The Eldest Daughter of a Rural Family
Chapter 291: Enter the Dungeon Experience (1)_1

Chapter 291: Chapter 291: Enter the Dungeon Experience (1)_1

Really going to jail! Pei Qian’s eyes instantly turned red, as she forcibly held back tears that rushed out in a flood.

Sun Lizheng was also stunned, his mind buzzing with a blank emptiness.

A few constables came up and began to take them to the prison.

Finally able to stand up. Pei Qin bent over to rub her knees, and the name card she was carrying fell out.

Seeing the dropped item looked like a name card from a well-to-do family, a constable reached out to pick it up.

"What is that?" Meng Dinglun, who was about to step down, stopped and asked.

Pei Qin gave a forced smile, knowingly feigning ignorance, "Oh! Once I entered the Yamen, I heard that we were not brought to receive rewards but to be questioned for crimes, serious crimes at that. I was nearly scared out of my wits, my mind went blank, and I completely forgot about the name card!"

Not a single person in the crowd believed what she said. Scared out of her wits? Mind went blank? She was the one who seemed calm and clear, even interrupting the Sir Magistrate himself. This inquiry was turning less and less like an actual inquiry!

Pei Qian, seeing the name card, suddenly realized and shrieked, "We are not spies! We have been wronged! This is the name card of the Jinan Magistrate, he even knows about our cultivation of sweet potatoes!"

Upon hearing that it was the Jinan Magistrate’s card, Meng Dinglun’s expression changed. He was a fourth-rank Magistrate himself, on equal footing with Shen Gu of Jinan. However, the Meng family was far inferior to the Shen family and could not compare. The Meng family depended solely on him, while the Shen family did not rest on Shen Gu alone but on the high-ranking Grand Scholar of the Wenyuan Pavilion, Minister of the Ministry of Justice, Shen Bi—a man who had become an Elder Statesman.

Thinking of Pei Qin’s brazen confidence, Meng Dinglun felt a sinking feeling, "Bring it to me!"

The constable handed him the name card.

Seeing that the name card was legitimate, Meng Dinglun looked gravely at Pei Qin, "What does the Shen family have to do with the cultivation of sweet potatoes?" Previously, crops from foreign countries had been widely planted in Chu Nation too. Corn had only been planted for over three hundred years, and although it was promoted by the previous dynasty, sweet potatoes were similar, also originating from foreign peoples. The foreign regions had also traded with the Han people for highland barley, millet, and cotton for cultivation. If one were to claim that growing sweet potatoes was the work of foreign spies plotting rebellion, such an accusation wouldn’t hold up when brought before the Ministry of Justice.

If there was no involvement with other officials, and the charge brought before the Ministry of Justice was rejected, he could still act the part of a just official and release the people from jail. But now, the matter of planting sweet potatoes was linked with Shen Gu, and surely Elder Shen was in the know too. It was just unclear how this rural girl was related to the Shen family, or how she became connected to them, and even more to the cultivation of sweet potatoes!

"Oh! The land we cultivated belongs to the Shen family, and we happened to obtain the sweet potatoes by chance from a businessman, and then we grew ten thousand catties of sweet potatoes," Pei Qin explained with a smile.

"Why did you not speak of this earlier?" Meng Dinglun asked somewhat angrily.

"You didn’t ask!" Pei Qin looked at him innocently, shrugging her shoulders, "If it hadn’t accidentally fallen out, I was so scared I wouldn’t have remembered it either!"

Meng Dinglun’s expression darkened, feeling as if he had been tricked.

Seeing him silent, Pei Qin clicked her tongue, and calling out to Sun Lizheng and Pei Qian, said, "Let’s go! I haven’t seen what a big jail looks like in this life! Since we’ve come to the Yamen today, we might as well see for ourselves, eh!" To see if it’s like what the TV dramas show.

Sun Lizheng was the one truly frightened, his mind in disarray, not remembering Shen Songming’s status. Seeing Pei Qin completely unafraid from beginning to end, he felt the younger generation was indeed fearsome. But now that the Sir Magistrate had changed his attitude, to make him go to jail...He stood there, not willing to leave.

Pei Qian was also adamantly unwilling to go, clutching Pei Qin and not letting her leave, "We are not spies! We won’t go to jail!"

Pei Qin said to her earnestly, "You can’t just go to jail whenever you want! Normally, we wouldn’t even qualify! Take this opportunity to experience a different kind of life, so we’ll have stories to tell when we go to the capital next year!"