Chapter 463: Unscrupulous Shopkeeper Jin
Fan Yuexi was anxious and looked at Tang Li: "Follow me."
Fan Yuexi took Tang Li's hand and came to the warehouse. There were already several people gathered there, frowning as if they were discussing something.
"Miss!"
"Miss!"
Everyone shouted and made way for Fan Yuexi.
Fan Yuexi walked in. In front of her was a pile of rice, one of the bags of which had been opened.
"Miss, please look at this rice."
The man scooped out a handful of rice and saw that the color of the rice was wrong, and there was a musty smell. It was moldy rice!
"Have you opened the other bags?" Fan Yuexi asked.
"Miss, I opened two bags and they are the same."
"Open all the bags and look at each one." Fan Yuexi said.
"yes."
Everyone opened the bags one by one and looked at them. They were almost all in the same situation.
Fan Yuexi's brows furrowed more and more tightly.
Tangli understood why she was nervous.
This is rice, the foundation of the victims' survival. If there is a problem with the rice, it will be a big problem.
"Miss, there are five hundred bags of rice in total, and they are all moldy."
"Miss, there are problems with this batch of rice. What should we do?"
"Yeah, we're going to run out of rice tomorrow. What are we going to eat?"
Fan Yuexi's face looked extremely ugly.
If it's just a few bags, it might be accidental, but if it's all over, then it's intentional.
The victims were still waiting for the new batch of rice to be cooked, but now all the rice has gone bad. What will they eat?
"Who is this rice merchant?" Tang Li asked.
"It's Shopkeeper Jin." Fan Yuexi gritted her teeth, "No, I have to go find him."
"I'll go with you."
Tang Li and Fan Yuexi rode in a carriage and arrived at the door of the Jin family.
The Jin family's house was magnificent, with the door painted with gold and two golden lions at the door, which looked very noble and grand.
Fan Yuexi walked up and said to the doorman, "I am Fan Yuexi from the Fan family, and I would like to see your master."
The doorman glanced at Fan Yuexi and said, "Our master is not here."
Fan Yuexi was anxious and asked, "Where is your master?"
"We servants don't know what the master is doing," said the doorman.
"I want to see your housekeeper. It's urgent..."
"The butler isn't here either."
"What about Mrs. Jin?"
"Mrs. Jin doesn't see guests." The doorman said indifferently.
Fan Yuexi paced back and forth at the door anxiously. Faced with this situation, she didn't know what to do.
Her brother is not here, so she can't make a decision...
Tang Li was watching from the side. The doorman was obviously lying. Master Jin was in the mansion, but he just didn't want to see them.
There must be something wrong with this Shopkeeper Jin.
"There's a problem with the rice that Mr. Jin sold us. We're here to negotiate. If Mr. Jin insists on not seeing us, then we can only meet with the government. The new county magistrate loves his people like his own children. I think he can't bear to watch the victims eat moldy rice, right?" Tang Li said coldly.
When the doorman heard this, his expression changed slightly.
"If you are lazy and deliberately don't report it, and your master is punished, can you bear it?" Tang Li's words made the doorman unable to stand.
"I'll go see if the master is in." The doorman ran in.
Fan Yuexi breathed a sigh of relief and grabbed Tang Li's arm, and Tang Li held her hand.
"Don't worry, there will be a solution." Tang Li said.
Fan Yuexi nodded. She originally thought that she was independent and experienced, but Tangli was much calmer and more determined than her.
She is worthy of being the wife of the imperial envoy.
She subconsciously relied on Tangli more.
After a while, the doorman ran out.
"You two, our master wants to see you."
Tang Li and Fan Yuexi walked in and were led to the living room by servants to sit down and were served tea.
Fan Yuexi was anxious and had no mood to drink tea, but Tang Li was much calmer and drank his tea slowly.
She knew that the more urgent the situation, the less anxious she should be, otherwise things would go wrong. Only by being clear-headed could she solve the problem.
