On the way back to the main branch’s courtyard with her husband, Madam Zou’s head remained lowered as she seemed to be in deep thought.
However, He Changqi just had to move up beside her with a regretful expression as he lamented, “If only Third Sister-in-Law knew how to cook venison. I wonder how delicious that would be.”
Hearing this come from her own husband, Madam Zou was frustrated beyond belief.
Her footsteps paused for a moment before she quickened her pace, leaving her slow, dimwitted husband behind.
“Hey, Yuanjing, Yuanjing! Slow down a little! It’s dark and the paths are uneven!”
Madam Zou bit her lip with a terrible expression on her face.
Ever since her husband had come back yesterday, he had kept talking about how popular Chu Lian’s longevity peach buns had been at Marquis Dingyuan’s longevity feast. He had narrated the tale once to his mother, and then once more at the family dinner in Qingxi Hall. Now he was even expressing his regret that Chu Lian didn’t know how to cook venison.
As He Changqi’s legitimate wife, how could she not be angry?
So what if her sister-in-law was good at cooking? Chu Lian was Sanlang’s wife! Not He Changqi’s!
Madam Zou felt extremely stifled by this treatment.
If Chu Lian found out the reason behind her eldest sister-in-law’s sudden irritation towards her, she definitely would have cried at her brother-in-law, He Changqi.
Brother! Why are you digging holes for me?!
Also, is Eldest Sister-in-Law aware of how dense you are?
As Senior Servant Gui was helping Chu Lian change for the night, she handed over the silver taels she had gotten from selling off the jewellery. She also passed over the items that Chu Lian had requested on her list.
While heading towards her little study, Chu Lian opened the small wooden box that Senior Servant Gui had given to her.
Inside were four small gold bricks, which sat together with the silver accessories she had ordered before.
Senior Servant Gui, who was following right behind her, hesitated for a moment before she spoke up. “Third Young Madam, why don’t you save these taels instead? Although we’re living in the estate now, you’re only a member of the third branch, after all. Third Young Master won’t be inheriting the family title. After the matriarch passes away, each branch of the family will undoubtedly be split up. With Eldest Young Madam controlling the estate’s finances, you won’t get much for your expenses!”
Chu Lian turned and looked strangely at Senior Servant Gui. Under the light of the lanterns around them, her almond-shaped eyes were like shining stars and as clear as water. “Momo, are you expecting me to get rich just by saving money?”
Senior Servant Gui turned speechless. After a pause, she tried to continue her persuasion. “But you’ve just started managing your branch of the family. Perhaps it wouldn’t be too good to spend so much right from the beginning.”
What she didn’t say was that, if Chu Lian started bestowing rewards on people without any particular reason, it would be setting a hard precedent to live up to. If the servants were given regular rewards from then on, then they would definitely expect even more on special occasions. If not, the servants would become disappointed, making them hard to manage in the future.
Furthermore, although those custom-made silver accessories weren’t too expensive, they were all high-class designs! They would even be suitable for the imperial family to wear, let alone a few noble servants.
By now, Chu Lian had already walked into her study and arrived at her desk. She set the wooden box down and took out the silver accessories within, moving them to a lacquered redwood tray, which Chu Lian had specially covered with a dark blue silk cloth.
The contrast between the dark blue and the glint of the silver made the accessories shine even brighter. Coupled with the novelty of their designs, they were comparable to any set of gold accessories.
“Momo, don’t worry. Didn’t Grandmother give me a restaurant?”
Chu Lian’s reply was rather distracted as she happily arranged the accessories on the lacquered tray, separating them into different types.
Senior Servant Gui couldn’t say a word. A restaurant? That lousy restaurant?
It wasn’t located in a busy area of the capital, the dishes were just average, and it couldn’t even earn its upkeep. How could it be counted as a source of income for them? It would be good enough if they could break even!
Senior Servant Gui was seriously wondering if the matriarch had it out for Chu Lian and if she had given Chu Lian that failing restaurant to make her pay for its upkeep.
