tallest building

Chapter 104 Mental Calculation

At this moment, Zhang Ma felt her hands and feet were ice cold, and it felt as if all the blood in her body was flowing backwards.

Ma Ping'an noticed her worry and quickly comforted her, "Mother Zhang, don't worry. I'll go with this coachman to the Duke's mansion to take a look. Maybe the Fourth Young Master is already there! After all, his mansion has more than just this one carriage and one coachman."

The driver from the Feng family also hurriedly said, "Yes, yes, it would be more reassuring to go and take a look."

“No, I have to go with you.” Zhang Ma said as she got into the car. “Old Huang, you come in too. If you’re here, everything will be fine. If you’re not, we’ll have to go through the motions together. We can’t keep running back and forth.”

The two residences were not close to each other, and even though the coachman hurried as fast as he could, it still took him about 15 minutes to get back to the Feng family's residence.

As soon as Zhang Ma got out of the car, she saw Feng Tianzhu standing at the door. She felt a wave of dizziness and almost fainted.

Ma Pingan and Lao Huang quickly helped her up, one on each side.

“Aunt Zhang, what brings you here? Where is my sworn brother? I’ve been waiting for him here!” Feng Tianzhu rushed up and asked.

"Young Master, I was ordered to fetch the Fourth Young Master Gong, but his family said that about an hour before I arrived, one of our carriages had already taken him away," said the Feng family's coachman.

"Nonsense! If he came, would I not know?" Feng Tianzhu squinted. "Where exactly is my sworn brother?"

“But…but that coachman definitely looks like someone from your household! We’ve met several times before,” Old Huang said.

"What does he look like?" At this moment, the Feng family's steward also came out.

"He had a long, thin face, slightly squinty eyes, and a scar on his chin," Old Huang described.

"That's Shao Si!" the steward exclaimed, slapping his thigh. "He was kicked out of our household last month because he messed things up by gambling and drinking."

“I told you, I can’t be wrong,” Old Huang said immediately.

"The important thing is that he's no longer a member of the Duke Feng's mansion, yet he's still using the Duke's name to take our young master away, and he didn't even bring him to this mansion." Ma Ping'an's face turned pale. "Isn't this tantamount to human trafficking?!"

"Don't worry, don't worry, we'll look for him right away. I'll go in and tell Madam to send out as many people as possible. We'll also ask anyone in the mansion who knows Shao Si if they know where he lives," said the Feng family's steward. "Mother Zhang, don't be too anxious. After all, it's broad daylight, so I doubt he would dare to do anything really bad."

At this point, Zhang Ma was oblivious to all of this. She said, "Ma Ping'an, go find our Madam immediately. Old Huang, go back to the manor right away and tell the First Madam to send as many people as possible to search."

Wen Mingqian was originally boating on Cuiwei Lake with several women from the Changrong Marquis's residence.

Ma Ping'an brought a small boat over, and Wen Mingqian saw him on the boat. He knew that Ma Ping'an would never have rushed over in such a hurry unless there was an emergency.

So he said to Lady Changrong, "My steward has come; he must have something to attend to at home. I feel really bad about it today. How about we host a banquet another day and get together again?"

"Now that you're in charge of the household, you'll naturally have a lot to do. It's alright, go back now! We can meet again anytime." Lady Changrong was very understanding.

Sang Er helped Wen Mingqian onto the small boat and asked Ma Ping'an, "Brother Ma, what happened at home?"

“Miss Sang Er, please help the lady up.” Ma Ping’an swallowed hard and said, “The Fourth Young Master has probably been tricked by villains.” “What did you say?!” Sang Er was startled.

Wen Mingqian was also shocked and trembled when he heard this, but he tried his best to calm down and said, "I felt something was wrong as soon as I went out. My eyelids kept twitching. Ma Ping'an, tell me the whole story in detail."

Ma Ping'an then recounted the whole story in detail, adding, "The Feng family has already sent people everywhere to search, and our people are probably searching everywhere too. But we can't leave this without informing you, so I came here specifically to find you."

“Then let’s go back to the manor first,” Wen Mingqian said. “Even if we’re going to look for them, we can’t just wander around like headless flies. I’m sure my sister-in-law will divide the people into several groups to search for them separately.”

When she returned to the mansion, Zhang Ma also came back.

"Miss, it's all my fault. If I hadn't been lazy and had gone with the young master, none of this would have happened," Zhang Ma said regretfully.

"Don't blame yourself. Who would have thought something like this would happen?" Wen Mingqian didn't blame her at all. "Besides, it was my idea to keep you at home and not go with us."

“The man who took away the Fourth Young Master, Shao Si, is not a local of Beijing, nor does he have any family here. He also canceled his lease on the house he originally rented half a month ago, and we don’t know where he moved to.” Zhang Ma frowned. “Finding the whereabouts of such a person in Beijing is like looking for a needle in a haystack.”

“It’s clear that someone had bribed him beforehand,” Wen Mingqian said. “They tried to take advantage of his unpreparedness, but they succeeded.”

"Who's behind this? He's incredibly cunning; he's calculated every single step of the plan." Zhang Ma gritted her teeth. "I bet it's that bastard surnamed Song's brother. We haven't made any enemies with anyone since we came to the capital."

“I’m guessing it’s him too, but guessing won’t help. How can the authorities arrest someone without evidence? Besides, he wouldn’t be stupid enough to let us find something so easy to use.” Wen Mingqian sighed. “It’s also my fault for being careless.”

"Sister-in-law, you're back." Madam Wei rushed over. "I've already sent people out to look for you. Let's see if there's any reply soon."

“Sister-in-law, thank you for your hard work, but please don’t let the old lady know about this,” Wen Mingqian said. “Otherwise, she will be very worried.”

"Don't worry! I've repeatedly instructed the people who take care of the old lady," said Madam Wei. "I was thinking that the person who took Chang'an away was most likely kidnapping for ransom. It's not good for us to report it to the authorities right away. If we anger him and he hurts the child, that would be terrible."

Meanwhile, the people sent out to search gradually returned, but none of them brought back any useful information.

There are at least eight or ten thousand such carriages traveling through the capital every day.

With thousands of streets and alleys and twelve city gates in the capital, how easy would it be to find them all?

The less news they received, the more anxious they became.

"Madam, the second young lady of the Cui family has arrived. She says she has something to discuss with you," the old woman who delivered the message said as she approached.

"Cui Baozhu? She came to see me." Wen Mingqian was somewhat surprised, but still said, "Please let her in!"

"What's she doing here?" Zhang Ma asked. "Wasn't she best friends with Song before?"

“Times have changed. Back then, she realized that the Song family was using her as a tool, and she never came back after that,” Wen Mingqian said. “In my opinion, she is not a completely shameless person.”