nycdaug Chapter 94 Deficit
Chapter 94 Deficit
Her eyes couldn't help but turn slightly cold.
She already guessed what it was about, and asked calmly.
"Are you going to Gansu and Anhui provinces?"
Lai Da lowered his head and unconsciously responded with a "yes," then looked up at Qiao Qingshu in surprise.
He was surprised that the young woman knew he was going to Gansu and Anhui provinces.
Old Mrs. Qiao did this in secret; no one in the Qiao family except Lai Da knew about it.
Qiao Qingshu nodded slightly.
How could she not know? In her previous life, Lai Da was stabbed to death while collecting debts, and his body was abandoned in the wilderness.
Old Madam Qiao wanted to cover it up, so she sent fifty taels of silver to the Lai family to settle the matter, but Lai Da's son was not one to be trifled with.
The case dragged on for years without resolution. Several years later, Lai's eldest son, who had a successful career, dealt a severe blow to the Qiao family, which also affected Qiao Qingshu, who was already married.
"Butler Lai, you don't need to go."
Lai Da was taken aback and hesitated for a moment.
"But this is the old lady's order. If I don't go, I'm afraid... Actually, it's not a difficult thing. I can come back in a month or two."
Qiao Qingshu, however, resolutely stopped him.
"You don't need to go. I'll go talk to the old lady myself."
Lai Da was deeply grateful to Qiao Qingshu for her words, but he was also very worried.
If he doesn't go, the Qiao family will have no suitable replacement, and Old Madam Qiao will not let it go easily. In that case, she will definitely implicate Qiao Qingshu.
Then he thought that if he really didn't go, he wouldn't be able to collect the debt, and the Qiao family would never be able to fill this huge hole, and the Qiao family would suffer.
After a moment of contemplation and inner turmoil, he knelt down before Qiao Qingshu and burst into tears.
He couldn't bear to see the Qiao family fall into ruin at the hands of Old Madam Qiao. If the tens of thousands of debts hidden in the accounts couldn't be recovered, the Qiao family would be ruined in less than a year!
Out of respect for Old Master Qiao, and knowing that Qiao Qingshu was capable, he disregarded his own safety and exposed Old Madam Qiao's true colors.
He wanted to save the Qiao family from their predicament!
She told Qiao Qingshu everything about what Old Mrs. Qiao had told her to do to collect the debt.
She nodded slowly, and it was almost exactly as she had guessed: the huge hole in the Qiao family's accounts was caused by Old Mrs. Qiao.
Madam Qiao had originally planned to make a fortune from the loan of over 100,000 taels of silver, but now she couldn't even get her principal back.
Qiao Qingshu nodded and helped Lai Da up, whispering,
“I already found out about this by checking the accounts, and I was just about to deal with it. Butler Lai, just say you're sick and don't go out these next few days, and leave everything else to me.”
Butler Lai couldn't hide his surprise and admiration. Looking at her confident and determined eyes, his own eyes welled up with tears.
"Alright! I'll do whatever you say, young lady."
It was evening.
Qiao Qingshu took three hundred taels of silver notes and an account book to Qiao Jizhou's study.
As soon as I entered the room, I heard a woman's soft laughter coming from inside.
Qiao Qingshu took two steps closer and saw Aunt Chen dressed lightly, sitting on her father's lap, her arm around his neck, laughing seductively.
Her father was indeed incorrigible. Even after Xu Biyun died, he didn't shed a single tear and immediately went to flirt with Aunt Chen.
Aunt Chen had been neglected for the past few years, but now that she had regained Qiao Jizhou's favor, she was using all her charms to seduce him.
The two were deeply in love when Qiao Qingshu coughed coldly, startling Aunt Chen so much that she quickly jumped away from Qiao Jizhou.
She wrapped her clothes tighter around herself, standing to the side with a flustered look in her eyes, somewhat at a loss.
Qiao Jizhou straightened his clothes, coughed, and became serious.
"You go back first, I'll rest in your yard later."
Upon receiving the order, Aunt Chen smiled at Qiao Qingshu and quickly slipped out of the study.
Qiao Qingshu watched the fleeing figure, then glanced at her hypocritical father, thinking to herself that she couldn't let them have another child.
Although his father was over forty, he had quite a few affairs. Not only were there many women at home, but he also frequently sought out other women outside the home.
Now that her brother has not been found, we cannot allow her father to have another child. Tomorrow we will ask Mr. Ouyang to prescribe a medicine to prevent her father from having any offspring, which he can drink as tea.
"Shu'er, what brings you here so late?"
Qiao Qingshu snapped out of her thoughts, forced a smile, and handed over the three hundred taels of silver notes.
Qiao Jizhou immediately accepted it with a beaming smile.
"Oh my, Shu'er, you're so efficient. You brought it here as soon as you said you'd send it."
Clutching the silver note and rubbing her fingers together, Qiao Qingshu handed over the account book.
Qiao Jizhou slightly raised his eyes and frowned.
"what is this?"
Qiao Qingshu said slowly,
"Father, these are our family's account books. Please take a look."
Qiao Jizhou hated looking at ledgers; he couldn't understand the numbers, and the calculations gave him a headache. He simply waved his hand and said...
"Your housekeeper can look at these; why are you showing them to me?"
Qiao Qingshu sighed softly.
“Father, the family is now an empty shell. Do you know that there is a deficit of over 100,000 in the accounts that we can’t cover?”
Qiao Jizhou was startled by what he heard, and after a long pause, he finally managed to twitch his lips and say...
"No way, Shu'er, your grandmother only subsidized her family with a few thousand taels of silver. How could there be a deficit of over ten thousand taels?"
Qiao Jizhou has never even known what an account book looks like over the years, and he has no idea about the family's accounts.
Every year at the end of the year, Madam Qiao would tell him that the family income was just okay, but there wasn't much left over. He thought that perhaps the family expenses were high, and he also thought that his official salary was indeed not much. He thought that his mother's words were reasonable and never doubted anything.
How could there suddenly be a deficit of over 100,000?! What on earth happened?!
He hurriedly pulled the ledger close to his eyes, stared at it for a long time but still couldn't make heads or tails of it, then tilted his head back, mouth agape, and asked...
"Shu'er, tell me directly, what exactly happened!"
Qiao Qingshu shook her head and sighed deeply.
“Father, someone may have tampered with the accounts. Every year, they’ve been taking 30,000 to 50,000 taels out of the books. Over the past ten years, it’s become a huge hole.”
Qiao Qingshu pointed out a few tricks she had made in the accounts and told Qiao Jizhou about them. Even if Qiao Jizhou was stupid, he could see through the tricks.
He was so angry that he slammed his fist on the table and was about to jump up.
"Damn it! Who! Who did this?!"
Qiao Qingshu shrugged, looking completely innocent.
“Father, Grandmother has been in charge of the accounts all these years. Perhaps we can only find out the inside story by asking Grandmother.”
Qiao Jizhou didn't care that it was already late at night, and rushed to Fushoutang with the account book in hand.
At this moment, Madam Qiao had already gone to bed, when she heard a loud banging on the door outside the courtyard.
He sat up angrily and started cursing.
"Who the hell is making such a racket so late at night!"
"Mother Li, why don't you go out and take a look?"
Li's mother immediately threw on her coat and ran out, only to return breathlessly a moment later shouting.
"Madam, it's the Second Master shouting at the gate of the courtyard, saying he wants to see you."