YBTS - 18

Hearing her say that, Ding Shi finally realized that the old woman, Tian Mama, had indeed not come with her. This little brat was so cunning; she had already planned to use the threat of reporting to the authorities to get Su Hongmeng to bend to her will.

Just then, Su Hongmeng, who had weighed the pros and cons, slammed his hand on the table. “Enough! All you want is a shop, isn’t it? Stop making such a fuss! Don’t keep bringing up your mother. The lid of her coffin will be rattled to pieces by you... I’ll have the accountant bring you the deed of the property later, but from then on, don’t keep coming to the family for your monthly allowance! When you earn money, you’ll support yourself!”

Ding Pei was flustered and kept making eye contact with Su Hongmeng. She hadn’t expected him to concede so easily without consulting her.

But Su Hongmeng just picked up his teacup and didn’t look at her at all.

In his heart, he was most annoyed with Ding Shi. Did she really think he didn’t know who had instructed that servant?

He was just trying to smooth things over to save her face!

The Su family wasn’t some small family. Was it necessary to scheme against a blind daughter like this? After all, Su Luoyun was also his daughter. Since he had promised to give her a share of the profits, why would he need such a dirty trick to go back on his word?

But Ding Shi hadn’t consulted him and had angered the young lady, causing him trouble for no reason. If she really went to court... his face would be completely shamed throughout the capital!

They were just full from eating and had nothing to do!

Didn’t she know Su Luoyun’s personality? She was a stubborn girl who, once she made up her mind about something, would see it through to the end! When she said she was going to report to the authorities, she wasn’t just bluffing. He, Su Hongmeng, cared about his reputation, and he would never let a family disgrace go beyond the doorstep.

And Su Luoyun’s curse about Madam Hu made Su Hongmeng’s heart skip a beat. He couldn’t help but recall how Madam Hu, on her deathbed, had stared at him, her eyes fixed on him, as she coughed up blood, forbidding him from treating their two children unfairly.

After weighing the two options, Su Hongmeng felt that it was most cost-effective to give up a shop to get rid of this troublemaker.

Su Luoyun knew that if her father were to be influenced by Ding Shi later, he would probably change his mind again. So, she struck while the iron was hot and refused to go back immediately. She directly had her father call for someone to change the deed and send it to the office to have it sealed and stamped with her fingerprint.

In addition, her father also had the original plaque of the shop sent to the director of the guild, asking him to change the name on the registration to Su Luoyun’s. From then on, Su Luoyun could open her own spice shop in the capital.

Xiangcao had been poisoned, and although it wasn’t serious, she still needed a sum of money for compensation and tonics to nourish her body.

This was a reasonable request. With a grim face, Su Hongmeng directly gave the five ounces of stolen silver to Xiangcao as compensation.

Su Luoyun seemed to have won a great victory, but in her heart, she was still disappointed. She had thought that in front of her father, she could expose Ding Shi’s hypocrisy.

But now she knew that her father was not as foolish as he seemed. He saw everything clearly. It was evident that when a person’s heart is biased, they will not see right from wrong.

In fact, Su Luoyun had never really intended to go to court. The head of the Su family was Su Hongmeng. She was an unmarried daughter and had not yet left the family. If Su Hongmeng, as the owner of Shouweizhai, had voluntarily asked to settle the case privately, she couldn’t have done anything about it. Even if she had gone to court to plead for justice for herself and Xiangcao, her father, who would have lost face, would have had no more scruples.

At that time, she would have no leverage, and her father would only hate her for exposing the family’s disgrace.

So, although Su Luoyun was disappointed, she could only try to get some justice for herself and Xiangcao by playing on her father’s nature.

However, Su Hongmeng was a cunning old fox who had been in business for many years. He also had a trick up his sleeve when dealing with the little fox he had raised.

Although the shop he gave Su Luoyun was in a good location in the south of the city, it had been damaged by a fire and had not yet been fully repaired. It had been abandoned for half a year.

Su Hongmeng was a stickler for geomancy. He had a geomancer look at the shop and was told that it would not bring him good fortune, so he had it closed and put up for sale. But because the price was too high and the repairs after the fire were not done carefully, it was a bit dilapidated, and no one was interested.

Even if he used this shop as payment for her profits, Su Hongmeng wouldn’t lose any money.

He knew that the new balm was now very popular in the capital, and its sales would continue to rise. If you were to calculate carefully, Su Luoyun was still at a disadvantage.

Even if Su Luoyun found out about her father’s trickery later, she didn’t care about the immediate gain or loss. The theft of the formula was a wake-up call for her. The person in charge of Shouweizhai now was Ding Pei.

Even if she could defend herself against her once, she couldn’t do it a second time.

If that was the case, it was better to use this opportunity to make a big fuss and start her own business. It didn’t matter that the shop was dilapidated. The registration with the guild was the most important thing.

She only had the meager land her mother had left her, which was not enough for her to become wealthy and independent. She had to find a way to make money and start a business.

As for the stolen formula, she didn’t care. If she could mix the “Faint Pear” balm, she could also mix a better fragrance.

But for this to happen, her father had to agree to it, so that she wouldn’t be accused of being an ungrateful traitor and starting her own business. Now that she had the shop, it meant that Su Hongmeng had given his approval. She felt that the wind blowing towards her was clear and free.

Just as Abbess Yongjing had said, when a person has a goal, they have something to look forward to every day and no time to feel sorry for themselves!

As for Ding Pei, after Luoyun left, she was naturally interrogated by Su Hongmeng.

