Chapter 813: Trading Firm Incident

At noon, the steward of Yan Manor arrived.

"Miss Yun, here are the one hundred silver taels. Please verify the amount. As for the offenders, they have received their due punishment. I hope this quells your anger."

With just a single sentence, over thirty heads had rolled.

Some silver in this world simply shouldn't be touched.

After delivering his message, the steward took his leave. As for the matter of the hundred thousand silver taels, he didn't breathe a single word about it.

Yunxiang didn't mind. Instead, she headed straight for the trading firm in the city.

The Prince of Yan was compromised, and the Tang Manor's shopkeeper was equally suspect.

An organization as massive as the Tang Family Trading Firm inevitably bred a few parasites.

When Chen Changsheng stepped out, Yunxiang was nowhere to be seen. Instead, he found Lihua in a standoff with Yu Hongjin.

The cat and the fish were glaring at each other in total silence. They were locked in a battle of wills, and it looked like they had been at it for quite a while.

Chen Changsheng walked over. "Where is Miss Yun?"

Yu Hongjin blinked, pulling herself out of her daze. "Sister Yun went to the trading firm."

"By herself?" Chen Changsheng paused.

"Miss Yun told us not to follow her," Lihua chimed in. "She also told us not to tell you. She said she didn't want to bother you with such messy affairs."

Chen Changsheng gave them both a look. "And neither of you were worried that something might happen to her out there alone?"

Yu Hongjin hesitated for a moment. "I cast some Arts and Techniques on Sister Yun."

"And I left a trace of Four Seasons Spiritual Energy with her," Lihua added.

Bouncing off each other sentence by sentence, the fish and the cat actually made quite a coordinated team.

But that didn't save them from each receiving a swift rap on the head.

"When traveling away from home, you can't be this careless."

Yu Hongjin and Lihua rubbed their heads, looking slightly wronged.

"Let's go take a look together."

Chen Changsheng simply couldn't put his mind at ease.

The Tang Family Trading Firm had storefronts scattered across the realm. They operated much like relay stations, handling handovers and coordinating commercial affairs across different regions.

The local trading firm branch wasn't too far away.

It hardly took any effort to reach.

Chen Changsheng thought it over, ultimately deciding it was better not to walk right in.

Instead, he turned to Lihua and Yu Hongjin. "You two go keep an eye on things. If anything happens, call for me immediately. This Chen will be right across the street at the tea stall."

"Why isn't Chen the Good Man coming with us?" Lihua asked.

Chen Changsheng just smiled, offering no explanation. He patted Lihua's head. "Go on."

Lihua didn't press the matter, hurrying ahead with Yu Hongjin.

Yet the girl and the cat completely ignored the main entrance. Goodness knows where they learned it from, but they went straight to climbing the compound walls.

Chen Changsheng took a seat at the tea stall across the street, quietly sipping his tea.

Meanwhile, in the back courtyard of the trading firm.

Dozens of ledgers were piled high on a table.

Two men knelt before it. One was the shopkeeper dispatched to this branch by the firm, and the other was the record-keeper.

Yunxiang sat behind the desk, her eyes scanning the detailed entries in the ledgers.

The two men kneeling on the floor were trembling in fear, not daring to even lift their heads.

Yunxiang flicked the beads of an abacus with one hand, facing the situation with perfect calm.

The two of them had used rather brilliant methods to doctor the books. But since their accounting skills were ultimately learned from the Tang Manor itself, trying to pull the wool over Yunxiang's eyes was completely impossible.

She just couldn't fathom where they had found the gall!

Losing the patience to calculate any further, she slapped the ledger shut and let out a sigh. "Shopkeeper Su."

"This lowly one is here," Shopkeeper Su said, lifting his head.

Yunxiang stared at him coldly. "Did you really think that just because Yan Land is surrounded by endless mountains and difficult to reach, the manor's management wouldn't bother to investigate you?"

Shopkeeper Su stiffened. "Miss, this lowly one has never embezzled anything."

"Is that so?"

Yunxiang sneered. "Have you forgotten where you learned to keep books in the first place?"

Shopkeeper Su's expression froze. "Miss, you must be mistaken."

Yunxiang gave him a flat look before shifting her gaze to the record-keeper beside him. "Record-keeper Shen, what do you have to say?"

Record-keeper Shen flinched, a massive wave of panic hitting his chest.

"To answer you, Miss..."

Record-keeper Shen glanced at Shopkeeper Su beside him. "Shopkeeper Su's embezzlement... this Shen has witnessed it all."

Shopkeeper Su jerked as if he'd been struck.

"Shen Xiu! You!"

He pointed a trembling finger at Shen Xiu, his eyes wide with utter disbelief.

Record-keeper Shen's face was etched with conflict. He looked back at Shopkeeper Su. "Shopkeeper Su, I am not like you. Your crimes will only fall upon your own head, but my wife, my children, my elderly mother..."

He lowered his head and let out a long sigh. "I colluded with Shopkeeper Su to embezzle funds. I plead guilty and beg the Miss for punishment. I, Shen Xiu, will confess to it all."

Yunxiang's gaze remained unruffled. She looked at Shopkeeper Su. "Do you have anything else to say?"

Up on the wall, two pairs of eyes were watching this scene unfold.

Lihua and Yu Hongjin listened to the exchange in the courtyard and exchanged a glance.

"What does he mean?" Yu Hongjin whispered. "Did Sister Yun kidnap his family?"

Lihua blinked. "They never said that."

"Stupid cat, you really can't read between the lines, can you?"

"Oh, you're smart. You're so incredibly smart."

Lihua pondered for a moment before asking, "Wait, if that's true, doesn't that make Miss Yun the bad guy?"

Yu Hongjin hesitated. "What are you talking about? They're clearly the bad guys. They went against Sister Yun! Sister Yun just had no choice but to... to..."

She trailed off, suddenly at a loss for words.

Yu Hongjin smacked her lips. "Okay, it does feel a little wrong."

Shopkeeper Su's face twisted into a vicious scowl. He glared at Shen Xiu. "Useless! Absolutely useless! With a woman's benevolence like yours, no wonder you've ended up like this! If I had known this day would come, I never would have kept you around!"

Shen Xiu looked tormented. "Shopkeeper Su, it's over. Stop fighting it. Neither of us will escape this."

Shopkeeper Su's expression turned ice-cold. He scoffed, "I'm not as stupid as you!"

With that, he raised a hand.

"Men!"

As soon as Shopkeeper Su's words faded, a group of men suddenly surged in from outside the door.

They wore a motley assortment of clothes, their faces fierce and their scars prominent, and they gripped gleaming long sabers in their hands.

These men didn't look like typical wanderers of the jianghu; they reeked of the savage air of bandits.

Yunxiang's gaze swept over the armed men. With just a single glance, she spotted a few familiar faces among them.

She narrowed her eyes at Shopkeeper Su. "You're quite capable, Shopkeeper Su. To think you'd even dare to collude with mountain bandits."

Shopkeeper Su let out a cold laugh. "If I'm going to commit the crime, of course I'd prepare a backup plan. What I didn't expect, however, was for you to have the gall to come here completely alone. But that works for me. Once I tie you up, I'll have an extra bargaining chip."

Shen Xiu stared at the scene, a brief look of sheer disbelief washing over his face before panic set in. "Shopkeeper Su, how could you collude with mountain bandits?!"

Shopkeeper Su violently kicked him to the ground. "Shut your mouth, you idiot!"