The object of everyone's curiosity and inquiry finally appeared by the gate, followed by eight attendants. The leader was a young man who looked at the people present with a blank and indifferent expression.

"You are Wang-daren?" Magistrate Yin stepped forward and asked, "I wonder if Wang-daren has a token?"

The man arrogantly handed the token to him, and the group hurriedly gathered together to verify the authenticity. But that person looked at Wang Yibo and Xiao Zhan covertly, with a trace of eagerness in his eyes.

With a smile at the corners of his mouth, Xiao Zhan nodded at him.

Li Yucheng opened his mouth wide, staring at the so-called "Wang-daren." Wasn't he the little servant next to Wang Yibo?

"It really is Wang-daren, this is the Imperial envoy token." After speaking, Magistrate Yin hurriedly led the group of people to salute. "We didn't know Wang-daren was visiting today, and failed to welcome you. Please take a seat inside."

Gao Tan nodded. Walking into the lobby, he cleared his throat and said pompously: "The others are excused. I only came to inform you that I was ordered to investigate this matter. You just need to cooperate with me."

"Naturally, I don't know which matter Wang-daren came to investigate? Is it related to the governor?" Magistrate Yin asked.

Gao Tan waved his hand, signaling him not to ask again: "You only need to follow orders, and I will make arrangements myself. It is getting late, I'll go back to the inn to rest. Where is your best inn?"

"General Xiao is staying at that inn," Magistrate Yin said.

Only then did Gao Tan look at Xiao Zhan openly, but he didn't step forward.

Magistrate Yin observed the expressions of these two people. They were not close at all, and he could tell at a glance that their relationship was not good. But even so, how could someone as proud as Wang-daren allow Xiao Zhan to cheat behind his back?

"Why don't I send my lord and the General back together?" Magistrate Yin's eyes darted as he led the way.

These people also followed, and when they arrived at the inn, Magistrate Yin asked Gao Tan if he needed an extra room or if he would be residing with Xiao Zhan.

Gao Tan naturally wanted to live separately!

Magistrate Yin immediately understood that these two people had their own separate lives, so he smiled and asked for another upper room for him, both on the third floor. He deliberately stayed and waited for the others to go back to their rooms before starting to talk to Wang-daren.

"Wang-daren has worked hard on his journey, rest well tonight and be energetic tomorrow," Magistrate Yin said.

Gao Tan nodded indifferently.

"General Xiao has been in Jiangnan for some time, is my lord aware?"

Gao Tan nodded indifferently.

"Then there is that Fu Qian-gongzi who claims to be the most beautiful man in the capital, is my lord aware?" Magistrate Yin hinted a bit.

Gao Tan nodded indifferently.

"The General has a very close relationship with that Fu-gongzi, is my lord aware?"

Gao Tan nodded indifferently, then shook his head vigorously: "Fu Qian?"

"Exactly." Magistrate Yin was secretly delighted, and promptly began to lament, "My lord, you don't know that General Xiao and this Fu Qian are actually having an affair!"

"An affair?" Gao Tan was at a loss.

"Yes, behind your back, it's true!"

Gao Tan was shocked: "Where is Fu Qian? I'm going to beat him to death!"

"He's next door!" Magistrate Yin quickly grabbed him. "My lord, don't be hasty. There is no need to rush. Fu Qian is at fault, so is General Xiao not at fault?"

"Next door?" Gao Tan's eyes turned, and he adopted a forbidding appearance. "That's fine."

"That – that's fine?" Magistrate Yin looked at him in surprise. "My lord, are you sure it's fine?"

"Oh, what I mean is that it's none of your business. I'll take care of the rest."

Family strife should not be publicized. Magistrate Yin knew this quite well, and said with a smile: "Good, if you need anything, my lord, you can come to me at any time."

In the middle of the night, the inn returned to silence.

Wang Yibo's room was not silent at all. First a black shadow sneaked in, and then another black shadow jumped in from the roof.

"My lord, General, I'm here," Gao Tan whispered.

"Good boy, ah, you didn't reveal our secrets." Xiao Zhan smiled and patted him.

Gao Tan scratched his head with a smile: "As my lord said, as long as I keep silent and cherish words like gold, and don't show any expression, I can deceive many people. No one would dare to pretend to be an Imperial envoy at this juncture."

