A maidservant from the Lin family, dressed in her underclothes, ran back to the Marquis of Xuanping’s residence, drawing the attention of many citizens along the way.
The Imperial City is not a place where secrets can be kept. Soon, the citizens of the Imperial City learned that someone shamelessly arrived at the Ji family’s gate adorned in garish colors, only to be stripped bare by the eldest daughter of the Ji family and unceremoniously thrown out of the mansion naked.
Lin Zhuo, the Minister of the Court of Imperial Sacrifices, who always doted on his daughter, bought her favorite pastries and personally delivered them to the Marquis of Xuanping’s residence. He heard about the incident halfway and marveled, wondering who had been struck in the head by a door panel to provoke the Ji family at this time. Su Dan Novel Network.
The eldest daughter of the Ji family, who had once forced the Ji family women to kneel at the palace gates and become famous, challenged anyone to provoke such a woman who dared to question and refute imperial authority. Was she not struck in the head?
Although the Jin family married a daughter from the Lin family, intending to curry favor with the Lin family and consolidate their own position, as a married daughter, it was not appropriate for her father to enter directly. Upon hearing that her father had arrived, Lin Pengpeng personally came out of the Jin family residence and stood on the steps to greet him.
However, before father and daughter could exchange a word, they saw a naked figure rushing towards them.
"Miss, the eldest daughter of the Ji family is simply a fierce beast! Not only did she strip this servant’s clothes, but she also expelled this servant from the door in front of everyone!"
Lin Zhuo, who was walking towards the carriage, was stunned.
So the person whose head was struck by a door panel was his own daughter?
Lin Pengpeng also did not expect things to escalate to this point. She merely intended for someone to give the Ji family a show of force, but how could the Ji family dare…
Lin Zhuo looked at his foolish daughter with disappointment, realizing that the eldest daughter of the Ji family was someone who did not flinch even before the Emperor. What else would she dare not do?
"Father, my daughter…"
"You must fend for yourself."
Lin Zhuo thought of the Fifth Prince currently at the Ji family’s residence and was plagued by a headache. He had no time to bother with his foolish daughter. He quickly ordered the coachman to drive to the Ji family, already contemplating how to apologize.
Lin Pengpeng’s eyes welled up with tears of grievance. She forced herself to turn and entered the mansion.
She hurried to her courtyard and only then learned the full story from her maidservant.
When she learned that the Ji family had given her a considerable sum of money, she stopped abruptly.
"You said the Ji family gave you money?"
The maidservant dared not hide it and quickly brought out the banknotes, "They are all here."
Lin Pengpeng took them and saw that it was several hundred taels, which was enough for the Lin family’s living expenses for nearly half a year!
Although she hated the Ji family for their audacity, Lin Pengpeng also knew that the Jin family’s apothecary had lost a lot of money due to the overstocking of medicinal herbs. If she gave all this money to her husband, she would surely be able to crush that old woman from the Ji family again.
With this thought, Lin Pengpeng wiped away her tears and walked directly towards the accounting office.
A few hundred taels of silver might have been insignificant to the Jin family in the past, but for the current Jin family, which only saw expenses and no income, it was a considerable amount.
Jin Qianyu embraced Lin Pengpeng and kissed her several times, even vowing to spend the entire month with her.
Meanwhile, Ji Ruyun, who was waiting for news in her own courtyard, almost fainted upon hearing this.
She had deliberately provoked Lin Pengpeng and put on a show of the Ji family being targeted, hoping that Lin Pengpeng would cause trouble at the Ji family, and then the Ji family would step in to enhance her reputation.
But the result…
The Ji family actually gave Lin Pengpeng money?
How could Ji Ruyun not be angry?
She was almost furious to death!
Jin Xueyan coldly watched her mother, who was stamping her feet in anger, "No wonder Father looks down on you. You are becoming more and more useless."
Ji Ruyun knitted her brows and glared angrily, "How dare you! I am your mother!"
Jin Xueyan coldly got up and walked out, "I do not have a useless mother like you."
Ji Ruyun’s vision went black, and she truly fell ill from anger.
But no matter how she lay on her sickbed, wishing for death, Jin Xueyan did not visit, and Jin Qianyu was instead enjoying himself with Lin Pengpeng, not even asking after her.
A few hundred taels of silver was not something Jin Qianyu dared to spend carelessly. The apothecary was constantly losing money, and if he didn’t think of a solution soon, his father would repossess the property deed. In fact, he already had a way to make the apothecary profitable, but he lacked the funds.
Just as Jin Qianyu was worrying about how to make money, Chen Gang came to visit.
Chen Gang’s purpose was simple. As a physician, he could not bear to see medicinal herbs go to waste, so he intended to purchase all the Huangqi from the Jin family’s shop, but the price was only forty percent of the market price.
This meant that if he sold it at the original purchase price, he would still lose five hundred taels.
Jin Qianyu was almost furious upon hearing this.
Was this a business transaction or daylight robbery?
Chen Gang sat calmly in his chair, drinking tea, giving Jin Qianyu no opportunity to negotiate.
Either sell it or don’t sell it. Give him a quick answer.
Jin Qianyu, "…"
It was heartbreaking.
Chen Gang looked at Jin Qianyu’s pained expression and felt some sympathy, but he was simply targeted by his own master.
Therefore, it wasn’t that he wouldn’t bargain, but that his master had set the price firmly.
Jin Qianyu and Chen Gang stared at each other. In the end, Jin Qianyu lost completely. With the feeling of visiting a grave, he nodded and signed the agreement, selling all the Huangqi in the warehouse at a price six percent below the market rate.
Fortunately, he still had the several hundred taels he had obtained for free from the Ji family, so in the end, the loss was not too severe.
Jin Qianyu, who could only comfort himself, had no idea that everything had fallen into Ji Zizhao’s hands from the moment the maidservant returned to the Jin family with the banknotes.
As winter approached, the manpower and resources required for freight transport were twice that of summer.
The Jin family apothecary had stockpiled all the Huangqi in the Imperial City. Although Huangqi was not valuable, its uses were extensive.
In previous years, before autumn, the four major medical halls would spend manpower and resources to specifically stock up on Huangqi to meet the demand for the entire winter. Now, with the transfer from the Jin family, the four major medical halls had saved even these expenses.
If calculated carefully, Ji Zizhao alone had earned a fortune from these Huangqi.
Three days after the burial of the Ji family men, the Emperor ordered a thorough investigation into the defeat at Luoyi, handing the case over to the Ministry of Justice.
Upon learning the news, Ji Zizhao leaked the information about the confrontation with the wives of the Zhao and Sun families that day. By that evening, Grand Tutor Zhao and the Left Deputy Censor-in-Chief were thrown into prison, along with the thousand soldiers who had returned to the Imperial City with the Second Prince, all imprisoned in the Ministry of Justice.
For a time, the city was abuzz with rumors and undercurrents.
Ministers who had once considered supporting the Second Prince, or had even secretly assisted him, were all in a state of panic.
Ji Zizhao, who had been playing a game of pretense with the Fifth Prince every day, finally caught a glimpse of panic on the Fifth Prince’s face. Ji Zizhao understood that the person holding evidence against the Fifth Prince was among those imprisoned in the Ministry of Justice.