Chapter 231: News from Inquiries

Gu Fei thanked him sincerely and went behind the counter. She rested her chin in her hand, trying to come up with a plan.

She thought for a long time, but aside from being extra careful, she couldn’t think of anything else to do.

She asked Lian’er to watch the counter, then got up and went into the courtyard, where Old Huang was lying on a rattan chair, soaking up the sun.

Gu Fei squatted beside him. "Mr. Huang, that relative of yours, Er Laizi, was just here."

Old Huang opened his eyes. "He came? What did he say?"

"He told me to give him thirty taels of silver a month, or else I can forget about keeping this shop open."

Old Huang sighed. "What’s to be done? I can’t control him. If I could, I wouldn’t have ended up in this state."

Gu Fei said, "I just wanted to ask, does Er Laizi have any other family?"

Old Huang scoffed. "He used to have a wife, but he gambled away everything they owned. She ran off with their daughter—heard she left with a merchant from out of town. Now, he’s all alone with no one to feed but himself."

Gu Fei sighed. This made things even more difficult. It meant she had no leverage over him.

"Then where does he live now?"

Old Huang shook his head. "How would I know? A guy like him can probably find any old place to crash for a few days."

Gu Fei’s brow furrowed even deeper. ’He doesn’t even have a fixed address. Even if I wanted to hire someone to throw a sack over his head and beat him up, it’d be hard to even find him.’

Having failed to get any useful information, Gu Fei returned to the front of the shop.

That evening, as Gu Fei was about to close up for the night, Young Master Zhou arrived.

He sat down in front of the counter, leaned in conspiratorially, and lowered his voice. "Little Fei, Young Master Zhu sent me with a message for you."

"He was asking around about the trouble Er Laizi caused here today, and he actually dug up something useful."

Gu Fei’s eyes widened. "What is it?"

"Listen, the reason Er Laizi can cause all this trouble without the government getting involved is that someone’s pulling the strings."

"What do you mean? Who is it?" Gu Fei asked urgently.

"He doesn’t know who exactly. His source wouldn’t get into specifics, but they did say the person backing Er Laizi might be connected to the Prince Qi Mansion."

"The story is that Er Laizi got drunk once, let something slip, and someone overheard."

"No wonder nobody dared to take this shop. Think about it—around here, who has more power than Prince Qi?"

Young Master Zhou pointed upward. "Even for the Emperor himself, the heavens are high and he is far away."

The color drained from Gu Fei’s face. ’Her worst fears were coming true.’

’She had originally thought Er Laizi was just a common thug. If he pushed her too far, she figured she could take a risk and deal with him herself.’

’But the Prince Qi Mansion? Could she possibly afford to provoke them?’

’To common folk like her, the mansion was like the very heavens above—untouchable and absolute!’

’Even if she managed to kill Er Laizi, they would just find another way to come after her.’

Young Master Zhou looked at her sympathetically. "You must have invested several hundred taels of silver in this place, haven’t you? Sigh... it’s all likely to go down the drain now."

Gu Fei felt like she was about to cry. ’Could you please not rub it in?’ she thought. "Thank you, Brother Zhou. And please thank Young Master Zhu for me for going to all this trouble."

"Sigh, don’t mention it. You may be young, but I like your moxie. I was hoping you’d be able to stick around for a good long while. It’d give me another spot to hang out." Young Master Zhou got to his feet. "Little Fei, you take care now. With this... I really can’t help you."

With his hands clasped behind his back, Young Master Zhou left, shaking his head and sighing.

Gu Fei sat behind the counter in a daze for some time. Finally, she stood up listlessly and called for Er Lang and Sanlang to put up the door boards for the night.