The question Zhai Huan had raised was exactly what Captain Yang wanted to know.
Just then, something occurred to Zhai Le. He cautiously asked Captain Yang to confirm, "Captain Yang, do you know... about the unrest in Lingzhou?"
Captain Yang was stunned for a moment.
It wasn't that he had trouble understanding. He understood every word Zhai Le had said, but somehow couldn't make sense of them together.
"What do you mean, 'unrest in Lingzhou'?"
He couldn't believe it.
He sprang to his feet, eyes wide as saucers.
Like a furious beast trapped in a cage, he paced back and forth, his presence dangerous and uneasy. He looked ready to stomp two holes in the ground. At last, he asked in a hoarse voice, "What did you say... Lingzhou?"
What had happened in Lingzhou?
And when had it happened?
The Zhai brothers were even more shocked than he was.
He really didn't know?
This, this... Even they didn't know what to say. Zhai Le could only give him a rough explanation, though he lied about where the information had come from. He said he'd recently passed a teahouse and overheard merchants talking, leaving Shen Tang and the others out of it.
Though he didn't know why Brother Shen had intercepted the Tax Silver, he believed Brother Shen was an honest and upright gentleman. Even if he'd done something wicked, there must have been a reason—and besides, this might not even count as wicked. He'd seen the state of Sibao Prefecture with his own eyes.
To squeeze so much Tax Silver out of a populace reduced to skin and bones, then throw in a whole trove of rare treasures beyond the taxes to curry favor with Sovereign Zheng Qiao—the governor of Sibao Prefecture was a ruthless man!
For that reason, Zhai