Chapter 116 Serving in the study...
The maids serving in the study had long been dismissed. Apart from Li Fang, who was irritably throwing down the account book and pacing back and forth, there was only a middle-aged man standing to the side with a very low profile.
He was one of Li Fang's confidants, but he wasn't in charge of the open businesses; rather, he managed the secret personnel.
"What's going on? How can there be such a huge deficit again!" Li Fang asked the manager impatiently, pinching the bridge of his nose.
"Your Highness, several groups of people were lost last year, and the compensation for those outsiders was a considerable sum. Although our own people from Xizhuang don't need compensation, retraining new people to make up for it is also a significant expense."
"There's not much money left that can be secretly allocated this year, especially the funds allocated to Xizhuang..." The manager replied with his head bowed, his posture respectful, but both his facial expression and tone of voice were completely calm and even.
This steward was less like a human and more like a puppet. But perhaps it was precisely because of this inhuman quality that he was especially trusted by Li Fang and was more likely to reveal his true self in front of him.
"Enough!" Li Fang shouted in a low voice and slammed his hand on the table.
He knew perfectly well why he was in such dire straits this year, and his question just now wasn't just a subconscious excuse; he didn't need anyone to give him an answer.
Moreover, Li Fang knew better than anyone that the expenses incurred due to manpower losses were the norm in recent years. Although there were more last year, it was still within reason. The real reason he was so short of money now was that not only did the Guo family not send any money this year, but he also had to subsidize a lot of past accounts.
And those people in the court, whose attitudes were originally ambiguous or who had vaguely leaned towards me, have become even more hesitant after the Emperor conferred the title of Prince on several princes this year. Whether it is to win them over or to use them as mouthpieces, it will cost more money than before.
What frustrated Li Fang even more was that as the influence of Prince Cheng's mansion gradually spread throughout the capital, his lowly sixth brother, who was originally good at managing business, and his wife, who was not far behind, also started with this kind of lowly business.
Li Fang felt extremely resentful when he thought that in just half a year, many businesses had either been swallowed up by Prince Cheng's mansion or formed alliances with them.
Those merchants were indeed very cunning. They thought they had found a new master and threw him, the old master they had tried so hard to please but failed to win over, aside. If it weren't for the fact that both the emperor above and that hypocritical fifth prince had been keeping a close eye on him these days, he would never have let these snakes and rats get away with it.
But whatever the reason, the result was that, amidst all the commotion, even a prince like him experienced the depletion of the treasury.
Besides money, there were also women. The Xie family girl's behavior today was practically a slap in the face to him, the Second Prince, but he could only endure it, and even in front of the Fifth Prince, he had to put on a respectable act.
"Fifth and Sixth Princes, have I made their lives too easy?" The Second Prince, having calmed down slightly, muttered to himself with a dangerous and unpredictable look in his eyes.
These days, apart from being granted the title of king, everything has gone wrong. Even the title of king, since he is not the only one to achieve it, has left Li Fang dissatisfied.
Power, money, women—all that he desired was unattainable.
Although he has calmed down on the surface, the accumulated anger and resentment make Li Fang eager to teach his two "good brothers" a lesson.
Of course, he wouldn't forget Xie Miaoyi and Wang Chen, the adulterous couple.
The steward, who had been keeping his head down, secretly glanced at the Second Prince, who had only spoken halfway through his sentence before becoming lost in thought, his face and eyes growing increasingly cold. He pretended not to notice anything, his face expressionless, almost blending into the wall.
The Second Prince, having regained his senses, said, "The funds allocated to Xizhuang will be sent over tomorrow. The last batch of men sent to Prince Ning's and Prince Cheng's residences were lost; we'll find a chance to make up for it. You should also assign a few more elite trackers to keep an eye on Prince Xie and Prince Cheng's movements. If there's an opportunity... get rid of Wang Chen."
"Yes, Your Highness," the steward replied respectfully, without uttering a single word of doubt.
Just as things were coming to a close, we heard the sound of wings flapping outside the window, and then a gray pigeon cooed as it landed.
Li Fang waved his hand, signaling the wooden-faced manager to step back. The manager left without saying a word, but before leaving, he quickly took in the appearance of the pigeon.
......
As the night deepened and the white candles dripped tears, Li Fang remained in his study without leaving, and he did not call any servants in.
The pigeon that delivered the message had long since flown away, and the secret letter it brought was deeply creased in Li Fang's hands. At this moment, the secret letter was placed together with a piece of paper that Li Fang had taken out of the secret cabinet.