Moreover, Gao Tan had followed Wang Yibo for many years, and he had long been influenced by his temperament, so no one was more suitable than him.

"What did Magistrate Yin tell you just now?" Wang Yibo asked.

"He kept saying that although he and the governor are in-laws, he was completely unaware of his collusion with the bandits. He also said......about the General and......" Gao Tan intermittently glanced between Xiao Zhan and Wang Yibo.

Wang Yibo: "He said that Xiao Zhan and Fu Qian were cheating behind your back?"

"Right!"

Xiao Zhan: "......" Why did these words sound so awkward?

"My lord, is it true?" Gao Tan asked in a low voice.

"Fu Qian is me," Wang Yibo said.

"Yeah, I guessed right!" Gao Tan immediately beamed with joy. "Then should I pretend to be very angry?"

"Remain the same as before. If you can't talk, don't talk. If you can't show your face, don't show your face."

"Okay."

After Gao Tan left, Wang Yibo looked at Xiao Zhan and saw that there was still some dirt on his clothes, and asked him to take a bath first.

The sound of water came from behind the screen, and Wang Yibo asked from his seat outside: "You hurried back from Quzhou?"

"En."

"How many days did it take?"

"Two days."

According to the distance, it would take four or five days at the least, but this fellow came back so quickly. Wang Yibo asked: "What are you doing coming back so early?"

"You ask what you already know."

"I insist on asking."

"Okay,l." Xiao Zhan smiled. "It's because I missed you and I was afraid something would happen to you, so I wanted to see you soon. Is this answer satisfactory?"

However, he didn't receive an answer, only slight footsteps as Wang Yibo came around the screen and looked straight at him.

Xiao Zhan subconsciously covered the key parts. Then he thought, in the end, it was all covered by water and they were husband and wife, so what were they afraid of ah!

The water vapor was so dense that Xiao Zhan's face began to turn red. He pretended to be calm and said: "What, do you want to take a mandarin duck bath together?"

The corners of Wang Yibo's mouth twitched, then he walked behind him and looked down at his back. There were no new injuries, so he breathed a sigh of relief, then walked outside the screen as if he was just there for a casual stroll.

"You're just leaving?" Xiao Zhan poked his head out, staring desperately at the situation outside the screen. "Shouldn't you stay a while?"

"What's there to stay for?"

"Just......" In Xiao Zhan's mind, the gorgeous scene of the other party helping him dry his body suddenly appeared. His blood surged up and his face flushed as he said, "Help me dry off."

"Don't you have hands?"

Xiao Zhan dried his body dejectedly. This person clearly came to tease him on purpose, and then didn't care to put out the fire! Damnit!

Fine, since you are heartless, don't blame me for being unrighteous!

After Xiao Zhan got dressed, he sat down beside the bed without saying a word. Wang Yibo was already lying down at this time, and he raised his eyelids and looked at him idly.

The next moment, Xiao Zhan grabbed his own sleeve and slowly pulled it down, exposing his shoulder.

The corners of Wang Yibo's mouth twitched.

Xiao Zhan pulled down the sleeve on the other side, and finally reached down to untie his belt, licking his lips in a pretentious manner.

"Don't." Wang Yibo suddenly pressed his hand down, got up, and held the bronze mirror to face him. "Take a look at yourself, does it look good?"

Xiao Zhan took a closer look and saw that his clothes were partly undone, revealing his muscular arms, which was incongruous and not at all like the half-exposed, lively appearance he had imagined.

"......" How shameful.

He pulled off his clothes awkwardly and stiffly, and silently prepared to make the bed. As soon as he took out the blanket, Wang Yibo held his hand and led him to the bedside: "Forget it, for the sake of your hard journey, you are allowed to sleep in bed tonight."

Xiao Zhan immediately threw away the blanket in his hand and got into bed, for fear of being kicked out if he wasn't quick enough.

The candles were extinguished, and the two lay side by side on the bed. Having been separated for a few days, they had many things to say, but at this time they didn't speak, and only listened quietly to each other's breathing.

After a long time, Xiao Zhan turned sideways and hugged him in his arms without any explanation. The other party struggled slightly, and seeing that he couldn't push him away, he just acceded to him.

Xiao Zhan had succeeded. In the darkness, the corners of his mouth quietly rose, and he touched that waist with his hand, letting out a 'hiss': "Are you losing weight again?"

