BVAHEDLA[W Chapter 45

Chapter 45: Ancient Times 19 – The Account Book

Chapter 45: Ancient Times 19 – The Account Book

On the road.

The carriage moved quickly, inevitably bumpy. However, Chu Li-fei and Lu Mo-chen were anxious to get to the Qi residence, so they temporarily endured the uncomfortable feeling.

Lu Mo-chen carefully lifted a corner of the carriage curtain, the street scenery receding quickly like a tide.

He recalled the question he asked Cheng Yuan before leaving the Wang residence.

“Don’t you hate me?” Lu Mo-chen frowned slightly, his eyes flickering. As he brushed past Cheng Yuan, he couldn’t help but stop and ask the question that had been bothering him for a long time: “I caused mother’s difficult labor and death. Don’t you hate me?”

Instead, Cheng Yuan, who was standing in front of him, smiled upon hearing this.

Her expression was always gentle when she mentioned her older sister.

She shook her head, looking intently at Lu Mo-chen. After a moment, a bright smile appeared on her lips, and she actually chuckled: “You don’t understand sister.”

“Sister seems gentle, but she’s probably more stubborn than me at heart. She wouldn’t do something she didn’t want to do, even if it meant death.”

“So, your birth must have been sister’s decision. Since it was sister’s decision, I won’t object.”

“Sister hoped you would be born, so I won’t hate you.”

Lu Mo-chen pondered Cheng Yuan’s words, his mind suddenly blank.

She hoped he would be born…?

In two lifetimes, this was the first time he had learned that his birth had been anticipated.

Everyone said he brought death to his mother and was disliked by Lu Yuan-jing, believing his birth was a mistake.

Now he knew that things weren’t like that.

Lu Mo-chen’s nose tingled, and he almost couldn’t stop the tears from falling. He took a deep breath, the corners of his eyes still slightly red.

He met Chu Li-fei’s concerned gaze, shook his head, and his eyes curved into a smile: “It’s nothing. I just figured some things out.”

Chu Li-fei looked at Lu Mo-chen, the young man’s eyes were clean and warm, like sunshine.

After confirming that Lu Mo-chen was really okay, Chu Li-fei felt relieved. He turned his head to look at the scenery outside the window, estimating the distance from the Qi residence in his heart: “Pack yourself up, we’re almost there.”

At the entrance of the Qi residence, Chu Li-fei and Lu Mo-chen’s carriage had just arrived when Qian Ming’s carriage stopped at the intersection.

The three got out of the carriage, and Chu Li-fei realized that Qian Ming’s forehead was sweating, as if he had rushed over in a hurry.

Chu Li-fei raised his eyebrows in surprise. Logically speaking, the distance from the Qin Wang residence and the Yamen to the Qi residence was about the same. Moreover, Qian Ming had sent someone to tell him the news that the Old Madam Qi was dying. Qian Ming should have arrived first.

Why was he not only a step behind them now but also so rushed?

Could it be that something happened on the way?

Before Chu Li-fei could ask, Qian Ming quickly caught up from behind them and apologized, “Letting the Wangye and the Fourth Prince wait for so long, please forgive the Wangye and the Fourth Prince.”

Chu Li-fei shook his head, indicating that it was okay: “Did something happen to Qian-daren on the way?”

Qian Ming shook his head to deny it and continued to explain: “No. The reason why this official is late is because of the case.”

“Yesterday, the Wangye and the Fourth Prince went to the Cheng residence to investigate. This official naturally couldn’t be idle. So, I re-organized the files of the Cheng residence and Qi residence cases and compared them carefully.”

“Yesterday, this official just felt that there seemed to be something strange in it, but there was only this vague feeling in my mind, and I couldn’t figure out the key point. Until late at night—”

“Before going to bed, this official suddenly had a whim and wanted to look at the Qi residence’s account book to see if I could find some new ideas from it. As a result, I found something wrong.”

It turned out that after Qian Ming left the Qi residence the day before yesterday afternoon, he ordered someone to bring over the Qi residence’s account book that night, thinking that if he couldn’t find anything from other places, he would start from here. As a result, he didn’t expect to find something wrong.

“After this official checked all the expenses and income of the Qi residence in the past few years, I found that starting half a year ago, the Qi residence had a large amount of extra expenses every month, and the amount was not small.”

When Qian Ming said this, there was a bit of solemnity in his eyes: “And each of these expenses is marked as coming from a place called Rainbow Light Pavilion.”

“Rainbow Light Pavilion? Isn’t that an auction house in the suburbs of the capital?” Lu Mo-chen exclaimed in surprise when he heard this.

In his previous life, after he ascended the throne, when he attacked the remnants of the former crown prince Lu Mo-lin, he discovered that they also had a stronghold called Rainbow Light Pavilion.

On the surface, this Rainbow Light Pavilion was an unremarkable auction house in the suburbs of the capital. But after destroying it and obtaining the account book and list of personnel of the Rainbow Light Pavilion, Lu Mo-chen realized that this small auction house was actually full of hidden dragons and crouching tigers, involving a wide range of people.

Nearly half of the officials in the court had actually been here, and more or less had auctioned some things back, and the prices of each piece were extremely expensive.

Lu Mo-chen couldn’t figure it out until he turned the account book page by page, and then he gradually realized something was wrong. These officials spent a lot of money, but what they bought back were all unheard-of calligraphy, paintings, porcelain, and other things, or they were fakes.