"Oh, Yuexi, my good niece, you have time to come and see me, your uncle." An enthusiastic voice sounded.
Shopkeeper Jin was fat and big-eared, like the Maitreya Buddha, but his small eyes held a hint of shrewdness and calculation.
Fan Yuexi stood up and saluted to the shopkeeper Jin: "Uncle Jin."
Speaking of which, their Fan family actually has a connection with the Jin family. When the Jin family was in trouble, it was the Fan family who helped them overcome the difficulties.
When Fan Yuexi was a child, the Jin family and the Fan family had close contacts.
It was not until later, when the Jin family became one of the largest rice merchants in Yizhou County, that the interactions became less frequent.
"My dear niece, it's almost dark. What's going on?" asked Manager Jin.
"Uncle Jin, the rice you sent me this time is all moldy." Fan Yuexi said.
"What? It's all moldy? What's going on? Our Jin family values integrity when doing business. How could such a problem occur?" Shopkeeper Jin said in disbelief.
"Look, this is what I took out of those bags." Fan Yuexi handed a bag of rice to Shopkeeper Jin.
Shopkeeper Jin took it and opened it to read.
"Outrageous! Outrageous! How could this happen? Wait here, uncle will go and find out immediately!"
After Manager Jin finished speaking, he left angrily.
Fan Yuexi breathed a sigh of relief.
It seems that Manager Jin is not aware of the situation. I guess the people below him must have done something. This makes things easier.
Tang Li was not so optimistic. She could see through people. This shopkeeper Jin was obviously a hypocrite and was just acting.
Sure enough, after a while, Manager Jin came back.
"Uncle Jin, how is it?" Fan Yuexi asked nervously.
Shopkeeper Jin sighed softly, "My dear niece, your uncle is so sorry for you. I just went to ask around, and it's true that rice is really expensive right now. At a hundred coins per bushel, you can only buy this kind of rice. You get what you pay for. Your uncle also wants to give you better rice, but he can't afford to lose money."
Shopkeeper Jin looked helpless.
"Some time ago, the price of rice went up for some reason, and we couldn't even harvest it."
"How is it possible...how could that moldy rice cost a hundred coins per dou?!" Fan Yuexi said in disbelief.
"Shopkeeper Jin, how much is the good rice?" Tang Li asked.
Shopkeeper Jin glanced at Tangli and thought, this girl is quite sensible.
"I can't make money from my niece, so I'll buy it at the original price, plus some labor costs, at 500 coins per bucket," said the shopkeeper Jin.
Fan Yuexi's eyes widened.
Five hundred coins per bucket?
That's five times as much.
Why don't you just go and rob it?
"Uncle Jin, this rice is for the victims. It's life-saving rice. You can't do this." Fan Yuexi said.
"My dear niece, I didn't make any money because I knew it was for the disaster victims. I can't compare with your Fan family. I am a businessman and I can't do business at a loss, right? If you think my prices are too high and I am cheating you, you can look somewhere else." Shopkeeper Jin said with a smile.
He was being polite, but his meaning was very clear, which was "buy if you want, buy if you don't want, get lost if you don't."
Fan Yuexi was almost angry to death.
"Manager Jin, what should we do with the 500 bags of moldy rice in our warehouse? We didn't say we would spend 500 taels of silver to buy 500 bags of moldy rice." Tang Li said.
Shopkeeper Jin looked at Tang Li.
This woman's mind is much clearer than Fan Yuexi's, so she's harder to fool.
"If you don't want it, you can return it." said Mr. Jin.
Tang Li nodded after hearing what he said.
"Then we'll take our leave."
Having said that, he took Fan Yuexi's hand and left.
Shopkeeper Jin watched their backs disappear, the smile on his face vanished, and he snorted.
"If you don't make money, you're a fool!"
He is not a fool like those people in the Fan family. How could he let go of such a good opportunity to make money?
Look at his huge Jin family and then look at the impoverished Fan family. This is the difference between a smart person and a fool.
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