After Yin Jiu returned from outside Chongwen Gate, he didn’t leave the courtyard the entire afternoon.
He Yuzhu brought tea three times—he didn’t drink it. The charcoal brazier was changed twice—he said nothing. Even the myna bird in his favorite huanghuali cage chirped “Greetings, Ninth Prince” for quite a while, yet he ignored it.
By evening, he could no longer sit still.
He pulled out a stack of old account books from his study—records of his maritime trade dealings. He had never examined them carefully before. Whatever the shop managers reported, he accepted. As long as the total showed profit, that was enough.
But today, as he flipped through them, the more he read, the more uneasy he became.
He did a simple calculation.
The industries under the Ninth Prince’s name handled at least 150,000 taels of silver a year. Judging by Ning Nuannuan’s method of auditing—if even two or three “Manager Zhou–level” parasites were in the middle, how much money was being siphoned off from him each year without his knowledge?
Yin Jiu closed the ledger and rubbed his face with both hands.
Ning Nuannuan was right—he was excellent at making money, but terrible at keeping it.
Three days later.
The handover of the silk shop “Ruijinxiang” went more smoothly than expected.
Manager Zhou was, after all, a shrewd man. After Ning Nuannuan kicked the threshold apart, he had someone investigate the background of the Ninth Prince’s new primary consort that very night. The information he received was all over the place: some said she smashed a rosewood bed on her wedding night, some said she threw a secondary consort—chair and all—onto the roof, and others claimed she twisted the head off a stone lion at her family home.
Manager Zhou packed the 400 taels of silver he had secretly hidden at home into a box overnight and delivered it to the shop early the next morning.
During the handover, he placed the keys, seals, supplier contact list, and the box of silver neatly on the counter.
“Consort, in these past three years… I have indeed done wrong. This silver is all I can gather for now. For the remaining amount, I’m willing to write an IOU.”
Ning Nuannuan sat in a temporary meeting room converted from the backyard storage, checking each item one by one.
“Four hundred taels?”
“I still have a small courtyard house at home, worth two or three hundred taels—”
“No need,” Ning Nuannuan interrupted. “I’ve calculated what you took—around 2,300 taels. I’ll take these 400 first. As for the rest, I won’t make you repay it all at once.”
Manager Zhou was stunned.
“You’ve managed business on Qianmen Street for three years. You control the customer base and supplier connections. If I kick you out now and replace you with someone inexperienced, it’ll take at least three months to sort everything out.”
Manager Zhou caught the implication.
“Consort means… you want to keep me on?”
“Under conditions.” Ning Nuannuan counted on her fingers. “First, from today onward, I decide the supply channels. The Wu family wholesale line stays, but I’ll negotiate prices personally. You’re not allowed to inflate prices in between.”
“Second, the goods at the counter must match their quality and pricing. High-grade is high-grade, mid-grade is mid-grade. I don’t want to see inferior goods passed off as superior again.”
“Third, your monthly salary increases from three taels to five. At the end of the year, you’ll receive ten percent of the net profit as a bonus. If you do well, you’ll earn more than you ever could by skimming. If you don’t—”
She didn’t finish the sentence.
Manager Zhou didn’t need her to. The broken threshold had already been replaced, but the sound of that kick would stay with him for the rest of his life.
“This servant understands.”
Ning Nuannuan nodded. “There’s one more thing. If Concubine Su sends people to collect goods in the future, what will you do?”
Manager Zhou hesitated for two seconds.
Ning Nuannuan picked up the newly shaved brush handle from the table and spun it between her fingers. The bamboo shaft, pinched between two fingers, made a faint creaking sound as the fibers slowly bent under the pressure.
“I’ll refuse them directly!” Manager Zhou answered quickly.
“No need to refuse.” Ning Nuannuan released the brush handle. “If she sends people, let them come. Once they arrive, have them wait in the shop. Let them wait as long as they like—until they leave on their own.”
Manager Zhou pondered her words.
Brilliant.
No offense given, no request accepted—just let them hang. Concubine Su valued her reputation; she couldn’t possibly let her people sit in the silk shop from morning till night. Once or twice, maybe they could endure it, but after several times, they would naturally retreat.
As for the general store, the approach was even more straightforward.
Since Ning Nuannuan confiscated the account books and silver, Wang Dafu had not shown his face again. Ning Nuannuan sent Li Maocai, recommended by Yintang, to inspect the shop first.
Li Maocai was a short man in his early thirties, with a square face. He spoke little, but his eyes were sharp. He had managed the fur business under Yintang for eight years, building it from a small stall worth ten taels into a large shop with annual turnover exceeding ten thousand taels.
After making a round of the general store outside Chongwen Gate, he returned and wrote a report.
“Your Consortship, the location of this shop is good, but the product range is wrong. Outside Chongwen Gate is a hub for goods circulation—most traffic is wholesalers and transport workers. Selling oil, salt, sauce, and vinegar to retail customers is too limited in scope.”
“Your suggestion?”
“Change it.” Li Maocai spoke plainly. “There’s a lack of a reliable north-south dry goods wholesaler outside Chongwen Gate. I used to work routes with the canal trade and know some merchants from Liangguang dealing in dried goods—medicinal herbs, spices, dried seafood. These have huge profit margins in the north. The shop is small, but sufficient for transit and distribution.”
Ning Nuannuan flipped through his report. Product analysis, cost estimates, cash flow cycles—everything was clearly listed.
“How much starting capital do you need?”
“Three hundred taels will suffice. Two hundred taels for the first batch of goods, one hundred for renovations, shelving, and hiring staff.”
Ning Nuannuan took out the sixty taels recovered from Wang Dafu’s cabinet, added the four hundred taels returned by Manager Zhou, and allocated another hundred taels from her dowry funds to round it off.
“Five hundred sixty taels total. Three hundred for your startup capital. The extra two hundred sixty will be reserved as working funds. Accounts are to be reported every five days—directly to me.”
Li Maocai accepted the silver and stood to bow.
“I have one request.”
“Speak.”
“Can we change the shop’s signboard? The name ‘Guangju Shop’ is too rustic.”
Ning Nuannuan thought for a moment. “You decide. Just don’t make it too flashy.”
After Li Maocai left, Ning Nuannuan leaned back in her chair and rolled her shoulders.
The matters of the two shops were now temporarily sorted. The silk shop would maintain its original business model, but the major loopholes—passing off inferior goods and price padding—had been sealed. With the foot traffic on Qianmen Street and normal profit margins, earning four to five hundred taels a year would not be a problem.
The general store would be transformed into a wholesale business. The initial investment was higher, but Li Maocai was reliable. If his north-south dry goods network worked out, the investment would be recovered within six months, and profits would double within a year.
With the two shops and three hundred mu of farmland combined, the annual income would be around one thousand taels.
That was enough—at least enough to firmly establish a foothold in the Ninth Prince’s residence.