Since her arrival, Ye Hongchang had been in the Capital City, and after his injury, he had been staying in the main branch’s residence. Although Ye Yaming had visited him with her sisters and seen him a few times since, she hadn’t had the opportunity to understand Ye Hongchang deeply, not knowing what kind of person this heir to the Ye family was.

Ye Hongchang pondered deeply before asking, “Is that all he said? Didn’t he mention anything about his connection to the court or even the Crown Prince?”

Ye Chongming shook his head, “No, he didn’t. Most of what we know about Master Lu’s family situation was revealed by Young Master Qi. That Master Lu doesn’t seem to be talkative by nature. He only spoke a few words when Young Master Qi asked him, and didn’t say much about his family affairs.”

“Even if she is a stepmother, she is still his mother. It’s not proper for him to say much,” Ye Hongchang remarked.

Ye Chongming nodded and said to his eldest son, “I also wanted to know about the matters you’re concerned with. I tried to probe indirectly, but both of them briefly glossed over it, making it seem like Master Lu’s tea business venture is truly just his ambition to establish himself.”

Ye Hongchang breathed a sigh of relief, “If that’s the case, it couldn’t be better.”

As an ordinary citizen, Ye Hongchang was extremely fearful and resistant to being drawn into court struggles or succession disputes. If the cooperation between Lu Guanyi and the Ye family was indeed unrelated to court struggles or the Crown Prince, that would be ideal.

Seeing that his eldest son had nothing more to say, and his grandson Ye Jiaxing was, as usual, just listening without offering any opinions or suggestions, Ye Chongming turned to Ye Yaming and asked, “Does Ming’er have anything to say?”

Ye Yaming said, “Grandfather can send someone to investigate Master Lu’s residence. Is that mansion an old property that the Lu family acquired before? Or is it part of Madam Qi’s dowry? Or perhaps a new property that Master Lu purchased? If it was acquired recently, we might find some clues.”

Ye Chongming’s eyes lit up, and he slapped the table, “That’s right!”

The Ye family’s residence was in the same row as Lu Guanyi’s, not far apart. Ye Chongming naturally understood the price of such residences very well.

The Ye family’s residence was a three-courtyard mansion plus a garden, worth fifty thousand taels of silver. As for Lu Guanyi’s residence, it was closer to the government office, and according to Ye Yaming, who had been inside, it was also very spacious with pavilions and towers that were much more exquisite than the Ye family’s residence, valued at least at eighty thousand taels or even more.

Even if the Marquis of Xianwu’s household was wealthy, with the stepmother in charge, the household would not possibly give Lu Guanyi so much money. Even if they did give it to him, he couldn’t possibly spend such a large sum of money on a residence all at once and still have money left for the tea business.

He was just one person, with a few servants, without any family members or a large number of servants. Why would he need to buy such a large residence?

The only explanation was that this money was the Crown Prince’s investment, or that this residence originally belonged to the Crown Prince’s faction.

“Regardless of whether he has any connection to the court, our family is cooperating with him now, right?” asked Ye Yaming.

“Yes,” said Ye Chongming, “And also with the Prefect’s family. The Prefect’s third son also plans to invest a share and do tea business with us.”

Hearing this, Ye Hongchang was puzzled, “Isn’t the third son taking the imperial examinations?”

Their Ye family was a merchant family and couldn’t participate in the imperial examinations, which was why merchants held such a low status, and why the Ye family always sought marriage alliances with scholarly families.

But since Qi could serve as Prefect, he naturally was a graduate of the highest imperial examination. His son Qi Ji looked to be only sixteen or seventeen years old, which should be the age for studying hard for the imperial examinations.

Why wouldn’t the Qi family let him focus on studying at home, but instead let him engage in commerce?

Ye Chongming’s lifelong obsession was for his family to produce an imperial examination graduate as a backer, so he was even more concerned about this question than Ye Hongchang.

He said, “I asked about this. The Qi family’s eldest son is a graduate of the highest imperial examination, and the second son is a graduate of the provincial examination. This third son, he said he was born premature and was frequently ill since childhood. His grandmother did not allow his parents to force him to study, and he wasn’t clever, not suited for studying. Therefore, after studying at school for a few years, he gave up, and his family didn’t expect him to pursue the path of the imperial examinations.”

With this explanation, the Ye family members could understand.

Although none of them had participated in the imperial examinations, they were quite familiar with the examination system due to Song Yifeng’s presence.

The county-level examination was manageable, but the provincial and metropolitan examinations both consisted of three sessions, with each session lasting three days. During these three days, candidates couldn’t eat or sleep well, with a group of people eating, drinking, urinating, defecating, and sleeping together. The filthy smell could be imagined. And in such an environment, they still had to be mentally tense while answering questions and writing essays. After coming out of the examination hall, they all looked pale.

When Song Yifeng took the county and provincial examinations, the Ye family had sent people to attend to him. According to the steward who accompanied him, many people fell ill after leaving the provincial examination hall. Some serious cases even resulted in death.

This was not to mention the daily hardships of studying diligently.

In any case, ten years of hard study couldn’t be endured without good health. The Qi family already had an eldest son to uphold the family’s reputation, and the second son also showed promise. When it came to a sickly youngest son, they just let him be.

“How many shares do they get? How many do we get?” Ye Yaming brought the conversation back to the topic.

This was the most crucial part. As for Qi Ji’s participation in this business, it was very likely that he was joining to help Lu Guanyi secure shares. If their combined shares were higher than the Ye family’s, then the Ye family would be at a disadvantage.

However, the Ye family held the secret tea-making methods, and they had her cheap father, Ye Hongsheng, with his “golden tongue” for quality control. She, as a transmigrator, could create many new teas. Even if the Ye family held fewer shares, they would still have a say.

She wanted to know if Lu Guanyi was a greedy person, which would determine how much effort the Ye family should put in.

If the Ye family held fewer shares, then forget it. Living a leisurely life would be good enough; there was no need to exert effort and resources for others while receiving little benefit.

“Master Lu is investing ninety thousand taels of silver, taking thirty percent. Young Master Qi is investing thirty thousand taels of silver, taking ten percent. Our family will invest with the crude tea purchased from garden households in Jiangnan and our tea-making methods, taking sixty percent. Tea factories and tea houses are not included. If our tea factories are used for tea processing, we will also be paid processing fees.”

“Of course, this is just a general outline. As for the exact proportions, Master Lu indicated that if we feel it’s unreasonable, we can negotiate further,” Ye Chongming added.

Ye Yaming nodded to herself.

This ratio was quite reasonable.

As far as she knew, the Ye family invested about seventy thousand taels annually for pre-ordered tea leaves, with a profit of twenty to thirty thousand taels. Now, this profit of twenty to thirty thousand taels, which hadn’t been realized yet, according to cooperation rules, should belong to everyone after the partnership. But now Lu Guanyi and his party had included it in the Ye family’s investment, which was very generous and fair-minded.

Even if the profit was added, along with the tea-making methods and the invisible assets of the garden households, according to Ye Yaming’s calculation, it would be worth about 110,000 to 120,000 taels of silver.

Now, Lu Guanyi and Qi Ji together invested 120,000 taels of silver but only took forty percent, which was their second act of generosity and fairness.