"Who are those people? What are they going to do?" Wan Xueying asked Mrs. Xue, who looked calm, in confusion.
"They!" Xue Sao smiled. "They're all tenants hired by our Cui family. Today is the fifth day of the Lunar New Year, the day we sell grain to our tenants at low prices. They must have lined up early."
"Does your Cui family always do this?"
"It's only this year, actually." Mrs. Xue didn't exaggerate the Cui family's philanthropy. "In previous years, the harvest was good, and grain prices weren't high. It wasn't worth it to do something like this."
"That's right," Wan Xueying nodded, "but I wonder how long your Cui family's food supply can last if we do this?"
"Our Cui family is the largest grain merchant in Xijiang State. The old grain alone could easily feed the people of Xijiang for three to five years." Sister Xue said this with a surge of pride. "However," she added, "the army has been short on food and wages for the past few years, and we've borrowed from the Cui family, and the amount we borrow has increased year by year. If we can't resolve the drought, I'm afraid the Cui family won't be able to hold out for much longer. "Lending, haha," she sneered, "can you really repay it?"
Once the chatterbox opened, Xue Sao couldn't stop. She complained that the army wasn't short of food and pay, but that it was probably diverted to her personal vaults.
"Wait," Wan Xueying suddenly realized, "what did you just say?"
"Did I say something wrong?" Sister Xue blinked. It was true that she was a little too proud of herself because she spoke too much.
"You're not wrong, you just reminded me." She had been to the military settlement before, and although she hadn't seen it all, she knew it was huge. She also knew that, except for this year, the settlement had produced a considerable amount of income every year, more than enough to support the soldiers of the Ningjiang County Garrison and the Ningjiang County Reserve Battalion. But she and Shen Yu had overlooked one point: how much more than enough was this?
This is just Ningjiang County. Dingbei Camp uses more food and grass every year.
Does this involve over-demanding? Does it involve unpaid wages? Similarly, did the excess food and fodder also go into the private vaults of certain individuals?
If that's the case, why go to such great lengths to solve the problem? Wouldn't it be better to just take over their private vaults?
When Wan Xueying found a time to talk to Shen Yu about this, Shen Yu's eyes lit up and he said, "You're right." He immediately had an idea.
"But I'm afraid of offending some people because of this." Du Jin and Sun Jianzhang are two people that Shen Yu cannot afford to offend at the moment.
"Don't worry," Shen Yu smiled. "Leave this matter to Pei Xuanqing. I'll just take a share and solve this year's food and grass problem first."
Pei Xuanqing had come to take over the Dingbei Camp. Even if he did nothing, he would have offended General Ji Yun. If he couldn't solve the Dingbei Camp's food and grass problem this year, Ji Yun might even take the initiative.
Pei Xuanqing had another identity. If he used that identity to do this, Ji Yun wouldn't dare to get angry even if he wanted to. On the contrary, Ji Yun had to find a way to conceal this matter, otherwise this matter alone would force him to move out of Dingbei Camp. In short, Ji Yun was bound to suffer this loss.
However, Du Jin and Sun Jianzhang do not pose a threat to him at present, and it may not be beneficial for him to become enemies with them too early. Shen Yu feels that this matter requires long-term consideration.
Over the next few days, apart from staying in a hotel and eating, Wan Xueying, accompanied by Xue's wife, simply wandered around the Cui family's land. She didn't even get off the mule cart once. This made Xue's wife increasingly suspicious that Wan Xueying was a fraud and had no idea how to find a water source, so she became increasingly perfunctory towards her.
Wan Xueying didn't care. After she finished her business with the Cui family's land, she went to the city to earn money from various shops. During this trip, she found that the overall prices in Xijiang were much cheaper than in Dayan, especially food. Although Sister Xue said that the price had more than doubled compared to last year, it was still cheaper than in Northern Xinjiang.
The same goes for medicinal herbs. Ginseng, deer antlers and ganoderma are already very cheap in city pharmacies. If you ask around, you will find that they are at least half the price if you buy them in the countryside.
So Wan Xueying transformed herself into a purchasing merchant and traveled around the countryside. She didn't sell any of the cloaks and capes she brought with her, but instead spent a lot of money to purchase a large amount of medicinal herbs and food.
This trip to Xijiang solved their family's food problem. They even gathered the herbs needed to detoxify Shen Yu.
After Shen Yu got the antidote from the third prince, Wan Xueying repeatedly studied the poisons that Shen Yu had hidden before, and found that the poison he was poisoned with was extremely complex, consisting of about a dozen poisons, like a big hodgepodge.
The wonderful thing is that these dozen poisons are interconnected, and if one of them is missing, the person who takes it will be killed immediately.
The antidote is also made up of several poisons, but it is a bit perfunctory, only focusing on the quantity, and not targeting those dozen poisons.
All she had to do was to unravel the mystery, identify the dozen or so poisons in the poison, find out the poisons that made up the antidote, and then look for the corresponding antidotes one by one.
Even if all the antidotes are found, there will still be a major risk when detoxifying. That is, if any one of the poisons is missed, when the other poisons are detoxified, the missed poison will also cause death.
Even though Wan Xueying had used her mental power to analyze the poisons, she was worried some might have slipped through the net. However, she still had to gather the antidotes. This trip to Xijiang had actually brought her and Shen Yu together.
Because she acted like an ordinary businessman, she did not encounter any danger on the way to Cui's house. Instead, she saved someone's life when he was being intercepted.
