Shopkeeper Zhou did not answer Ning Nuannuan’s question.
It wasn’t that he didn’t want to—it was that he didn’t know how.
The dozen or so bolts of top-grade Hangzhou silk in the storeroom were indeed not meant for the front counter. At the beginning of every month, someone from Concubine Su’s side would come to collect goods. The good fabrics were set aside, while inferior ones were displayed outside to make up the numbers. It had been this way for three years.
Ning Nuannuan didn’t wait for his answer.
She checked the account books and inventory in the storeroom. The ratio of good to inferior goods was roughly three to seven—thirty percent of the good stock had gone into Concubine Su’s private storage, while seventy percent of inferior goods were sold at high prices to customers.
“You run quite a creative business,” Ning Nuannuan said after finishing the last ledger, tossing it casually onto the table. “Passing off inferior goods as superior to profit from customers, and passing off the superior goods as tribute to curry favor with Concubine Su. Profiting from both ends.”
Shopkeeper Zhou stood in the corner of the storeroom, fine beads of sweat forming on his forehead.
“How much have you pocketed yourself?”
“I—I wouldn’t dare—”
“You would.” Ning Nuannuan pointed to a line in the ledger. “Last month you purchased fifty-three bolts, with recorded expenses of 320 taels. But your purchase invoice clearly shows this batch came through Hangzhou Wu’s channel. I checked Wu’s wholesale prices—top grade at 4.5 taels, mid-grade at 3 taels, and low-grade at 1.2 taels. Out of these fifty-three bolts, fifteen were top grade, twenty mid-grade, and eighteen low-grade—total cost, 159 taels.”
She didn’t use an abacus; the numbers rolled off her tongue.
“320 minus 159 leaves 161 taels. Subtract the sixty-seven taels’ worth of top-grade goods taken by Concubine Su, and you pocketed ninety-four taels. In one month—ninety-four taels.”
Shopkeeper Zhou’s knees bent.
He didn’t kneel—but they bent.
Ning Nuannuan tied the account books back together and tucked them under her arm.
“From today onward, this shop will have a new manager. The keys, seals, and your supplier contacts—all of them must be handed over clearly.”
“Madam, I—”
“Three days. Finish the handover within three days. After that, whether you stay or leave depends on your attitude.”
Ning Nuannuan left the storeroom with the account books. When she reached the front hall, the broken threshold still lay across the entrance, the two pieces of old elm wood leaning awkwardly. Passersby outside pointed and whispered.
She stepped over the broken threshold and got into the sedan.
Back at the Ninth Prince’s residence, Ning Nuannuan spread out the account books from both shops across the table in the east wing and began a full comparative analysis.
The deficit at the general store had already been identified—180 taels. The silk shop’s numbers were even larger. Over three years, Shopkeeper Zhou alone had pocketed at least 2,000 taels. Adding the good goods and silver siphoned off by Concubine Su, the total losses from the two shops exceeded 3,000 taels.
Three thousand taels.
Not a huge sum for the Ninth Prince’s residence. But for Ning Nuannuan, this was her startup capital in this era. Every tael had to be recovered.
She was calculating when He Yuzhu reported from outside, “Madam, Ninth Master has arrived.”
When Yinzhen pushed the door open, he was holding a bowl of bird’s nest porridge.
Ning Nuannuan looked up at him.
A prince personally delivering porridge—something about this scene felt off.
“What is it?”
Yinzhen set the porridge down on an empty corner of the table and stepped back, hands behind his back.
“I heard you went to the shops today.”
“You had someone follow me?”
“No.” Yinzhen coughed lightly. “Someone on Qianmen Street recognized the Ninth Prince’s residence token. The news reached a friend of mine in the fabric business, and he had someone inform me.”
The news spread quickly.
“Your shop’s threshold…” Yinzhen hesitated.
“What about it?”
“I heard it was kicked broken.”
“Mm.”
Yinzhen opened and closed his mouth a few times, then couldn’t hold back. “Couldn’t you just open the door properly?”
“The threshold was in the way.”
“…”
Yinzhen paced back and forth in the room. He was thinking about something.
Ning Nuannuan’s two dowry shops had been hollowed out—by her own family’s Concubine Su and the shop managers. For most people, this would have turned into a major family scandal. But Ning Nuannuan’s handling of it was simple and direct—check the accounts, take control, replace personnel. No tears, no complaints, not even informing him.
It gave him a strange feeling.
Logically, she was his primary wife. If her dowry had been embezzled, as her husband, he should step in to support her. It was both duty and face. Yet she hadn’t mentioned it to him at all. From beginning to end, she handled everything herself.
She didn’t need him.
That sense of being “unneeded” left Yinzhen feeling unsettled for most of the day.
“Your silk shop—who do you plan to put in charge?” he finally asked.
Ning Nuannuan glanced at him.
“You have someone in mind?”
Yinzhen pulled a sheet of paper from his sleeve and placed it on the table.
“A manager under me who handles fur trading—surname Li, named Li Maocai. He’s been in business for eight years, and his accounts have never had discrepancies. He also has a shipping line from Jiangnan to the capital, using canal guild boats, with transport costs twenty percent lower than the market.”
Ning Nuannuan picked up the paper. It contained Li Maocai’s background and business records. The handwriting was Yinzhen’s.
A recommendation letter written by him personally.
“When did you prepare this?”
