Chapter 350 Night Attack

Chapter 350 Night Attack

Chapter 350 Night Attack (Part )

Late at night, west of Lowther Arcade.

Unlike Redwood Avenue, which is nicknamed the "noble area" by the residents of the capital and is home to a large number of old noble manors, the western area of ​​Lowther Arcade, known as the "rich area", is also home to many nobles, but there are few large manors.

Since it was completed nearly a hundred years later than Redwood Avenue, the land-scarce capital no longer allowed enclosure for the construction of large estates. In addition, most of the people living here were new nobles who started out in business, and their political status was much lower than that of the old nobles, so the standards were naturally lowered again and again.

To own several gorgeous and exquisite townhouses here is already the "top configuration" in the entire "rich area". If it can be equipped with a medium-sized garden, then the owner of this residence will most likely be an important figure who controls the political situation in the royal capital.

However, this rule is not completely absolute.

After all, although Lowther Arcade was fully built very late, it was not a wasteland before its completion. There were still several older aristocratic manors that were included in the scope of Lowther Arcade, and Cuiyu Manor belonging to the Jinjuan family was one of them.

……

Strange, what exactly does the Marquis Jinjuan want?

When he stepped on the bricks that should have been very white but had turned dark yellow after hundreds of years of rain erosion, he arrived near the entrance of Cuiyu Manor. Looking at the magnificent buildings hidden in the jungle from afar, Lyon couldn't help but frowned slightly.

To be honest, although if we only look at the area, Baohua Manor is obviously larger, the manor in front of us is not much smaller.

Moreover, looking at the intricate reliefs on the main building's facade, the marble statues scattered throughout the garden, and the patterns on the outer porch that are obviously the work of a master, the Cuiyu Manor is much more magnificent than the simple Baohua Manor.

So were they crazy? They didn't want to live in their own house which was hundreds of years old, but they had to occupy the manor of Emma Senior which had been abandoned for six years?
Full of confusion, Leon walked out of the dark night, stepped into the light outside the manor gate, and entered the field of vision of the night sentry, and opened his mouth slightly.

"Meow~"

"who is it?!"

After seeing a somewhat hazy figure approaching, the guard on duty suddenly became alert and instinctively wanted to call out his companion who was taking a nap in the duty room, and ask him to interrogate the identity of the person and why he approached Cuiyu Manor alone at night.

However, at this moment, it seemed that too much oil had dripped from the lamp, and the street lamp directly above the sentry post suddenly ignited for a moment. The originally soft night light became extremely dazzling, causing the sentry's eyes to squint unconsciously.

When he blinked hard and continued to look at the figure, he found that it was not a person, but a cat with something hanging around its neck.

Strange... cats and humans are so different in size, how could I have been wrong?

Staring at the kitten in surprise, no matter how hard he looked, it was just a fluffy long-haired dwarf cat with no sign of turning into a cat girl. The sentry of the Golden Cuckoo Family could only shush it twice, then returned to his original position in confusion. However...

"Meow!!!"

With an angry meow, the gray and white cat turned into a gray and white shadow, and instantly pounced in front of the sentry, knocking him to the ground in a rather brutal manner.

I... was beaten by a cat?
Before the knocked-down sentry could accept this outrageous reality, the small cat with short paws used his chest as a springboard and crawled into the duty room through the open window.

The doorman in charge of registration in the duty room only had time to utter a scream before he fell silent, and the other two sentries on the night shift also fell silent after uttering a muffled groan.

???

After realizing that the duty room was too quiet, the sentry, who had struggled to get up, was startled and quickly ran over to take a look. He was then extremely shocked to find that the three people in the room were already lying down in a mess.

The entire duty room was filled with tiny cat footprints, but the strange little cat had long since disappeared. At the back of his neck, he could hear a faint breathing sound...

"Meow!!!"

……

"Well done."

After catching the blurry kitten and scratching its chin, Leon gently flicked the small red fork hanging on his chest.

With a dreamlike and pleasant chirping sound, the blurry gray and white kitten disappeared, and a door key carved with a cuckoo pattern suddenly appeared in Leon's palm.

I'm sorry, I'm not very familiar with this thing and it seems that I used a bit too much force, but you can just leave work early today.

After apologizing in his heart to the sentry who fainted on the ground with a look of fear on his face, Leon let him into the duty room through the window, then took the key found by the dream cat, opened the locked door in front of him, and entered the manor of the Jinjuan family in a dignified manner.

The third-generation old man used the weapon of the [Lord of Desire and Dreams] as the core material to create the [Dream Invader] for himself, which has an extremely concealed way of launching.

