Ye Yaming quickly grabbed him: “Father, don’t be hasty.”

She turned to Wen Tao and said: “I haven’t even said anything yet, and you’re already making preemptive strikes. Are you feeling guilty? Are you afraid we’ll expose something about you, so you’re trying to provoke me into dismissing you, allowing you to escape?”

“Haven’t said anything? You’ve done everything already.” Wen Tao pointed at the two guards behind him and said, “Are you arresting criminals? I mentioned I had matters at home and would come later, but they forcibly brought me here.”

Ye Yaming had no patience for his quibbling. She gestured slightly to Lu’E, who then brought several account books in front of Wen Tao.

“Page twenty-one. On this day, there’s an entry showing the sale of sixty-four high-grade tea cakes and seventy-two medium-grade tea cakes. High-grade tea cakes sold for fifteen taels of silver each, and medium-grade for twelve taels each, totaling one thousand eight hundred and twenty-four taels. But here it’s recorded as one thousand six hundred and twenty taels. Where did the other two hundred and four taels go?”

“Turn to page forty-three in this ledger. On this day, the sales… The accounts balance, and all the numbers match up. The problem is, the tea sold that day far exceeded what was recorded here. Where did the money for seven high-grade tea cakes and nine medium-grade tea cakes go?”

As Ye Yaming recited each accounting error, Wen Tao maintained his composure, but Xu Shen and Shen Zhongyi both turned pale.

Xu Shen was particularly affected, as the accounts Ye Yaming had just mentioned were from the tea shop.

The tea house was a place for drinking tea. Only when new tea came to market, and in small quantities, would they sell at the tea house where foot traffic was high. Otherwise, people who bought tea to collect and drink slowly, or to give as gifts, or even small tea houses without their tea gardens and factories, would go directly to the tea shop for wholesale purchases.

Therefore, the tea shop handled large-volume business, and the prices weren’t cheap. Each transaction could involve thousands of taels of silver.

At that time, tea cakes weren’t all one jin per piece. Some were made with one jin divided into eight pieces, others with one jin divided into four. Since retail customers often bought one or two pieces, and small tea houses usually wanted three or four of each variety, the Ye family tea shop calculated prices per piece.

These non-integer calculations were already headache-inducing in ancient times without calculators and with generally poor mathematical skills. With several or even a dozen transactions per day, if both the bookkeeper and the auditor intentionally made small errors, they were truly difficult to detect.

“I’ve examined the accounts for the past five years. At first, Mr. Xu only made small errors, just a few taels each time, amounting to only ten or twenty taels a month. By March four years ago, he grew bolder, making errors of several dozen taels each month. In the past two years, it’s been one to two hundred taels in a single instance. Over these years, you’ve embezzled four thousand seven hundred and eighty-five taels.”

“I didn’t! I didn’t embezzle any money!” Xu Shen cried out. “Third Young Miss, if there are errors in the places you mentioned, they were unintentional miscalculations. With such large and complex numbers, occasional errors are inevitable. The Old Master knows this as well.”

Ye Chongming slammed the table: “Nonsense!”

He indeed knew that Xu Shen occasionally made mistakes, but he had no idea this man was so bold as to embezzle such a large sum.

Ye Yaming ignored Xu Shen and gestured for Bai Rui to bring Shen Zhongyi’s account books before him.

“Mr. Shen didn’t make large discrepancies but frequently made errors in small accounts. However, you had a few errors four years ago; the frequent mistakes started in March four years ago. I’ve calculated your embezzled amount at two thousand five hundred and sixty-three taels.”

Shen Zhongyi’s lips trembled as he said: “No, I didn’t. These were all mistakes due to my poor skills, but I didn’t embezzle a single copper.”

“I’ve already reported this to the officials. Save your excuses for the magistrate’s court,” Ye Yaming said. “But Mr. Xu and Mr. Shen should consider carefully whether you want to bear the full responsibility alone or reveal everyone who collaborated with you or even instigated your wrongdoing.”

Wen Tao, who had been maintaining his composure, couldn’t hold back upon hearing this: “Is Third Young Miss implying me? Are you inciting them to drag me down to reduce their punishment? Three accountants in the Ye family—you’ve accused two of them, but that’s not enough? You want to eliminate me too? Not leaving a single one of the Old Master’s people, replacing them all with your own? Third Young Miss, aren’t you being too ruthless?”

He looked toward Ye Chongming: “Old Master, I pride myself on acting with integrity and would never stoop to underhanded methods. You have recognized my character and abilities. Now you’re watching the Third Young Miss insult us, framing us, just to drive us out and replace us with her people?”

“You needn’t try to sow discord between us,” Ye Chongming said. “You know what you’ve done. I trusted you all these years, yet you plotted right under my nose. Wen Tao, I never imagined you were such a person.”

Before bringing Wen Tao and the others, Ye Yaming had shown all the errors in the account books to Ye Chongming, Ye Hongchang, and the others.

Since they were merchants, basic arithmetic was an essential skill for Ye Chongming and the others. Because they trusted Wen Tao and the accounts were complex, they usually just gave them a cursory review each month.

The Ye family business was substantial, with a monthly cash flow of at least ten thousand taels, reaching several tens of thousands during the spring peak season. The three accountants were very careful with their manipulations, embezzling only eight hundred to a thousand taels each year, making it impossible for the family to detect.

After Ye Yaming pointed out the discrepancies, they calculated once and discovered the accounts were indeed incorrect. The handwriting on the ledgers belonged to Xu Shen and Shen Zhongyi, with no signs of alteration. Moreover, Ye Yaming had always acted with integrity and valued righteousness over wealth, so they never truly suspected that she was staging this to remove the old staff and replace them with her confidants.

Ye Yaming completely ignored Wen Tao and addressed Shen Zhongyi instead: “Mr. Shen, you haven’t embezzled much. If you can return the money you took, we won’t hold you accountable. The condition is that you must tell us everything you know.”

As she spoke, she nodded to Ye Hongchang.

This Shen Zhongyi was timid and would seek out Wen Tao at the slightest hint of trouble. And from his accounts, it appeared he only began falsifying records and embezzling at Wen Tao’s instigation. The amount he embezzled wasn’t large, making him the easiest point of breakthrough.

Ye Hongchang stood up: “Mr. Shen, shall we talk next door?”

When Shen Zhongyi heard that he could avoid prosecution by returning the embezzled money, his spirits immediately lifted, and he quickly followed Ye Hongchang to the adjacent room.

He was literate and could calculate, so he could make a living anywhere. He hadn’t spent all the embezzled silver but had used it to buy a small shop. At worst, he could forfeit the shop to the Ye family, and he would still be a respected accountant elsewhere.

Moreover, half of the money he embezzled had been given to Wen Tao. The accounts were in his handwriting, and the evidence was conclusive. If the Ye family reported to the officials, with the Third Young Miss’s status, the prefect’s office would only seek to please her, not side with a guilty accountant like him. If he were convicted while Wen Tao went free, he would never rest in peace, even in death.