Chapter 162: Chapter 162: Reuniting with Shi Potian, It’s Time to Attract Investors

On an official road winding through rugged mountains, a convoy of several carriages, escorted by over twenty guards, was making its way forward.

Inside one of the swaying carriages, Pei Shaoqing sat slumped without a care for his image, casually stuffing pastries into his mouth.

In stark contrast, Xie Qingwu maintained the picture of a proper lady from a great family, sitting upright with her back as straight as possible. Her heavy "conscience" swayed with the carriage’s movements.

"My lady’s bosom seems to have grown larger," Pei Shaoqing remarked, his eyes fixed on the two bountiful, undulating fruits.

Xie Qingwu instinctively glanced down before replying softly, "A woman’s breasts naturally get bigger during pregnancy."

The main reason was that hers were already quite large to begin with. The secondary development from her pregnancy simply made them look much fuller.

Of course, they still couldn’t compare to Ye Hanshuang’s.

"How wonderful. Now the baby and I will never have to worry about going hungry," Pei Shaoqing said with a perfectly straight face.

Men are eternal children.

They love to nurse when they’re little.

And they still love it when they grow up.

Xie Qingwu shot him a look, then her expression turned serious as she brought up business. "Husband, if we want to contact the Old Faction of the Crown Prince, we must first identify the spies His Majesty has planted."

To identify, not eliminate.

Once they knew who the spies were, they could avoid them.

Eradicating them, on the other hand, would only alarm the Emperor.

"My lady, that’s an easy matter," Pei Shaoqing said, having already thought of a plan. He beckoned Xie Qingwu over.

But Xie Qingwu couldn’t be bothered to scoot over for him to hold her. With a flick of her feet, her elegant shoes slipped off. From beneath her skirt, a slender, silk-clad foot nimbly snaked into Pei Shaoqing’s robes, climbing up along his calf.

Letting her foot get the jump on him, Pei Shaoqing lowered his hand and said calmly, "The spies are undoubtedly either a servant in the mansion or a subordinate at the Hundred Households. We just need to have General Li and the Mao Camp watch them for a few days to find out."

After all, to successfully spy on him, they’d have to be close to him. So it was either someone he lived with or someone he worked with.

"That’s what I was thinking as well." Since they were in a carriage, it wasn’t convenient. Xie Qingwu had no desire for a moment of playful teasing to get out of hand, so after a few prods, she pulled her foot back. "His Majesty has a team of Hidden Guards composed of eunuchs. They are elusive and highly skilled in Martial Arts. He might have sent some Hidden Guards to Tongzhou specifically to monitor you, Husband."

Pei Shaoqing wasn’t surprised. ’It would be strange if an Emperor *didn’t* have a secret guard,’ he thought.

He knocked on the roof of the carriage and called out to General Li, who was lying on top, "Get this taken care of as soon as we get back."

"MEOW~" General Li replied lazily.

Pei Shaoqing lifted the window curtain again. "Where are we? How much longer until we reach Tongzhou?"

"My Lord, we’re about to leave the borders of An County. Tongzhou is just ahead. We should reach the County Town by tomorrow afternoon at the latest," answered Wang Peng from the front of the column, after pulling out a map from his coat and glancing at it.

An County was under the jurisdiction of Qinzhou Prefecture.

It bordered Tongzhou County.

Pei Shaoqing said, "Let me see the map."

"Yes, sir." Wang Peng handed the map over.

It was a detailed map of the Great Zhou’s territory.

Pei Shaoqing had never seen a map of all Jiuzhou, only this map of the Great Zhou. Its territory was roughly the same size as his homeland from his past life, with only occasional discrepancies in regional divisions, names, and the courses of some rivers.

This was one of the reasons he believed Jiuzhou was a parallel version of Earth. The more he learned about this world, the more it resembled the world of his previous life.

"Pass down the order: my wife is pregnant, so there’s no need to rush," he said, handing the map back to Wang Peng after glancing at the approximate distance to Tongzhou County Town.

The carriage was bumping too violently; a pregnant woman couldn’t take it.

Wang Peng took the map and replied, "As you command!"

