Upon arriving at the Yuelai Inn, Qingyan quickly jumped off the carriage, rushed into the room, and applied ice water to her burning cheeks.
"It's too hot!" she muttered under her breath as she tried to cool down.
Yin stood at the window, watching the servants outside carrying luggage. They were all very careful. They all knew that the servants left in the temple were probably not trusted by their master.
"The ledger has been stolen. Tell the innkeeper to make sure no one takes it for anything else," Yin instructed Qingyan. Only people of the rank of innkeeper or higher at Yuelai Inn could see the ledger.
If someone were to take the account book to the Yue Lai Inn downstairs, the innkeeper there would probably follow orders. If something really goes wrong, Qing Yan would be the one to take the blame.
"The innkeeper of Yuelai Inn has already taken emergency measures when he sent this over," Qingyan waved his hand dismissively.
She had already made arrangements. She told Yin that having the account book was enough to mobilize the staff of Yuelai Inn, but that only told him half the story. He still needed the headquarters token that she had personally issued.
These tokens are in the hands of local shopkeepers, who all understand the differences in materials and specifications. The shopkeepers on the other hand can only see the surface of the tokens.
The shopkeeper stood outside the door, waiting for Qingyan to summon him.
"Fourth Sister, wait a moment while I put on my face mask. I have to meet with the manager of West Lake later. You can listen in too." Yin nodded. The girl didn't want to hide anything, so he complied.
After a cup of tea, Qingyan's flushed face had improved considerably. She applied a natural makeup look herself and then had Sulan bring in the display case.
"This servant greets his master!" All the managers of Yuelai Inn were under the command of the Ulanara family, and upon seeing Qingyan, they all referred to themselves as servants.
She waved her hand, and the shopkeeper stood up and noticed that there was a man in his twenties sitting next to Qingyan. The man had a noble demeanor and a solemn expression. This man must be the Fourth Prince.
"This is the Fourth Prince!" Qingyan knocked on the shopkeeper's door in a daze, then pointed directly at Yin's.
"Greetings, Fourth Prince!" The shopkeeper could distinguish who was the master and did not treat Yin Cheng as a servant. Yin nodded in satisfaction.
After the innkeeper got up, he started talking about the account books. Several scenic spots had traces of entanglement between salt merchants and officials. Not only the Yuelai Inn in Hangzhou, but even his own account books recorded a lot of shady dealings.
“A couple of days ago, my office was burgled. Luckily, I managed to move the account books home. We hand over the account books to the higher authorities at the end of each month, and this time the higher-ups said everyone should protect their account books!” The shopkeeper took out the account books from his pocket. “These contain detailed records. The government’s total revenue for this month is approximately 100,000 taels of silver.”
One hundred thousand taels!
Both of them were stunned. How much silver could a small city like Hangzhou possibly have? And yet, in just half a month, they had spent 100,000 taels...
"Is it always like this?" Qingyan asked gossipy.
Yin rolled his eyes twice, but the maid didn't even glance at her.
"This is basically how it goes whenever an imperial decree is issued!" The manager never hid anything from Qingyan; he would report back to his master in detail whenever necessary.
Qingyan frowned; the worst had happened.
Yuelai Inn is considered a high-end inn. In the event of a major problem, apart from the inn's main rooms, all the medium and low-level private rooms at Yuelai Inn will be requisitioned.
As a result, many salt merchants came to complain. They wanted to spend a lot of money to stay in the best rooms, but Yuelai Inn never agreed. This led many people to speculate that there must be royal people behind Yuelai Inn.
"You go back first, I'll check the accounts first, I'll call you later!" Qingyan waved his hand and let the shopkeeper leave first.
Seeing that no one was in the room, Yin opened the ledger. Sure enough, the cash flow here was even greater than in Hangzhou, and there were even traces of singing girls.
“Little darling, there can’t be any singing girls in the inn.” Yin pointed to the record in the ledger, and Qingyan’s face turned purple. It said that extra hush money was charged, which meant that they hadn’t found any of the girls.
"Look at the next few words!" Qingyan protested. The shopkeeper and employees were honest and simple; they would definitely report it if they received such ill-gotten gains. "Hush money, three hundred taels of gold leaves..."
When Qingyan read it aloud, he was taken aback by the sheer scale of the gesture.
"Gold leaves?!" Yin quickly looked closely and noticed a note at the end: the person who gave the gold leaves clearly had a local accent.
"It must be a salt merchant! What minister could have such a handiwork?" Qingyan wondered if he should first take a look at Jin Yezi's appearance.
Sun held a mahogany plate with two bags of gold leaves on it. When she opened it, she was immediately impressed by the craftsmanship of the gold leaves, which were clearly carved by an old craftsman.
"It really looks like her!" Yin once designed a set of gold hairpins in the shape of ginkgo leaves for her. Each one was so lifelike. Compared to the injured gold leaf, that set of hairpins was obviously much cruder.
"The shopkeeper said it's not a tael short." Qingyan counted the weight and found it to be quite heavy.
"Hush money?!" Qingyan looked at him suspiciously. What had the salt merchants and ministers said?
Yin nodded, he must have heard something, otherwise the salt merchants wouldn't have made such a large-scale purchase.
"When did this happen?" Qingyan asked, looking at the date written on the blank sheet. "Have someone fetch the person who was on duty that day!"
Soon, a girl of about sixteen or seventeen appeared at the door. She was very nervous when she heard that her master was coming to question her.
"Master, this servant... didn't mean it!" The little girl knelt down as soon as she entered the room and kowtowed.
Yin and Qingyan were both stunned; they hadn't even asked yet!
"Sulan, take her outside to calm down!" Qingyan was frustrated, and without saying another word, she burst into tears...
"Master, my mother is still in those people's hands, please save her!" the girl said hurriedly, rushing to Yin's feet.
"Wait a minute," Qingyan's face darkened. Outsiders only said that the master had connections with the royal family, not that it was run by a prince. "Who brought her in?"
As soon as the words were spoken, the girl couldn't help but shudder; the salt merchants hadn't mentioned that their master was a woman.
"Go and fetch the manager!" Yin noticed something was wrong. "Su Peisheng, bring Brother Qing's family over here too. Su Shu, you stay in the inner chamber and take care of Songkelierha. Erlu, you take some men and seal off the courtyard in a bit. Anyone who dares to peek out, detain them on the spot!"
Erunai was the head guard sent by Tulichen to Yin, and he always stayed by Yin's side.
“!” Erlu quickly agreed and went out to muster his troops to guard the entrance.
"Fourth Brother, the people at the inn shouldn't be the problem!" That girl must be being controlled by someone, otherwise, there wouldn't be such a problem.
Yin expressed his suspicion. The people in the inn seemed quite well-behaved, and he couldn't rule out the possibility that they were being controlled. It seemed a large-scale investigation was needed, which would take time. They had no choice but to trust the innkeeper. (To be continued. If you like this work, please vote for it on Qidian. Your support is my greatest motivation. Mobile users please go to m.qidian.com to read.)
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