“Goodness, my dear Third Young Madam, how could that restaurant possibly make any money? Please don’t pin all your hopes on that restaurant!”
Chu Lian finally turned to look at Senior Servant Gui. “Momo, I know that you only have my best interests at heart, but for matters like this, I know what I’m doing.”
Unlike her usually soft and kind voice, the Chu Lian of now carried the strict authority of a person in power.
Senior Servant Gui stiffened and quickly stopped speaking.
Although Third Young Madam’s personality had changed and she had become much more easy-going with them as compared to before, it didn’t mean that Senior Servant Gui could overstep her bounds as a servant and think to change her master’s decisions. She had committed one of the taboos as a servant.
Finally realising what she had done, Senior Servant Gui broke out into cold sweat.
Chu Lian had the same thoughts. Although she didn’t like being harsh towards others and preferred to live casually, even to the point of being a little dazed and silly at times, she never played around with important matters. She also had her own ideas, and hated when others tried to make decisions for her.
She knew that her way of thinking was very different from the way the people here thought, so upon arriving in the Great Wu Dynasty, she had always tried to be as easygoing as possible. However, that didn’t mean she would allow others to interfere with her choices.
It was the same for the silver accessories today, as well as any important decisions from now on.
“This old servant understands.”
When Chu Lian saw that Senior Servant Gui had finally gotten the message, her expression softened and returned to her usual tender smile. Her gentle demeanor also returned.
“Momo, you have to trust me. Money is easy to earn!” Chu Lian even broke out into a mischievous grin, blinking innocently at Senior Servant Gui.
Although Senior Servant Gui was nodding on the surface, she didn’t believe Chu Lian’s words a single bit on the inside. Even though Third Young Madam had a good head on her, due to her status back in the Ying Estate, she hadn’t been able to interact much with the outside world. Third Young Madam’s stepmother had never really taught her much about the world either, so it would be normal if Chu Lian had good ideas, but not the experience to execute them well.
Senior Servant Gui sighed inwardly. It might be best to let Third Young Madam suffer some setbacks so that she could understand clearly.
After dismissing Senior Servant Gui from the room, Chu Lian kept the gold bricks in the wooden box. Now that she had these gold bricks at hand, she had a total capital of six hundred taels. Although this was already a huge sum in the eyes of most people, it wasn’t enough at all for Chu Lian. She opened up another brocade box on the side, this time to admire Imperial Princess Leyao’s golden qilin that sat within. The corners of her lips lifted up into a smile.
“Imperial Princess Leyao, since you like your Brother He so much, I’ll let you donate the rest of my funds.”
Before heading off to sleep, Chu Lian flipped through the account book that Matriarch He had given her for Guilin Restaurant.
What she had was the accounts of the last three months. Since there were barely any customers, the records for all three months could fit into a single thin book.
Without even talking about whether the numbers would add up correctly in such a thin account book, Chu Lian couldn’t agree on the way the accounts were being recorded. She could see that there were quite a few places where the records didn’t make sense, just from skimming through them roughly.
For example, the following entries…
1st June: Kitchen expenses, 1 tael.
‘Kitchen expenses’?
What had they bought? Was it the fresh ingredients for the day, kitchen utensils, or even furniture? They had only described the expenditure in such vague terms that she had to suspect that there was embezzling going on.
12th June:
2.5kg of pork, 100 coins.
Chinese cabbage, 10 coins.
Tea leaves, 500 coins…
There had only been two or three customers daily for the first half of June. At its lowest, there might not even be any customers at all. At the peak, there had never been more than five customers in a day. And amongst all these diners, only one person had even ordered a pork dish.
This meant that Guilin Restaurant’s pork dishes weren’t very popular, so they shouldn’t be buying more than 0.5kg of pork a day. However, on that day, they had bought five times that amount. So they were using the company’s accounts for their own expenses, hmm?
Hehe!
She had only gone through a third of this thin account book, and she had already found so many suspicious points. There was no need to keep reading further.
