fang Yujie, the county magistrate, couldn't be said to be very rich, but he still had ten or twenty thousand taels of silver.

This didn't even include the hundreds of pieces of jade jewelry and antique calligraphy and paintings in his Storage Space. If they were all exchanged for silver, he could probably double that amount several times over.

Soon, Zheng Qian settled down in an inn called Wanfu Tower and paid a month's rent in one go.

After settling everything, he left the inn while it was still early, preparing to go out and inquire about information.

If you want to know where the most well-informed information in ancient times was, it would naturally be in restaurants.

The most luxurious restaurant in Ziyang City was called Zuixian Tower, and it was located directly in the center of Ziyang City, making it very conspicuous.

Half an hour later, Zheng Qian appeared in a window seat on the second floor of Zuixian Tower and ordered all of the restaurant's signature dishes in one go.

What Drunken Immortal Wine, Braised Eight Treasure Duck, Grilled Lamb Chops, Steamed Golden Thread Fish...

He had mostly heard these dish names for the first time. He didn't know if they were delicious, but they were definitely expensive.

Just twelve dishes plus a pot of wine cost him a full one hundred and ten taels of silver.

You must know that in this era, one hundred taels of silver was enough for a family of three to live without worry for two or three years.

In other words, he spent the equivalent of an average family of three's income for three years on just one meal.

And his extravagance attracted the attention of many.

However, no one who could afford to dine at Zuixian Tower was poor, so they just glanced at him curiously and then ignored him.

Zheng Qian was happy to be left alone. After ordering, he circulated his energy to his ears, listening in on the conversations around him.

Soon, a constant stream of voices entered his ears.

But most of it was trivial chatter: how much money they made this year, whose wife was pretty, whose mother-in-law and daughter-in-law were at odds, who got rich this year... and so on.

However, a few things caught Zheng Qian's attention.

First: The four great aristocratic families of the prefecture city will jointly hold an auction in seven days. It is said that the highlight will be a fragmented, low-grade Grandmaster-level cultivation technique.

Although incomplete, it would be enough to attract countless Innate experts to compete for it.

Including Zheng Qian himself!

Second: The third young master of the Li Family, one of the four great aristocratic families of the prefecture city, will marry the granddaughter of the prefecture governor in half a month.

As far as Zheng Qian knew, the prefecture governor, Mu Tingzhou, only had one granddaughter, Fang Yujie's daughter.

Third: Deep in the Western Mountain Range east of Ziyang City, someone found a sect ruin and brought back three Meridian Flowers.

According to him, there were seven people in their group, but he was the only one who made it out alive.

The others either died along the way in the jaws of beasts, or died outside the ruins from various traps and poisonous gases, only he himself managed to escape by luck.