The two returned to Taiji Hall and took their seats.
Only then did Liu Lu speak. "Your Majesty's person is worth a thousand pieces of gold. How could you wander around Luoyang at will?"
"Man Changwu is tall and powerfully built, very conspicuous, while Your Majesty's bearing is extraordinary, like a crane standing among chickens. Those people would spot you easily."
Liu Lu offered a few words of remonstrance, and Cao Mao nodded.
"You have a point."
Then he asked, "What news have you uncovered?"
Only then did Liu Lu say solemnly, "Your Majesty, this is what happened. My secret agents in Ping Province sent a report."
"We assigned some men to watch those important figures who had moved from Wu territory to Ping Province."
"Among them, the head of the Gu family received a letter not long ago."
"After reading its contents, he became deeply uneasy. Even when the disciples closest to him within his clan asked about it, he told them nothing."
"The petty clerk we had planted there learned of this and suddenly broke into his study with some men that night, but the letter had already been burned. When questioned, he merely said the letter contained nonsense that he knew nothing about, so he had burned it."
"We initially thought this was an isolated case. We never expected that similar things had happened among quite a few of the Wu people who had moved to Ping Province."
"This was no isolated case."
"Only then did we begin searching for the letters, and to our astonishment, we discovered they had come from Henei."
"I went to Henei myself. There are simply too many people there with grudges against Your Majesty... While we were investigating, several courier station attendants in Henei also mysteriously disappeared."
Liu Lu spoke with