“Each month just the servants’ allowances alone amount to over seven hundred taels. Adding the masters’ monthly allowances, expenditures exceed a thousand taels.”

“This hasn’t even counted the reward silver given to servants.”

Lin Jiayue flipped through the accounts in her hands. The rewards given to servants each month filled a full dozen pages. She roughly estimated that this item alone added another two hundred taels of silver.

“Then there’s building repairs, fabric and ink, consumables from various storehouses, food purchases…”

The accounts made one’s head spin and filled one with trepidation.

“Although the marquis’s residence still has several profitable businesses and productive estates, those all depend on heaven’s favor for annual yields. My ice shop and cosmetics shop’s income has now become the marquis residence’s main source of revenue.”

Lin Jiayue pressed her lips together, feeling increasingly resentful in her heart.

Such a huge marquis’s residence was almost entirely supported by her, yet she still had to watch people’s expressions everywhere?

With a bang, she threw down the account book. Lin Jiayue angrily raised her eyebrows in a cold smile: “No wonder when playing cards, Madam kept praising me inside and out for being able to generate wealth. I thought she was complimenting me on helping her win at cards.”

“Thinking about it now, she was talking about those two shops of mine all along.”

“No wonder she would mention it intentionally or unintentionally every time, asking me to arrange one or two more businesses. She was waiting for me all along.”

Lin Jiayue bit her teeth, extremely angry.

She had originally thought that being able to get the household management authority was because she was clever and bright, daily making Madam Jiang bloom with joy to the point of disregarding even the Old Madam’s life and death. How could she know that others had calculated early on to hand this hot potato to her?

After all, looking at this mess, if she really had any money-making projects in hand, would she not produce them?

Her hands clenched into fists, Lin Jiayue’s face turned pale.

Madam Jiang had calculated correctly. Even if she didn’t have money-making ventures in hand, she would forcibly create several.

When she first entered the marquis’s residence, the Old Madam and Madam Jiang treated her as if she were nothing. When she spoke, no one would even acknowledge her—as if she didn’t exist. But after the ice shop and cosmetics shop earned silver, how did Madam Jiang treat her? How did the servants treat her?

In the inner courtyard of the marquis’s residence, she had no name, no status, no background. If she wanted to surpass Song Wan, she had to prove she was capable and held household authority!

Lin Jiayue understood that one must prove one’s value to qualify for others’ respect, but…

She was just unwilling.

Song Wan merely had better birth origins and could stand at the heights effortlessly, while she had to both support these bloodsuckers and work hard to please them!

“Qian Bi…”

“This servant is here.”

Lin Jiayue lowered her eyes. After a long while, she hesitantly spoke: “If someone like me who has become a concubine of the marquis’s residence wanted to leave, what methods are there?”

Qian Bi was so frightened she cried out, hurriedly stepping forward to cover her mouth.

“Concubine must not speak carelessly.”

Qian Bi embraced Lin Jiayue, whispering in her ear: “Although this servant has never studied or learned to read, I still understand human relationships and propriety. Concubine is different from ordinary women. You are a female hero, more formidable than many men.”

“In Xiuyan Pavilion, Concubine has never treated us as servants. Ordinarily you eat and sit with us without any disdain.”

“But no matter how formidable Concubine is, trapped in this marquis residence’s inner quarters, you cannot get out.”

“Please don’t mind this servant’s harsh words, but concubines are of base status, no different from servants. For a concubine to leave the main household, there are only three paths.”

“Either commit an error and be sold by the main family, be sent away by the main family, or be bestowed upon other servants or guests of the residence.”

“Servants sold off usually have no good ending—if they don’t die, they’ll still lose a layer of skin. As for the marquis’s residence being lenient, there has never been a precedent of sending concubines to entertain guests.”

Lin Jiayue murmured: “What about the third option?”

“Privately fleeing the residence.”

Qian Bi said: “This servant once heard of a household’s concubine who had an affair with a servant in the residence and wanted to flee and elope. But in a place like the marquis’s residence, Concubine absolutely cannot escape.”

“There are people everywhere in the residence. Even if you rise at night wanting to walk in the courtyard, servants will come to inquire. Not to mention each courtyard has side gates, and the side gates not only have night-watch servants but also patrol guards. Even if by luck you left Lanting Courtyard, Concubine absolutely could not leave the inner courtyard.”

Qian Bi half-squatted down, lowering her voice even more: “Even if you truly escaped, within three days you would definitely be captured and brought back.”

