Black Lotus Concubine's Case-solving Notes

In the evening, Li Fu, the teacher hired by Xie Qian for Feng Jia, came out of Jiu Niang's apricot garden and was about to go home, but he saw Prime Minister Xie in a red robe standing outside the corridor not far away, so he immediately went up to pay his respects.

"My little Jiu is born dull, Mr. Li has worked hard these days."

Li Fu wiped the sweat off his head, bowed and said, "Prime Minister, you are too modest."

He went home and looked through several ancient books before he found a way to crack the exquisite chess game yesterday. Today he was full of confidence and wanted to redeem the face he had lost yesterday, but who knew that the Ninth Girl was so decisive and killed him after only a dozen moves. She defeated him and made him lose all his weapons and retreat repeatedly.

He thought to himself, if Xie Lanzhao is still called stupid, then he can be called an idiot!

Thinking of this, Li Fu said, "The Ninth Miss is not only very intelligent, but also has a rare perseverance in studying hard. What I said yesterday, the Ninth Miss could repeat it word for word the next day, and she had unique insights. She was a little clumsy when she first learned to play the piano, but after a few nights, she could play according to the music score. The same is true for calligraphy and painting. It can be seen that the Ninth Miss is studying hard, not to mention chess."

Li Fu took out his handkerchief and wiped the sweat on his nose. His face flushed as he said, "To be honest with you, Prime Minister, I played a game of chess with Miss Nine a few days ago. I won at that time, and although I won again later, it was a narrow victory. Yesterday, Miss Nine and I played another game. To be honest, I lost. Today, it was a draw. We each lost five pieces. But I can see that Miss Nine was deliberately letting me win. Prime Minister, do you know what this means?"

Li Fu's eyes lit up: "This means that Miss Nine can not only defeat me easily, but can also see through my next move, or even the next five moves, and then lose to me accurately..."

Her style of chess reminded Li Fu of someone, the former Minister of Dali Temple Feng Guo.

When the national player of Li Dynasty challenged Feng Guo, Feng Guo accepted the challenge on behalf of Dali. Li Fu was fortunate enough to have seen that game of chess. At that time, Feng Guo also went straight to the point and killed the opponent without leaving a single piece of armor.

Xie Qian was slightly surprised. He had thought that Xie Lanzhao was powerful, but he had never thought she was so powerful.

Li Fu sincerely said, "I think after a while, I am afraid that I will not be able to teach Miss Nine with my limited knowledge. Prime Minister, you should make plans early and send her to a private school."

Xie Qian originally wanted to send Xie Lanzhao to Gu's private school, but he was afraid that she would make a fool of herself and lose face for the Prime Minister's Mansion, so he asked Li Fu to help her cram some knowledge before sending her there.

"I'll consider it," Xie Qian said, "Actually, I'm waiting for you here today for another matter."

Li Fu nodded: "Prime Minister, please go ahead."

Xie Qian got straight to the point: "I heard from Xiaojiu that Mr. Li taught her how to manage accounts yesterday?"

Li Fu's eyes twitched slightly, and he was about to kneel down: "My lord, you only want me to teach you the arts of music, chess, calligraphy and painting, but yesterday Miss Nine happened to talk about the drought in Yangcheng, and I was inspired to discuss a few words about taxes and laws with Miss Nine... I was wrong yesterday, please punish me, my lord!"

Xie Qian was a suspicious person by nature. He did not think there was anything wrong when Xie Lanzhao checked the accounts last night. However, the more he thought about it that night, the more he felt something was wrong. It was too coincidental.

It just so happened that she saw the account book, and it just so happened that Mr. Li had taught her that day.

Xie Qian had just asked this question, but seeing Li Fu's reaction, most of his doubts disappeared. He smiled and said, "Mr. Li, there is no need to be so. I don't mean to blame you. On the contrary, I am very surprised to know that you are not only proficient in poetry and books, but also know tax laws like the back of your hand. I happen to have an account book here, and I would like to ask you to take a look."

Naturally, the household accounts of the Xie family could not be taken out. This copy was a few pages that Xie Qian asked the servant to copy down.

