“Jiejie, we’d better send someone home to get the money. Continuing on like this won’t solve the problem.”

“If Mother finds out, the two of us are dead.”

“But…..”

“I’ll think of another way…..”

The two children discussed amongst themselves, then looked at the taciturn fellow squatting in the corner.

“Hey, Liu Xiaozhu…..”

LIu Zhenqing sniffed, comforting himself: Forget it, I’m going to leave the capital. I was just showing off and messed up. Anyway…..this life will pass quickly.

He looked up and said: “Are we of the same generation? Can you just call me by name so casually? Whose children are you?”

The girl choked, and looked at him a little strangely. “You really…..don’t remember anything.”

The young master also looked at Liu Zhenqing curiously.

Liu Zhenqing just nodded. The two of them revealed subtle expressions, which were extremely close to that expression of “Can there be such a good thing?”

The corners of Liu Zhenqing’s lips twitched, but after some thought, there couldn’t be such a coincidence. Boy and girl twins……could it be……Liu Zhenqing’s expression changed, and he seemed to have thought of something impossible.

“What are you doing? Are you bullying me for losing my memory?” Liu Zhenqing said with dissatisfaction.

The young girl opened her eyes wide and said: “Who’s bullying you? Anyway, you can’t remember, so there’s no need for you to remember. Trouble can be avoided this way.”

Who knew if this guy was pretending to be on their side for the sake of deceiving and getting close to them…..Otherwise, how could he, a young master from an Imperial merchant family who was always covered in gold, be imprisoned alongside them without revealing his identity or calling someone to redeem him? Although they didn’t want to make malicious assumptions about people, this person’s previous behavior had been dramatic enough and shouldn’t be taken lightly.

The young master said with gentle politeness: “Liu-shishu, we will find someone to come and release the three of us. As agreed, all compensation will be our responsibility. We have troubled you today.”

The young girl also cupped her hands and said: “Although you didn’t help much……I still thank you!”

Liu Zhenqing wasn’t much concerned with their identities. The reason was the same. He was leaving here anyway, and there was no need to get to know people.

“No need to go to such trouble. Are you willing to pay this kind of money? Accepting a bet doesn’t always require being willing to accept defeat.” Liu Zhenqing chuckled and stood up. He wasn’t terribly aggrieved, otherwise he would have just sent someone to ask Jin Li outside to send the money in.

“What do you mean?” The young girl said in surprise.

Liu Zhenqing hooked his fingers and said: “Give me the dagger.”

The young girl hesitated for a moment. Then she pulled out the dagger and gave it to Liu Zhenqing, watchin him walk to the southeast corner of the room.

The rooms here only contained some miscellaneous items, and were used to imprison those who could not afford their bets.

The two of them gave Liu Zhenqing strange looks as they watched him step on the empty boxes in the corner and climb to the top. He reached up and groped at an indent before stopping at a certain place, then pierced it with the dagger. An entire wooden board fell down from the top, revealing an entrance big enough for a person to crawl through.

The two were both stunned, until Liu Zhenqing waved to them and said: “Let’s go, ba. They don’t know who we are anyway, so we can just run away.”

“You!” The young girl had no time to be surprised. She jumped up quickly and looked inside. It was a shallow passage near the ceiling, which was big enough for an adult to fit inside.

“Don’t worry, there’s a utility room at the other end of the passage, and that room has a window facing the street. The second floor is low enough for us to jump down, then we can disappear into the crowd and escape,” Liu Zhenqing said proudly.

Hearing this, the young girl immediately revealed an expression of joy. Although running away was disgraceful, it was better than the frustration of having to give that grandson six thousand taels.

The young master climbed a little slower, and asked puzzledly when he came up and also saw the passage: “Didn’t Liu-shishu lose his memory?”

Liu Zhenqing was taken aback, and the young girl also reacted and looked at him suspiciously.

“Cough, cough, cough, I remembered this passage as soon as I came in,” Liu Zhenqing said without a change of expression.

“You…..are so skilled. Have you done this before?” Asked the young girl.

Liu Zhenqing said awkwardly: “Just once.”

The young girl reacted at once and shouted angrily: “And you had the nerve to say that you won every bet before!

Liu Zhenqing felt as if he had taken an arrow to the knee. How could he have known that when he changed bodies, even his golden finger would be gone?

