When Yu Jiu checked the accounts at the store in the morning, he found that business had indeed been very good these past two days, with revenue double that of usual. Of course, this did not include the first day when they held a promotional event.
"Are you still managing to keep an eye on things these next few days? I'll go over to the pastry shop later and have Yang Wen come help you."
Yang Wen was another employee they hired. He was a man and had been staying overnight at the pastry shop these past few days, keeping watch over the shop. They hadn't originally planned to hire someone to keep watch over the shop, but Yang Wen volunteered, saying that living at home was too cramped and he wanted to live at the shop and keep watch over it. Xu Zijiang and Yu Jiu discussed it and agreed.
Yu Jiu and Xu Zijiang were also reluctant to sleep separately at night.
"We can manage because they come one after another, unlike the previous events where everyone came at once and we couldn't keep up."
Sun Haohao happily explained that she was satisfied with her job, so she always had a happy smile on her face. Customers who came in also had a good impression of her. Yu Jiu had almost never heard any customer say that Sun Haohao had a bad attitude.
"That's good. But I'm still a bit tired these past two days. I'm going to the pastry shop now, so you two can watch the shop together."
Yu Jiu had finished checking the accounts. She took most of the money, leaving only a little change so she could give people change, and then went to the pastry shop.
When Yu Jiu arrived, the pastry shop was not yet open.
Originally, Yu Jiu planned to open the dim sum shop at 7 a.m., thinking that some people might come in early in the morning to buy dim sum for breakfast. However, she changed her mind and thought that there would probably be relatively few such people. Those who wanted to buy dim sum probably wouldn't come so early in the morning. The main reason was to unify the opening time so that it would be more convenient.
So in the end, we decided that both the clothing store and the pastry shop would open at 8:00 AM and close at 7:00 PM. It's already 8:30 PM, and the clothing store has been open for half an hour, but the pastry shop is still closed.
Yu Jiu frowned and went up to knock on the door. After knocking for a while, Yang Wencai got up and opened the door. He had messy hair, looked dejected, and smelled of alcohol. When he opened the door and saw that it was Yu Jiu, he nervously straightened his clothes.
"Did I oversleep? I'm sorry, Sister Yu, I didn't mean to, I promise it won't happen again!"
He quickly apologized, but Yu Jiu held back her anger. She asked casually.
"You've been drinking? I think I can smell alcohol."
"Ah, yes, I had a little to drink last night."
Since everyone could smell it, Yang Wen could only nod awkwardly.
"The wine from our store?"
Yu Jiu continued to ask, making Yang Wen even more embarrassed, but he still refuted her.
"It's wine from our shop, but I paid for it myself. I put the money in the drawer."
"Well, it's best not to drink during work hours. Maybe it's because you drank yesterday that you overslept today. It's already 8:30. If I hadn't knocked on the door, you probably wouldn't have gotten up yet. How's business these past few days?"
Yu Jiu gave him a few words of reprimand and then let it go. After all, it was his first time making a mistake, and she didn't want to say too much, lest she seem harsh.
"It's alright, about the same as before."
"Um."
Yu Jiu nodded, said nothing more, and went to check the accounts on her own.
She required Sun Haohao and Yang Wen to keep accounts no matter how busy they were. They had to write down all the products in the store in advance in a notebook. For example, there were several brands of liquor, and for each bottle sold, they would draw a horizontal line after the name of that brand. The number of tally marks would show how many bottles were sold that day. The same applied to pastries and clothing.
So the accounts are very clear. If there are any doubts, she only needs to compare them slightly to know where the problem is.
Yu Jiu initially trusted Yang Wen quite a bit, but given his behavior today, her trust in him diminished considerably. So, unlike at the clothing store where she only briefly checked the accounts, she wanted to examine the accounts here more carefully.
The number of liquors sold matched, and the money matched too. As for the pastries, that was harder to check. After checking and finding no problems with the accounts for the past two days, Yu Jiu signaled to Yang Wen that he could go to the clothing store and work with Sun Haohao.
After Yang Wen left, Yu Jiu not only didn't put down the ledger, but instead sat down on the stool and carefully examined it.
She had a feeling that something was wrong, but she couldn't quite put her finger on it, so she could only keep looking at the ledgers.
Suddenly, something occurred to her, and she quickly got up to check if the bottles of liquor on the shelf had been opened. She examined each one. Most were fine, and she thought she was mistaken. However, when she touched the last two bottles, she discovered the problem.
Both bottles had been opened, and although they had been forcefully screwed back on, Yu Jiu still noticed that they had been opened. She decisively opened them and went over to smell them. The previous bottles of baijiu, as soon as they were opened, had a pungent smell. Since she didn't drink baijiu, she found it to be both pungent and spicy.
But now the wine tasted much weaker. To verify her guess, she opened another bottle of wine that was intact, and sure enough, it did.
These two bottles of wine that have been opened must have had some poured out and some water added, so the wine flavor has become weaker, but you can't tell from the outside.
She didn't know when he started doing this, and how many more bottles of this wine he'd sold. Luckily, she discovered it not too late; it should still be in time. Yu Jiu frowned, put the cap back on, and then carefully checked the snacks again.
She took out the scale and weighed it carefully. The weights didn't match. For example, the thousand-layer red bean cake weighed ten jin, but the notebook recorded that four jin had been sold. There should still be six jin left. Even if there was a slight difference, sometimes a little extra weight would be added, and it wouldn't be much less.
But now there are only five jin of red bean cake left, which is one jin less. She weighed the other pastries as well, and they were all one jin less than the amount on the ledger.
He steals snacks, secretly drinks alcohol, and mixes plain water into the liquor to continue selling it. He has such audacity!
Yu Jiu, though not angry, exuded an air of authority. He slammed his hand on the table, but since the shop needed someone to watch it, Yu Jiu was too lazy to close it and confront Yang Wen. He decided to wait until Xu Zijiang arrived in the afternoon.
When Xu Zijiang arrived in the afternoon, Yu Jiu told him about it.
“We have to fire Yang Wen and deduct half a month’s salary from him. We’ve already lost at least a month’s salary for him, so deducting only half a month’s salary is already very merciful.”
Yu Jiu was ruthless; to be lenient with thieves was to be cruel to oneself.
“It’s only right to deduct money. I don’t know if he did this before, selling diluted wine to customers. This will damage our store’s image, and maybe people won’t come to buy from us next time.”
It's also our fault for letting him stay here overnight. He shouldn't have had much of a chance to do this during the day, but after closing time at night, he can do whatever he wants in the shop. It seems we really can't have outsiders on night watch anymore. We either need to find someone we trust, or just not have anyone on watch at all. We'll reinforce the doors and windows again.
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