“This afternoon.” Yinzhen curled his lips. “Don’t overthink it. I just don’t want the primary wife of my residence to be bullied by a mere shop manager. If word gets out, it’s the Ninth Prince’s residence that loses face.”
Ning Nuannuan folded the paper and tucked it into her sleeve.
“Fine. I’ll meet the person first. Whether they’re useful or not, we’ll see later.”
Yin Jiu gave a brief “Mm,” then stood there for a moment longer.
“The porridge won’t taste good once it gets cold.” He tossed out the remark and turned to leave.
Ning Nuannuan lowered her head to look at the bowl of bird’s nest porridge. The bowl was fine famille-rose porcelain, the porridge thick and fragrant with osmanthus.
She picked it up and took a sip.
The sweetness was just right.
The next day, something happened that Ning Nuannuan hadn’t expected.
Yin Jiu changed into dull gray cloth clothes, put on a melon-skin cap, and slipped out of the Ninth Prince’s residence with He Yuzhu.
He went to Qianmen Street.
Not to confront Ning Nuannuan’s silk shop—but to observe. Purely to see for himself what had become of it.
“Ruijinxiang” wasn’t hard to find. Its three-bay storefront was one of the more impressive façades on the street. Yin Jiu stood at a tea stall across the way, ordered a bowl of tea, and studied the shop through the flow of people.
The threshold had already been repaired—new wood, noticeably lighter in color than the old frame. Clearly a recent replacement.
“Shopkeeper, what’s the background of that silk shop?” Yin Jiu asked the tea stall owner.
The man was well-informed.
“Oh, that place used to belong to the Dong’e family. Later it became part of the dowry for the Ninth Prince’s principal consort. Business used to be decent, but in the past two years, regular customers have been coming less and less. The fabric quality isn’t what it used to be either.”
“How so?”
“In the past, Hangzhou silk from there could last two or three years as clothing. Now? After two washes, it starts fraying. The price hasn’t dropped, though.” The man cracked sunflower seeds. “Heard a woman came yesterday and kicked the threshold clean off. The whole street’s been talking about it—quite something.”
Yin Jiu’s hand trembled slightly as he held the tea bowl.
The whole street was talking about it.
An image flashed in his mind—Ning Nuannuan, dressed as the principal consort, kicking down a shop threshold in broad daylight while passersby watched.
Embarrassing.
Extremely embarrassing.
But then he thought deeper—what was truly disgraceful wasn’t the act itself, but selling inferior goods as quality merchandise. If such a shop were exposed, that would be real humiliation. This was property under the Ninth Prince’s principal consort—if its reputation soured, where would his dignity go?
Yin Jiu set down the tea bowl and walked toward the shop.
He didn’t reveal his identity. In plain clothes and cap, he looked like an ordinary traveling merchant. Inside, he pretended to browse, rubbing the so-called “premium Hangzhou silk” between his fingers.
Loose weave. Dull sheen. Rough texture.
Having handled countless furs and silks over the years, he could judge it with his eyes closed—mid-to-low grade at best, worth no more than three taels. The marked price: seven taels.
His heart sank.
He checked the patterned satin, flipping it over—
A blurred mess on the reverse.
Counterfeit.
Yin Jiu circled the shop, inspecting the main goods. When he returned to the tea stall, his expression had darkened.
He Yuzhu hovered beside him carefully.
“Master?”
Yin Jiu said nothing. He was calculating.
A three-bay shop on Qianmen Street cost at least sixty to seventy taels a year in rent. With such a prime location, selling quality goods honestly could yield five to six hundred taels in annual profit. Based on what Ning Nuannuan uncovered, over two thousand taels in three years had gone straight into Shopkeeper Zhou and Concubine Su’s pockets.
Over two thousand taels—his money.
No… Ning Nuannuan’s money. And hers was the Ninth Prince’s residence’s money. Which meant—it was his.
One conclusion inevitably surfaced—
He had been robbed.
And the one robbing him wasn’t an outsider, but his father-in-law’s concubine.
Yin Jiu slammed the tea bowl onto the table.
“Let’s go.”
“Master, where to?”
“Outside Chongwen Gate.”
When the mule cart arrived, Yin Jiu found the grocery store at the alley corner.
The “Guangju Store” signboard looked even worse than he had imagined—crooked characters like a child’s scribbles in mud. One door panel was missing, the window paper full of holes, and the baskets outside still held rotting vegetable scraps, their stench noticeable from afar.
Yin Jiu stopped at the alley entrance.
This was his consort’s shop.
The property under the principal wife of the Ninth Prince looked no better than a beggar’s shack.
He stepped inside.
Wang Dafu wasn’t there. After Ning Nuannuan took the ledgers and silver the day before, the man was likely too frightened to show himself. Only a young assistant of fourteen or fifteen remained, dozing against the wall.
Yin Jiu walked through the shop.
He examined each item—sesame oil was stale, darkened with visible sediment; the jars of soy sauce and vinegar weren’t sealed properly, flies circling around them; he picked up a pinch of the so-called “Lu’an Guapian” tea and smelled it.
Moldy.
Forget fine tea—this would probably brew into something like dishwater.
Yin Jiu’s breathing grew heavy.
He turned and left the shop, climbing back into the mule cart.
He Yuzhu drove in front, not daring to ask questions. But through a gap in the curtain, he caught a glimpse of Yin Jiu’s face—
The muscles in his cheeks were taut, his eyes fixed unblinking on the carriage roof.
This was the sign that the Ninth Prince was about to erupt in anger.