This Rainbow Light Pavilion was not open on weekdays, but when it opened for business, the turnover on a single day was as high as hundreds of thousands of taels of silver, which was really frightening.

Lu Mo-chen then realized how Lu Mo-lin and the forces behind him were able to make so much money, and also knew where the money in their pockets came from. It turned out that they were doing some shady business.

Following this list, Lu Mo-chen found that each of them had embezzled a lot of silver, either plundering the people’s wealth, or embezzling the court’s military pay and relief grain, and then exploiting them layer by layer, causing officials who did not collude with them to be squeezed out, and the people suffered unspeakable hardships.

And these silvers eventually flowed into the Rainbow Light Pavilion. Those officials who bought the auctioned items were also promoted step by step.

Lu Mo-chen was furious. Later, he beheaded all the officials involved and hung them on the city gate to show the public.

Lu Mo-chen was still very angry when he thought of this.

Hearing Qian Ming say this, he was even more certain that Qi Fu must have colluded with Lu Mo-lin.

Qian Ming didn’t expect that Lu Mo-chen, who had been living in the deep palace for a long time, actually knew something about the Rainbow Light Pavilion. He was a little surprised and couldn’t help but cast an admiring look at him, looking at him with a serious expression: “As the Fourth Prince said. This Rainbow Light Pavilion is an auction house in the suburbs of the capital. So, when I saw that the account book was wrong last night, I ordered people to hurry up and investigate what exactly Qi Fu auctioned back.”

“This morning, I just received the letter, but I didn’t expect to hear the people below report that the Old Madam Qi was dying. Just when your servant hadn’t left, Wangye, I asked him to bring the news back to you. Then I opened the letter I received this morning. The content inside was really too surprising, so this official re-compared it with the account book, and the result was so engrossed that I forgot the time, so I was late.”

Qian Ming bowed his hands and apologized again after speaking.

Chu Li-fei and Lu Mo-chen both knew Qian Ming’s character and didn’t find it strange that he could do such a thing. Besides, he didn’t miss the time, it wasn’t a big deal, so there was no need to care.

Chu Li-fei: “What exactly is it that makes Qian-daren so shocked?”

Qian Ming: “This official found that what Qi Fu bought were all jade bracelets, ruby ​​headwear, and the like.”

“They’re all… jewelry that women would use.”

The three looked at each other, and they saw suspicion in each other’s eyes.

Judging from the story about Lu Ying that Feng Rao told that day, Qi Fu didn’t care much about his wife. In the meeting with Lu Ying in the courtyard, they didn’t find anything valuable on Lu Ying, even the clothes she was wearing were the clothes that the daughters of seventh or eighth rank officials would wear, which was not rare.

As for being valuable, there was no need to think about it.

Then what did Qi Fu buy these things for at such a high price?

Moreover… Although Qi Lu inherited the title of Marquis, his ancestors did not have much savings, so he was not considered rich, let alone afford Qi Fu’s consumption.

So where did Qi Fu get so much money?

After knowing what Rainbow Light Pavilion did, Lu Mo-chen naturally knew that Qi Fu and Lu Mo-lin colluded in secret and acted as accomplices.

But when did they start contacting each other?

Chu Li-fei, who was on the side, was still thinking about the source of Qi Fu’s money. He spread out all the clues he had mastered in his mind, connecting them one by one.

Suddenly, he thought of it.

Chu Li-fei’s eyes were like torches, and he said to Lu Mo-chen and Qian Ming word by word: “Do you remember when Lu Ying’s parents had an accident?”

Lu Mo-chen searched for relevant memories in his mind: “I remember…”

“It’s… nine months ago!”

“May of last year!”

Lu Mo-chen and Qian Ming said the answer one after another, and at the same time, they all discovered the key to the problem.

Nine months ago, that is, in May, was the day Lu Ying’s parents drowned at sea.

Lu Ying’s grandparents passed away early, and there were no other relatives in the family, so Qi residence came forward to take care of all the funeral affairs.

And the belongings belonging to Lu’s father and Lu’s mother were brought back together and sent to Lu Ying, including the huge amount of property and countless shops, and so on.

But after the women of the current dynasty get married, they are not allowed to show their faces, so those shops actually fell into Qi Fu’s hands in the end and were managed by him. Lu Ying only looked at the account books at most.

In this way, even if Lu Ying was dissatisfied, but her parents passed away, and she had no one else to rely on, she was naturally powerless.

Presumably, Qi Fu has been using the inheritance of Lu Ying’s parents for his expenses in the past few months.

After thinking clearly, Qian Ming spat to the side, despising Qi Fu’s behavior.

Chu Li-fei and Lu Mo-chen also took the opportunity to tell Qian Ming about their findings at the Cheng residence yesterday and their speculations, only hiding the matter of Cheng Yuan.

After all, the authenticity of what Cheng Yuan said remains to be verified.

Besides, even if what she said is true, but without other evidence, how can people believe it?

After sharing the clues, they prepared to enter the Qi residence to see the Old Madam’s situation.

The three continued to walk forward, this time they didn’t meet the suddenly appearing Lu Ying.

Last time, she was hiding behind the rockery, what was she planning?

Just staring at them like that, if it was at night, it would be scary.

Chu Li-fei couldn’t help but laugh at himself when he thought that he was almost frightened by Lu Ying that day.

But in the next instant, his face changed.

Chu Li-fei stopped, and the words Feng Shangshu said flashed through his mind.