Wang Yibo remained silent.

"So thin." Xiao Zhan said so, but what he thought in his heart was that if he was too thin, would it hurt him badly? It was a physical activity, after all. "This won't do, you should eat more and take care of your body. You will look better if you are fatter."

Wang Yibo's face instantly collapsed. Who wasn't good-looking?!

Suddenly, Xiao Zhan was kicked hard on the thigh and was almost kicked off the bed. Fortunately he managed to stabilize himself, but the other party obviously didn't let him get away with it, and said coldly: "Get out your bedding!"

The cool wind blew, and Xiao Zhan stood outside the door with his bedroll in his arms and an indescribable expression on his face. An undercover life was so miserable.

The next day, Yin Pinglu learned that Xiao Zhan had returned to Huaizhou and immediately went to him and asked: "Where is Zuo Ran? Did she come back with you?"

"No, she returned to Beijing with the team escorting the governor. She said that she didn't want to be a person who has to sneak around. This time, she followed me to arrest people and put in a lot of effort. I plan to let her go to the capital to show her face first, and then make up for her military merits. With He Cuizhang taking care of her, there will be no danger, and the capital is much safer than here," Xiao Zhan said.

Yin Pinglu nodded and breathed a sigh of relief: "Thank you, General."

"I still need to ask, do you want to leave Huaizhou now?"

Yin Pinglu shook her head: "If I leave now, I can't do anything but be protected by you. If I stay here, perhaps I can help you, as long as you don't think I am a burden."

"How will you help?"

While they talked, a thin old man ran into the lobby and shouted: "Imperial envoy! Where is the Imperial envoy? I want to see the Imperial envoy!"

"Who is this person?" Xiao Zhan whispered.

"Kuang Sheng," Yin Pinglu said. "A few days ago, my lord took me to watch from a distance, and suspected that he was acting on his own in regard to the water report letter."

"Acting on his own?" Xiao Zhan looked at the person in the lobby with surprise. Kuang Sheng was asking the shopkeeper which room the Imperial envoy was staying in.

The upstairs door opened. Wang Yibo walked out slowly, and Li Yucheng and Gao Tan also came out one after another.

Wang Yibo glanced at Gao Tan, who immediately got into character and deliberately lowered his voice: "Who is looking for me?"

Kuang Sheng raised his head to look, trotted upstairs, and knelt down in front of Gao Tan. He said agitatedly: "Imperial Envoy, I have something to say to you!"

"Come inside before speaking," Wang Yibo said, then told Li Yucheng in a low voice to take care of the other people present and not let the news spread outside.

Then the group of people entered Gao Tan's room, and Kuang Sheng knelt in the middle, kowtowing continuously: "Imperial Envoy, you must take care of this one!"

"Tell me what happened, in detail," Wang Yibo said.

Kuang Sheng found that it was this person who spoke every time and had some doubts in his heart, but he still told his story in front of everyone: "This one is a water reporter, and is responsible for observing precipitation and changes in the water volume of the Huaihe River. I added some numbers to the water report I submitted to the Imperial court last month, and this one is willing to accept the punishment, but before I die, there is one more thing that I hope my lord can take care of for this one."

"What is it?"

"This one wishes to report on the Pi County Magistrate, who preys on the people, bullies men and women, and disregards human life!"

"The Magistrate of Pi County?" Wang Yibo looked at Yin Pinglu. If he remembered correctly, Yin Pinglu seemed to have mentioned this person. He was her third brother-in-law. The relationship between husband and wife was not harmonious, but he got along very well with Magistrate Yin.

Yin Pinglu nodded slightly at him.

"Do you have evidence?" Wang Yibo asked.

"This one has a letter, which was written by my daughter herself." Kuang Sheng took out a badly worn letter, and his tears overflowed.

Wang Yibo took the letter, and the several other people gathered around to read it together.

This was her last letter.

The Kuang family was originally from Pi County, and Kuang Sheng moved to Huaizhou alone because he was awarded the post of Water Reporter.

The daughter married into an ordinary family with a clean background in the local area, and the two ran a shop, but unexpectedly, the magistrate saw the daughter's beauty and secretly sent someone to take her away, tarnishing her innocence. She already had a fetus in her womb, and she accidentally miscarried.

After her husband learned this, he rushed to the magistrate's office with a knife, but was accused of attacking a court official and was given eighty strikes with a board, resulting in his lower body becoming disabled. He passed away within a few days.