Pei Shaoqing lowered the curtain and closed his eyes to rest.

"KILL! KILL!"

Suddenly, the sound of battle cries erupted outside the carriage.

"Husband!" Xie Qingwu’s expression changed.

"I’ll go see what’s happening." Pei Shaoqing patted her hand, then lifted the curtain and slipped out.

Watching his departing figure, Xie Qingwu felt an immense sense of security. She recalled how that bastard, her ex-husband, had actually kicked her out of a carriage. The difference between the two men was night and day.

Meanwhile, Pei Shaoqing was rather baffled. A single masked man with a blade was blocking the convoy’s path.

Yes, just one man!

"What nerve. Robbing me is one thing, but to come alone..." Pei Shaoqing said as he jumped down from the carriage. Amidst his exasperation, he couldn’t help but feel a sliver of admiration for the man’s guts.

He hadn’t been robbed a single time on this journey; on the contrary, many mountain bandits had proactively blocked his path just to offer him tribute.

Now, this person actually dared to rob him all alone.

Could it be called anything other than heroic fearlessness?

"Huh?" The blade-wielding man froze for a moment. He looked back, only to find no one behind him. He quickly turned to a low hill on the left and yelled in a muffled voice, "Get down here already! What are you dawdling for? Are we doing this robbery or not?"

Pei Shaoqing and his men instantly whipped their heads toward the low hill.

"Shit!" Behind the hill, the leader punched the ground in frustration, then threw down his blade, raised his hands, and shouted, "A misunderstanding! This is all a misunderstanding! Lord Pei, tell your men not to shoot! I know you!"

With his hands raised, he kept shouting as he led more than twenty of his "brothers" down to the official road.

"Plenty of people in this world know me. Who are you?" Pei Shaoqing asked, looking at the leader.

The leader pulled off his mask, revealing a slightly plump face. He cupped his fist and said, "My Lord, this humble one is called Ma San. Shi Potian is my big brother. We were ordered to come down the mountain to collect a toll today. We recognized your banner from afar and had no intention of disturbing you, but that simpleton was too eager to prove himself and rushed out to block the road. I hope Lord Pei can be magnanimous and forgive us."

"So Shi Potian has run off to the border of Qinzhou and Shu State to play king of the mountain again?" Pei Shaoqing hadn’t expected them to be old acquaintances. He looked at the not-so-bright strongman and said, "Haven’t you people suffered enough from being illiterate?"

The three large words "Baron of Pingyang" were emblazoned on his carriage banner. The strongman couldn’t have missed them, so he must not have been able to read them. The last time, they had offended Jiang Yuechan precisely because too many of them were illiterate.

They really hadn’t learned their lesson.

"Although you mediated for us, my Lord, my big brother was still worried about retaliation from the Pingxi Marquis’s Mansion, so he led us to move here," Ma San said, answering Pei Shaoqing’s first question before moving on to the second.

"After learning our lesson last time, Big Brother made it a rule that all new recruits must be literate. He also used the move as an opportunity to dismiss all the old brothers who couldn’t read.

But that simpleton... there’s something wrong with his head. He’s all brawn and no brains. If he left the stronghold, he probably wouldn’t survive a month. Big Brother took pity on him and kept him around to feed him."

They might not be the strongest group of bandits around, but they were definitely the most educated on average.

After all, they had paid a bloody price for their lack of education!

"Who has something wrong with his head? You’re the one with something wrong with your head! If you have something to say, just say it. Why are you calling me stupid for no reason?" the strongman who had blocked the road retorted, glaring.

Pei Shaoqing could see it now; the man really wasn’t all there. Not bothering to argue with a fool, he looked at Ma San and said calmly, "Send someone to tell your big brother to come see me."

Ma San looked up, a little puzzled, but seeing that Pei Shaoqing had no intention of explaining, he simply replied respectfully, "Yes, sir."

He then dispatched one of his men back to the stronghold to deliver the message.

Pei Shaoqing, for his part, went back into the carriage to wait.

"Husband, are you thinking of recruiting that Shi Potian?" Xie Qingwu, who had heard everything from inside the carriage, had a vague guess about Pei Shaoqing’s intentions and asked tentatively.

