Greetings, Ninth Uncle

Ch.31 - Getting Rich

Cheng Yujin carefully counted twice. But because it was only a rough estimation, she was afraid that she might remember wrong, and deliberately used her hand to weighted the whole box for a while. Finally, she was sure that the number of gold ingots didn't change, except for the extra pile of land deed.

It was rare for Cheng Yujin to feel ashamed. She had just gouged the gentleman's intention with a thief's suspicion. If Cheng Yuanjing knew what she thought just now, he probably would be angry enough to take the land deed back.

Cheng Yujin very tactfully pretended nothing happened and began to sift through the land deed.

Cheng Yujin read the deed from beginning to end and sighed inwardly. In the past few years, Old Master Cheng took advantage of the crown prince and indeed had made much money. Today, he gave it all at once. There were nearly sixteen hundreds of mu of lands, seven shops, one house, six thousand taels of silver, four boxes of paintings, calligraphies, and jewelry, and a whole box of gold ingots. Because the crown prince couldn't expose his identity, there were many places where the Old Master could take benefits from. After a few years of work, even the Old Master accumulated so much money. Exactly how many assets did Cheng Yuanjing have?

Cheng Yujin couldn't imagine it.

Cheng Yujin put the land deed aside. Then she turned on the lights and took out the account books of the shops she got. Cheng Yujin began to read it seriously. Unexpectedly, the gain greatly exceeded her initial guess.

Old Master Cheng gave her a total of three shops. Two in Zhengxi district and one in Xuanbei district, plus a small farm. Because Cheng Yumo got a box of silver and gold utensils alongside one thousand silver taels, Cheng Yujin originally expected her shops to be worth at most two thousand taels. But unexpectedly, the shops' actual business condition was much better than she thought.

Zhengxi was a prosperous district, not far from the six ministries offices. The two shops there were facing the street. One was a clothing shop, and the other was a jewelry shop. Both businesses were excellent and generating around two thousand silver taels annually. The last one was a glaze shop in Xuanbei district, which had a connection with the government ceramic workshop. After paying various bribes, it was still profitable.

This was much better than the dead things on Cheng Yumo's hand. Although utensils made from gold and silver were precious and beautiful, the price would inevitably be discounted if it was ever getting liquidated. Needless to say, one thousand silver taels stored in a locked box wouldn't increase in value. Instead, it would gradually decrease over time. Unless Cheng Yumo lent out the money to collect interest, the total value would only continue to decrease.

Another important point was these three shops were all located in the capital, and even the small farm was in the suburbs. Cheng Yuanxian and Cheng Yuanhan each got two shops, but they were both far away in Yangzhou. Cheng Yujin didn't plan to marry outside the capital. If she were given shops in Jinling, Yangzhou, or other places, she wouldn't be able to get anything, no matter how profitable they were.

Cheng Yujin closed the account books and finally felt the pleasure of getting rich overnight. A high ranking family's income was roughly divided into four parts: salary, lands, shops, and grey income. With Yichun Marquis manor's current standing, no one was stupid enough to pay a bribe to them, so the grey income was negative. Cheng Yuanxian and Cheng Yuanhan's official salary was almost negligible. Although rental lands were profitable and easy to manage, the output per year was limited. Opening a business was risky, but the return was equally great. Among them, the two shops in Zhengxi district were well-located and highly profitable. Those were almost certainly the Old Master's main income generator.