As long as there is any "interaction" with oneself in any sense, the target's soul will be shaken, and the power of the dream world will use his soul as a springboard to briefly intervene in reality.

As an ordinary person without any abnormality, after hearing the "meow" sound he made, the sentry of the Golden Cuckoo Family fell into the control of the [Dream Invader], and under its influence he directly "dreamed" of a kitten.

And this dream cat that invaded reality with the help of his soul, under his control, easily knocked out everyone in the duty room and left a lot of cat footprints in the room.

When the General Administration sends people to investigate, if the investigator is not careful enough, as soon as the sentry's memory is confirmed, the direction of the investigation will be directly diverted, and it may even be led to some abnormal thing called "cat transformation".

Even if no results are found in the end, the investigation will still find its way back to me. However, with this non-existent target, my suspicion will be somewhat diluted in disguise. This is my second way to get rid of suspicion after the "alibi" provided by the coachman.

As the saying goes, if there is a first time, there will be a second time, and there will be a third time, and a fourth time. As for his third backup plan...

"It's work!"

After touching his buttons and getting the black goat out, Leon pointed to the main building in the distance which was still brightly lit, and said calmly:

"Come! Help me find someone!"

……

"Swish..."

Even though it was already late at night and the sky was starting to turn pale, some people were still busy at their desks.

After filling up most of the letter paper with complex and colorful cursive characters, the man, who looked a little tired, folded the letter paper in his hand in half and handed it to the secretary standing beside the table.

"Go ahead, seal the letter, stamp it, and send it to the Mining Guild tomorrow along with my warrant!"

"Ok."

After carefully collecting the letter handed over by the man and processing it as requested, the secretary, who also looked tired, said with all his strength:
"Lord Reynard, after your letter is delivered, will you continue to try to win over the Mining Guild as you did last time?"

"There's no need to win them over. They have no other value anymore."

Taking another document from the table, the man named Leonard frowned and said after looking at the signature on the bottom edge:
“I had previously supported the Mining Guild’s request in order to get them to move to Merino County to mine through tax cuts. The spices produced by the spice garden in Merino County are the biggest rival of our Kuko family.

Since both the mining industry and the spice planting industry have high requirements for water, as soon as a mine is opened in Merino County, it will start competing for water with several large spice gardens there. While suppressing competitors, it can also reduce the kingdom's spice production and increase the selling price of spices.

This function is the reason why I support the mining guild, not the value of the hard work of mining. Now that they have the warrant to open the mine, there is no need to continue to spend energy on them. "

"Ah, okay!"

After noting down Marquis Reynard's instructions, the secretary pondered for a moment, then said hesitantly:

"But the miners of the Mining Guild have had several conflicts with Merino County because of this matter. Seventy to eighty people have died. If the situation gets out of hand..." "Then let them go to the princess. She was the one who issued the decree to encourage the Energy Guild. If anything goes wrong, she will be held responsible."

"Moreover, she has always wanted to bypass the Ministry of Finance and Parliament and find a source of financial revenue that does not require approval to fill the huge gap in the military's military expenditure. The industrial guilds established by these citizens are the ones who support her the most. They even took the initiative to donate the weapons of two regiments.

If a few more people died this time, it would help those peasants wake up and realize that they are not qualified to participate in the game between the royal family and the Ministry of Finance. Maybe it would be a good thing.

And who delivered this letter to my desk?"

After quickly reading the earnest declaration letter in his hand, Reynard frowned and said with displeasure:
"The Weavers Guild actually submitted a declaration, complaining to me that they couldn't make ends meet and hoping to have their taxes reduced... If their taxes are reduced, what will happen to the municipal government this year? The green plants in the church area and the arcade should have been renovated last year. If we don't collect their taxes, where will I get the money?"

"Well... the Weavers' Guild is indeed having some difficulties..."

After flipping through the corresponding materials, the secretary carefully reminded:
"After we lost the war six years ago, two of the kingdom's external trade routes were robbed, including the one for trading fabrics. As a result, many products could not be sold, and a number of weaving workshops went bankrupt.

As for the northern land trade route that you and Bao... run together with that company, although you can continue to trade fabrics, you will be subject to heavy taxes by the Kingdom of Aixito, resulting in very low profits, so they may indeed be in a bit of trouble..."

"Why are you talking so much today?"

After narrowing his eyes slightly, Reynard looked at his secretary with a cold look and said unkindly:
"Did the Weavers' Guild send you money?"

"I did give some away...but these are indeed the facts."