“Right, you’ve lost your memory. How did you know you’d always won every bet?”

After being called into question, Liu Zhenqing touched his hot ears and could only explain vaguely, “It was true in the past, ah. This is what I recalled after entering the gambling house.”

The two siblings felt that this person was unfamiliar, completely different from what they had seen before. It was as if he had become a different person.

“Then why were you locked up in here?” the young master inquired.

Liu Zhenqing couldn’t help but think back, and almost laughed out loud. “It wasn’t because of a loss, but because of a win that went too far. They suspected me of cheating, but couldn’t figure out how I had done it, so they got angry and locked me up first.”

It was the day the gambling house opened for the first time. He just happened to discover his golden finger when he was a little older than these two, so he came over with Huo Feihan and Li Xingruo to play, but it turned into a huge mess.

He couldn’t fight with his fists, and he didn’t dare to reveal his identity, for fear of being punished by the family elders. Thus, he used the opportunity to try to figure out a way out of prison, and discovered this secret passage in the end.

“Then you just ran away from here?” the young girl asked, drawn in by this bizarre matter.

Liu Zhenquing cocked his head and raised his eyebrows, saying: “Of course we couldn’t run away empty-handed. We snuck into the boss’s warehouse through the empty room in the back and made off with three boxes of silver.”

“What?!”

“Then we sent it to the government and said that since it was Longxing Gambling House’s first day open, all profits would be donated to express their determination to operate a conscientious business,” Liu Zhenqing said, holding back a smile.

The two siblings were astonished, and couldn’t help but burst into smiles, but the two had already pasted the word “wicked” onto Liu Zhenqing.

“What happened in the end?”

“In the end……the small flag of honor at the entrance of Longxing Gambling House was awarded by the government.”

When Liu Zhenqing finished speaking, the two siblings finally couldn’t hold back their laughter.

The two were young and didn’t notice the time discrepancy. The flag at the entrance of Longxing Gambling House was over twenty years old. Who could still remember where it came from?

Liu Zhenqing had just said it as a joke. He looked at the two innocent children, then said seriously: “That said, if you don’t have the ability to clean up your messes, don’t get into trouble when you shouldn’t. You two must not do this again in the future.”

“You just got lucky.” The young girl wiped away her tears of laughter.

“Yes, yes, yes. But you can’t rely on luck for everything. At the very least, you two are too young now, so be careful what you do.” Speaking of this, Liu Zhenqing couldn’t help but ask curiously, “By the way, why are you here?”

The two exchanged glances, then roughly explained that they had come to expose the scam and help the people who had been deceived.

They had pure and innocent hearts like that of a newborn. Liu Zhenqing led the two of them up the passage without saying another word.

They soon arrived at the room Liu Zhenqing had spoken of, but as soon as they came down, there was the sound of the door opening as someone stumbled in. The three of them had no time to jump out the window on the opposite side, so they could only hide behind a pile of clutter.

A strange sound came, and Liu Zhenqing’s face changed at once. Seeing that the two children didn’t understand, he quickly motioned for them to cover their ears.

The two siblings saw Liu Zhenqing’s anxious expression and could only lift their hands obediently to block their ears. Although the sounds of affection couldn’t be heard, the voices speaking were still very clear. 

“Whatever you do, be careful not to be seen.”

“Everyone regards us as siblings. Even if your husband, that cheap brother-in-law sees us, he won’t say anything. Come on, I just won six thousand taels today, just be happy.”

“What? Why so much……didn’t you promise me that you would just cheat a little every day for fun? If your brother-in-law finds out that something isn’t right, he’ll……”

“Don’t worry, this time I won fair and square. It’s fine.”

Liu Zhenqing couldn’t help but raise his eyebrows in amusement as he ate these ethical melons. It was broad daylight, so these people would probably leave soon. In the end, he wasn’t paying attention to the two young ones next to him.

Hearing this conversation, they were immediately enraged, especially the grumpy young girl. Although she had no urge to jump out, and only took a deep breath in place, there was a lot of dust accumulated here. She breathed in so hard that she started coughing, which startled the two people outside.

“Ah!”

“Who is it! Come out!”

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Chapter Six << Table of Contents >> Chapter Eight