The person who was rescued was not someone else, but the eldest daughter of the Cui family who had returned to visit her parents.
"Miss, why did you come back alone?" Seeing that there was no one else except the maids, old women and guards who followed her, Sister Xue, who was still frightened, asked Cui Mingzhu with concern.
"What else can I do?" Cui Mingzhu curled her lips, "I came back because I was angry."
"Who is making you angry again?"
"Who else could it be? My good sister-in-law. She just relies on her noble birth to look down on me all day long. She never thought that if it weren't for me, the poor family in Hengyang Marquis's Mansion would have lived the good life they have now?"
"Then what's the reason this time?" The two sisters-in-law often quarreled, and it was not the first time that Cui Mingzhu went back to the Cui family to ask for help because she couldn't stand it anymore.
"Haha, you complain that the new clothes in my shop are ugly, and that my family is just a bunch of nouveau riche, and can do nothing but farming."
Mrs. Xue's mouth twitched, "Just for this?" It's no big deal!
"Of course... there are other things," Cui Mingzhu said with an unnatural expression, "That bastard was dissatisfied with the fact that I only had one daughter, Ling'er, and wanted to take my eldest sister-in-law's half-sister as a concubine."
"You and your son-in-law have only been married for four years. It's not like you haven't had children yet, so why are you in such a hurry?" Mrs. Xue couldn't help but feel sorry for Cui Mingzhu.
"That's right!" Cui Mingzhu pouted. "I was just injured at that time and haven't recovered yet, but that damn guy couldn't wait."
"I don't know how to persuade the young lady. Please have a good chat with the Madam and the Young Madam when we return to the mansion."
"This is the only way." After chatting with Mrs. Xue, Cui Mingzhu thanked Wan Xueying and Shen Yu again.
Xue Sao, acting as an interpreter, conveyed her words of gratitude to Wan Xueying and Shen Yu, while also expressing her own gratitude. If she hadn't recognized that the carriage under siege was from the Hengyang Marquis's residence, Wan Xueying might not have asked Shen Yu and Shunzi to help. The consequences would have been disastrous.
Because the carriage of the Hengyang Earl's Mansion was destroyed, Xue Sao discussed with Wan Xueying to let Cui Mingzhu and Wan Xueying ride in the same mule cart. She gave up her original seat and sat on the outside of the cart, and Wan Xueying readily agreed.
In this way, two strangers who did not speak the same language sat in the same carriage, and the embarrassment was self-evident.
It was late autumn, and Cui Mingzhu was wearing gorgeous but thin clothes. Not long after, she started sneezing repeatedly.
Thinking that she had brought a lot of cloaks and capes this time, Wan Xueying took out a bright red cloak from the box under the car seat and handed it to Cui Mingzhu.
"Is this for me?" Cui Mingzhu was delighted and gestured while speaking in poor Dayan dialect.
"Yes," Wan Xueying nodded with a smile, "it's for you." Actually, she just wanted to lend it to the other party, but the language barrier made explaining more and more difficult. So she simply gave it to Cui Mingzhu as a meeting gift.
"Thank you, thank you, it's so beautiful." Cui Mingzhu was short of words and took a long time to utter these few words. She loved this bright red cloak with white rabbit fur trim the first time she saw it, and once she put it on, she felt warm and couldn't let it go.
She reached out and touched the cloak, and found it was furry inside, so she asked, "Is there fur in it too?" It's not like she had never seen clothes made of fur before, but apart from keeping warm, they were a bit ugly and not as exquisite as this one.
However, she couldn't express this sentence clearly, and it was only after Mrs. Xue, who was sitting outside, translated it for her that Wan Xueying understood what she meant.
"That's right." Wan Xueying nodded, "The outside is made of the finest brocade from the south of Dayan, and the middle layer is made of white rabbit fur." Such a large cloak would have to be spliced even if it was made of a whole piece of rabbit fur, so she did not hide it.
"Oh," Cui Mingzhu nodded after listening to Xue Sao's translation, "No wonder it's so warm." She asked again, "Do you have any more cloaks like this? I want to give one to my mother." Of course, she would not ask for it for nothing. She also planned to buy the one she was wearing at a high price as a reward for saving her life just now.
"Yes, I brought a lot from Xijiang this time. I originally planned to sell them here, but later I found that the prices in Xijiang were lower than in Dayan, so I gave up the idea." As she spoke, Wan Xueying took out two dark cloaks from the box.
These two cloaks are more finely made and made of better silver sable fur. They were made by Nanny Wu and are especially suitable for older women.
"These two pieces look good too." If it weren't for the dark color, Cui Mingzhu would have wanted to keep another one for herself.
She thought for a moment and said angrily, "Don't sell them anywhere else. I want them all." Humph! Didn't they think the new clothes in her shop were ugly? She would show those people how beautiful these capes and cloaks from Dayan were.
Thinking about the fact that he didn’t have to go to Dayan to purchase goods, Cui Mingzhu felt that this deal was a good deal.
Wan Xueying didn't expect that she could make such a big deal by just saving a person, so she roughly told Cui Mingzhu the price.
Cui Mingzhu didn't even bargain, but just waited until Wan Xueying delivered all the goods to the Cui family before paying.
The two of them had a good business conversation, but the closer they got to the Cui family, the more uneasy Xuesao looked. As the Cui family's matron, she had been with Wan Xueying for so long, but how could she report that she hadn't found a single source of water?
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