Wanyan Shi had stayed on the roof for a full two hours.
In the end, it was Yinzhen who personally came to plead with Ning Nuannuan. He stood at the courtyard gate for quite a while before finally gathering the courage to knock.
“Come in.”
Ning Nuannuan was seated at the table, flipping through the original owner’s dowry list that she had found in a jewelry box. The dowry was fairly substantial—after all, the Dong’e family had been a lineage of civil officials for generations, and they had to maintain appearances.
Yinzhen pushed the door open. Out of habit, he first glanced at her hands, making sure there was nothing nearby that could be crushed, before taking two steps forward.
“Madam.”
“Mm.”
“Wanyan Shi has been up there for two hours. The wind is quite strong…”
“I know.” Ning Nuannuan turned a page of the dowry list.
Yinzhen waited for a moment, but no further response came.
“Can… can she come down now?”
Ning Nuannuan looked up at him. This was probably the nth time today their gazes had met. Every time, he felt that there was something hidden in those eyes—not fierceness, but a kind of certainty he couldn’t see through.
“Xiao Jiuzi, are you worried about her?”
Yinzhen stiffened. “She is my secondary consort. If she falls ill from the cold, it becomes a matter for the household.”
Ning Nuannuan nodded, not dwelling on it. “She can come down. But from today onward, the monthly allowances and provisions for your secondary consorts, concubines, maidservants, and bedchamber attendants will all be redefined by me.”
Yinzhen froze for a moment.
“And also, the storeroom keys held by the head steward—hand them over to me today. All the account books for inner courtyard expenses, from the day I entered this residence, are to be brought here.”
“You want to look at the account books?” Yinzhen frowned.
“Not just look—I will audit them.” Ning Nuannuan set down the dowry list and lightly tapped her fingers on the table. “Your external businesses are yours—I won’t interfere. That’s your capability. But the household accounts belong under my control. That is the duty of the primary wife in the Great Qing. No one can object.”
Yinzhen opened his mouth.
She was right. According to the rules, it was only natural for the primary wife to manage the inner household. It was just that he had never married a proper wife before, so these matters had always been handled by the head steward, Zhang Dequan, with Wanyan Shi meddling quite a bit.
“You’re making such a big move right after arriving…”
Ning Nuannuan stood up and walked toward him.
Yinzhen instinctively stepped back half a step.
“I said it already—the outside affairs are yours, the inside affairs are mine. Just tell me if you agree.”
Yinzhen thought about the broken piece of zitan wood from last night, then about the chair that had flown onto the roof earlier today.
“…Fine.”
He turned and left. When he reached the door, he paused. “Then Wanyan Shi…”
“Have someone bring a ladder. And tell her—if she makes the same mistake again, it won’t be the side room next time, but the ridge of the main hall. There won’t be any place to put a chair up there.”
Yinzhen’s steps as he left were twice as fast as when he entered.
Half an hour later—
In the east wing of the main courtyard, account books were piled everywhere—on the table, on the floor, even on the windowsill.
The head steward, Zhang Dequan, personally escorted two young eunuchs to deliver them. There were twenty-eight volumes in total, covering all the expenditures of the Ninth Prince’s residence from the beginning of the year up to now.
Zhang Dequan was a lean man in his forties, with sharp features and restless, darting eyes. Having managed affairs in the residence for years, he had skimmed quite a bit for himself, maintaining smooth relations both above and below. Since Yinzhen didn’t concern himself with the inner household and Wanyan Shi was easy to manipulate, the storeroom keys had essentially become his private property.
Now, all these account books had been moved into the new primary wife’s room.
He felt uneasy.
“Madam.” Zhang Dequan bent at the waist, forcing a wrinkled smile that looked anything but genuine. “These accounts have all been recorded by this servant personally, clear and easy to understand. If Madam finds any part of the format unsatisfactory, I can have them recopied.”
Ning Nuannuan ignored his pleasantries.
She casually picked up one book and flipped to the first page.
Zhang Dequan stood beside her, his back bent like a shrimp. His peripheral vision kept darting toward the account book, trying to judge whether Ning Nuannuan could actually understand it.
This Madam came from the Dong’e family, a scholarly lineage. But he had inquired—this young lady hadn’t studied much at home, spending her days wielding blades and sticks. Of course, that was his own embellishment; the original description was simply “rough in temperament.”
