Women Wearing Men: The Growth Path of the Bastards of the Aristocratic Family

Hearing Gu Yunji's words, Xu Ziqi's face changed slightly, but soon returned to normal, and said with a smile: "Don't worry, niece and son-in-law, I will definitely restrain the children of the clan, so that they will not dare to do it again."

Gu Yunji nodded, smiled and said, "I feel relieved with my cousin's words. I still have official duties to attend to, so I'll take my leave first and come back to visit another day."

Seeing Gu Yunji's back gradually disappearing outside the door, Xu Ziqi smiled stiffly, feeling as if he had overlooked something.The more he thought about it, the more he felt something was wrong, so he asked the boy waiting on the side: "...When Gu Yunji first came in, what did Gu Yunji say he was here to do today?"

The boy watched the whole process and saw it clearly. He lowered his head and said cautiously, as if he was afraid that Xu Ziqi would get angry: "As soon as Mr. Gu came in, he said... I asked you to cherish your feathers and restrain the children of the clan not to do anything illegal." …Also, urge the Xu family to pay the fine in full as soon as possible.”

Xu Ziqi was stunned for a moment, and finally realized that he had been entangled by Gu Yunji. He immediately became furious: "What a Gu Yunji! He pretended to cry and be embarrassed in front of me. It was such a big show. One scene actually confused me!"

"He just asked us to pay a fine today, but he acted so hard that we burst into tears, as if he had made such an incredible concession, which made me feel a little bit guilty. As a result, he didn't say anything about whether it was possible to connect with Japan or not. It was so serious, he was just afraid that we wouldn’t pay the fine, so he acted like this for me!”

Xu Ziqi was so angry that he cursed in the room: "I think I, Xu Ziqi, am a very old man, but today I fell into Gu Yunji's trap and made such a big mistake on him! How did Xu Chengyu teach his disciples? This is He chose a good son-in-law, and he used all his plans on his own family!"

Just because the two families were related by marriage, the Xu family was so confident in this investigation of the Japanese merchants that the government did not dare to do anything to them.If Gu Yunji hadn't acted like this, it would be strange that Xu Ziqi would be willing to pay the fine.

The boy cursed silently in his heart, but did not dare to speak out his true feelings. Seeing that Xu Ziqi was very angry, he had to bite the bullet and asked: "Master, what should we do now? The fine...can we still pay it?"

"What else can I do! I've already said what I said, can I still regret it?" Xu Ziqi said angrily, "Of course, according to the requirements of taking care of Yunji, the fine should be handed over to the government office in full before noon today!"

Thinking of the fine of several thousand taels, the boy couldn't help but feel a little sad: "Master, that's several thousand taels of silver. Even if our Xu family is rich, we can't afford such a waste... Mr. Gu is the uncle of the Xu family after all, so he can Can’t you talk softly to him and reduce it a little if appropriate?”

Xu Ziqi's anger suddenly spiked again: "You look at Gu Yunji the way you do, are you someone who listens to soft words! Why don't you just pay him as much as he wants, and treat it as a clean deal after you pay him all at once, so that he won't talk about it in the future. Also, our family has never taken any responsibility for this matter. If we keep putting off the matter and Gu Yunji turns around and files the complaint to Xu Chengyu, he still doesn’t know which side he will stand on."

The inheritance of the eldest son is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. Even if Xu Chengyu does not live in Shaoxing Mansion permanently, he is the eldest son of Dafang after all, and he has retired from the position of chief minister of the cabinet, so he has a high prestige.Even though Xu Ziqi occupies the position of clan leader, as soon as Xu Chengyu comes back, he will have to step aside.

Thinking of Xu Chengyu, the boy shrank his head and did not dare to speak anymore.

Xu Ziqi took a deep breath: "The matter is now over. It's useless to talk more. Call the accountant. I have to see if I have enough cash at home to pay the fine."

"and also--"

Just as the boy was about to turn around and go out, Xu Ziqi stopped him again, threw the list of Japanese travelers into his arms, and suppressed his anger and said: "Call back all the people on this list immediately! Gao Shishu is outside. They are already on the same level as the imperial court, and they still dare to do business with him, because they don’t want their heads!”

