Chapter 452: Embezzlement
Translator: Dragon Boat Translation Editor: Dragon Boat Translation
Su Ying spent some silver to buy a clearance pass from Innkeeper Li.
The granary that Innkeeper Li mentioned was located in a relatively obscure place outside the city, so she had to leave the city.
Su Ying rode her horse to the city gate, and the soldiers guarding the city let her out after seeing her clearance pass.
As soon as she came out, she realized that there were more disaster victims waiting outside the city gate than before. She did not look at them for long and directly rode her horse to the foot of a mountain outside the city.
The place where the granary was located was actually relatively wide-open.
The main reason was that the authorities were worried the place might be too humid, so there must be sufficient sunlight. The location was not far from Luo City, and it took less than 30 minutes to reach by horseback.
In order not to reveal the granary’s location, they had placed some small screening barriers outside the granary, but this was not enough to stop Su
Ying.
Su Ying rode her horse to the mountainside. The mountain wasn’t steep, so she could scale it on horseback.
After crossing a forest, she saw rows of houses built on the mountainside.
There was no one guarding the granary anymore. Even from afar, it could be seen that the walls of the courtyards had already been charred black.
Su Ying got off her horse and placed it in her interspatial store before walking towards the granary. She took out her scanning device and made sure that there was no one around before walking to the granary’s main entrance.
The gate was locked, but the surface of the gate panel was so blackened that its original color could not be discerned.
Su Ying climbed over the wall and saw the granary compound that had been burnt to ruins.
There were quite a few rows of houses inside, but every house had been burned black. As one looked around, the darkness in the houses was a little frightening.
Su Ying walked forward and pushed open one of the doors which was now charred black from the smoke. She found that there were still many burnt remains inside.
She walked to a pile of residue, brushed it aside with her hand and carefully examined it. She found that there was something not quite right with the burnt residue. It didn’t look like the state of burnt grain at all.
In order to make sure that her observation was correct, Su Ying went to the other granary houses to check the situation. In the end, she confirmed that those large piles of residue were not grains at all!
Su Ying’s face turned darker than the walls that had been charred black. Innkeeper Li said that when the granary was on fire at that time, most of the grain in the granary was burned because they could not save the contents in time. This led to the current situation of the government office not having any food to provide free porridge to the disaster victims.
However, what if the grain in the granary was not burned at all?
There was so much grain in the granary. If they wanted to transport it all out, it was impossible to leave no traces behind.
Su Ying left the granary and began to search the surroundings for clues. This place was relatively obscure, and usually very few people came here. In addition, there hadn’t been any rain during this period of time to wash away the tracks. Thus, when Su Ying searched her way to the back of the mountain, she discovered rows of obvious carriage wheel tracks.
Following the trail, Su Ying found herself in front of a cave. However, she didn’t immediately approach it because there were people standing guard outside the cave.
She hid in the dark and observed for a while. After making sure that there were only two guys guarding the entrance, she took out the tranquilizer gun and put those two guys down.
Su Ying walked to the entrance of the cave. If she wasn’t familiar with this kind of wilderness, she wouldn’t have been able to tell that there was a cave here.
She pushed aside the vines that were used to cover the entrance of the cave and walked in.
There was a gust of wind from the entrance of the cave. As soon as the wind blew toward her, she detected the smell of rice and grain.
Su Ying took out a flashlight and turned it on. Even though the realization had already hit her, she was still furious when she saw the neatly piled-up sacks of grain in the cave.
This bastard actually dared to steal the Imperial Court’s grain!
Su Ying walked in and found that the cave was very deep, and it was almost totally filled with grain sacks.
In order not to alert the enemy, she temporarily decided not to store the food in her interspatial store. After confirming the amount of grain, Su Ying left the cave. She also woke up the two guards to prevent them from discovering anything amiss.
When Su Ying came down from the mountain, the sun had already set. She had to enter the city before nightfall.
As night fell, the already quiet streets of Luo City seemed even more deserted. Zhou Qing simply ate some dry food before deciding to go to bed. She still had to go out of the city to welcome the Empress the next morning!
Zhou Qing lay on the bed, her heart brimming with indescribable excitement. Just as she was about to drift off to sleep drowsily, she suddenly detected the smell of something burning.
She opened her eyes warily and walked to the window to check the situation.
She found that the inn was on fire.
The inn was a wooden building. Coupled with the dry weather, the fire quickly became bigger.
Zhou Qing took out a handkerchief and poured the remaining half pot of water on the handkerchief to cover her mouth and nose. Then, she bent down, pushed open the door, and ran out.
However, she didn’t go downstairs immediately. Instead, she knocked on the door next door. She knew that Su Ying had saved a grandmother and her grandchild and they were staying next door.
“Open the door. Open the door quickly!”
However, no matter how hard Zhou Qing knocked on the door, there was no response.
The fire woke up the guests of the inn. Some of the people who woke up ran out of the guest rooms and rushed to the lobby to escape, but the door of the inn was locked from the outside!
“Help! Open the door quickly! Cough… Help…”
“Open the door! Open the door…”
The thick smoke in the inn was getting increasingly denser, so much so that the guests could barely open their eyes.
Zhou Qing gritted her teeth and smashed the door open. As soon as she entered, a thick cloud of smoke gushed out at her.
The fire had already spread to this room. The grandmother and grandson had probably passed out from the smoke. At this moment, they were lying on the bed without any movement.
Zhou Qing practically crawled to the bed to save them, but even if she had martial arts skills, it was difficult for her to carry both of them out in this situation.
Zhou Qing gritted her teeth, picked up the child, and turned to run out. However, the fire was too big. She had barely taken a few steps before she was trapped by the fire and smoke.
When Su Ying returned to the city gate, it was already dark. After she flashed her pass, the guards did not immediately let her enter the city.
■’Didn’t you go out to purchase goods? Why did you come back so soon?” There was a limit to the number of people who went out of the city every day, and anyone who went out would be recognized by the officials.
“I was supposed to go out to pick up the goods, but there was a problem with that batch of goods and they can’t be transferred to me now.” Right now, the areas outside were crawling with bandits and disaster victims.
It was fairly normal that problems easily cropped up with the transportation of goods and grain.
After confirming that there was nothing wrong with Su Ying, the officer allowed her to enter the city.
There were no pedestrians on the road. Su Ying galloped all the way back to the main street where the inn was located, only to discover that the entire street was enveloped by billowing smoke.
An ominous premonition rose in Su Ying’s heart, but she didn’t rush over at once. Instead, she found a hidden place and entered her interspatial store to look for a set of fire resistant suit and a respirator mask. After putting them on, she rode her horse and dashed towards the place where the thick smoke was coming from.
When she got closer, she realized that the inn she was staying at was on fire! Su Ying’s eyes widened as she quickly dismounted from her horse and approached the inn. Immediately, she heard desperate cries for help coming from inside.
When Su Ying reached the door, she realized that the door had actually been sealed shut from the outside.
Gritting her teeth, she took a step back and kicked the four corners of the door. After a few crashing sounds from the door panels, the door instantly toppled to the ground.
The moment the door of the inn was kicked open, a cloud of thick smoke gushed towards Su Ying, almost enveloping her..
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