It was just that everything has advantages and disadvantages.

Although the Qu brothers were trustworthy, they also demanded a lot of silver.

For any casual matter, they would charge ten or eight taels of silver. If there was any difficulty involved, it would be twenty or thirty taels.

Yu Tang now faced the same predicament as before—no money!

No, she was even poorer now than in her previous life.

In her previous life, she at least had some dowry items she could pawn. Now, her mother and father gave her at most one or two taels in spending money, and if she said she had spent it all, they would ask her how she had spent the silver and where it had all gone.

A few days ago, for the matter concerning Wei Xiaoshan, she had also quietly hired fixers to handle things. Since it was all small matters like gathering information, it didn’t matter who helped with it. But even so, the silver she had saved was almost all spent—she definitely couldn’t afford to hire the Qu brothers.

If only she could earn money like others!

Yu Tang was extremely vexed.

She sat with her elbow propped at the desk by the window, gazing at the chrysanthemums in the courtyard that were about to bloom, motionless, though her mind was racing rapidly.

In her previous life, from the moment she began to suspect the Li family, she had started investigating their affairs and keeping watch on their people. Only then did she learn that women could also do business. Especially women from the Suzhou-Hangzhou area—many people took their private savings and invested in maritime trade. When the sea vessels returned safely, they could earn enough to buy a house. If the vessel didn’t return, the loss was merely the cost of face powder and rouge.

However, doing this kind of business required connections.

Either riding on their fathers’ and brothers’ businesses, or relying on clan relationships.

Otherwise, it was easy to be deceived.

The money would be taken, claiming it was invested in some fleet. After a year or half, they would say the fleet capsized, losing everything, and naturally all the money put in would have gone down the drain.

But there were exceptions to everything.

Jiang Ling, the young lady of the Jiang family in Suzhou, married the eldest young master of the Yu family at sixteen, to whom she had been betrothed since childhood, and became a widow at seventeen.

Unlike ordinary women’s small-scale ventures, after the Yu family fell into decline, in order to support her elderly mother-in-law and her young brother-in-law who was still a child, she sold her dowry and invested a large amount of wealth in her younger brother Jiang Chao’s fleet, beginning to engage in maritime trade. And Jiang Chao seemed to be favored by the God of Wealth—everything went smoothly, the fleet never had any accidents. In just five or six short years, the Jiang family went from being ordinary merchants to becoming the wealthiest household in Suzhou, and the Yu family thus became rich overnight, becoming one of the notable wealthy households in Suzhou.

Before Yu Tang died, the Jiang family was ambitiously trying to become imperial merchants.

The Li family was extremely envious.

One must know that the Li and Lin families’ maritime business had also lost quite a bit of silver when their fleets met with accidents.

Lin Jue even wanted to establish a connection with the Jiang family and gave Li Duan advice: “Becoming an imperial merchant isn’t that easy—without people in the court, don’t even think about it. You might as well meet with Jiang Chao and see if you can buy a share.”

Li Duan felt this was unlikely: “With Jiang Chao’s business having reached this point, who knows how many people are willing to add flowers to the brocade! We learned about Jiang Chao a bit late. Moreover, the Suzhou-Hangzhou area is full of official and gentry families—there are countless households with deep foundations. Our family really isn’t quite up to par.”

Lin Jue then advised Li Duan to treat Gu Xi better: “Don’t throw away the watermelon to pick up a sesame seed. Your eldest brother-in-law is only just past thirty this year and has already been promoted to Vice Minister of Personnel. Don’t be foolish and lose the big for the small.”

The watermelon was Gu Xi, and the sesame seed was Yu Tang.

Li Duan took this to heart. For a while, he was inseparable from Gu Xi, and Yu Tang breathed a sigh of relief, thinking Li Duan had given up on her. Who knew that after only half a year, Li Duan would revert to his old ways and start scheming against her again.

She both felt Gu Xi wasn’t worth it and envied Jiang Ling for having her maternal family brothers’ support. She had spent great effort to use A-Tiao’s name to invest fifty taels of silver in Jiang Chao’s fleet.

Two years later, the fleet returned safely again.

