“After the young master arrived in Lin’an, he had my husband purchase furniture to arrange the east room and one room in the east wing. The young master himself stayed in the east room, while the room in the east wing was prepared for the occasional stay of his cousin.”

“Additionally, the young master had two rooms furnished in the front guest courtyard, in preparation for visitors who might need a place to rest. Except for these few rooms and the servants’ quarters, all other rooms are empty, without furniture.”

Hearing this, Ye Yaming still went to look at two of the three rooms in the east wing, and had the servants measure the dimensions of the empty wing room as well.

After the inspection, she said to Zan’er, “Tomorrow, bring some people over to move Master Qi’s things from the east wing to the north room in the front guest courtyard, and move the young master’s belongings to the east wing, arranging them as they were.”

“Yes.”

Upon returning home, Ye Yaming explained the situation to Old Lady Ye and Madam Yin.

Old Lady Ye asked, “So, for which residence should we prepare your dowry furniture?”

According to the Great Jin Dynasty’s marriage customs, families of means would typically go to the groom’s home in advance to measure dimensions, to prepare furniture for their daughter, which would be sent as part of her dowry on her wedding day.

When Ye Yaqing married, the Ye family had provided a full set of furniture for an entire room as part of her dowry.

Ye Yaming knew that the family had reserved some fine wood specifically for making furniture as dowry for the family’s daughters.

She said, “For the wood you’ve prepared for me, I’ll have carpenters make furniture to place in this residence. As for the Capital, we can simply purchase a set as dowry when the time comes.”

When she married, she naturally wouldn’t depart from here. The Ye family would need to go to the Capital in advance, buy or rent a residence there, move all the dowry there, and on her wedding day, she would depart from that location.

Good wood was already heavy; transporting furniture made from it from Lin’an would be extremely laborious. Moreover, she wouldn’t be staying in the Capital for long, so there was no need to meticulously craft furniture to be transported there.

“Anyway, Lu Guanyi has given me money, so this set of furniture will be my dowry, and we can use his money to buy the set for the Capital,” Ye Yaming added.

Old Lady Ye couldn’t help but give Ye Yaming a playful slap, laughing and scolding, “You clever monkey. Zi Mo is so generous, giving you so much money, and here you are still calculating like this.”

“That’s precisely why we must keep things clear. After marriage, his money will have to be mine, but what’s mine remains mine. A woman must safeguard her dowry after marriage—isn’t that the experience you’ve passed down to me, grandmother?” Ye Yaming replied with a grin.

She kept some thoughts to herself.

Perhaps it was because in her previous life she had observed her parents’ marriage, as well as those so-called wealthy marriages around her, where not even one in ten was truly happy. She had very little confidence in marriage.

When she initially accepted Lu Guanyi’s proposal, she did so with the thought of first establishing an engagement to overcome the current difficulties, thinking that in two years, this engagement might fall through.

Even if it didn’t, and Lu Guanyi still wanted to marry her, she would establish ground rules with him before the wedding. If Lu Guanyi crossed her boundaries, they would divorce.

She hadn’t expected Lu Guanyi to arrange an imperial decree for their marriage.

A marriage decreed by the Emperor wasn’t easily dissolved; doing so would be a slap in the Emperor’s face. If the Emperor who decreed the marriage died, then the couple would be locked together for life, because the succeeding Emperor wouldn’t possibly dishonor his father’s decision—that would be unfilial.

But while they couldn’t divorce, they could live separately.

If Lu Guanyi were to take concubines, she would permanently reside in Lin’an and never return to the Capital, letting Lu Guanyi live with his concubines in the Capital, with the two of them not needing to meet except for important matters.

If Lu Guanyi showed no wandering heart in these two or three years, she might consider having one or two children with him. She would keep the children by her side and raise them herself.

After all, it would be just like a modern wealthy family marriage, a model even better suited to her than having a husband marry into her family. Lu Guanyi had good intelligence and appearance, so the children’s genes wouldn’t be inferior; Lu Guanyi also had money and status, so the children wouldn’t be looked down upon because their father was a son-in-law who had married into the family, nor would they be bullied for being from a merchant family.

As for concubines and their children, she could ignore them as long as they didn’t dance before her face. If they did parade before her and her children, she’d slap them down. If things truly became annoying and Lu Guanyi didn’t control the situation or even encouraged it, she wouldn’t mind making this troublemaker Lu Guanyi disappear, restoring peace to her world.

In short, she was planning to arrange Lu Guanyi’s residence in Lin’an as her future home. And naturally, the money for furnishing would come from Lu Guanyi.

Old Lady Ye had tapped her lightly before, but this time she gave a harder slap: “You little monkey, showing no respect, daring to tease even your grandmother.”

The three women discussed for a while, and as dinnertime approached, Madam Yin returned to her courtyard, while Ye Yaming remained.

After having dinner with Ye Chongming and Old Lady Ye, Ye Yaming said to Ye Chongming, “Grandfather, before I get married, I want to audit all the household accounts. You know the Baiwei Restaurant in the west of the city, right? The restaurant has closed, and their accountant, Mr. Jiang, is quite capable. I plan to invite Mr. Jiang to help me examine the accounts. What do you think?”

She continued, “I know our Mr. Wen is quite skilled in managing accounts. But Mr. Wen has been our family’s accountant for so many years, he’s familiar with all the other accountants. If there are small issues in the account books from various places, he might turn a blind eye and not bring them to your attention. Over time, people might think we’re easy to fool. It would be better to invite an outside accountant to check, which would also serve as supervision for Mr. Wen.”

For businesspeople, accounts are the most important thing. As the head of the family, Ye Yaming naturally needed to clarify the Ye family’s accounts to have a clear understanding of all their properties.

Logically, when Ye Chongming announced her as the next family head, she should have audited the Ye family’s accounts.

She hadn’t made a move because the family was still under Ye Chongming’s leadership, and although Ye Hongchang had given up his position as family head, no matter how open-minded he was, he would still feel uncomfortable.

Moreover, Ye Yaming’s authority in the Ye family wasn’t yet sufficient. Once she demanded an audit, it would inevitably cause discontent among the family’s accountants, stewards, and managers. To protect their interests, they would certainly sow discord before Ye Chongming, Ye Hongchang, and others. At that time, even if Ye Chongming didn’t say anything, he would feel uncomfortable, thinking she no longer respected him as her grandfather. Not to mention Ye Hongchang.

Therefore, she had been biding her time.

Now it had been almost a year since Ye Chongming announced her as the successor; she had received an imperial marriage decree and was about to become the wife of the heir to the Xuanwu Marquis Manor, with a fourth-rank title. Not to mention the Ye family servants, even Madam Tao wouldn’t dare provoke her now. At this point, her request for an audit should not trigger collective dissatisfaction among the managers.