That piece of paper was also a secret letter, but it had been passed to Li Fang two years ago.
The letter was now yellowed and crumpled, with the ink blurred and smudged in several places. There was even a dark red stain at the corner, clearly a bloodstain. That bloodstain obscured the most important piece of information on the paper.
Li Fang had once felt extremely resentful and annoyed by this bloodstain, but perhaps tonight, his resentment and annoyance will vanish.
After much back and forth, and after taking out the information from the secret cabinet for comparison, a new and complete secret letter gradually took shape under Li Fang's hands.
As this drawing was completed, the anxiety and gloom on Li Fang's face, who had been in an extremely bad mood all day, seemed to be completely swept away by the late spring night breeze.
He relaxed his face, let out a deep breath, and then couldn't help but laugh: "Hahaha, I see, I knew I wasn't wrong today."
Gently smoothing out the paper he had drawn, Li Fang turned and hid everything else back in the safe. On the desk, under the flickering candlelight, a clear fish-shaped pattern was drawn on the smooth paper.
If anyone has seen Xiao Yan Hui’s stone fish pendant, they will find that the fish-shaped pattern is very similar to the stone fish.
When Li Fang finished putting things away and turned back, the fish on the paper seemed to come alive and swim around.
Of course, this was just an illusion; at this moment, it wasn't the fish on the paper that was moving, but Li Fang's heart.
At the time when he needed it most, the plan that he thought had completely failed two years ago unexpectedly had a chance to turn things around again, which would make anyone's heart flutter.
"Li Hui, Li Hui, I never expected you to give this to that merchant's daughter. Hahaha, does our Li family have produced a Casanova?" Li Fang burst into laughter as he looked at the design.
Two years ago, he sent people to steal the production process and secret recipe of Snowflake Salt. The mission was successful, but a mishap occurred when it was sent back. Not only were all the people involved killed, but the items were also missing. Even the last letter that was sent back was mostly stained with blood in the most crucial part, and only the words "hidden in xx" and a pattern less than a third of the way out could be vaguely seen.
Li Fang had been pondering the pattern for two years but couldn't figure it out. Until today, when he had a dispute with the merchant's daughter from Lao Liu's family over Xie Miaoyi's matter, he happened to see her necklace pendant, which looked extremely familiar, but he clearly had never seen it before.
At the time, I only had a suspicion, but I never expected... it really was true!
The sixth brother is really generous; he even gave his woman a pendant made from something like this.
“No, that’s not right. Sixth Brother shouldn’t know.” Li Fang thought for a moment. Back then, it was his own men who secretly engraved the stolen snowflake salt production method on a stone and brought it back when the opportunity arose. And all of them were already dead.
If he hadn't happened to see that pendant today and hadn't remembered the secret letter that had been defiled years ago, even he wouldn't have known that such a secret formula, comparable to a mountain of gold, was hidden in a stone that was only somewhat interesting in appearance. How could Lao Liu have known such a secret?
As expected, they're ignorant. They actually made a necklace pendant out of a stone fish. The sixth prince makes mountains of gold and silver, how could he let his woman be so shabby? After habitually looking down on Prince Cheng and his wife in his heart, Li Fang immediately started thinking about how to get his hands on that necklace.
At this moment, he was somewhat relieved that the object looked like just a fish-shaped stone. He figured the woman was just using it for fun, and she wouldn't really value it. Getting it shouldn't be too difficult.
"This thing will eventually end up in my hands." Thinking about how Lao Liu has made a fortune despite his restraint over the years, and once he gets his hands on the formula, if he sells it through the Guo family's channels, he'll have enough to support not only some undercover agents, but also... enough to support others.
......
The Second Prince felt his luck had turned around and he was on the right track, but things just happened to be so coincidental. Xiao Yan hadn't noticed anything unusual about the stone pendant she occasionally found inside a fish's belly for two years. But the way Li Fang stared at it so intently at the time aroused her suspicion.
"Yan Hui'er, you've been fiddling with that fish pendant all morning. It's just a fish fossil. If you like it, I'll have someone collect some more with interesting shapes and colors. Hurry up and get ready; we'll be leaving after breakfast." Qin Ji urged Xiao Yan Hui, seeing her sitting in front of the dressing table not having her hair combed but instead playing with the fossil pendant.
"I'm looking at this stone to see if there's anything special about it. Yesterday, the Second Prince seemed to be staring at it, and his expression was a bit strange."
