Chapter 245 - Counter-attack (1/2)

Li Sicai came to understand what Ling Zhang meant at these remarks. He said, “Rest a.s.sured, Young Master, I know what needs to be done.”

Li Sicai took action very quick, and the way he counter-attacked was radical and efficient. Instead of circulating hearsay on the sly, he chose to do it in the Taibai Tavern, the busiest place where the youngest intellectuals congregated.

It was from the mouths of young intellectuals that some statements began to spread. They indignantly a.s.sailed the rumors, charging the initiator with calumniating the former emperor.

When the criticism reached the mastermind’s ears, the whole city was talking about this matter.

“Why is this happening? Who started the rumor about Ling Xingzhong? I never instructed any of you to do that!”

“Have mercy on me, Master. It wasn’t us who started the rumor. None of us told those people anything about Ling Xingzhong. We have no idea who started it.”

In the residential compound of Su family, Su Zhi, Zheng s.h.i.+’s brother-in-law, was beside himself with rage and alarm. At the request of Zheng s.h.i.+, he’d had some of his men spread rumor. Much unwilling to offend Yuwen Tong as he was, it’d been with Zheng s.h.i.+’s a.s.sistance that Su family had managed to gain a foothold in the capital city, so he couldn’t disobey Zheng s.h.i.+ and ordered his men to gingerly spread those rumors about Ling Zhang.

But he’d never expected that eventually things would come to this. Though his position in the government was low, he was not stupid and immediately came to realize that someone was taking advantage of their rumors and spreading the hearsay about Ling Xingzhong on purpose, but why this person was doing this was unknown to Su Zhi. What he did know was that once anybody found out he was the one responsible for the circulation of the rumors, in no circ.u.mstances would he be allowed to go unpunished.

His eyes instantly went murderous as he looked at his two servants, who perceived it and were horrified. “Please have mercy on us, Master. Please!”

…

Meanwhile, Yuwen Tong had just exited the imperial palace. After rumors started spreading that he was trying to pressurize Yuwen Zhi into meeting his demand that the two of them divide up family property and live apart, the emperor had summoned him and Yuwen Zhi to the palace and asked them about it.

Sure enough Yuwen Tong had denied it, and so had Yuwen Zhi. Eventually, the matter had been left unsettled.

Yuwen Tong’s eyes got cold as he thought of the one who’d started the rumor.

When he returned to the Ling Mansion, angry accusations of young intellectuals in the Taibai Tavern had reached his ears.

Countenance unchanged, Yuwen Tong got a shrewd idea of why those intellectuals were doing this.

“Childe Ling had Li Sicai do that,” explained Li Sicai.

Yuwen Tong, who hadn’t seen Ling Zhang since his return, inclined his head and asked, “Where’s Brother Zhang?”

“Li Sicai found some people who might be initiators of the rumors, and Childe Ling has personally set out to investigate them,” answered Yao Yi.

After thinking for a few moments, Yuwen Tong turned around and started walking outside, planning to find Ling Zhang.

Li Sicai had narrowed down the list to some women responsible for buying groceries for a couple of rich families. These women worked for different families, and it was very easy for them to hide themselves, for entering a large residential compound was like entering another world. It had been their repeatedly starting rumors that had given Li Sicai the opportunity to track them down.

Ling Zhang had looked into the background of these families and found that all patriarchs of them were officials working in the capital city, but there was nothing noteworthy about any of them; none of them had had any dealings with Ling Zhang or had any powerful backers; they’d always kept a relatively low profile compared with other officials in the city and their ranks were rather low; no sides would consider them worth co-opting, which was why none of them belonged to any particular faction.

After going through the background information of these families, Ling Zhang didn’t directly visit any of them to query their patriarchs. Instead, he found a way to have those women sought out and interrogated them one by one.

The couple of women were all very scared when faced with Ling Zhang, especially when their eyes fell on the “ferocious-looking” bodyguards beside him. They made a full confession immediately after being threatened. Someone had paid them to do that. The one responsible for contacting them was a market trader living outside the city who entered the city to sell vegetables in a stall every day.

At their words Ling Zhang came to know that these women had done this multiple times — there was actually a fixer they were in regular contact with.

After dragging out of those women how to make contact with that market trader, how they usually got things done, and some other details they needed to pay attention to, Ling Zhang took some men and went to look for that market trader.

As that market trader was someone those women went to the market to contact on a regular basis, he definitely went there very often. Even if he wasn’t there, there was no doubt that some others would be able to offer information about where he might be, so it wouldn’t be difficult to find him.

As a result, when Yuwen Tong arrived at the market, he was told that Ling Zhang had just left. He hurriedly went in the same direction.

…

“Tell me. Who paid you to spread those rumors?”

“It wa–was a peddler near the end of the bridge in front of the food market in the east of the city.”

A peddler?

“Did that peddler contact you regularly or just this once?”

“Just this once.”

“Do you know that peddler? Does he show up often or occasionally?”

“He used to show up every couple of days, but these days he goes there daily.”

He went there on a daily basis probably to make contact with this market trader.

“Did he turn up today? What does he look like?”

Trembling all over, the market trader described the peddler to them and then added, “This morning he was there for a while and then left.”

“Is he usually like that? Staying only for a while?”

“No. Normally he peddles his goods in nearby streets and alleys until dusk.”

Ling Zhang’s brow furrowed. This was too coincidental. It’d been in the morning that those intellectuals had shown up in the Taibai Tavern. That peddler seemed to have got wind of it and fled.

Ling Zhang was somewhat frustrated, feeling that he should have waited until the peddler was caught to have Li Sicai talk to those intellectuals.