Chapter 234 Li Wan Wants to Be the Dean
"In my opinion, the eldest madam doesn't have the idea of managing the household, but it's hard to say whether her family members don't. You are the sister-in-law, and Feng'er is the sister-in-law. According to the order of seniority, it is only right for the eldest madam to manage the household. However, considering the difficulty the eldest madam has faced in raising her young son alone, Feng'er has worked hard for her these past few years. Now that Lan'er has grown up, the eldest madam should take over the management of the household, so that Feng'er can have some peace of mind."
Upon hearing this, Li Wan's face turned deathly pale. She hurriedly waved her hand and said, "Mr. Yuan, I really have no such intention, nor do I have the ability. Please, sister-in-law, go through the trouble... I suddenly remembered that I forgot to tell Lan-ge'er when I came here. I'm afraid he will be looking for me everywhere. I'll take my leave now."
After saying this, Li Wan grabbed Su Yun and fled in a disheveled manner, fearing that if she hesitated any longer, Wang Xifeng would grab her again and leave the household management to her.
Yuan Hongqu knew in her heart that Li Wan must have some ulterior motive, but she was frightened by the steward's incident today, and there might be more trouble in the future.
Wang Xifeng also sensed something was amiss and sent someone to Li Wan's residence to secretly inquire about the matter.
The servant, having received the order, quietly left.
“Li Wan has never stood out before. You said I became a third-rank Imperial Academy Chancellor and offended her, but she doesn’t seem like she’s here to confront me.” Yuan Hongqu was puzzled by the strange things Li Wan had just said.
“I think so too. It seems like she really has something to ask of you.” Wang Xifeng pondered for a moment. “Sister Yuan, I wonder if her change is related to cleaning up the messy accounts in the mansion?”
"So you've finally started cleaning up the mess in the Rongguo Mansion?" Yuan Hongqu teased. "It's been over a year, and you're only now finally willing to do it. That's quite an achievement."
Wang Xifeng was a little embarrassed. "Sister Yuan, it wasn't easy for me to swindle that little bit of money, but the people in this mansion spend money like water, without any sense of thrift. It hurt me so much that I finally decided to take action."
"Following your suggestions, I investigated and indeed found quite a few problems. There are thirty or forty servants drawing salaries without working; their monthly wages are collected by their respective courtyards and distributed by themselves. In recent years, there haven't been many servants leaving the manor; on the contrary, there have been quite a few new hires. And those who were demoted are still receiving their original wages. The first one I investigated was Su Yun from her quarters." Wang Xifeng's voice deepened.
“Su Yun was demoted to a third-class maid a few months ago, but she was still receiving the monthly salary of a first-class maid. I reduced it for her. She either has to hand over the extra months she received, or I will deduct it from her future monthly salary until it is depleted. As for the manager who handled her monthly salary, he was sent to the estate. She is just one of many servants like this over the years! They just keep fooling everyone.”
"Now, the monthly allowance is distributed the same way as yours. They all go to the accounting office to collect it themselves, and no one is allowed to do it for them. After they collect it and confirm that everything is correct, they put their fingerprints on it. Since there are many people in our family, the monthly allowance for the servants has been changed from one day to three days. As for the master's monthly allowance, Ping'er takes the people from the accounting office to deliver it... The accounts for the monthly allowance are now clear. There were more than thirty or forty people who hadn't come to collect their monthly allowance for three consecutive months. I had someone check according to the records, and found out that they had either passed away or died. We had paid a lot of extra money for nothing! Although the old lady was angry, in the end she said that she would let bygones be bygones and didn't investigate further. Now, we can save hundreds of taels of silver every month just from the monthly allowance."
"In addition, many duplicate and redundant items, as well as those that were seriously wasteful, were all canceled. This saved a lot of money... because the academy cut two taels of silver for duplicate charcoal snacks and two taels of silver for rouge and face powder. These were all closely related to the interests of the eldest mistress, and she had been resentful of me for days!"
Wang Xifeng's rectification this time can be considered quite forceful.
The top-level masters were basically unaffected and didn't care much about these meager gains. But Li Wan cared! She even advised Wang Xifeng twice, saying that they were a prominent family and shouldn't be fixated on such petty profits, and shouldn't be too harsh on their servants.
"Sister Yuan, do you know where the most people who embezzle salaries come from? It's also from the eldest mistress's courtyard!" Wang Xifeng sneered.
"When Brother Zhu went there, he sent away a lot of people, and some people were sent away, but the list was not crossed out. There were ten people in total! When these ten people went to roll call every day, it was impossible for hundreds of people to go all at once. They could just cover it up a little and get money. This kind of thing didn't require much effort. It was like getting money for free!"
"Did Li Wan take all the money?"
"That's right. She already receives double the monthly allowance, a full forty taels a month! Add to that the allowances for these ten people, and it adds up to about ten taels. This is just too disgusting." Wang Xifeng used to sympathize with Li Wan, but now she despises her even more.
"The old lady took pity on her and couldn't bear to scold her. She just said that from now on, she would no longer have double monthly allowances, and she would have to do the same things as everyone else... The old lady also secretly gave her a few antiques, which were worth several years' worth of her monthly allowance!"
"A person like this is the daughter of the Imperial Academy Chancellor. You can imagine what kind of person Chancellor Li is. Doesn't he care about misleading students?"
Wang Xifeng grumbled, she really had to get these words out, but Sister Yuan never gave her much time to talk, so this time it was rare that Sister Yuan was willing to listen to her rambling.
"You can't say that. Just because she is that kind of person doesn't mean her father is also a bad person. As far as I know, Li Jijiu is upright, honest, and extremely learned. We are even planning to invite him to give a lecture at the academy."
"Sister, I think it's unlikely. You should find out more before making a decision."
Yuan Hongqu's expression was solemn. In the academy, students would score candidates, and only those with the highest scores would be invited. Li Jijiu's score was quite high.
As the two were talking, the servant who had gone to gather information returned and reported to Wang Xifeng: "Second Madam, this servant saw that after the First Madam returned, she first hugged Jia Lan and cried, saying that she and her orphan were being bullied."
Wang Xifeng glanced at Yuan Hongqu, feeling quite helpless. "Originally, she was just using this trick secretly to gain benefits, but now she doesn't even pretend anymore."
"She's losing so much silver every month, what's she pretending for? She'll have to cry a couple of times to make herself noticed." Yuan Hongqu immediately guessed Li Wan's thoughts.
"The eldest mistress cried, saying that she and her son would have a hard time from now on. She also said that if the second mistress hadn't been so nosy, she would have been able to get the academy's management methods and ask for a job there in the future. With Li Jijiu's reputation, it would have been a piece of cake for her to become the next headmistress of the girls' academy..."
The two looked at each other in disbelief. Li Wan really dared to think that way!
"Pah! She doesn't even deserve it! You wait, sister, I'm going to skin her alive!"
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