“Whether military or civilian, those without travel permits cannot go beyond a hundred li.”

“Concubine has no household registration, no fish-scale tally. Where would you obtain a travel permit?”

Speaking on, Qian Bi shed tears: “Concubine must not entertain wild thoughts. There is no place in this world better than the marquis’s residence.”

If Lin Jiayue ran away, she would be the first to die! No matter what, Qian Bi had to dispel her notion.

“Now Concubine is deeply favored by the Marquis and has just obtained the household management authority. When you give birth to the marquis residence’s eldest concubine-born son in the future, the entire marquis residence will be under your control. At that time, what won’t Concubine be able to have?”

“Concubine, listen to this servant’s advice—absolutely do not make mistakes.”

Raising her hand to wipe the tears from Qian Bi’s face, Lin Jiayue nodded to show she understood.

Reorganizing her emotions, she took out charcoal pencils and paper, slightly lost in thought.

One wrong step leads to every step being wrong. Having already inexplicably followed Jiang Xingjian into the marquis’s residence, wanting to leave now was difficult. Moreover, she truly had feelings for Jiang Xingjian and couldn’t bear to leave like this.

Forcibly suppressing the unwillingness in her heart, Lin Jiayue began writing and drawing.

Early the next morning, she went to Jiangxiang Courtyard with a stack of drawings.

“How does Madam feel today? Is your body still weary?”

Madam Jiang smiled: “Much better.”

Lin Jiayue spoke with a pleasant smile, cheerfully saying: “Yue’er thought all last night and came up with another shop that will earn silver.”

“Oh?” Madam Jiang’s eyes brightened, and the smile on her face became much more sincere: “What kind of business?”

“Yue’er wants to open a shop selling sundry goods.”

“Sundry goods…”

Seeing the smile on Madam Jiang’s face fade by seventy or eighty percent, Lin Jiayue lowered her eyes to conceal the coldness in them: “Yue’er’s sundry goods shop is different from ordinary households. Everything sold in my shop is unique in all of the capital… even the entire realm.”

“It’s just that Yue’er feels uneasy in her heart and wants to ask Madam for a definite answer.”

After hearing “unique in the entire realm,” Madam Jiang knew this business couldn’t be too bad. She looked Lin Jiayue up and down, then after a moment said: “Whatever requirements you have, speak them all and let me hear.”

“Jiayue comes from humble origins and has no one to rely on behind her. Although Madam and the Marquis have treated me well, Yue’er is constantly fearful and uneasy at heart.”

“Now although I manage the household affairs, in the end… I cannot grasp it firmly.”

Hearing this, Madam Jiang’s brows furrowed slightly. After thinking for a long while, she had Yuanyang bring over an ivory tablet.

“This is my ivory tablet. Take it and use it. From now on, you will be in charge of the residence. However, you must act cautiously in all matters. If there’s anything you’re uncertain about, come ask me, or you can ask the nannies in the residence.”

Lin Jiayue accepted it, answering with a slight smile before turning to leave.

Madam Jiang’s dowry servant saw this and spoke with concern: “What is Madam doing? Giving that little harlot such great authority? In the future when First Young Madam sees the ivory tablet symbolizing your status, she too will have to defer to her by a rank. This way, you and First Young Madam will be completely estranged.”

“Estranged or not, what does it matter?”

Madam Jiang sighed: “For families like ours, taking a wife serves only two purposes. First, to form good marriage alliances that can help Yi’er in his official career. Second, to extend branches and scatter leaves for the household, continuing the ancestral line by giving birth to heirs.”

“Now that Song Wan can do neither, what use do I have for her? Moreover…”

Gently pressing her temples, Madam Jiang’s expression was quite rigid: “How many months has it been now? We still have to present gifts to the palace ladies at Mid-Autumn, and that Chief Eunuch of the Ceremonial Directorate has always had a frighteningly large appetite.”

“In previous years when Yi’er hadn’t returned, for the sake of the palace lady, our marquis residence gritted our teeth and tightened our belts to send gifts. Last year we even handed over our most profitable estate. I had been thinking this year we might have to sell the tenant farmers’ fields, but who would have thought this little wretch would pop up and solve my urgent problem.”

Supporting her forehead as she reclined on the couch, Madam Jiang said faintly: “If not troubled by this bit of silver, at the previous banquet I would have driven her out of the residence on the spot. Would I have tolerated a person of base status negotiating conditions with me?”