Chapter 36: Reporting Back

Page 1 of 3

“Yunniang, the five-day deadline has arrived. Have you finished investigating the shop’s ledgers as I instructed?”

In the Cheng family’s front hall, Cheng Mingye sat upright in the seat of honor, his imposing gaze fixed from above upon the half-grown girl kneeling in the middle of the hall.

The little girl’s back was as straight as it had been when she came last time. Seeing the confidence in her brows and eyes, he found an almost imperceptible smile touching his lips—a faint smile of which he himself was unaware.

“If you have uncovered the truth, then present your findings.” Cheng Mingye waved his hand. Then, as though deliberately trying to intimidate her, he abruptly changed his tone. “But if you have yet to get to the bottom of those ledgers, the Shen family’s betrothal procession is waiting outside our residence.”

“Yunniang, the matter now rests with you.”

Cheng Mingye drew out the final words leisurely. After hearing him, Cheng Yingxue showed not the slightest trace of panic.

She merely cupped her hands and gave the man a proper, neither servile nor arrogant salute. Then she clapped her hands, ordering a maid to present three boxes of rouge that looked identical on the outside but differed vastly in quality, along with the two ledgers she had compiled herself.

“Reporting to Elder Uncle, Yunniang has naturally uncovered the truth.”

“Everyone, please look. These three boxes of rouge were purchased from the cosmetics shop by maids from my courtyard, each disguised differently and posing under a different identity. They are all supposedly the same product.”

“The rouge purchased under the identity of a maid from the Cheng household is indeed the medicated rouge developed by our shop three years ago, but it has already passed its recommended period of use. The rouge bought under the identity of a maid from an ordinary wealthy merchant’s household contains less than half the medicinal ingredients of the genuine product. As for the rouge purchased under the identity of a common peasant girl, it is not medicated rouge produced by the Cheng family at all.”

“So you are saying that the culprit behind the successive losses suffered by our cosmetics shop is someone substituting inferior goods for superior ones and selling counterfeit products alongside genuine ones?” Cheng Mingye raised his brows as he spoke.

Everyone present had spent countless years in the trade. When the girl brought out these three boxes of rouge, identical in appearance yet differing in quality, they naturally understood what she meant.

Cheng Yingxue nodded unhurriedly. “That is correct. Replacing quality goods with inferior ones and selling counterfeit products have indeed been important causes of our cosmetics shop’s continued losses. But there is far more to the matter than that.”

“First, the substitution of inferior goods for superior ones, as well as the sale of counterfeit products, severely damaged the reputation of the shop’s medicated cosmetics and its other high-quality lines. As a result, sales of the high-quality cosmetics, which had originally been enjoying strong momentum, plummeted. Ordinary cosmetics, whose sales were not greatly affected, did not yield enough profit to make up for the shortfall caused by the decline in sales of the medicated cosmetics and other premium products. Thus, the shop began to suffer an initial reversal of profits.”

Page 1 of 3

Page 2 of 3

“Second, despite the poor sales of the medicated cosmetics and other high-quality lines, the shopkeeper not only failed to consider reducing production or developing new products to stimulate sales, but instead continued increasing production of those very lines. This caused further accumulation of goods that had already proved difficult to sell, widening the existing deficit and ultimately plunging the cosmetics shop into irreversible losses.”

“This portion of the losses is reflected quite clearly in the shop’s ledgers.”

As she spoke, the girl raised a hand, signaling for the maid holding the two ledgers to step forward.

“To make it easier for everyone to review the accounts, Yunniang has gathered and recopied all the relevant entries here. Elder Uncle may examine them at any time.”

“Finally, someone in the shop took advantage of opportunities to purchase raw materials, falsified the accounts, and lined his own pockets.” Cheng Yingxue’s gaze remained calm. “Yunniang has obtained corresponding testimony from the peddler who regularly supplied safflower to our Cheng family’s cosmetics shop.”

“The statement, bearing the peddler’s fingerprint, is here. If anyone still has doubts, you may wait a few days. In half a month, that peddler will return to Xiuning to supply Madam Zhang, who runs the cosmetics shop next door. If you summon him then and question him, you will know whether what Yunniang has said is true.”

“Someone falsified the accounts… and lined his own pockets.” From the seat of honor, Cheng Mingye leafed through the evidence the girl had presented, his tone impossible to read. “Then, Yunniang, according to the results of your investigation… was our Cheng family deceived by an outsider’s instigation, or do we have a traitor within our own ranks?”

“Reporting to Elder Uncle, there is a traitor within our ranks.” The girl answered without hesitation. “Elder Uncle, please turn to the final page of the ledger.”

“According to the accounts, on the third day of the eighth month of the fourteenth year alone, the shop falsely claimed to have spent one thousand four hundred and forty taels of silver on the purchase of safflower.”

“Elder Uncle, when Father was still alive, he once told Yunniang, ‘When water is too clear, there are no fish.’ The shopkeeper and clerks work for our Cheng family. When they occasionally encounter difficulties, it is human nature for them to inflate a minor expense by a few taels to line their own pockets. Taking an extra twenty or thirty taels home over the course of a year may be forgiven as an ordinary human failing.”

“But the shopkeeper of that cosmetics shop is one of our Cheng family’s longtime servants. He cannot have been unaware of this unspoken rule, yet he still dared to manipulate the accounts so extensively for his own benefit in a single day. This proves that someone must have instructed him and helped him deceive those above him. Otherwise, with our Cheng family auditing the accounts every year, such a serious discrepancy could not have remained undiscovered for so long, only to be uncovered by Yunniang’s investigation.”

“Therefore, Yunniang concludes that this calamity did not befall the Cheng family because someone was bribed or incited by outsiders. We have a traitor within.”

With that, Cheng Yingxue bowed once more to Cheng Mingye.

At this, his expression became even more difficult to decipher.

“Then, Yunniang, have you discovered who this traitor is?”

“I have, Elder Uncle.” The girl remained perfectly composed, her expression unchanged. “However, this person has been deeply rooted in the Cheng family’s trading enterprise for many years and enjoys considerable prestige. He is also at least ten years older than Yunniang.”

Page 2 of 3

Page 3 of 3

“Yunniang is young and carries little authority, so she did not dare accuse anyone recklessly. For that reason, she specially summoned Zhan Liangcai, the shopkeeper of the cosmetics store, and instructed him to bring the letters, seals, ledgers, and other evidence he had exchanged with that person over the years. He was to come to the Cheng residence this morning during the Hour of the Snake.”

“Elder Uncle, Shopkeeper Zhan is now waiting outside with the material evidence. If you wish to know the name of the traitor, you may summon him at any time.”

Cheng Yingxue lowered her chin slightly. The moment she finished speaking, the entire hall fell into absolute silence.

Cheng Mingye’s gaze slowly swept across the faces of the clansmen gathered in the hall, each wearing a different expression. At last, he let out a long sigh and waved his sleeve.

“You little girl. You certainly came prepared. Bring him in.”

“Yes, sir.”

The maid curtsied and hurried away. Once she had gone, the hall immediately sank back into the deathly silence that had reigned before.

Beyond that silence, in the small garden, Wang Manyin clung to one of the pavilion’s pillars, stretching her neck desperately toward the front hall.

The green waters of the lake reflected the woman’s slender figure, while her face was filled with an anxiety she could not suppress.

“Hurry, Fairy Changling. What is happening in the hall?”

“Your elder brother hasn’t deliberately made things difficult for Yunniang, has he?”