Jin Shu ordered that no one was allowed to prepare food for Lu Gu.

This order is mainly for elderly women.

And so, Lu Gu truly didn't eat, drink, or sleep all night, managing to get through the entire night, exhausted, sleepy, and hungry, and memorized everything Jin Shu had asked for.

The next morning, when Lu Gu, kneeling before Jin Shu, finally recited the last sentence, the maids beside him all breathed a sigh of relief.

Lu Gu looked as if he had just been pulled out of the water, his body drenched in sweat, his face pale and his body trembling slightly.

"Hmm, you memorized it well."

A simple sentence was like heavenly music, and Lu Gu's tense nerves finally relaxed.

He looked up at Jin Shu and saw her slowly reaching out her hand to him. Lu Gu subconsciously closed his eyes and shrank his head, but what landed on his head was not a slap, but a gentle caress.

Jin Shu's voice was very low and soft. He had never noticed before that the woman in front of him had such a beautiful voice.

"I don't expect you to understand why I'm doing this, but you will understand someday. The current emperor is determined to split the power of the aristocratic families, and the Lu family is no longer the Lu family it used to be."

Running away at this point won't solve anything. Mother has been struggling for almost ten years, and she won't be able to hold on much longer. I don't want this family to be left without anyone to support it after Mother falls ill, so I'm placing all my hopes on you.

"You are the future of the Lu family, and the only way to continue the family's glory is to enter the court and become officials. Only by becoming someone under His Majesty's command will he spare your annihilation. Lu Gu, do you understand?"

Lu Gu listened silently, feeling inexplicably touched.

Jin Shu gently stroked his head.

"Of the three children, I have the most faith in you. I'm punishing you to make you realize the current situation; the Lu family is already in dire straits."

I believe you won't let your mother down, right?

Lu Gu kept a straight face and didn't want to speak.

What this woman is saying is completely different from what his parents taught him.

His parents said that the Lu family was a prominent and prosperous clan. The reason they left was because they did not want to get involved in worldly disputes. In the end, they decided to send him back so that he could inherit everything in the Duke's mansion.

Why did the Duke's Mansion become a declining noble family struggling to survive when it came to Jin Shu?

Who is lying to him?

Lu Gu shook his head. His parents loved him so much that they would never lie to him. Moreover, he had seen the luxurious and grand Duke's mansion since he entered the mansion. It was nothing like the difficult situation Jin Shu described.

Sure enough, this woman is a liar. No wonder my father would rather leave the Duke's mansion than spend his life with her!

Jin Shu could see clearly what the nine-year-old boy in front of her was thinking with just one glance.

This kid has a lot on his mind right now, but Jin Shu isn't in a hurry. She has plenty of time to deal with him.

"Alright, go down now. Take a break today. Memorize the second half tomorrow. If you can memorize it, everything will be fine. If you can't, you'll have to deal with it yourself."

Jin Shu, who had given people a warm and gentle feeling just a moment ago, has now become extremely cruel and indifferent.

At this moment, Lu Gu had no thought whatsoever of resisting her.

Although they were resentful and indignant, they dared not slack off in their actions.

After all, if Jin Shu wanted to punish him, even his grandmother couldn't protect him.

Jin Shu smiled as she watched Lu Gu limp obediently return home.

To deal with this kind of ingrate, you have to be ruthless and vicious enough to make him afraid to have any rebellious thoughts.

As for why the original owner ended up in such a miserable state in the original story, it's because during the ten years Lu Gu grew up, the old lady was the one who did all the good work, while Jin Shu, who played the role of the strict mother, wasn't thoroughly evil enough.

In Lu Gu's view, Jin Shu was a feudal and autocratic patriarch who was pushing him to the brink of death in order to satisfy her own selfish desires.

But in reality, every time the original owner punished him for being naughty and willful, the old lady would step in to smooth things over, using her status as an elder to suppress Jin Shu, allowing Lu Gu to escape punishment time and time again, but her hatred for Jin Shu did not diminish at all.

In his eyes, the only person in the family who treated him well was the old lady, and Jin Shu was a bad woman who would whip him at the drop of a hat.

Over time, although Lu Gu eventually entered the court and became a favorite of the emperor, Jin Shu, who had given the most, received no gratitude or understanding from him.

After summarizing the original owner's failures, Jin Shu made her own conclusions.

Lu Gu is a complete ingrate; there's only one way to deal with him.

Cut off all his escape routes and make him realize the reality that Jin Shu is the only person in charge of the Duke's mansion. If he wants to live a good life, he has to be obedient and listen to her, or he will be beaten.

Today's punishment should teach him a lesson, but it's far from enough. Lu Gu will get a lot more beatings in the future.

That evening, Jin Shu went through the ledger from beginning to end again.

She knew from the beginning that the Duke's mansion was rotten inside and out, but after reading the account books, Jin Shu realized that she had been too conservative in her thinking.

If the former Duke's mansion was a gold mine that was devoured by three generations of Dukes of Dingguo, the current Duke's mansion is just a rotten shell, barely maintaining its glamorous appearance thanks to the original owner's painstaking efforts to piece it together.

Beneath this skin, countless termites still clung to the bones, sucking the last drops of flesh and blood.

It must have been tough for the original owner to be able to endure for so many years.

Jin Shu spent 24 hours sorting out all the accounts, which basically fell into a few categories.

One type is the income and expenditure ledgers of the thirteen shops under the Duke's mansion. This part represents all the economic resources of the mansion, which were managed entirely by the original owner.

One category is the daily expenses of nearly a hundred people in the mansion. The accountant in the mansion is in charge of this part. Whether it is the old lady or the young lady and young master, they all have a fixed amount of expenses every month. Every expenditure must be recorded in detail in the account book so that the original owner can review it at the end of the month.

Another category is the money transactions that the Duke's Mansion has had with the outside world over the years. Most of this money was left over from when the old Duke was alive. At that time, the mansion still had some money, and all the relatives of the Lu family, including those from the collateral branches and the old lady's side, came to ask for money.

If you borrow money, you should naturally leave a written IOU. Jin Shu has more than a dozen thick books in her hands, all of which are IOUs from the years she borrowed money.

Over the years, these debts have become mostly uncollectible. The original owner did try to collect them, but as a "widow" with the backing of the powerless Duke's mansion, how could she possibly get them back from so many rogues and scoundrels?

Jin Shu looked at the three categories of ledgers in front of her, closed her eyes, and exhaled.

"Take your time, settle the accounts one by one." (End of Chapter)