Yu Tang earned four hundred taels of silver.

At that moment, she was overjoyed, tossing and turning unable to sleep, not knowing how best to spend this silver.

It was also thanks to this silver that she could get the Qu brothers to work for her, and finally outwitted Lin Shi and Li Duan, breaking free from the Li family.

Thinking about it now, the Jiang family hadn’t made their fortune yet at this time. After the new year, Jiang Chao would begin going around persuading others to invest in organizing his fleet—it was precisely a difficult time.

If she could seize this opportunity and become one of the Jiang family’s earliest collaborators, wouldn’t she also be able to make a great fortune like the Yu family?

Yu Tang sighed.

Speaking of it all, it still came down to the matter of silver.

Where could she get the silver to invest in the Jiang family right now…

Yu Tang was worrying when someone threw a flower at her.

The flower hit her on the nose, stunning her.

She looked up and saw it was Yu Yuan.

“What’s wrong with you?”

Yu Yuan asked with a beaming smile, his brows unable to conceal the high spirits that came from his joy.

Yu Tang’s eyes immediately brightened.

She might not have big money, but surely she could borrow small money?

She reached out her hand to borrow silver from Yu Yuan: “I want to buy something.”

Yu Yuan was in high spirits. At this moment, let alone Yu Tang just asking him for silver to use, even if she asked him to carry her on his back and run two laps around Lin’an, he would do so gladly.

Yu Tang said cunningly: “I want fifty taels of silver!”

“Ah!” Yu Yuan, whose hand was already reaching into his sleeve, froze. “What do you need so much silver for?”

He didn’t have that much private savings either!

Yu Tang said with a beaming smile: “Then how about thirty taels? You’re about to get married soon. Once you’re married, you’ll be someone else’s husband, not just my elder brother alone. In the future, it’ll be difficult for me to ask you for things. Can’t you let me ask for enough all at once?”

Yu Yuan’s face turned slightly red, and he said bashfully: “How could we possibly get married right away? No matter what, we’ll have to wait until next spring. This is Madam Wei’s intention—she’s afraid if our two families’ wedding is too rushed, it will lead others to gossip about Miss Xiang.”

Yu Tang’s face was full of shock as she said: “Elder Brother, you haven’t even married your wife yet and you’ve already forgotten your younger sister! You didn’t even refute me when I said that once you’re married, you won’t be just my elder brother anymore!”

The two families had decided to hold the wedding for Yu Yuan and Miss Xiang in the spring—she had already heard her mother mention this. She just hadn’t expected that before Yu Yuan was even married, his heart had already leaned toward Miss Xiang.

“No, no, that’s not what I meant.” Yu Yuan stammered in explanation. “What I meant was, since I’m your elder brother, I’ll always be your elder brother. But if Miss Xiang marries into our family, she’ll be somewhat unfamiliar with us after all, so we should treat her even better.”

“It’s Elder Brother who wants to treat her better, isn’t it?” Yu Tang pressed, though in her heart she felt this was really good.

In her previous life, Yu Yuan had never defended Gao Shi like this.

This showed that Miss Xiang was truly someone he liked, someone he held dear in his heart.

In this life, her eldest cousin would surely be very happy.

Yu Tang continued playing around with him: “If you don’t give me the silver, I’ll go tell Eldest Aunt that once you have a wife, you won’t care whether your younger sister lives or dies.”

“That’s not true!” Yu Yuan said urgently. Although he didn’t know that mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law often came to dislike each other, even becoming mortal enemies, over a single careless remark, this didn’t prevent him from fearing that his mother would misunderstand Miss Xiang and dislike her. “How much silver do you want to borrow? A lot… a lot I don’t have.”

He had originally wanted to say that with a lot he wanted to have a pearl headband made for Miss Xiang or something, as his own gift to her. Seeing Yu Tang looking dissatisfied, afraid that if he said this it would make Yu Tang jealous, he very cleverly swallowed those words and changed to another sentence.

Yu Tang was indeed satisfied and said thoughtfully: “It really needs to be thirty taels of silver!”