Her own brother was furious, and in order to ask for an explanation for his sister and brother-in-law, he reported to Magistrate Yin. But he was tricked by Magistrate Yin, and when he returned home that night, he was retaliated against, resulting in not only serious injuries, but blindness.

The daughter thought that everything that happened was her fault, so she wrote a final letter and committed bitter suicide. At the same time, she hoped that her father would stop seeking justice for her, so as not to incur a murderous disaster. They were just commoners, and could not escape the grasp of these powerful people at all.

This group of people looked at the weeping old man in astonishment. His back was hunched over, and his hair had already turned gray in his forties.

Yin Pinglu's eyes reddened in empathy, and she helped the old man up, assisting him to sit down on a chair.

For a while, only the crying of the old man could be heard in the room.

Some time later, Wang Yibo said slowly: "You knew that the officials in this area were colluding with each other and reported their crimes to no avail, so you deliberately tampered with the water report in hopes that the Imperial court would send an envoy to investigate their corruption? This way, you could report their crimes in person to the Imperial court?"

Kuang Sheng nodded: "Exactly."

As a water reporter, although he received a salary from the Imperial court, this official position was very unenviable. For one thing, it was a new position and there was only one water reporter within several prefectures, so he was fighting alone. Secondly, he worked for the Imperial court but was usually restricted by the local government. This small official position seemed to be very useless, and wasn't valued by the government and the people at all.

He thought about secretly writing his grievances directly in the letter, but the letter had to be approved by the government before it could be reported to the Imperial court.

Thus, he prepared in advance for the opportune moment. It must rain at a time when many people traveled to the capital city, so that the Emperor could discover the falsified letter and then suspect that some officials had tampered with it.

Fortunately, when the local government approved it, they didn't understand the difference in precipitation at all. After checking that there was nothing unusual, they had the courier send it to the capital. It also coincided with the concubine draft in the palace, and there were many ladies of officials in Jiangnan, along with their entourages, so the Emperor would definitely discover a clue.

"I arrived in Huaizhou half a month ago. Why didn't you come to me?" Xiao Zhan asked. "Did you not know I was here?"

"How could I not know? As soon as General Xiao arrived in Huaizhou, everyone knew about it. It wasn't that I didn't want to look for you, but that I dared not." Kuang Sheng had waited for the people from the capital every day, but he heard that Xiao Zhan had arrived and immediately gone to the Magistrate's house, and then it was rumored that the general and Magistrate Yin's daughter had met at the border and would be married. He was worried that Xiao Zhan would be won over by Magistrate Yin, so he didn't dare to act rashly.

"What marriage?" Xiao Zhan was even more depressed. "How dare Magistrate Yin spread rumors!"

Yin Pinglu also frowned, and intuitively explained to Wang Yibo: "There is pure conduct between the General and I."

"En." Wang Yibo could naturally guess Magistrate Yin's thoughts, and asked Kuang Shuang again, "Do you have any other evidence besides this letter?"

"Yes, but I didn't bring it with me." Kuang Sheng didn't dare bring all the evidence, fearing that the Imperial Envoy would also be swayed, so he hid the rest.

"All right, you go back now. Be sure to return in an obvious way and let everyone know that you have been to see the Imperial Envoy." After speaking, Wang Yibo glanced at Xiao Zhan.

Xiao Zhan understood. "Okay, I will escort him back personally."

Seeing this, Kuang Sheng became more and more confused about who the Imperial Envoy was.

After the two left, Wang Yibo took the letter and handed it to Yin Pinglu: "It is up to you, the daughter of the Yin family, to act."

"Don't worry, I know what to do." Yin Pinglu took the letter and turned around to go back to her room.

Only then did Xiao Gao lean forward: "My lord, it's my turn. What should I do?"

"You just stay in your room and eat and drink."

"Ah......okay." Gao Tan also wanted to immediately guess what his lord was thinking like those others, then go to work with a swish. How smart he would look!

"Go back to your room."

After Li Yucheng saw to the people in the inn, he went upstairs to find Wang Yibo. He was the only one left in the room, and asked: "Where are the others? They left?"

"En." Wang Yibo poured himself a cup of tea.

Li Yucheng sat down next to him in boredom, then glanced over at him and said: "Why do you look a little