"This time it caused my Xu family to bleed a lot. If I pay such a large sum of money as a fine, will it cause the entire Xu family to be confiscated and exiled next time? Let them kneel in the ancestral hall for two hours before they come back and think about themselves. Where did you go wrong? Come to me again for advice!"

"Yes!" The boy hurriedly caught the list thrown by Xu Ziqi, responded loudly, and then hurriedly ran out the door.

He was thinking about Xu Ziqi's order, fearing that he would be angry if something was not done properly. He was so anxious that he didn't pay much attention to the road in front of him, and accidentally bumped into someone head-on.

"Don't you have eyes when you walk?" The boy looked up and saw that it was Xu Shuchang, so he repeatedly handed over his hands to accuse him.

Xu Shuchang straightened his wrinkled clothes, looked at the young man, and said impatiently: "Are you from my uncle's side? When you work in front of the clan leader, you are so frizzy that you bump into people when you walk."

Hearing this, the young man apologized again and said: "Young Master Shuchang, please forgive me. I was really in a hurry to do something. I will be angry if it takes too long, so I accidentally bumped into you."

Xu Shuchang raised his eyebrows: "Why, uncle is in a bad mood? Who made him angry?"

The boy told the whole story about what happened, and said with a grimace: "Uncle Gu's words were harsh and soft at the same time, so that the master was forced to pay the fine. At this moment, the master was angry and couldn't let it go. I just need a reason to get angry, and I don’t want to be a punching bag.”

Seeing Xu Shuchang's posture, the boy seemed to be about to go find Xu Ziqi, so he kindly reminded him: "If Master Shuchang has nothing important to do, it's better not to get into trouble with the master. The master doesn't recognize people when he gets angry."

Xu Shuchang really planned to find Xu Ziqi.Last year, when Xu Chengyu learned that he was involved in gambling, he locked up his parents' inheritance to prevent him from squandering it. He also told the gambling houses in the city that they were not allowed to take Xu Shuchang to gamble, let alone give Xu Shuchang credit.

But gambling addiction is so easy to stop. Xu Shuchang couldn't find a gambling shop to take him in the capital, so he went to the county to find one, or he directly called three or five friends to play a few times in private.

However, his monthly money was so small that it could not support his kind of gambling. Xu Shuchang's money bag had been empty for a long time. Although the Xu family did not lack food and drink for him, they would not spend money specifically for him to go out and have fun.He then thought about trying it out with Xu Ziqi to see if he could get him a monthly salary increase.

But the boy was right. Xu Ziqi was in a bad mood at the moment. He might have only added fuel to the fire in the past.

Thinking like this, Xu Shuchang gave up the idea of ​​going to Xu Ziqi, and took a look at the list of servants. When he saw the fine of silver written on it, his eyes widened instantly: "3000 taels? Why so many? The government is so stupid It's the lion's mouth. Could it be that Gu Yunji wants to take advantage of this opportunity to make a profit on us?"

The boy said: "3000 taels seems to be a lot, but it also has a purpose. According to the government, it is calculated based on three times the fine. In other words, the fine is based on how much money you get from selling things to the Japanese pirates. If it triples, if you sell more, you’ll pay more, if you sell less, you’ll pay less, we can’t say anything.”

Xu Shuchang's heart moved: "According to this, our family only sold 1000 taels of silver? I have also heard about the inventory of merchants traveling to Japan. The items included in the inventory are ordinary goods, such as cloth, grain and oil, etc. The profits of these goods are not high, and the net income of a shop in a year is only a few dozen taels of silver."

"I see that the transactions written on this list are basically transactions that occurred this year. Can you actually earn 1000 taels of silver in such a short period of time?"

The boy said: "Gao Shishu has been beaten by the anti-Japanese special forces for more than half a year and has been running around like a mouse. Now he has completely retreated to the sea. He is almost forced to have no way out. Materials are quite scarce. In order to buy food , sometimes they are willing to pay ten times the price, otherwise these goods would never be sold for 1000 taels of silver."

"Ten times the price?!"

Xu Shuchang was startled, suddenly thought of something, and unknown emotions flashed in his eyes.

The boy didn't notice his change and left quickly, leaving Xu Shuchang there thoughtfully.