Half a month after the Dragon Boat Festival, Lord Pei from the Dali Temple brought news that the culprit who designed Mr. Qin to buy a large amount of wild yam had been caught.
It was indeed done by the owners of the two rival drug stores, the Guo and Cao families, working together.
They were jealous of the Qin family's pharmacy's good business and originally wanted to directly destroy the Qin family's pharmacy, but they were concerned about Master Qin's daughter who married into the General Zhongwu's Mansion. They were afraid that if they went too far, they would be retaliated by Qin Yalan. Finally, they came up with this trick to teach him a lesson.
They had done this to other drug dealers before, but Master Qin was the only one who reported the matter to the authorities. In court, when they saw Master Qin, they looked unconvinced and said, "Tsk! It's just ordinary business competition. Is there any need to report it to the authorities?"
Seeing that the two were still quite arrogant, Tian An appeased Master Qin before standing up and saying, "Business competition? You had people use the despicable tactics of a beggar on my uncle Qin, and he's still confused!
Moreover, we have reason to suspect that you are colluding with the latest gang of beggars who abduct and traffick women and children in the city.
They used a pharmacy as a cover, but in reality they were engaging in human trafficking.”
He said with a look of sudden enlightenment: "No wonder it's so hard for the government to catch those people once they succeed. It turns out that it was you two conscienceless people who covered for them and helped them escape from the city!"
"Stop talking nonsense, we are legitimate drug dealers." The owner of Guo's drug store immediately retorted when he saw Tian An throwing dirty water.
Deng Xue stepped forward and scolded, "How dare you! Who allowed you to speak to the Princess of Anping like that?"
When they heard that Tian An was the county lord, they immediately knelt down and confessed their crimes, but they refused to admit that they had colluded with human traffickers.
The most you can get out of business competition is losing money, but if you collude with human traffickers, you could lose your head.
"What a legitimate drug dealer! Would a legitimate drug dealer resort to tricks behind the scenes? Would he even rob beggars?" Tian An looked down on people like them who resorted to tricks behind the scenes when they couldn't defeat others head-on. They had messed up the shopping malls.
Shopkeeper Cao lay on the ground and explained: "We really don't know that person! He took the initiative to find us."
Tian An snorted coldly, "It's none of your business to tell me whether you know me or not. I'm not a judge. You should save this for Lord Pei!"
Master Qin and I came here today to discuss compensation with you."
"Compensation?" The two stopped crying out for injustice and stared blankly at Tian An.
Tian An frowned, "Why else do you think we're here? To investigate a case? Sorry, that's the government's business."
The two men kneeling on the ground looked at each other, and Manager Guo asked tentatively, "How much compensation?"
Tian An held up a finger.
Before they could speak, the two hurriedly asked, "One hundred taels?"
Tian An sneered, "Are you sending away beggars?"
"Then, then..." Shopkeeper Cao pointed at Tian An's finger, "Could it be one thousand taels?"
Tian Anyaoyao pointed, "Of course not."
Then he raised his hand and said, "What I want to say is, first, you asked someone to give Mr. Qin a beggar's medicine. That medicine is very strong and has injured Mr. Qin's body. You must pay for the medical expenses and recuperation costs, at least two hundred taels of silver."
Before they could say anything, Tian An extended his second finger and said, "Secondly, you have caused great mental trauma to Mr. Qin. You must compensate for the mental damage. I will give you one hundred taels of silver!"
Then he held up a third finger and said, "Third, Master Qin is unhappy and can't handle the shop's affairs, which has led to a huge decline in business. You must compensate for these losses. I won't cheat you, but I will charge you fifty taels per day."
Seeing that every time Tian An raised a finger, he would give a reason for paying compensation, the two shopkeepers Guo and Cao were suddenly frightened and their faces became increasingly ugly. They thought to themselves that today might not end well.
Sure enough, after Tian An listed eight points of compensation, he finally said, "The ninth and most important point is that you must compensate for the price of the wild yam that you tricked Uncle Qin into buying."
"Why? Didn't you make tortoise jelly out of those wild yam and sell it?" Shopkeeper Cao jumped up from the ground excitedly.
"That's right, your Guilinggao business is so brisk, why should you make us pay for Tufuling?"
Since the rain on the night of the Dragon Boat Festival, there has not been a drop of rain in the capital, and the weather is getting hotter. There are long queues every day wherever there is tortoise jelly.
They not only sell their tortoise jelly in their own shop, but also wholesale it to some restaurants. They have already made a lot of money from the tortoise jelly.
The two also knew that it would be unreasonable not to pay some money in this situation, so they discussed: "We can recognize the other things, but we firmly refuse to recognize the money for Tu Fuling."
The maximum amount mentioned before was only one thousand taels of silver, but those wild yam were worth at least two thousand taels, so they were determined not to accept it.
Seeing that they were willing to admit what he had said before, Tian An said slowly: "It is true that you deceived Mr. Qin into buying wild yam. Turtle jelly was a method that this county lady came up with to help Mr. Qin get rid of that batch of wild yam. What does it have to do with you?
When did the recipe that this county lady worked so hard to come up with become yours to deal with the aftermath? Do you think this makes sense?
The two looked at each other, speechless for a long time. Although this was the truth, but...
Shopkeeper Cao's eyes rolled around, and he smiled and tried to please Tian An: "County Lady! Look, those wild yam that our Master Qin bought have probably been used up a long time ago! This can be considered a blessing in disguise. Not only did we not lose money, but we even made a profit.
Please be magnanimous and don't bother with us. We will reflect on our mistakes when we return and will definitely not make the same mistake again."
It is said that one should not strike a smiling person. Tian An also spoke to him with a smile, but she said: "No, that batch of wild yam has been used up. But this county lady spent a lot of effort to think of that recipe. She stayed up late for it and her skin has become rough and dull. If I don't eat something good, it will not be restored.
I didn't ask you to pay for my beauty treatments, so just be content! I can't pay a penny less for the Tu Fu Ling."
She had an appointment with a lady for a consultation this afternoon! But she didn't have time to continue arguing with them. She looked at Master Pei and said, "Master Pei, do you think the compensation I just mentioned is reasonable?"
Lord Pei didn't dare to offend her and nodded with a smile. Although he had never heard of mental damage compensation, what Tian An said was indeed reasonable and not a big problem.
Besides, he was not the one who had to pay the money, so it would be good to teach these unscrupulous businessmen a lesson so that they wouldn't be doing nothing all day.
He immediately asked the person in charge to calculate the compensation amount according to the compensation terms mentioned by Tian An, which totaled 3,128 taels of silver.
He also ordered the two shopkeepers, Guo and Cao, to settle the debt on the spot.
Seeing that the verdict had been made, the two men knew that they were powerless to change the situation. They could only curse their bad luck and obediently let the servants go back to get the silver.
Unfortunately, even after the silver was obtained, Lord Pei still ordered the two of them to be handcuffed and taken into custody.
"Why is that? We've already lost money!"
Lord Pei looked at the two of them coldly and said, "You are suspected of multiple cases of kidnapping and trafficking of young girls and children in the city. If it weren't for the compensation you had to pay for the Qin family's pharmacy, do you think you could have stayed in the court for so long?"
After that, he ordered: "Take him away."
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com