Chapter 169 Another Ideal of Daiyu

"Daiyu, what have you discovered?" A copy of the household account book would be sent to Daiyu every month, and she would casually flip through it whenever she remembered.

Yuan Hongqu raised a fairy who descended to the mortal world. However, this fairy could not live on her fairy breath alone. She needed to eat grains and fresh fruits of all seasons, and she also needed to wear brocade and silk. Therefore, no matter how vulgar this account book was, she still had to understand some of it.

Fortunately, Daiyu had a wide range of knowledge since childhood, and she was no longer the arrogant and aloof person she once was. Therefore, she not only did not reject the account book, but also treated it as a subject and studied it seriously for a few days.

She was born smarter than others, and with the help of Yuan Hongqu's teachings on simple methods for reading account books and calculating income and expenditure, she was able to thoroughly study these account books in just a few days and no longer needed to look at them.

Today, her second uncle came to talk about her returning to live in the Rongguo Mansion. She suddenly remembered the account books, so she brought it up with Yuan Hongqu.

“The things we buy ourselves are much cheaper than what they buy for us. We were living in Rongyue Courtyard at the time, and when we went out to buy things, we asked their purchasing agent to take us. I saw the account book, and the price of eggs was two coins each; but after we got back home, two coins could buy three eggs. Did the price of eggs drop? It shouldn’t be like that,” Daiyu said, tilting her head in confusion.

"Which aspect should not be wrong?"

"Grandma, you once said that the heavy snow before the New Year caused the prices of all kinds of food to rise. And it's the New Year holiday, so in previous years, during the New Year holiday, everyone, even beggars, wanted to find a new begging bowl, so everything was in short supply and prices would rise. So why did the prices of the things we bought go down instead of up?"

Daiyu couldn't understand why the account book was like this.

Yuan Hongqu naturally understood, but she couldn't very well tell Daiyu so bluntly: "Your maternal grandparents' family took kickbacks."

"Granny, I asked Aunt Yang, and she said that the price has actually gone up. In Yangzhou, you can get two eggs for just one coin, and four eggs for two coins!"

“Yangzhou and the capital have different geography and climate, so you can’t compare them like that. If we’re comparing whether prices have increased during the holidays, we can only compare prices at different times in the same place.”

"Then why are the eggs that my maternal grandmother's family buys more expensive than the ones we buy? Could it be because the eggs are different?" Daiyu raised another question.

“Is there really no difference? After all, these days chickens eat weeds and chaff…” Yuan Hongqu realized she had misspoke and quickly stopped talking, but Daiyu had already overheard her.

"Granny, are there any different ones?"

“Hmm,” Yuan Hongqu pondered for a moment, “Legend has it that some chickens are raised on precious herbs, so their eggs are more expensive.”

"Are these the kind of eggs that Grandma's family buys? They're not expensive, but they taste no different from the ones we have at home."

Because you've always been eating eggs from inside the space!

Yuan Hongqu thought to herself.

"Those herbal eggs are just a legend. Maybe they exist in the palace, but I've never seen them outside." Yuan Hongqu indirectly denied that the eggs used in Rongguo Mansion were herbal eggs.

"Then I understand," Daiyu said with a smile. "I'm afraid Sister Feng was ripped off by the household's purchasing agents. Our family has been ripped off by them for over half a year. Apart from that, everything I see is much more expensive than what we could buy ourselves. Besides, all their named servants have eyes for wealth; they won't do anything without money. And they've just been indulging them. Sigh, these rules are just for show..."

“They’ve already been given a monthly allowance and clothes for all four seasons, and they haven’t been mistreated in general, yet they still have to be given extra rewards for doing chores. It’s not that we can’t afford it, but it just feels like the servants in his household are incredibly greedy. When my family was in Yangzhou, we didn’t have this custom; we thought it was unique to the capital and that every household did it this way. But we didn’t see this custom in the palace during our stay there. I think it’s probably because the rules and regulations in the palace are strict and rigorous, which is why the servants don’t dare to act like my maternal grandmother’s family.”

Daiyu told Yuan Hongqu everything she had seen, heard, and thought.

"Granny, I think those people in Grandmother's family are so ambitious, they're bound to cause trouble sooner or later. Grandmother is getting old and can't keep up anymore; now Sister Feng is in charge of the household, so why don't we remind her?"

"Do you think your Sister Feng wouldn't know about this?" Yuan Hongqu took the account book from Daiyu's hand.

"Oh," Daiyu suddenly realized, "It must have been the old woman who told Sister Feng a long time ago."

Yuan Hongqu chuckled and shook her head. "The housekeepers all know about their family's affairs, but none of them dare to make the decision to take action against those people."

"Why is that? They have no respect for their master at all. Take Second Sister's wet nurse from before the New Year, for example. She even stole things. And her family dared to come to our door to retaliate and implicate Second Sister. I think if something like this happened in our family, I'm afraid that as soon as it showed a hint, the nanny would have suppressed it."

Daiyu is still young, and her worldview is black and white, with no middle ground.

"The Rongguo Mansion has been a prominent and prestigious family for generations. Some of its servants and slaves have been with the family since the time of the first Duke of Rongguo. These people are mostly very influential, and even their masters treat them with great courtesy. Then there are the ladies' attendants, the stewards outside, and so on. They manage the family's estates and shops outside, and are held in high esteem by outsiders. Therefore, when they return home, they truly believe themselves to be superior... That would be one thing, but some of them have become increasingly arrogant and over the years. Their ambitions have grown, and they have become increasingly difficult to manage. If the master is polite and lenient, it means the master is benevolent, and they take it as an excuse to bully the master..."

“Granny, this is a servant being arrogant and disrespectful to her master,” Daiyu sighed. “It’s so much quieter at home. Coming back here makes me feel refreshed and comfortable. But as soon as I go there, I feel inexplicably unhappy. But it’s not my home. If I talk about it too much, people will say we’re being nosy behind our backs.”

"You know that's good. Even if you want to be a female knight-errant, you don't have to manage everything. That would be exhausting," Yuan Hongqu teased.

"Being a female knight-errant is too difficult. I now think that looking at the ledgers and being a head manager is quite prestigious." Daiyu smiled and lightly flicked the ledger. "If I could be a great merchant like Aunt Yu or Gao Wuniang in the Tang Dynasty, that would be a truly wonderful life!"