The third wife, Mrs. Sun, woke up very early in the morning. As soon as she opened her eyes, her left eyelid kept twitching. She was eating breakfast when her maid Cuicui, dressed in green, hurried over.
"There's a fire in Yiyuan! There's a fire!"
Sun angrily threw the fried cake in her hand away!
She knew that He Xianjin would not eat his vegetables obediently and peacefully!
Sun lifted her skirt and ran towards Yiyuan like the wind. She hurriedly went around the corridor and saw a shivering figure wrapped in the corner of the Yiyuan courtyard, surrounded by Qu Erniang and Zhang Pozi. She looked inside Yiyuan, but didn't see any fire or smoke.
"There's a flood!"
Mrs. Zhang silently pointed to the toilet in Yiyuan.
Sun looked over and saw a wisp of weak green smoke rising into the sky and then suddenly collapsing halfway.
Sun gnashed her teeth, glanced at Qu Erniang, and suppressed her anger, "Bring Jin Jie'er to my room? Ask a few maids to check if there are other places on fire in the yard. We must thoroughly investigate the cause of the fire!"
"Take it back to the Comb Hall."
Qu Erniang neatly wrapped He Xianjin with another layer of hemp cloth and said, "This fire came from a strange source."
How can it not be strange!
A fire in the toilet is unheard of!
Who plays with fire in the bathroom?
Playing with shit in the toilet is more normal than playing with fire.
The old pious woman in Bimatang must be suspicious of what she did to Yiyuan!
Sun held his breath.
She did something - she didn't allow the kitchen to feed the girl enough...
Before Sun could say anything, she saw Qu Erniang and Zhang Pozi, one on each side, helping He Xianjin up and walking out. After walking two steps, Qu Erniang turned around and said, "Please ask Third Madam to go to Bi Ma Hall together. This yard is built with mortise and tenon wood. A fire is a big deal. If we are not careful, all the property that our Chen family has sold piece by piece will be gone!"
Do you still want to hold her accountable?
Sun was so angry that she was about to go crazy. When she looked up, she saw He Xianjin's palm-sized face sticking out from the hemp cloth, giving her a secret and bright smile.
Sun: @￥￥%Q##%￥%#%!!!
I’d rather die of anger!
He Xianjin wrapped himself tightly in linen and followed Qu Erniang in a hurry, gradually smelling the astringent smell of lime and the unique fishy smell of grass and tree bark along the way.
The furnishings of the Bi Ma Hall were simple, with a square table, two lamps, three chests of drawers, and a wall of cabinets filled with booklets.
Apart from these, there are more than a dozen piles of papers of various colors.
He Xianjin glanced around quickly.
The owner of the house is a very pragmatic person.
Pragmatic people prefer straight forward.
Therefore, as soon as Mrs. Qu entered the main room, He Xianjin quickly made a decision between kneeling or not - kneel down, you just burned down the toilet in someone else's house.
He Xianjin fell to the ground with a thump, kneeling down and showing the strong character of a modern man.
"Madam, Xiao Jin is wrong."
He Xianjin said calmly, "Xiao Jin got up this morning and used a tinder to light the toilet railing. When the railing was on fire, Xiao Jin put out the fire with water, and then asked Aunt Zhang to report the fire to Madam San and you about the fire in Yiyuan."
Sun was just about to hear what He Xianjin was going to say, and after hearing it, she said: Huh?
Madam Qu's eyebrows didn't move. "You set the fire just to see me?"
He Xianjin nodded.
Yes, under the high pressure of Sun, between giving up and indulging herself, she chose to set fire.
"Why do you want to see me?"
He Xianjin raised his head, his eyes were calm and indifferent, "I don't want to get married. Compared to getting married, I can do more for the Chen family."
He Xianjin took out a book bound with jute paper and hemp rope from his bosom and handed it to Madam Qu. "This is the account and favors of Yiyuan sent to us after my mother died. The two sisters in the Third Madam's room put a seal on the main house, so I didn't include the existing assets of Yiyuan, which cannot be immediately converted into money and silver."
"The total account on the booklet is the funeral expenses that the Third Master allocated to Yiyuan, totaling fifty taels. Eighteen taels and four cents were given as gifts from people, and the expenses for funeral and return gifts totaled thirty-nine taels and eight cents, leaving a balance of eighteen taels and six cents."
Sun was confused and thought He Xianjin wanted to settle accounts with the Chen family, so she whispered, "Money, money, money! You are just a little girl, and the Chen family has raised you for ten years. Isn't it too late for you to settle accounts now?"
He Xianjin looked at Sun with an indescribable look.
Judging from their intelligence alone, Sun and Chen Fu should be able to live happily together forever.
Old Madam Qu raised her eyebrows and took the account book from He Xianjin.
The paper was very rough, but the binding was very standard with hemp thread. The characters were a bit strange, with thin strokes, and it didn't look like they were written with a brush.
Mrs. Zhang took a quick look and suddenly realized.
Oh, is this what Jin Jie'er asked her for jute paper and bamboo tubes that day?
Use jute paper to make booklets and bamboo tubes to write?
When Mrs. Qu opened it, she was stunned.
The first line of the first page indicates two pieces of information: the time of account establishment, a summary from November 4 to November 13 of the 14th year of Zhaode; and the name of the account book, total funeral expenses for Yiyuan He Niang.
The second page is divided into two rows with a number column in the middle, the Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches, the upper input and the lower payment, the receiving side and the paying side are the incoming side and the outgoing side. Looking at the two pages, the details are clear, the incoming side and the outgoing side are equal, the distribution of income and expenditure is clear, the major and minor categories are obvious at a glance, and the general method is "daily clearing". At the end of each day, the changes of the day are added up based on the previous day. A summary is made every five days and a total is added up every ten days.
This accounting method...
Old Madam Qu looked at Xianjin in shock.
He Xianjin appeared frank on the surface but was ashamed inside.
I’m sorry, my fellow Shanxi merchants.
I'd like to borrow your "Longmen Four-legged Account" which was first created in the late Qing Dynasty.
He Xianjin found out from the book that this was probably modeled after the Northern Song Dynasty which had not yet fallen into war. During the Yuan and Song dynasties, the accounts were still mainly "running accounts", with single income and expenditure, and the balance was settled at the end of the month. It belonged to the "single-type accounting model" and had an obvious disadvantage, that is, a running account. For example, "On x month x day of x year, Zhang Xiaohua bought a five-yuan hairpin" was an expenditure, and "On x month x day of x year, Zhang Xiaohua picked up eight yuan on the road, but she did not give it to the police uncle, but chose to keep it for herself" was income.
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