Su Hongmeng made it clear that since no one else was around, she shouldn’t pretend to be ignorant. He had been in business for many years and was not some landlord’s silly son who could be fooled!

Ding Pei knelt by Su Hongmeng’s feet and just cried, saying that she was incompetent and hadn’t realized that Wang San had a cunning mind.

In fact, after he stole the formula, he had first brought it to her. She then had the shop assistants mix it, and it was indeed a good fragrance, so she had rewarded Wang San with five ounces of silver. In fact, she later learned that the origin of Wang San’s formula was not proper, but she had only assumed that the boy had secretly copied the formula. She really had no idea that he had put medicine in Xiangcao’s drink!

Besides, she did this all for the Su family. She recalled when she had first given herself to him, she didn’t ask for a name or a status. She just felt that he was better to her than her own parents. In all these years, had she ever done anything to let him down? Even when she spent money to buy the formula, it was because she wanted Shouweizhai’s business to be better. She had no selfish intentions at all!

How could a woman like her come up with such schemes? Just hearing about them was scary. If her husband thought she was incompetent, she would just give up her duties and not manage these things anymore.

Recalling the past in this way, Su Hongmeng’s heart softened. Su Hongmeng felt that he knew the woman by his side. Such schemes to drug and trick people didn’t seem like something the delicate Ding Shi could do.

Besides, the formula hadn’t been leaked, and the account book Ding Shi had shown him looked good. The profits were three times what they used to be, so she was indeed thinking of him.

It was just that there was a treacherous person hiding by Ding Shi’s side, and that Wang San had misled her into doing a foolish thing.

Now, this incident was actually very beneficial to Shouweizhai. Su Hongmeng’s anger subsided. He just said coldly that she shouldn’t act on her own accord next time. A woman’s knowledge is limited, and she can easily be deceived by others. It was safer to discuss things with her husband.

Ding Pei saw that Su Hongmeng’s tone had softened, so she didn’t dare to ask him to take back Luoyun’s shop. She just softened her tone and started coaxing him, and they rolled into the blankets for some intimacy.

As for Wang San, Su Hongmeng absolutely couldn’t keep him in the Su family. He just instructed Ding Pei to find a human trafficker to sell him far away to herd sheep in the northwest. It was a place where he couldn’t even afford to eat. His perfume formula was worth less than three steamed buns there, so it was useless for him to leak it!

Ding Pei readily agreed. How Wang San was handled after that was unknown.

Ding Pei had been rattled by Su Luoyun’s outburst, but fortunately, she was not in danger. Now that she was in charge of the shop, she could move some money around on the books and save a lot of her own private funds.

In addition, the formula was selling well, so she naturally felt that her life was very comfortable.

Unfortunately, after a few days, her “Moist Snow Balm” also started to sell less and less. She sent people to inquire and found out that several rival spice shops in the capital were also selling similar balms.

But their names were all different. Some were called “Bone-Penetrating Fragrance,” and some were called “Intoxicating Pear.” But no matter what they were called, when compared, they were all exactly the same.

This clearly meant that the formula for Shouweizhai’s fragrance had been leaked! Su Hongmeng was so angry that he broke his water pipe and demanded to know where Wang San was now.

Ding Pei insisted that Wang San had been sold far away and would never leak the formula. So, Su Hongmeng went to find Su Luoyun again.

Su Luoyun also asked innocently, “Could it be that Father thinks I would give the formula I painstakingly developed to another family? Maybe it’s the assistants at your shop who are unreliable. How about you question them one by one, Father?”

Su Hongmeng was speechless. He just vented his anger by scolding her for a few sentences, reiterating that he would no longer give her and her brother a monthly allowance, and then waved his hand to tell Luoyun to leave.

When Luoyun left the Su family residence, she let out a sigh of relief. This was because she had intentionally leaked the formula.

Ding Pei wanted to make a big fortune from her formula? She must be dreaming!

If it were the old Luoyun, she would never have done such a thing. But as a person grows up, they also learn to be a little bad. “Burning the bridge after crossing” was a unique skill of the Su family. She learned it as she went and finally mastered a third of its power.

Now that the scent of pears filled the entire capital, no one had to worry about anyone else anymore!

However, even Guiyan was a little worried about his sister opening her own shop.

He felt that his sister had just paid to renovate her dilapidated courtyard and now had acquired a shop that had been abandoned for many days and had bad geomancy. She was constantly pouring money into it, and he was afraid that their future days would be difficult.

Luoyun just smiled. “Don’t worry. Even if I have to beg for food, I will make sure you have meat at every meal, Yan’er.”

Guiyan looked up and said, “Sister, it’s my fault for being useless. When I become successful in the future, I will buy you anything you want...”

Just as he was saying this, he heard someone knocking on the courtyard door. It turned out to be their noble neighbor from the next alley. The Prince of the North’s residence had sent someone to deliver a few boxes of tonics.

It seemed that the young master felt very guilty about bumping into his neighbor. So, he had someone send some nourishing tonics.

Perhaps knowing that his reputation was not good and that it might affect the young lady’s reputation, the servant who delivered the goods kept saying that the young master and Young Master Su were old friends at first sight. He knew that he was studying for his exams, so he sent some tonics for him and hoped that he would not mind.

But the tonics were things like gastrodia elata, black bear gallbladder powder, and cassia seeds.

Anyone with a little knowledge of medicine would know that these were for treating headaches and improving eyesight. Even without saying it explicitly, one could guess who these things were really for.