It looked like there wasn’t just a problem in management for this Guilin Restaurant, but there were also some rats amongst the employees. Even if this group of embezzlers were to run the most popular restaurant in the entire capital, it would probably still be a losing business!
The next day, Chu Lian told Matriarch He alone about the invite she had been given to Prince Wei’s estate. The matriarch was overjoyed and held onto her hands before she instructed her to accept the invite without any worry.
When she returned from Qingxi Hall, she told Senior Servant Zhong to gather all the maidservants in Songtao Court.
Chu Lian handed over the matter to Xiyan and went off to her study to practise her writing.
Xiyan held the lacquered redwood tray in her hands and announced to the parlour filled with maidservants, “Third Young Madam’s birthday is coming soon, so a few days ago, she ordered these accessories to be made. She wanted to use this opportunity to award everyone and pass the fortune along.”
Xiyan’s words had been carefully scripted by Chu Lian, and they weren’t false in the least. The birthday of Chu Lian’s current body was indeed within these two days; the 26th of July, to be exact. It just so happened to be the day that Royal Princess Duanjia had invited her to appear at Prince Wei’s estate.
She had to give a reason for this bestowal of gifts, otherwise the expectations of her servants would be raised too high. Although Senior Servant Gui hadn’t said it outright yesterday, Chu Lian had already thought of this problem.
This was exactly like how companies would give a bonus on certain holidays. It encouraged the employees to continue working there.
Senior Servant Gui froze for a moment. She had completely forgotten to give Third Young Madam a reminder yesterday, due to her panic in overstepping her boundaries. However, Third Young Madam had still managed to come to the same conclusion, and as evident by Xiyan’s speech, she had already taken the necessary steps to avoid the problem. A tinge of guilt seeped into Senior Servant Gui’s heart.
When all the servants heard that there would be rewards today, all of their faces were filled with joy.
Xiyan coughed twice, and they all settled down into silence.
“Third Young Madam has passed down these orders: second-class maidservants are to pick one silver hairpin and two rings each. Third-class maidservants are to take one silver hairpin and one ring each. As for those without any ranks, they are to take one ring each.”
Then, Xiyan handed the tray in her hands over to Wenqing, instructing her to pass it around for the rest.
Everyone was overjoyed and said in unison, “Many thanks to Third Young Madam for the rewards!”
“Do your work properly from now on. As long as you do a good job, Third Young Madam will surely reward you again. However, anyone who doesn’t follow the rules will be immediately kicked out of Songtao Court.”
Upon hearing Xiyan’s strict reminder, the voices of everyone present blended together into a single, unanimous answer. “We will do our jobs properly.”
Baicha was one of the menial servants working in Songtao Court. Her parents were both family servants of the Jing’an Estate. However, they hadn’t been able to rise in the ranks. At first, her mother had been in charge of tending the fire in the main kitchen. When the main kitchen had been lit aflame, her mother had been burned. Now she couldn’t even get up from bed. Her father had been running errands for one of the main stewards in the outer court. However, a few years ago, someone had set him up to take the fall for embezzling some funds from the estate. He had been punished by Eldest Young Madam and was now working in the stables, shoveling horse manure.
Perhaps due to the shock, he had become an alcoholic, getting drunk everyday. Her two older brothers weren’t in very high positions in the estate either. Baicha had started working as a menial servant since she was ten. Even after four years had passed, she was still sweeping floors in the estate.
She had wanted to try catching Third Young Master’s eye, but Third Young Madam had entered the estate then.
Since Third Young Master had suddenly left the estate for the northern border, Baicha could only do her job quietly.
However, her mother’s health was deteriorating and she desperately needed money to get a doctor for her mother. All the funds at home had been taken away by her father for drinks. She was right at the point of no hope when Chu Lian had suddenly bestowed these rewards.
She grasped the three-leaf clover ring tightly in her hand, her eyes full of gratitude as she looked towards the main bedroom of the courtyard.