Chapter 97 Part 2: Magistrate
Jiang Li’s heart tightened. She wasn’t the genuine Jiang second miss. In theory, it’s not worthwhile to talk about deep feelings with the Ye family. But there wouldn’t be any eggs left in an overturned nest. Moreover, she still wished to borrow the Ye family’s power to do her own things in the future. For her sake, it’s important for her to save the Ye family.
Because the enemy was in the dark while I was in the light, it’s difficult to act thoroughly.
After pondering for a moment, Jiang Li said: “Tong’er, tomorrow you go out from the house and ask around the ready-made clothes shops in the city. It’s necessary to be close and ask them whether they have made clothes from fragrant satin recently.”
“Okay.” Tong’er responded and asked Jiang Li: “Why does Miss want to ask this?”
“There’s a problem in the Ye family’s business and the ancient fragrant satin is the key point. At the moment, I don’t know how many people know that the ancient fragrant satin has problems and how big the problem is. But a good deal of Xiangyang’s ready-made shops must already have deals on ancient fragrant satin with the Ye family before. It’s very serious if these shops start to not accept ancient fragrant satin anymore.”
There’s another sentence that Jiang Li didn’t say, that was, at least in Yanjing n.o.body was aware of the problems arising with the ancient fragrant satin. So to speak, for the time being, the matter of the materials having problems was not yet spread. If these ready-made clothes shops tacitly agreed at an earlier time not to get ancient fragrant satin, there’s certainly an ulterior motive in it. There’s a high probability that this had been taken care of since long ago.
“When you ask, pay attention to the shopkeepers’ behaviors. See whether they say that there’s no stock recently or directly tell you that there’s problems with the ancient fragrant satin.” Jiang Li told her.
Tong’er memorized it earnestly.
Doing business, especially doing business with the Ye family, naturally wasn’t a one-shot business transaction. There’s come and go, working steadily little by little. Even Ye Ming Yu couldn’t be sure whether there’s really problems with the materials. In the future, the shopkeepers still wished to do business with the Ye family so naturally they would help the Ye family to conceal this. But in the event that they eagerly and directly said to the whole world that there’s a problem with the material, then it could be determined that these ready made clothes shops had accepted other people’s interest and deliberately trapped the Ye family.
Did the Ye family offend someone? Jiang Li pondered.
There’s no clue even after turning it over in her mind, after all the trails at this time were not much. No matter how Jiang Li thought, she couldn’t come up with anything. Bai Xue persuaded her to rest earlier, thus Jiang Li dropped it for now.
On the second day, sure enough, Tong’er left early in the morning and followed Jiang Li’s idea of going into ready-made clothes shops to inquire for information. Jiang Li let Bai Xue go with her. Bai Xue had huge strength and the two of them together would be safer on the road. Jiang Li couldn’t find things to do in her courtyard, thus she planned to look for Ye Ming Yu to chat with. In the Ye family, Ye Ming Yu could be considered as the only person who did not guard against her. Yesterday, she found out some things from Ye Ming Yu, so Jiang Li thought, perhaps today she could find out even more information from Ye Ming Yu.
Jiang Li didn’t know which courtyard Ye Ming Yu lived in, only thinking of first going to the front hall and letting a servant boy send her. Who knew when she reached the front hall, she unexpectedly found Ye Jia Er and Ye Ru Feng were also there.
Ye Jia Er was pacing back and forth, looking very worried. Ye Ru Feng was also frowning, as if encountering a troublesome matter.
Jiang Li paused slightly, walked inside and called out: “Older sister, older brother.”
Ye Ru Feng ignored her, Ye Jia Er saw her coming and a smile rose. However, this smile also carried some melancholy. She said: “Younger sister.” She paused before apologetically continued: “The other day at Li Zheng Tang, uncle Zhao and uncle Zhuang suddenly came over and I left you behind. I’m really sorry.”
“It’s okay.” Jiang Li smiled and said: “Older sister is busy with important business, moreover, I was originally going to walk around by myself. I was very happy strolling around afterwards.”
“That’s good.” Ye Jia Er said.
The few people in the hall were silent. Ye Ru Feng was angry at Jiang Li, obviously he wouldn’t take the initiative to talk to her. Normally, Ye Jia Er would chat a few words with Jiang Li. But today Ye Jia Er looked as if she had a load on her mind and didn’t attend to Jiang Li, not knowing what was in her mind.
Jiang Li thought for a moment and softly asked: “Is older sister worried about the matter in Li Zheng Tang?”
Ye Jia Er was stunned, and smiled reluctantly. She said: “Yes, there’s some trouble in business.”
“It should be the trouble with the ancient fragrant satin,” Jiang Li looked at her, “now saying that there’s a problem with the ancient fragrant satin, is it already known to a lot of the ready-made clothes shops?”
Ye Jia Er was surprised, Ye Ru Feng said: “How do you know this? Did you eavesdrop on our conversation?”
His tone was bad.
“Uncle Ming Yu told me.” Jiang Li looked at Ye Jia Er, “but he only said that some people said there’s a problem with the ancient fragrant satin and I guessed that there’s something to do with ready-made clothes shops.” She said with a smile: “Xiangyang has so many ready-made clothes shops, those who stock up on the Ye family’s ancient fragrant satin must not be few. If there’s really a problem with the ancient fragrant satin, these shops will avoid taking those ancient fragrant satin.”
“Younger sister actually has a kindhearted and high-minded nature, a guess would hit the mark.” Ye Jia Er said. She thought, since Ye Ming Yu had already told Jiang Li, it’s not good to continue concealing this matter. Anyway, Jiang Li already knew the concealment was due to their Ye family being narrow-minded. What’s more, even if they still wished to keep her in the dark, can they still hide it? This matter had already become bigger and noisier, hard to sort it out. Sooner or later, Jiang Li would also know from other people outside.
“The Ye family has a considerable amount of transactions with the ready-made clothes shops. Nowadays, one after another, the ready-made clothes shops stop taking materials from the Ye family. Not just one or two families, but rather all of them. These days, the shopkeepers from ready-made clothes shops come everyday to Li Zheng Tang to stop purchasing the materials. Such as uncle Zhuang and uncle Zhao who came to the shop and you met yesterday. They’ve done business with the Ye family for more than 10 years. But yesterday they came to Li Zheng Tang to immediately stop the supply of materials.” Ye Jia Er sighed.
“Have done business for more than ten years, those are old friends. At this time, they are also hitting a person when they are down?” Jiang Li asked.
“Can’t say it as. .h.i.tting a person when they are down, can only say that it’s human nature.” Ye Jia Er spoke without resentment. She explained patiently: “It’s just that the capital for manufacturing ancient fragrant satin is big. These shopkeepers did not say this before, but when this batch of ancient fragrant satin came out, n.o.body buys them. If it’s put away, for the Ye family, it’s already a huge loss.”
“What human nature, that is. .h.i.tting a person when they are down.” Ye Ru Feng snorted coldly, “previously seeking us to supply goods to them first. Now something comes up, without investigating carefully, they right away stop the goods. What about over ten years of friendship, it’s not comparable to benefits!”