Upon hearing this, Ye Chongming immediately nodded: “Yes, yes, let’s do it this way.”

Normally, he wouldn’t have overlooked such details. However, the matter was serious, time was pressing, and most importantly, Ding Jian was the son of Old Manager Ding, who had worked for the Ye family since Ye Chongming’s father was still alive. Ding Jian was in his thirties now, and Ye Chongming had watched him grow up, so subconsciously he still trusted him greatly.

Now that Ye Yaming had brought it up, he realized his oversight.

By questioning them separately, if there was something suspicious about this matter, as long as these three people weren’t of one mind or hadn’t coordinated their stories beforehand, they could uncover the complete list. Otherwise, if they deliberately concealed two or three ill-tempered customers, preventing the Ye family from promptly offering apologies, causing those customers to make a fuss, then all their efforts today would be in vain.

When Ye Yaming had spoken, her eyes were fixed on Ding Jian. Seeing the momentary panic in his eyes, she understood the situation.

The key person in this matter was Ding Jian. If someone had bribed him and then tricked Ye Hongrong into joining the scheme, it would have been easy to accomplish.

And when investigated, it would certainly appear that Ye Hongrong had threatened Ding Jian to help him, with the main responsibility falling on Ye Hongrong, while Ding Jian merely obeyed the Fourth Master under duress.

In such a situation, from a manager’s perspective, there was no significant fault—what wrong was there in obeying the master? In the end, even if Ye Chongming wanted to blame him, he couldn’t.

As long as he adopted the attitude of taking full responsibility, the Ye family would have to be grateful to him and help protect his family. Then, once in the government office, he could turn against the Ye family, and they would be finished.

At that point, Meng Chengwei would descend like a savior to help the Ye family through the crisis—how could the Ye family not be deeply grateful to him?

The events were linked one after another, all calculated. It would be difficult for the Ye family not to fall into Meng Chengwei’s trap.

But now with her here, Meng Chengwei’s scheme was likely to fail.

So the Ye family separated into three locations to interrogate Ding Jian and the two shop assistants. Ye Chongming, concerned that Ye Yaming was too young and might be deceived by the assistant, wanted to send Song Dequan to accompany her.

Ye Yaming promptly refused: “Let Manager Song stay with Father. I can handle things here.”

This granddaughter had given him too many surprises today—clear thinking, calm composure, thorough considerations. Her words and actions were as reassuring as those of a seasoned manager. Ye Chongming inexplicably trusted her: “Then Li Fu will go with you.”

Li Fu was the Ye family’s housekeeper, only responsible for the affairs of the Ye family residence, with little connection to the Ye family’s business. Normally, Ye Chongming would not let him interfere in business matters.

However, Ye Chongming couldn’t trust the tea house staff and was wary of the tea factory and teahouse personnel as well. Short on trusted helpers, he had brought Li Fu along.

Now, sending Li Fu with Ye Yaming was partly out of concern that as a young lady, she might not be taken seriously by the young shop assistant. At the same time, Ye Chongming wanted Li Fu to be his eyes and ears, to see how Ye Yaming handled matters.

So Ye Yaming took Li Fu and Bai Rui to the adjacent room.

“Speak up,” Ye Yaming said without preamble, sitting down and addressing the assistant. “As long as you honestly tell everything without the slightest concealment, I promise you the Ye family won’t hold it against you. Of course, you won’t be able to work as an assistant in the Ye family tea house anymore, but you can still find work as an assistant elsewhere.”

She gave a light laugh, but her gaze at the assistant was ice-cold: “But if you try to conceal anything, I’m sorry to say, we will spread word of your deeds. Unless you plan to leave Linan Prefecture, it will be difficult for you to support yourself and your family.”

This assistant’s name was Liu Chunxin, a young man in his twenties.

After hearing Ye Yaming’s words, he kept his head lowered without making a sound, looking like a dead pig unafraid of boiling water.

“Meng Chengwei certainly gave Ding Jian many benefits, but you probably didn’t receive much, did you? Perhaps they even concealed their collusion from you. Is it worth cutting off your path for the small benefits Ding Jian promised you?” Ye Yaming said coolly.

Upon hearing the name “Meng Chengwei,” Liu Chunxin suddenly raised his head, looking at Ye Yaming in astonishment.

He was indeed Ding Jian’s confidant. But to get him to cooperate in this matter without informing on them, Ding Jian had to reveal the truth: that the imperial merchant from the capital wanted to curry favor with Old Master Ye, but Ye Chongming was always lukewarm. That’s why Meng Chengwei had resorted to this tactic.

Thinking that this wouldn’t harm the Ye family, and with Ding Jian’s promise to take him along when he moved to the Meng family, plus the fifty taels of silver Ding Jian had displayed before him, Liu Chunxin had decided to go along with it.

But he hadn’t expected that the Third Miss would know about such a secret matter. Could it be that Old Master Ye had known about it all along? Given Old Master Ye’s shrewdness, if Meng Chengwei set a trap for him, wouldn’t he counter-attack? Would the Meng family still fulfill their promises?

With these thoughts, cold sweat broke out on Liu Chunxin.

After this incident, he didn’t know what the relationship between the Ye family and Meng Chengwei would be, but Ding Jian and the two assistants like himself would not escape consequences. If Meng Chengwei’s promised position disappeared, and the Ye family sent him to the authorities, discovered and took away the silver the Meng family had given him, and spread word of his actions, then he truly would have no way out.

Understanding this, he immediately stopped concealing and reported the entire process and the customer list in detail.

Time was tight, and when Meng Chengwei had set this trap, he wanted to keep it within a controllable range, so this batch of tea was only sold to more than a dozen customers.

Among these dozen or so people, except for two who were specifically arranged by Meng Chengwei, the others were kind-hearted and longtime customers of the Ye family tea house, with some friendship with Ye Chongming. Even if they knew the tea was problematic, they wouldn’t report it to the authorities.

The only concern was one person who had heard about this from an old tea customer and had bought some compressed tea along with them. This person was the variable.

Liu Chunxin was quite shrewd. Although Ding Jian had told him to sell tea separately from Tian Pengyi, he had still inquired and knew who had bought this batch of tea.

“Tian Pengyi also knows who these people are,” he added.

Ye Yaming gave him a deep look, nodded, and rose to leave. At the door, she said to Li Fu: “Uncle Li, go to my father and mention the name ‘Meng Chengwei’ to Tian Pengyi.”

Li Fu understood her meaning and quickly went to where Ye Hongsheng was.

Ye Yaming turned and entered the room where Ye Chongming was with Ding Jian.

As soon as she entered, she heard Ding Jian still playing dumb with Ye Chongming: “Master, the list is complete. I just thought this business was highly profitable, saw others doing it, and got envious. Since the Fourth Master wanted to do it, I followed his words and did it behind your back. I…”

Ye Yaming didn’t want to listen to his nonsense anymore and directly interrupted him: “Enough. Liu Chunxin has confessed everything, so stop pretending. What benefits did Meng Chengwei give you that made you not only betray the Ye family but also implicate them in wrongdoing and burden them with a lawsuit? The Ye family hasn’t treated your family poorly, has it?”