Chapter 15: Hold Your Horses, Your Turn to Panic is Coming
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Du Sheng: “…”
You Bing Yue was furious. “Stop accusing him without proof! Du Sheng is just an ordinary servant. When I found him half a month ago, he was being bullied by the head steward. How could someone like him be guilty of embezzling money?”
“Are you sure he was being bullied by the head steward, and not being pressured to return the money he stole because he was too greedy?” Yu Zhi Yi asked calmly, her voice dripping with sarcasm. She took a sip of tea, trying to wash away the bitter taste in her mouth.
Chancellor Du’s earlier amusement had vanished. He had initially been entertained by You Bing Yue’s accusations, but when he heard that Du Sheng might actually be involved in wrongdoing, his interest faded.
“Someone, bring the head steward here,” he ordered.
Soon, the head steward arrived, looking puzzled as he approached the group by the garden wall.
Chancellor Du didn’t waste any time. “Du Hai, did you speak with Du Sheng half a month ago?”
The head steward straightened up immediately, nodding. “Yes, sir. I found discrepancies in Du Sheng’s accounts and wanted to ask him about it. But just as I was questioning him, Miss You came storming in, knocking everyone over and threatening us. She warned us not to touch Du Sheng again or we’d pay the price.”
You Bing Yue scoffed. “A bunch of you big, burly men bullying one person—how could anyone with a sense of justice stand by and do nothing?”
The head steward looked even more aggrieved. “I tried explaining, Miss You, that I suspected Du Sheng of stealing and needed to investigate, but you wouldn’t listen.”
Madam Yao slammed her hand on the table. “Why didn’t you report this immediately?”
The head steward sighed heavily. “Madam, at the time, the household was busy preparing for the young master’s wedding. And… later, Du Sheng was reassigned by the young master himself to work in the Moon Gazing Pavilion. I thought the young master had condoned it, so I didn’t pursue the matter.”
Du Zi Heng frowned. “We can’t jump to conclusions. There’s no proof yet that Du Sheng has done anything wrong.”
Yu Zhi Yi yawned, clearly growing tired of the conversation. “Under his bed, there’s a hidden compartment. Inside, there are banknotes from Huifeng Bank. Take those notes to the bank, and you’ll see just how much he’s been skimming over the years.”
She paused before adding, “And as for witnesses, the butcher he buys meat from, the fabric shop owner, and the clerk at the general store—just ask them. They know how much he pays and how much he charges the manor.”
Chancellor Du waved a hand, and immediately several servants were dispatched to investigate.
About two hours later, they returned, bringing with them ledgers and the shopkeepers.
Du Zi Heng stepped forward to check the records himself.
After a long while, he set the books down, his face dark with anger.
Except for the general store, which kept no records due to being a small business with an illiterate owner, the other shops had detailed ledgers.
The records showed that the fabric shop charged the manor fifteen coins per foot of coarse cloth—1,480 coins per bolt. Fine cloth was fifty coins per foot, or 4,950 coins per bolt.
The butcher sold meat to the manor for ten coins per pound, or seven coins if it included bones.
But in the head steward’s accounts, the prices were listed as twenty coins for coarse cloth, fifty-five coins for fine cloth, and meat at fifteen coins per pound—with bone-in cuts at twelve coins.
While seasonal price fluctuations were normal, the one constant was the markup.
For everything he bought, Du Sheng took a five-coin cut.
The manor had over a hundred servants, not including the workers on the estates. Counting them all, there were more than two hundred people. If each piece of clothing required two feet of cloth, Du Sheng earned ten extra coins per garment.
Two hundred people meant 2,000 coins. If each person received three sets of clothes per season, that amounted to 6,000 coins. Over a year, more than 20,000 coins were skimmed.
The figures for food were equally shocking.
People had to eat, and the manor, being a prominent household, served three meals a day, unlike the common folk who often had just two. With over a hundred people in the household, and considering that both Chancellor Du and Madam Yao were kind-hearted, it wasn’t as if the servants were deprived—each meal included some meat.
The manor bought nearly 100 pounds of meat daily, not counting special occasions or late-night snacks.
From just the meat purchases alone, Du Sheng could embezzle nearly 500 coins a day—adding up to several taels of silver a month.
Du Zi Heng threw the ledger at Du Sheng’s face, his expression livid. “You insolent servant! The manor has treated you well. Even though you’re just a house-born servant, your monthly wage is two taels—higher than what many small household masters receive. And still, you weren’t satisfied? You dared steal from your master?”
Yu Zhi Yi yawned again. “Young Master, hold your anger. You might want to save it until you see what’s hidden in his cupboard.”
Not long after, the servants who had gone to search Du Sheng’s room returned, each wearing a peculiar expression.
Du Zi Heng felt a pang of unease.
One of the servants held a stack of drawings.
He rushed forward and grabbed the drawings—and immediately felt his vision blur in rage.
Every portrait depicted You Bing Yue.
He didn’t doubt the drawings were genuine or that they had been planted to frame Du Sheng. The attire in the sketches was what You Bing Yue had worn when she first came to the manor—a light gray narrow-sleeved dress, which had since been discarded because it got torn. It wasn’t the black one she wore now.
Yu Zhi Yi had never seen that dress. There was no way she could’ve staged this.
Which meant Du Sheng, that wretched servant, had truly harbored thoughts about his master’s woman!
Du Zi Heng was furious. “Take this despicable servant to the dungeon!”
The dungeon was a place the Du family used to punish disobedient servants. It was also known as the water dungeon—dark, damp, and with water constantly covering the floor up to one’s ankles. Even without physical punishment, staying there for a few days guaranteed rashes and sores.
Any servant sent there never came out unscathed.
Du Sheng panicked. “Young Master, please forgive me! I truly know I was wrong!”
You Bing Yue had been just as shocked as everyone else when she saw the drawings, but she quickly regained her composure. As Du Sheng pleaded, she frowned but said nothing.
Yu Zhi Yi raised an eyebrow. “Weren’t you all just saying you couldn’t punish servants without cause? What exactly is the young master doing now?”
Du Zi Heng felt as though an invisible hand had slapped him across the face, his cheeks burning with embarrassment.
You Bing Yue snorted. “Kindness has no place here! He committed a grave offense and deserves punishment.”
Yu Zhi Yi nodded in agreement. “True enough.”
She paused, then added with a hint of mischief, “But tell me, do none of you recognize the authority of the courts?”
You Bing Yue blinked in confusion. “Courts?”
What kind of Chancellor’s household would report a disobedient servant to the authorities?
Had this woman lost her mind?
Pretending to be some self-righteous saint!
Yu Zhi Yi, seeing the doubt in her eyes, smiled faintly. “I never said anything about killing servants at will. You all assumed that yourselves. I only said I could handle them. There’s a difference between handling and killing. Surely a brilliant scholar like Sir Du can tell the difference?”