Pei Shaoqing nodded as he sat down. "Mm. Shi Potian’s skills are decent, and the men under him are probably not bad either. It would be best if I could make them work for me. Besides, there are some things that are inconvenient for my Officials to do, but perfectly reasonable for bandits."

To put it bluntly, they would be his black glove.

Shu State is mountainous, and where there are mountains, there are bandits.

Basically, in the deep mountains outside every county town, one or several groups of bandits had holed up and claimed their territory.

These bandit groups ranged from twenty or thirty men...

...to several hundred.

If he could use Shi Potian to bring these bandits under his control, then even if they were just a motley crew, their sheer numbers would represent a formidable force.

Besides, there were no bandits in Tongzhou right now. If there was no external threat for a long period, wouldn’t the merchants of Tongzhou eventually start thinking he was taking too much of their money?

Therefore, as an official of Tongzhou, Pei Shaoqing felt it was absolutely necessary to do some "business recruitment" and bring in a group of bandits to complete the "official-merchant-bandit" ecosystem.

"Husband, you should know that these people are ruthless murderers and robbers. If word gets out that you’ve recruited such a group, I’m afraid it will ruin your reputation," Xie Qingwu said with concern.

Pei Shaoqing replied with complete confidence, "My lady, you can rest assured. Your husband knows what he’s doing. Since they will be working for me, I will naturally keep them in line."

There’s no such thing as a perfect secret. The fact that he was keeping bandits as his dogs wouldn’t stay hidden forever, so he naturally wouldn’t let a pack of them run wild and ruin his own reputation.

"HYA! HYA! HYA!"

Shi Potian arrived quickly, galloping over with his men. Still at a distance, he yanked his reins, flew from his horse’s back, and landed on one knee. "This commoner, Shi Potian, pays his respects to the Baron of Pingyang! My men meant no offense. I beg the Baron to be magnanimous and show us mercy."

Since their leader was kneeling, his underlings couldn’t very well remain standing. They all dropped to their knees and kowtowed, pressing their foreheads to the ground.

"Fortress Lord Shi, please rise." Pei Shaoqing’s voice came calmly from behind the carriage curtain. "This official never expected to see you again after our last parting. Perhaps this is fate. I have always admired the heroes of the Jianghu. Fortress Lord Shi, would you be willing to follow me to Tongzhou?"

Everyone heard the blatant offer of recruitment in Pei Shaoqing’s words. The bandits all lifted their heads to look at Shi Potian, who was kneeling at the very front, their eyes filled with anticipation.

They were hoping that if one man got a promotion, all his followers would rise with him.

"This humble one has only his martial skill. What use could I possibly be in Tongzhou?" Shi Potian asked.

Pei Shaoqing chuckled. "You’ll still be in your old line of work: being the king of a mountain. The difference is, you won’t have to worry about being surrounded and annihilated by the Government Office, nor will you have to worry about coming up empty-handed."

Shi Potian understood his meaning. If they went to Tongzhou, it would be a case of collusion between officials and bandits. They would be robbing by decree.

He fell silent for a time. In his experience, a black glove was like a dirty rag: used when needed, then tossed aside.

He was afraid that going to Tongzhou would not lead to a good end.

"Even if you aren’t thinking of yourself, Fortress Lord Shi, you should think of your brothers," Pei Shaoqing said softly.

Shi Potian remained silent. It was precisely because he was thinking of his brothers that he didn’t agree immediately.

If it were only for himself, he wouldn’t have hesitated.

After all, he truly did need a powerful backer.

"Big Brother! What are you hesitating for? The Baron of Pingyang thinks highly of us. This is our honor!"

"Yeah, Chief!"

The bandits were all eager to become Pei Shaoqing’s dogs.

Shi Potian looked around. Seeing that all his brothers—except for the dimwit who wasn’t all there—were staring at him with urgent, fervent eyes, he couldn’t help but sigh.

’You’re the ones who chose this path.’

He kowtowed with a resounding THUD and said in a deep voice, "I am honored by the Baron of Pingyang’s esteem. From this day forward, this humble one, Shi Potian, is yours to command and will serve you like a dog or a horse."

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