Chapter 90: Who’s Afraid of Whom
Gu Yan sat by the window, holding a cup and sipping tea as he watched Li Xiaonan.
Li Xiaonan stood at the door, looking from the main hall to the upper floor.
An hour ago, this tea house was packed with guests, both upstairs and downstairs.
“What are you looking at?” Gu Yan put down his cup.
“Your tea house must be losing money, right?”
Li Xiaonan sat down opposite Gu Yan.
“Hmm?” Gu Yan was taken aback. “What’s wrong?”
He had often heard that something was profitable, but this was the first time he’d heard someone say it was losing money.
“Just now, it was full of people upstairs and downstairs.” Li Xiaonan poured herself some tea.
Gu Yan glanced at her sideways, saying nothing.
Li Xiaonan took a sip of her tea and looked around again, sighing, “Your family has plenty of silver, you don’t care if this tea house makes money or not.”
“If it doesn’t make money, there’s no need to open for business.” Gu Yan leaned forward. “How did your preserved egg business get so good?
“My tea house has always been impossible to get a seat in!” Gu Yan suddenly unfurled his folding fan.
Li Xiaonan looked at the proud Gu Yan and let out a laugh.
So he clearly knew that people were coming for his family’s prestigious name and his face!
Gu Yan snorted.
Li Xiaonan rested her arms on the table, leaned forward, and looked closely at Gu Yan, asking with concern, “Are you in a bad mood?”
“Tsk, you can tell I’m in a bad mood?” Gu Yan pouted.
“It’s quite obvious. Don’t you want people to see it?” Li Xiaonan looked around.
She felt that everyone standing around could tell that their Young Lord was unhappy at the moment.
Gu Yan looked at her speechlessly, leaning to the side.
When he didn’t want people to see, the former Lu Xiu might have sensed it, but this silly girl in front of him was definitely oblivious.
“What happened? Did someone make you angry?” Li Xiaonan propped her chin on her hand and looked at Gu Yan.
“Was the smoked fish good?” Gu Yan tapped his folding fan on the table.
“You know?” Li Xiaonan was shocked and turned to look at Shi Gun.
Shi Gun stood with his hands at his sides and his eyes down, his expression blank.
“If I don’t even know what the people around me are doing when they’re with me, then I…” Gu Yan’s words caught in his throat; he didn’t know how to finish.
“Wouldn’t I be utterly incompetent!”
Gu Yan’s folding fan extended towards Li Xiaonan, tapping loudly on the table.
Li Xiaonan glanced sideways at the fan that was almost hitting her head, took a deep breath, clenched her fists, and pounded next to Gu Yan’s incessantly tapping fan.
“If you knew, why did you pretend not to know? I thought you really didn’t know!”
His fan was getting closer and louder; she had to retort, or it would be hitting her head next time!
“I pretended not to know because you were coveting even that kind of unsavory thing, not only coveting it but reaching out for it! You’ve completely disgraced my reputation!”
Gu Yan looked at Li Xiaonan’s small fists, which were clearly trembling but still pounding on the table, and raised an eyebrow. What was this little girl up to?
Whatever she was up to, she was certainly bold.
Lu Xiu had followed him until the very end, but she had never dared to say no to him.
Gu Yan glanced at Li Xiaonan and tapped his fan even louder and faster.
“It’s my business if I covet something! I’m not your servant, so if anyone’s reputation is lost, it’s mine, not yours!” Li Xiaonan steeled herself and pounded the table with both hands.
Gu Yan’s fan stopped mid-air. He looked at Li Xiaonan’s two small fists, which had stopped on the table. Gu Yan raised his eyes and glanced at Li Xiaonan, who was tightly pursing her lips and was tense all over.
He had a feeling she was trembling!
Gu Yan leaned back against the chair back, looking at Li Xiaonan. After a moment, he suddenly smiled, leaned forward, picked up the teapot, and poured tea into Li Xiaonan’s cup.
“Drink tea. This is this year’s new tea, picked from the back mountain of the villa. Only a little over an ounce was processed, so try it.”
Gu Yan poured himself some tea, picked up his cup, and raised it to Li Xiaonan.
Li Xiaonan felt a wave of relief, her shoulders slumped, and she retracted her fists, wiping the cold sweat from her palms on her clothing placket, and picked up her cup.
After finishing her tea, Gu Yan put down his cup. “Aren’t you going to ask me why I’m in a bad mood?”