At this time, the Qu brothers were only somewhat famous and probably weren’t as expensive as when she had sought them out in her previous life. But looking at Yu Yuan’s expression, she estimated this would be the last time she could ask him for silver. Moreover, in the future it wouldn’t be appropriate for her to keep asking Yu Yuan for this and that. Once he was married, things should belong to his wife and children. Even if she needed to borrow silver, she should borrow from Miss Xiang, not from Yu Yuan, and she would need to borrow and repay properly.

This was experience she had gained from her previous life.

Yu Yuan bargained down by ten taels: “At most twenty taels—I really don’t have any more than that!”

Yu Tang didn’t dare push Yu Yuan, afraid of letting something slip and losing even these twenty taels.

“Thank you, Elder Brother!” she said immediately. “I’ll definitely treat Miss Xiang well in the future.”

“What nonsense are you spouting!” Yu Yuan scolded Yu Tang, yet didn’t dare truly discipline her, afraid she would hold a grudge and treat Miss Xiang badly. He hurried home to get the banknote and brought it over, saying: “Spend it sparingly.”

Yu Tang had asked her father to report to the authorities precisely to startle the snake in the grass. Now that most of the refugees from the Li family estate had fled, if those two people who killed Wei Xiaoshan were also at the estate and fled like this, they would surely feel it wasn’t worth it. Eight or nine times out of ten, they would seek out the Li family for some silver before running.

Yu Tang nodded repeatedly and first had A-Tiao go find the Qu brothers, asking them to keep watch on Li Duan. If anyone came to Li Duan asking for silver, they should find a way to capture the person afterward and deliver them to the back alley of Azure Bamboo Lane.

The Qu brothers had only just gained some small fame in the area and were at a time of establishing credibility and authority. After agreeing, they immediately began watching the Li family’s people day and night.

Yu Tang felt genuine pain holding only the twelve taels of silver remaining in her hands.

The Qu brothers really charged a lot!

She had become poor again.

But the Qu brothers were indeed reliable in their work. Before the Double Ninth Festival had even arrived, the Qu brothers sent someone to bring her word that they had captured two refugees who had gone to Li Duan asking for silver. However, these two people had also been specifically requested by someone else previously. They hadn’t expected that the two parties wanted the same people. Although the other party had spoken up before her, they hadn’t given a deposit. Yu Tang had spoken up later but had paid the full amount, so they decided to hand the people over to Yu Tang.

Yu Tang felt a wave of lingering fear, along with some gratitude that she had understood these two brothers’ way of doing things in her previous life. Otherwise, even if she had a method, she wouldn’t have been able to capture these two people.

She notified Wei Xiaochuan, and accompanied by A-Tiao, the group met in the back alley of Azure Bamboo Lane.

Neither Yu Tang nor Wei Xiaochuan had seen these two people before. The matter of Wei Xiaoshan was also just suspicion and deduction. Wei Xiaochuan and Yu Tang, one openly and one covertly, began interrogating the two people who had been worked over by the Qu brothers until their bodies were covered in bruises.

Unexpectedly, things went so smoothly that Yu Tang suspected even the Bodhisattva was probably on her side at this moment.

When Wei Xiaochuan questioned them, they actually readily admitted that they had been instructed by the Li family to kill Wei Xiaoshan, with the purpose of sabotaging the marriage alliance between the Wei and Yu families. They even spoke at length about their grievances with the Li family: “Originally we were just supported by their family to help with trivial matters, and we thought their family had great backing. Who knew that when the yamen came, their family didn’t dare fart even once, causing us two to kill several yamen officers before escaping. Now afraid we’ll expose them, they’ve sent several groups to find us. We’re not pushovers either—worst comes to worst, we’ll all go down together!”

Speaking to this point, these two refugees even arrogantly clamored things like “If you have the ability, go find the Li family—we’re just the ones who did the deed. The Li family are the murderers, so why come after us?” and “You Wei family seemed to have quite a few brothers, but it turns out you’re useless too, only daring to pick on the soft persimmons” and “Even if you capture us, what can you do? Do you dare send us to the yamen? The Li family wants to break off Miss Yu’s marriage—if you send us to the yamen, you’re playing right into the Li family’s hands” and such.