After finishing, he added, “Brother Jin and Zhang Zhiyi were the first to express interest in learning, so it will be your two families. Go to Ji Xiang Tower today to pay, and send your apprentices to my family’s tea garden in Baifeng County tomorrow. If you don’t pay today, the offer is void.”

As he spoke, he stood up, preparing to leave.

“Hey, wait, wait!” A middle-aged man named Wang Kuan called out. “I spoke first—I registered before Zhang Zhiyi.”

Excluding Ye Chongming and his granddaughter, there were twelve people in the room. After Jin Baoshan had registered, the others seemed to sign up simultaneously, but there was still an order. Everyone was clear about who spoke first and who spoke later.

Zhang Zhiyi was considered a rather honest and straightforward person. Earlier, he had been hesitating about whether to mention that Wang Kuan had registered before him.

Now that Wang Kuan had spoken up, he quickly said: “Yes, yes, Brother Wang spoke before me.”

“I’m well aware,” Ye Chongming gave Wang Kuan a cold look. “Wang Kuan need not come to learn. Didn’t you send two groups to steal the tea formula? One group tried to sneak into the tea garden, while the other attempted to bribe my tea master’s family members. Since you’ve resorted to such underhanded methods to obtain the tea-making secrets without spending a penny, why would you need to pay now? I dare not accept your silver. If I did, who knows when you might cause my family’s downfall.”

With that, he turned to leave.

This Wang Kuan was one of those who still hadn’t given up on stealing the formula.

“Hey, wait! What evidence do you have that I tried to steal your formula? You’re completely slandering me!” Wang Kuan immediately jumped up like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, lunging forward to grab Ye Chongming. “Explain yourself clearly before you leave!”

“Don’t think that just because you’re the guild head and have produced tribute tea, you can falsely accuse others. Let me tell you, if you can’t produce evidence, not only must you apologize to me, but you’ll also have to train three more tea masters for me free of charge.”

He thought his actions had been completely undetectable, and those he had hired to steal the formula had been engaged through intermediaries. Even if they were caught, it couldn’t be traced back to him. Therefore, he spoke with complete self-righteousness.

Meng Ji and another servant quickly stepped forward to block Wang Kuan.

Ye Chongming stopped in his tracks and turned back with a cold smile: “You want evidence? Fine, I’ll provide evidence. But not for you to see—I’ll submit it to the magistrate’s office for them to judge.”

He looked at the others: “Those with guilty consciences who have tried underhanded tactics need not come to register with me. Even if you register, I won’t teach you. You think you’re so capable? Then by all means, continue your attempts. For every one who comes, I’ll catch one; for every two, I’ll catch a pair. Then I’ll hand them all over to the authorities. The officials have keen eyes—no matter how deeply you hide your fox’s tail, they’ll expose it.”

Having said this, he turned and went downstairs, with Ye Yaming following closely behind.

The remaining crowd looked at each other in bewilderment. The shrewd ones had been observing the group while Ye Chongming was speaking and had indeed noticed several people who appeared guilty. Wang Kuan was the most flustered of all.

“This is absurd,” Wang Kuan immediately said with feigned outrage to cover his panic. “He thinks that just because he has tribute tea in his hands, he can baselessly slander everyone? I’ve done nothing wrong, and if he dares to report me to the authorities, I’ll sue him for defamation!”

“Also, don’t be too naive, everyone. That’s tribute tea we’re talking about—it sells for ten taels of silver per jin. Could he sell the tea-making formula for just thirty to fifty thousand taels? He’s probably relying on his powerful backing to show his true colors, using his previously good reputation to deceive everyone, taking all your money, and then just going through the motions of teaching. By then, even if you sue him in court, you won’t win because he has support.”

“Yes, yes, I also think there’s something fishy about this. That’s tribute tea! If the tea masters we send to learn end up surpassing their teachers and making even better tea than the Ye family, the tribute tea status might change hands. Why would he dig his own grave? I don’t think this is reliable.”

The people who agreed with this sentiment were those who, like Wang Kuan, had harbored ill intentions. They figured that if they went to register for tea lessons, they would be rejected by Ye Chongming just as Wang Kuan had been, without any face saved.

So they might as well convince everyone not to learn the tea-making method.

This way, their actions wouldn’t be exposed, and they wouldn’t fall behind others who learned the tea-making while they didn’t. They would also embarrass Ye Chongming by thwarting his plan—achieving multiple goals at once.

Quite a few people shared their thoughts, and they joined in the chorus, stirring up trouble and causing chaos throughout the room.

They didn’t notice that in the room, apart from Jin Baoshan, there was also a young man named Lin Xian sitting in the corner, who was closely watching them. He silently noted who said what, and mentally recorded the names of those who were actively inciting the crowd.

Thus, when Ye Chongming and Ye Yaming returned to Ji Xiang Tower, they received two lists and conversation records within half an hour, detailing who had said what.

The vast majority of names on the two lists matched, with the only exception being that Lin Xian’s list included a man named Zhao Botao, which wasn’t on Jin Baoshan’s list.

Looking at the conversation records written by both men, there were some discrepancies in what others had said, but these were merely memory lapses or differences in wording. Only regarding this, Zhao Botao did the accounts differ significantly—Lin Xian had recorded a lot of unfavorable comments, while Jin Baoshan had written just two lines of meaningless chatter.

Ye Chongming looked at the two lists and sighed to Ye Yaming: “Fortunately, you told me to invite Lin Xian.”

He further explained: “This Zhao Botao is Jin Baoshan’s niece’s husband.”

“Everyone has private interests; this is unavoidable,” Ye Yaming consoled him. “Elder Jin has done quite well today. You didn’t choose the wrong person.”

Recently, these tea merchants had been showing signs of activity, but they weren’t foolish. Naturally, they wouldn’t send their servants to do the dirty work, but instead hired street ruffians who specialized in petty theft, promising them generous rewards.

Some of these ruffians had been recruited by Ye Yaming, so she quickly received information and gathered evidence.

But some hadn’t been recruited, or who had been recruited but were tempted by the generous rewards offered by the other side, and decided to help them steal the Ye family’s tea formula instead.

Regardless of whether they had been recruited or not, once caught, with a little extra money, they could usually be persuaded to reveal who had hired them. However, some people were meticulous in their actions, hiring people through multiple intermediaries.

Ye Yaming could certainly trace the threads to find these people, but getting them all to testify would be quite difficult. Besides, they hadn’t stolen the formula, had they? Even if reported to the authorities, the officials couldn’t convict them.

Both Ye Chongming and Ye Yaming were determined not to sell the tea formula to merchants who used underhanded methods. To avoid wronging innocent people, the grandfather and granddaughter had planned today’s performance together.

They not only informed everyone that the Ye family was forced to sell the formula, but also allowed those with ill intentions to reveal themselves.

So Ye Chongming had asked Jin Baoshan to arrange today’s gathering to confirm his suspicions.