“I already asked.” Li Xiaonan leaned forward and picked up the teapot; it was empty.
Shi Gun hurried over, took the teapot with both hands, and went to make more tea.
When Shi Gun brought the tea, Gu Yan gestured with his finger.
Shi Gun quickly signaled to everyone and they retreated outside.
“That Yao Wu, the day before yesterday, intercepted several ships from the Hangzhou Weaving Bureau. The ships were carrying over a hundred thousand taels of silk.”
“She came to the villa to see you? Do they know she’s your person?” Li Xiaonan reacted quickly.
“You’re a bit smarter than her.” Gu Yan sighed deeply.
“This extra hundred thousand taels of silver, it was intentional, wasn’t it?” Li Xiaonan frowned.
“You’re much smarter than her.”
“You definitely didn’t just arrange for A Wu alone. A Wu wasn’t suitable in the first place; she’s just a bodyguard with a straightforward temper,” Li Xiaonan explained tactfully on A Wu’s behalf.
Gu Yan looked at her, then sighed after a moment, “Let’s not talk about this. What do you need Wan Jing for?”
“I have business with Wan Jing, so I should talk to Wan Jing,” Li Xiaonan retorted.
“If you tell Wan Jing, she’ll still have to report it to me. You might as well tell me directly,” Gu Yan said impolitely.
“I want to do the fine cloth business and asked Wan Jing about weaving and weaving workshops. What would she report to you? Would she repeat every question I ask you, and after you nod, she answers my question?”
“Of course!” Gu Yan replied very impolitely.
“Ha!” Li Xiaonan let out a laugh but swallowed the rest of her words.
He wasn’t wrong; it seemed like that could actually happen.
Alas, the wicked indentured servitude contracts, the wicked born-into-service families!
“What do you want to ask? Wan Jing might not know, but I definitely do.” Gu Yan looked at Li Xiaonan, who had caught her breath, and the corners of his mouth turned up into a smile, his mood improving.
“Opening a weaving workshop requires a thirty percent tax. What about collecting cloth from weaving workshops or elsewhere and reselling it? How much tax would that be?” Li Xiaonan thought for a moment and asked something she was sure Gu Yan would know.
“The tax for weaving workshops is less than what Zhou Yicheng said; it’s fifty percent.” Gu Yan suddenly closed his folding fan. “The Pingjiang Weaving Bureau is an imperial workshop. Thirty percent of the tax goes to the national treasury, and another twenty percent of the profit goes to the imperial household. For private weaving workshops, it’s a fifty percent tax.”
“That high!” Li Xiaonan’s voice rose.
“When the empire was first founded, the silk and fine cloth woven by private workshops, if sold overseas, were taxed at fifty percent. If sold within the empire, it was a twenty percent tax. Later~” Gu Yan trailed off and snorted, “Every year, millions of taels of silk and fine cloth were exported, but the reported export figures from weaving workshops north and south of the Great River were almost zero. Every workshop paid tax at the rate of twenty percent.
“When my grandfather was in charge of the Ministry of Revenue, he unified the tax rate for weaving workshops, collecting fifty percent from all of them,” Gu Yan said with a cold snort.
Li Xiaonan sighed deeply. “What about the thirty percent profit margin?”
“Indeed, that year in Jiangnan, there was wailing everywhere.” Gu Yan laughed. “In those years, businesses like your preserved egg business that delivered goods to the Prince’s Estate would have had feces and urine thrown at them.
“My grandfather was riding his horse through the streets and was hit with rotten eggs. Memorials impeaching my grandfather were transported into the palace by cart, and all sorts of slander were rampant.”
Gu Yan’s eyes narrowed slightly, and after a moment, he let out a cold laugh.
“No wonder there are no weaving workshops in Kunshan County, and I haven’t seen any in Pingjiang City. There must have been many before, probably everywhere,” Li Xiaonan said, looking at Gu Yan with mixed feelings.
As a former finance elite, she had seen similar widespread suffering several times.
“Yes. Since the founding of the empire, the court has had rules that the price of silk and fine cloth for export must be sufficiently high, at least double the cost. When sold within the empire, only a twenty percent tax was levied to compensate for this price difference. But people were greedy. Those weaving workshops falsely reported export quantities and evaded taxes, while externally they undercut each other, even driving prices down to near cost.
“Are you planning to open a weaving workshop?” Gu Yan asked, looking at Li Xiaonan.