Xiao Yan examined the strange stone from all angles several times, but apart from the fact that it was an ancient fish fossil and its shape was more beautiful than that of ordinary fossils, she could not see anything special about it.
But when she recalled the Second Prince's fixed gaze yesterday, she felt that there was something extraordinary about this stone.
"Second brother, keep an eye on you!" Upon hearing Xiao Yan Hui's words, Qin Ji's hidden vigilance immediately went up, and his eyes fell on Xiao Yan Hui's neck and chest.
"What nonsense are you thinking? He's interested in this stone pendant." Hearing Qin Ji's mind suddenly veer off to jealousy, Xiao Yanhui couldn't help but roll her eyes at him.
But Qin Ji still felt that Li Hui must have ulterior motives.
Yan Hui'er naively thought that the second prince was after the strange stone necklace she was wearing. But how could he not know what kind of person the second prince was? All sorts of women came and went around him, and he fell in love with every one he saw. Yan Hui'er was so beautiful and had such a lovely personality; it was hard to guarantee that the second prince wouldn't have some wicked thoughts about her.
The thought of being coveted at the banquet sent a dark cloud of unease through Qin Ji's heart. Perhaps he should speed things up a bit more in dealing with the second son.
No, to be more precise, perhaps he should speed up his progress in wielding supreme power.
"Qin Ji, Qin Ji!"
"Huh, what?"
Coming to his senses, Qin Ji stepped forward and stood behind Xiao Yan Hui. He smoothed her flowing, black, and shiny hair, feeling the wonderful sensation of each strand passing through his fingers. His gaze, however, fell on the stone pendant that Xiao Yan Hui held in her palm.
"Let me see." Although he said this, Qin Ji's hand remained on Xiao Yan Hui's hair.
He played with it for a while until his princess got a little impatient, raised her hand and lightly patted the back of his hand, complaining, "Stop playing with my hair, it'll get dirty and I'll have to wash it, it's such a hassle." Only then did he stop and focus his attention entirely on the stone.
After Xiao Yan took the stone from his palm, Qin Ji examined it closely. He didn't notice anything unusual at first, but suddenly, as if possessed, he held the pendant up to the sunlight streaming in through the window.
......
"This seems to be cipher." Wei Sa, who had been urgently summoned by the prince and princess early in the morning, stared at something on the wall that looked like a picture or words reflected in the sunlight and fell into deep thought.
After a long while, he finally said, somewhat reluctantly, "I feel like I've seen something similar somewhere before, but I can't quite place it right now."
As she spoke, Wei Sa fell into deeper thought, but after searching through her memories for a long time, she came up with nothing.
However, the fact that he doesn't have any memories of it doesn't mean he's helpless.
"Your Majesty, Your Highness, may I make a copy of this part? The brothers in charge of intelligence may have seen this kind of coded text before."
Qin Ji turned his questioning gaze to Xiao Yan Hui.
"Then I'll copy some down and ask around. I'm quite curious about what secrets this little fish holds." A fish-shaped stone that she found by chance inside a fish's belly turned out to be a stone with secrets. Moreover, this stone had attracted the special attention of the Second Prince. At this moment, Xiao Yan Hui was just like a kitten that had encountered a ball of yarn. Her heart was completely filled with curiosity, and she couldn't wait to untangle this ball of yarn.
So when they heard Wei Sa's suggestion, they agreed almost without hesitation. For this stone, Qin Ji and Xiao Yan even delayed their original travel plans.
The news didn't get back until the afternoon.
"You mean the coded messages between the Second Prince's spies?" Even Qin Ji, who had initially shown little interest, was now intrigued. It was already strange enough that Yan Hui'er had obtained a strange stone with coded messages sealed inside using special methods, but now she had discovered that these messages were related to the Second Prince's spies.
This is just too much of a coincidence!
"Yan Hui'er, tell me again in detail how you got this stone fish." Qin Ji had only heard Xiao Yan Hui briefly say that it was dug out of the fish's belly.
"I can't go into details, it's really a very simple thing. I wanted to eat sashimi, and my family bought two live fish. This stone was hidden in one of them." Xiao Yanhui spread her hands helplessly.
"It seems that to find out what's inside, we'll have to wait for the people below to decipher the cipher text first." After expressing slight regret, Qin Ji's thoughts returned to the original plan for today.
"Since we can't get an answer for now, let's set off." Qin Ji pulled Xiao Yan Hui up.
"It's almost dark, Qin Ji, what's the rush? We'll go tomorrow."
"No, today, let's go!"
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