The Sihai Association, the most famous gang of semi-jianghu, or chamber of commerce in Huguang and its surrounding areas.

This is a huge force with land transportation as its main business, covering Huguang and dozens of surrounding prefectures. Not only are private merchants indispensable to their help in land transportation, but also the government has to hand over money and grain transportation affairs to the Sihai Association in many cases.

Therefore, the Sihaihui enjoys the reputation of "water canal gangs, land canals" in Huguang area, which shows how powerful it is in Huguang. Even Li Ling has business dealings with them. The grains from Suizhou were transported to various places so quickly through the Sihaihui.

As a gang that mainly carries goods, the Sihaihui has achieved such great success. On the one hand, they naturally have a considerable friendship with the government and the green forests of the rivers and lakes, which allows them to transport goods from a simple distance for a thousand miles without any accidents. But on the other hand, they also have their own strengths that cannot be underestimated. At least those escorts who follow the goods are all well-known experts in the rivers and lakes.

As the most outstanding of these people, Shangguan Ao, as the chief escort, is naturally a first-class martial arts. Perhaps it cannot be compared with top masters such as Shao Qiuxi, but it will not be much worse.

So when Zheng Yu said that he thought the murderer was Shangguan Ao, even Li Ling felt a headache. The Ma family's family's extermination case was even more difficult than imagined.

The room was temporarily silent. After a moment, Li Ling pondered: "Do you think the other murderers may also be from the Sihaihui?"

Zheng Yu looked at his brothers a few times before shook his head: "It shouldn't be. The other people are not inferior to Shangguan Ao when I see martial arts. At least they show great strength when they kill people. And except Shangguan Ao, the others in the Sihai Association cannot reach such a level."

"Is this true?" Li Ling realized that this was stranger. "How could a good gangster with a good status and rich enough join forces with other people with similar martial arts to do such a thing?"

Song Yan smiled bitterly: "Yes, the little people can't understand the reason. Even we feel that no one will believe this when we say it... It is because of this concern, and the ninth brother did violate the king's law before, so we will hide it. I hope the Lord will forgive me."

As the few people said that, they clasped their fists to Li Ling again. Seeing this, Li Ling waved his hands and said, "Forget it, you have your own difficulties, and I can understand it. There is no need to mention this matter. However, I still hope that you can help me find out the truth of the case. After all, it involves dozens of lives, and... the existence of these extraordinary murderers is a great disaster for Huguang."

After hearing what Li Ling said, Baiyitang and others felt relieved and nodded immediately and responded: "What Mr. Li said is that since we are from Huguang, we should do our best for local villagers. As long as the Lord gives instructions, we will never refuse."

Li Ling nodded with satisfaction: "Very good, then start with this Shangguan Ao, follow the clues and find out the others and the real envoy behind it. By the way, is this person still in Xiangfan or Wuchang now?"

"I met him in Wuchang before, but I didn't know. Those who are business bodyguards often live in a place and really don't know where they are now."

Seeing Li Ling frowning slightly, Song Yan said immediately: "Don't worry, sir, let's leave this matter to us. Within three days, he will be able to report his whereabouts truthfully."

"Okay, then I will rely on you all." Li Ling smiled and nodded, and then told them a few more words to keep calm and not alert the enemy. He promised to thank him after the matter was completed, so he easily said goodbye.

It can be said that this contact with Baiyitang did bring unexpected gains to Li Ling. If it weren’t for contacting them, the Ma family’s family’s destruction case would have become a headless unsolved case. After all, except Zheng Yu, there are no other survivors. And who would have thought that a local big family would be wiped out by a well-known tycoon?

In the next few days, Li Ling continued to be busy dealing with various aftermaths after the Xiangfan Rebellion, including various measures to soothe people in the local area, and various follow-ups to write memorials and report to the court and escort relevant criminals to Beijing.

These things are not easy, and they are very trivial. Even with Li Ling's current administrative ability, it takes a lot of thought and time to take care of these details one by one. This made him not have time to rest for several days, so naturally he had no time to care more about the Ma family case.

However, Baiyitang has never slacked off because of Li Ling's inquiries. Sure enough, three days later, Song Yan and Tang Fan came to see Li Ling again. At this time, he was busy handling some official duties, so he asked them to wait in the room and waited for the two official documents to be approved before looking up and said, "How is it? Did he find out his whereabouts?"