A woman with a rough temperament—could she really understand account books?
Ning Nuannuan flipped through the pages one by one.
In her previous life, beyond combat, she relied on her foundation as a master’s graduate in economics. She had conducted financial audits for international security companies and followed UN observation teams in Africa to investigate warlords’ underground financial networks. Compared to those, the accounts in front of her—written in traditional vertical script—were a hundred times simpler.
The Ninth Prince’s residence used the old four-column bookkeeping method: previous balance, new income, expenditures, and actual balance. Two lines of inflow and outflow—it looked proper, but in reality, it was riddled with loopholes everywhere.
Ning Nuannuan flipped to the March expenditures, her fingertip pausing.
“Steward Zhang.”
“Your servant is here.”
“March 12. Purchased four jin of tribute Longjing tea, eighty taels of silver.”
Zhang Dequan’s eyelid twitched.
“Is that figure correct?”
“It is, Consort. Tribute Longjing is expensive—twenty taels per jin is the market price.”
Without looking up, Ning Nuannuan said, “The tribute Longjing released by the palace is priced by the Imperial Household Department at twelve taels per jin. Which market did you buy yours from?”
Zhang Dequan opened his mouth, unable to respond for a moment.
Ning Nuannuan flipped to the next page. “March 20. Repairs to the garden rockery and waterside pavilion, two hundred sixty taels.” She lifted her gaze. “The Ninth Prince’s residence follows the rank of a Beizi. There are only three pavilions in total. Even if you tore them all down and rebuilt them, materials and labor would cap at one hundred fifty taels. What did two hundred sixty taels repair? Did you gild the rockery with gold leaf?”
Sweat began forming on Zhang Dequan’s forehead.
Ning Nuannuan didn’t give him time to breathe, flipping through five or six more pages.
“April 8. Purchased ten bolts of top-grade Shu brocade, three hundred taels. Same day, purchased six Suzhou-embroidered bed curtains, one hundred eighty taels. May 15. Purchased two boxes of South Sea pearls, five hundred taels. June 3…”
She read them one by one, not quickly, but every number carried weight as it landed.
Sweat trickled from Zhang Dequan’s forehead down to his chin. His back was already soaked through.
Ning Nuannuan closed the ledger and set it on the table.
“Steward Zhang, how long have you been managing affairs in this residence?”
“Re… replying to Consort, four years.”
“Four years.” Ning Nuannuan repeated, her fingers brushing over the ledger’s cover. “From just the three months I reviewed, the discrepancies already amount to about twelve hundred taels. Four years, twenty-eight ledgers—what number do you think I’ll get when I finish them all?”
Zhang Dequan’s knees began to weaken.
Ning Nuannuan slapped the ledger onto the table. The sound wasn’t loud, but Zhang Dequan’s body trembled.
“I’ll give you two days. Go back and prepare a clear breakdown. Which expenses are legitimate, and which were your own doing—write them in two columns. I don’t want vague figures or ambiguous explanations.”
“Consort—” Zhang Dequan dropped to his knees with a thud.
“Don’t rush to kneel.” Ning Nuannuan cut him off. “I’m not finished. In two days, bring me clear accounts, and we can talk. But if you try to fool me—”
She picked up the bronze paperweight on the table. It was a solid piece of brass, palm-sized, weighing at least three or four jin.
Her five fingers tightened.
The bronze paperweight deformed in her hand like dough, crushed into a lump.
“Then I’ll use your bones as abacus beads.”
Ning Nuannuan tossed the lump of metal in front of Zhang Dequan.
The misshapen chunk rolled twice across the floor tiles before stopping beside his knees.
Zhang Dequan stared at it, beads of sweat dripping onto the floor.
“Your servant… understands.”
“Go.”
Zhang Dequan scrambled up and retreated, bent over. As he stepped over the threshold, he stumbled, nearly falling.
After the door closed, Ning Nuannuan returned to the table and picked up another ledger to continue reading.
Outside, the sun had already begun to set. After Wanyan had been taken down from the roof, it was said she was immediately helped back to her courtyard by Caiyue. A physician stayed inside for half an hour before coming out, saying she needed rest. The entire side courtyard remained silent all afternoon—not even a sparrow’s chirp could be heard.
Ning Nuannuan flipped through the ledgers one by one.
The more she read, the deeper her frown became.
This Zhang Dequan… had far more than ordinary audacity.