Li Fu took the account book and flipped through it, then frowned and said the same thing as Feng Jia said last night, but added at the end: "This account book is very problematic, because the government will check the account book before collecting taxes and stamp it with the official seal. The tax amount has such a large deviation, it is impossible for the government not to find it, so I conclude that the seal is fake, and this is also a fake account."

Xie Qian clenched his fists tightly, but his expression remained unchanged. After a while, he said, "Please keep today's matter confidential, old man."

Li Fu was not stupid. He immediately realized something and lowered his head quickly: "Prime Minister, rest assured, I will keep my mouth shut."

After Li Fu left, Xie Qian waited in the study. At midnight, a servant came hurriedly and handed over something in his hand: "This is the account book of several fields and houses in the suburbs of Beijing. Please take a look, sir."

Xie Qian opened the account book and compared it one by one with the ones in the mansion, and instantly became furious.

He slammed the table and shouted, "Spread my words! Bring that son of a bitch Meng Yu up here!"

……

"I heard that Manager Meng falsified accounts and embezzled tens of thousands of taels of silver from the mansion. When the master found out, he beat him to death!"

"Oh my god, tens of thousands of taels! I have never seen so much money in my life! How dare Manager Meng!"

"This Manager Meng was brought back by the Madam from her natal family. Could it be that..."

"Hush! How dare you say such things! I think you are tired of living!"

In the apricot garden, Feng Jia was peeling lychees in the yard. Qing Shu frowned and looked outside the yard: "Miss, do you want me to teach these chattering girls a lesson?"

Feng Jia smiled and said, "Why teach me a lesson? Don't you think it's fun to eavesdrop like this?"

Qingshu said: "But I never thought that Manager Meng, who looks honest and upright on weekdays, would be so bold!"

"It's not that he is brave, it's that Meng is brave."

Qingshu was stunned: "Miss, what you mean is, is it really as those girls said, that the Madam ordered Butler Meng to make this false account? And these tens of thousands of taels of silver also went into the Madam's pocket?"

Feng Jia said calmly, "If not, why did the Madam kneel in the ancestral hall as punishment?"

Qingshu suddenly realized that it was probably to save face for the eldest lady that the Prime Minister put all the blame on Butler Meng and sentenced him to death.

In fact, Feng Jia had noticed that Meng had a secret fund in her previous life, but at that time she was only thinking about how to be a good daughter-in-law of the Xie family. She had nothing but respect for her mother-in-law, so she did not investigate it in detail.

In this life, Feng Jia learned that the housekeeper's surname was also Meng, and that he was brought here from Meng's mother's family. Once she made the connection, she knew the whole story.

There is no one in this world who is not greedy, let alone people like Meng.

"What a pity! Even after such a big incident, the eldest lady hasn't been severely punished yet." Qingshu sighed.

Feng Jia's face did not show much disappointment: "I said, Meng family is like a hundred-year-old tree. It's not that easy to uproot her, but removing her wings will be enough to hurt her for a while."

As he was speaking, there was a slight sound above his head.

Feng Jia looked up and saw Shen Jing, dressed in white, holding a willow branch in his mouth and sitting on the wall of the yard, swinging his legs leisurely.

Qingshu left tactfully. Feng Jia frowned slightly and said, "Young General, you keep climbing the wall of my apricot garden. If someone sees you, will I still have a good reputation?"

"I don't think you care about your reputation." Shen Jing glanced at the fruit shells on the table and was stunned for a moment, "You like to eat lychees too?"

Feng Jia naturally liked it, but she still pretended to ask: "Does anyone else like to eat it?"

Shen Jing's eyes dimmed for a moment, and he didn't speak for a long time. He remembered that a long time ago, after knowing that person loved lychees very much, he was also young and frivolous, and walked all over the streets and alleys to look for them, just to pick out the biggest and most popular ones and send them to her house.

Later, he felt that the ones he bought outside were not to his liking, so he asked someone to buy dozens of lychee seedlings and planted them himself on the back mountain of the general's mansion. However, before the lychees were ripe, the man had died.

"What on earth are you doing here today?"

Shen Jing came back to his senses, and he looked lazy again, even yawning with his hands covering his mouth. "The war situation at the border is tense, I have asked the emperor for an order to lead the troops. The army will set out tomorrow, and the return date is uncertain. I came to say goodbye to you today when I had some free time."

Feng Jia was stunned. Shen Jing was going to the battle?