"In recent days, Shangguan Ao has neither been in Wuchang nor Xiangfan, but has gone to Suizhou." Song Yan replied immediately.

When Li Ling heard this, he was a little surprised: "The disaster has not yet completely passed. Is there anyone who wants to take care of the Sihaihui business? But which one is it?"

"Uh... it's the Shen family..." Song Yan already knew that Li Ling and the Shen family had a good relationship and answered a little embarrassedly. However, Li Ling had no concerns in this regard and immediately asked: "Is it still food transportation?"

"That's right. The Shen family really has a lot of food on hand. When we were with us, we asked Sihai to help with the escort. This time it should be for this transaction. The only strange thing is that Sihai would just send a escort leader for such a small transaction, and there is no need to let the chief escort leader take action in person. However, we also asked, it seemed that Shangguan Ao and Shen Tian had some friendship in their early years, so maybe he was going to reminisce about the past."

"Um..." Li Ling pondered again, and then smiled, "It seems that it is a God-given opportunity. It will be much easier for you to act far away from Wuchang and Xiangfan."

"Mr. Li means that we will take him down and then use means to force him to explain the truth?" Song Yan was excited and asked.

"No, this may not be successful." Li Ling shook his head immediately. He still remembered the methods of Luo Tian Cult. It is hard to guarantee that these murderers would not use similar confidentiality methods. Moreover, now they have only one person in charge. Once he has an accident and dies, all the clues will be cut off.

"What does that mean by sir?"

"Listen to me, I will do this next..." Li Ling immediately explained the countermeasures he had thought of before, and heard them nodding frequently, and finally said sincerely: "Mr. Li is indeed a skillful method, far from being able to compare with us."

"Haha, it's just a few tricks. By the way, I'll ask Mo Yun to cooperate with you and have more guarantees."

Although the few people had doubts about his arrangement, they didn't say much and immediately agreed.

...

A few more days have passed, and in a blink of an eye, July is almost over.

At this time, the weather gradually became cooler in Xiangfan, especially after nightfall, the autumn wind blew up, blowing the newly yellow leaves on the trees and falling down, and the weeds beside the road also looked withered and yellow.

Shangguan Ao strode in this bleak autumn wind night, with no expression on his face, but his eyes couldn't stop looking around. The rustling trees around him seemed to be shady under the starlight, which really put a lot of pressure on people.

This place is more than ten miles away from Suizhou City, in the wilderness, with no villages or shops in front of them, making it even quieter. The reason why he walked alone in such a wilderness at this time was because he had discovered that he was being followed earlier. This was something that had not happened in the past decade, because in the whole of Huguang, who did not know the name of Shangguan Ao, the "Broken River Sword" of Shangguan Ao, the green forest heroes from the Three Mountains and Five Mountains, did not dare to call on the goods he escorted. Now someone has actually hit him.

So after leaving the city, Shangguan Aobin made a quick decision and asked his subordinates to escort goods on the official road, while he turned around the path. He wanted to see who was afraid of causing trouble for himself after taking the courage of the bear heart and leopard!

The path ahead suddenly broke, and the mountain was surrounded by a 90-degree bend, which made Shangguan Ao's eyes unable to extend to the other side of the mountain, and also made him feel wary. His footsteps, which had been slowing down, suddenly slowed down, and his left hand was already on the sword that had been with him for many years.

After a little adjustment, his pace was still firm. He walked forward with his head held high and soon reached the corner of the mountain. Then he glanced at him and saw a man standing there.

Wearing a hat on his head, a knife hanging around his waist, his figure was upright. When he looked through the hat, he was like two quick knives that were unsheathed, stabbing hard, causing Shangguan Ao's pupils to shrink, and he clearly felt that the other party was a true master who should not be underestimated.

At the same time, rustling footsteps also sounded from the back, and dozens of pretenders rushed up and cut off his back. Although these people put Shangguan Ao not as pressured as the one in front, he understood that if he really turned around and fought with them, he would definitely not get any benefits.

At this moment, he regretted his previous decision. He thought he was just a group of sluts, but unexpectedly, there were real masters who were not under him.

"Shangguan Ao, the chief of the Sihai Association, I wonder which mountain you are from? I asked myself that I have no holiday with you. If I want to ask for some money from me, I still have a thousand taels of silver here, so you can take it." I couldn't move forward and retreat, and I didn't want to fight to the death, so Shangguan Ao had to speak softly first.
Chapter completed!