The secretary smiled somewhat embarrassedly, and then said:

"You know, many weaving guilds are still small and medium-sized workshops. They are indeed not as good as those wealthy merchants. They can't easily survive the slightest change..."

"Then let them hold on!"

Leonard snorted and said:

“I don’t care about you collecting money, but I absolutely cannot allow you to reduce taxes!

Don't think I don't know. I also worked in this business back then. To make money in this business, all you have to do is suck the blood of the weavers. A weaver can produce 200 rolls of fabric, and it is enough to pay back the money for 50 or 60 rolls of fabric.

So instead of asking me for that little tax cut, it would be better to just pump out more water, and reduce the wages to 40 horses, which won’t kill people. If we can reduce it to 30 horses, it will be more useful than my tax cut twice!"

"That's true, but I'm afraid the weavers..."

"Then drive the troublemakers away. Do I still need to teach them these?"

After crumpling up the tax reduction application letter for the weaving industry and throwing it into the trash can, Leonard said impatiently:

"If you really can't recruit people, just go to the slums! Those people will work if you give them a meal. They can't do dyeing, which requires skills, so can't weaving, which only requires moving arms and legs, be done?

Also, don't think that just because your last name is Kuko, I can tolerate you again and again. No matter how many benefits they give you, this matter ends here, and the taxes that should be paid must not be reduced by a single copper wheel!"

"Okay, then I'll go tell them the day after tomorrow..."

"Let's go tomorrow! Also, how is the situation at Baohua Manor?"

After drinking a cup of refreshing tea imported from across the sea, Reynard rubbed his swollen temples vigorously and asked with his eyes closed:
"It's been four or five days since they've been cleaning up there, right? Has the main building of the manor been cleaned up? Can we live there now?"

"This...I'm afraid it will take another three or four days..."

The secretary said awkwardly:
"Mr. Marquis, as you know, that place has been abandoned for six years. Except for the garden, where people occasionally tidy up the place, most of the rest of the place is deserted, so..."

"Don't worry about whether the manor is deserted or not, clean up the place to live first!"

"This... that place is so desolate, if you live there, wouldn't it be..."

"It doesn't matter whether it's barren or not, as long as it's habitable and not collapsing."

After stopping rubbing his temple, Reynard explained with a weary look in his eyes:
"The princess has the support of the Duke of Lionheart. In addition to taking control of the military and highway departments, she has also won the seat of Vice Speaker of the House of Lords. If His Royal Highness Joshua wants to compete with her for the position, it is not enough to have the support of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He must also have the ability to speak out in the House of Lords.

According to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, as long as I change my words and acknowledge my marriage to that woman, he can help me to forcibly take the House of Lords seat from the Baohua family, so that the two princes can be back on the same starting line.

Moving from Cuiyu Manor to Baohua Manor is the first step in this operation. Even with the endorsement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the royal family, my people must be there. At least they must be presentable so that they can inherit the political legacy of the Baohua family. Do you understand?"

"understood……"

“If you understand, do it!”

Seeing this cousin who was nominally his secretary but actually came to learn how to handle government affairs and then look for an opportunity to be transferred out, Leonard urged him with his last bit of patience:

“Other matters can be put aside, but this matter was assigned by the Minister of Finance, and if we can take Baohua’s seat, His Majesty the King will also strongly support it, so it must be done as a priority!

So now you have to hurry up and call those workers to start working overnight!"

"Okay! I'll go right away!"

The secretary got the order and quickly stood up and walked out of the office. Without any more distractions, Leonard put down his teacup and re-examined the pile of documents on the table. The whole room became quiet again, with only the rustling sound of the pen tip rubbing against the paper, until...

"Crack!"

The whale oil in the lamp on the table shook slightly, making a slight sound, causing the light of the lamp to shake slightly twice, and also startled the man who was writing furiously at the table.

After looking sideways at the empty side table, Leonard couldn't help but frowned, turned around and shouted loudly:
"mark?"

"Where are you?"

After waiting for a while, there was no response, and even the guards guarding outside did not move. Leonard could not help but frowned and stood up from the table.

"mark?"

"I'm here."

Along with a slightly ambiguous response, a slightly hazy figure appeared at the door, but the figure seemed to be slightly different, and looked slimmer than the slightly fat Mark...

"mark?"

"Ah."

Along with an affirmative response, the person walked in from the shadow outside the door. The figure that had originally looked a little blurry returned to normal under the light and became completely stable.

Seeing Reynard's tense body relax again, the secretary, who still had a tired look in his eyes, smiled slightly and said calmly:

"Lord Reynard, I'm here."

(End of this chapter)