"My Lord, look at this!"
Lü Huo rummaged near the corner of the wall, his eyes suddenly lit up. He bent down, picked up an object, and handed it to Fang Er.
The thing was dark and its original appearance was indistinguishable.
Fang Er took out a bottle of mineral water from his pocket and rinsed it. The black stains washed away, revealing an uneven surface.
It turned out to be an unburnt printing block!
He casually handed the fragmented block to Lai Yifa, his face somber, and ordered,
"Notify Yixing and get them to move!
Take down the Xuanwen Publishing House and the Zeng family of Yixing, leave none behind!
I want to see what this restructuring has to do with them!"
Lai Yifa asked with some uncertainty, "What about the Zhou family of Yixing and the Shen family of Wuxing?"
Fang Er said coldly, "Leave them for now. After interrogation, if they are involved in this matter, they will not be let off!"
The two guards behind Lai Yifa immediately opened their boxes and took out the radio.
Soon, news came from that tunnel.
The exit was about two hundred meters away, and the culprits who had fled through the tunnel were also apprehended in a civilian residence.
"Withdraw! Back to the camp, I want to see if these guys have the guts of a tiger!"
"Dare to cause trouble on my turf, they've gone too far!"
Zhang Gongjin angrily waved his sleeve and turned to leave.
It was already daylight. As the team left the city, they passed by Changsun Ling'er and the others who had entered the city for pulse diagnosis.
To distinguish their identities, Fang Er and Zhang Gongjin had different stickers on their chests.
Seeing the little pink Peppa Pig, Changsun Ling'er walked over with a mournful expression.
"Husband, why didn't you tell me you couldn't come back last night?"
"You made me wait all night for nothing."
Fang Er looked at her in surprise, "Why were you waiting for me?"
"You're so wicked!"
Changsun Ling'er stomped her foot angrily and turned to chase after Zhang Yuan Shuang and the others.
Fang Er rubbed his nose. It seemed he hadn't promised her anything, had he?
Lai Yifa mysteriously leaned over and whispered,
"Heh heh, my Lord, the Madam said last night she was coming for you..."
"I'll be damned..."
Fang Er immediately kicked him and cursed with a laugh,
"You damned scoundrel, you dare to eavesdrop on me!"
Lai Yifa felt no shame, but rather pride.
"Heh heh heh heh, isn't this what your subordinate should be doing..."
Fang Er was furious. He grabbed Lü Huo beside him.
"When we get back, take him to the outhouse and teach him how to be a man!"
With that, he strode forward.
Lai Yifa scratched the back of his head, frozen in place, and for a long time couldn't understand why he had to go to the outhouse to learn how to be a man.
That job?
Shouldn't it be learned at a brothel...
Shenqiang Army Camp.
The seventeen death warriors captured earlier, and the twenty-four culprits caught around the Xuanwen Printing Bureau, were all brought to the military department.
In the main hall, Meng Zhong and Ge Luoyang, each leading their subordinates, were divided on the left and right.
Zhang Gongjin and Fang Er sat side by side in the main seats.
Zhou Yanxi entered from outside with a basin of small pills.
Meng Zhong understood instantly and, with a few of his brothers, helped to force the small pills into the mouths of the death warriors.
The people from the Xuanwen Publishing House did not escape either.
The rest was to quietly wait for them to perform, or confess.
"What are you doing, what are you doing, what do you want to do!"
"This is an insult to scholarship! An insult to scholarship!"
"We are all men of merit, how can we suffer such humiliation!"
"............"
The death warriors remained silent, accepting it all expressionlessly.
But the people from the Xuanwen Publishing House couldn't stand it. They cried out in panic.
"Pa!"
Fang Er casually threw a newspaper at them.
"Merit? Scholarship?"
"You are not worthy!"
"Printing newspapers privately and inciting the people to resent the court."
"Who gave you the courage!"
"Yangzhou city's four gates have been tightly closed for days, with no contact with the outside world. How did you contact Xingyi?"
"Who wrote the content of this newspaper?"
"What do the people behind you want to do with such actions?"
"Confess, confess, I'll confess everything."
One person, seeing the small pills in the basin, immediately shook his head like a rattle drum and said with a terrified face.
"I am a printer sent by the Xuanwen Publishing House, my name is Liu San'er. Ask me anything you want, sir."
"Don't give this to me, it will explode!"
It was obvious that they recognized this thing.
But this was not surprising. Merchants had long brought this thing from Shenyang and Chang'an to every corner of the Great Tang.
Proxy purchasing has always existed...
Hearing this, Zhang Gongjin slammed the table and pointed at Liu San'er, scolding him.
"You dog-like thing!"
"You confess just like that, wouldn't all these pills I prepared be wasted?"
"One bowl per person, no one runs away!"
"Confess after eating, otherwise, who knows if what you're saying is true!"
Liu San'er was anxious, "Then, then you ask first."
"I'll go first!"
With that, he got up and moved his head towards the bowl of medicine in Meng Zhong's hand.
The dry small pills, there were at least several hundred in that bowl.
He crunched them like beans, wolfed them down, and then looked at Zhang Gongjin.
"Sir, I'm done, tell me whatever you want to hear, I'll tell you everything!"
"I only ask that after I confess, you can reward me with a bowl of laxative!"
With a bowl of small pills in his stomach, Liu San'er was willing to say anything.
He was afraid that if he answered slowly, the small pills would be digested, and then even the laxative would be too late.
The Xuanwen Publishing House was originally a small publishing house in Yixing, engaged in printing legitimate books and periodicals.
The cost of woodblock printing was very high. After the widespread use of movable type printing in Fangjiazhuang, the business of Xuanwen Publishing House plummeted.
In the past two years, it has been close to bankruptcy.
It could only take on jobs printing erotic pictures, or printing Taoist scriptures for wealthy ladies.
In their words, woodblocks carved with knife strokes showed more sincerity.
Of course, the same machine was used for printing erotic pictures and Taoist scriptures.
To save costs, that batch of Mingzhou ink was also purchased for this purpose.
Yixing was just a small county, while Yangzhou was the prefectural city.
Even if the finished products were printed, they had to be transported here for sale.
Therefore, the Zeng family moved their printing workshop here.
A month ago, when the plague broke out, the manager of the printing workshop asked the Zeng family if they wanted to print some epidemic prevention manuals for profit.
But after reporting the matter, he was ruthlessly rejected by the family head.
What was originally a business that could be done while standing, and perhaps even earn merit from the court, was ruthlessly rejected.
Later, the Zeng family manager sent a message by pigeon, saying that he would send someone to have them print some things according to the person's instructions.
And what was printed was that fake Great Tang Daily!
Other than that, he knew nothing.
But he knew it was a capital offense, so after the first issue of the newspaper was printed, he hid in the cellar and dared not go out all day.
The courtyard where the publishing house was located originally belonged to a bandit who kept several mistresses there. He dug a tunnel to escape for fear of being caught by the authorities.
A bandit keeping mistresses in a residential area opposite the government, the thought of it was damn exciting!
It was like a wanted criminal keeping a mistress at the police station...