Four Harmonies and Good Fortune

Chapter 68: Arrested

Not far from Yangjia Water Shop, Hu Jiang gathered there with a few hooligans.

Hu Jiang handed over the heavy silver coins in his hand, and a ruffian in front of him immediately took them.

“Yesterday you stopped ten people, and they gave you a total of five hundred coins.”

The cloth bag was unusually heavy, feeling substantial in his arms. The rogue's greed grew even stronger; he wanted to stop as many people as possible today. He turned and handed the money to his mother, sending her away. Then he stood aside and watched as Hu Jiang distributed all the bags of money.

Hu Jiang clapped his hands: "Today, everyone will do their own thing as usual. Come back here tomorrow to collect your money."

After saying that, Hu Jiang instructed his henchmen: "Keep an eye on them, don't let them lie about the numbers."

Several people hurriedly said, "No, no." They dared not. If they tried anything funny, they would never be able to make money with Hu Jiang again, so they all honestly reported their numbers, at most... adding one or two more people.

Hu Jiang would turn a blind eye, since the money came from the Xie family anyway.

Snowflakes began to fall again at some point. Hu Jiang patted the snow off his shoulders and led his men forward. Today he was going to the South Wing, which was under Inspector He's jurisdiction. Although he couldn't cause trouble there, he still needed to keep an eye on the situation.

Before the group had even separated after leaving the alley, Hu Jiang's henchman suddenly said, "Hey, someone's buying hot water so early?"

"There are some over there too."

In winter, the rising heat is really eye-catching.

Hu Jiang didn't care at first, but then his gaze swept over and he saw two people pushing a cart of hot water toward the north wing.

So many people? Something seems off about this situation.

Hu Jiang's gaze sharpened, and just as he was about to follow and see what was happening, he saw several soldiers coming this way, with a man in his twenties accompanying them.

The man pointed to Hu Jiang and the others, said something, and the soldiers immediately quickened their pace.

The ruffians were startled and were about to slip away when they discovered another patrol in the other direction. The leader of the patrolmen shouted, "Stop! Even if you run away, we'll find your homes!"

Upon hearing this, the ruffians had no choice but to stop.

"It was them. They stopped me from going to fetch water."

"Yes, I remember it clearly."

As the man spoke, a woman approached and pointed at one of the ruffians: "He has a mole on his lip, and I scratched the back of his hand. He said if I dare to go to the water shop again, he'll make me pay."

The scoundrel instinctively tucked his hands into his sleeves.

Seeing this, the patrolman knew that what the woman said was probably true, and turned to order, "Take them all down."

Hu Jiang tried to struggle, but the patrolmen were prepared, and three of them rushed towards him.

Seeing that the hooligans had been apprehended, the woman breathed a sigh of relief and looked at the old woman beside her: "Madam Xie, can you really help us write the complaint?"

"Yes, my wife said this matter is related to the water shop, so we have to take care of it."

Hu Jiang then noticed that a woman dressed as a manager had come with the woman.

“You must have heard of Lawyer Liu,” said the old woman in charge of the Yang family. “All the legal documents in our Yong’an Ward are written by Lawyer Liu. He’s waiting right outside the county government office, and there are three or four other aggrieved parties over there.”

Upon hearing this, Hu Jiang frowned deeply. He never expected the Yang family to have such a trick up their sleeve, secretly gathering all the people they had threatened and even hiring a lawyer. He had been running rampant in Daming Prefecture for a long time, but this was the first time he had encountered something like this.

"What are you looking at?"

Hu Jiang was shoved and stumbled.

The constable said, "Let's talk in court."

As the constables and their entourage walked further and further away, Madam Yu and Madam Yang emerged from behind a tree at the street corner.

Madam Yang took a deep breath and looked at Madam Yu: "I am now convinced by Madam. For the first three days, we let things go and only secretly had people keep an eye on them. Only after we had figured them out did we help the aggrieved parties write their lawsuits. We even paid for the lawsuits ourselves. How could those aggrieved parties not file a lawsuit?" Madam Yu nodded: "We need to arrest them at this time because today is very important. We can't let them ruin things."

Madam Yang suddenly smiled: "Looking at it this way, I made the right decision to follow Madam."

Mother Yu gave Madam Yang a deep look: "You only find out now?"

Yang blushed. Of course, she wasn't like that. She had thought it through when she decided to come to the third branch of the family. Saying this in front of Madam Yu was just to show weakness and let Madam Yu know that she wasn't that powerful and didn't want to take Madam Yu's position as head steward.

Madam Yu stepped forward and said, “Our eldest daughter-in-law is no ordinary person. She has a lot to do in the future and will need a lot of manpower. Even if there were ten or eight more people, it probably wouldn’t be enough, let alone the two of us. So just use whatever abilities you have. There’s no need to hide them, or you’ll make the eldest daughter-in-law unhappy.”

Sometimes, one fears that a servant's cleverness might surpass that of the master, so it's inevitable to conceal one's cleverness as clumsy.

But you should never entertain such thoughts in front of Madam.

Even after living to such an old age, it was only then that Yu's mother realized how incredibly perceptive and insightful people can be.

The two walked onto the street and couldn't help but stop to watch the busy water sellers. A smile appeared in Madam Yu's eyes. Yang had been in Daming Prefecture for so many years, but she was not as popular as Madam Xie for a few days.

A few water stalls added a touch of beauty to the morning in Daming Prefecture.

Everyone was in a hurry, afraid that the water they were carrying would get cold. That's why the old lady set up four shops, with the water shops distributed in the four wing areas of Daming Prefecture, so that those who carried and sold water could fill their containers and sell their water nearby.

They really thought of everything.

Moreover, Madam Yu felt that the eldest daughter-in-law had even better plans for the future. The eldest daughter-in-law had asked her to buy a lot of medicinal herbs, which hadn't been used yet.

……

"Where did they all come from?"

Xie Chongjun frowned as he listened to the steward's report.

“It’s those families who paid the deposit,” the steward said, wiping the sweat from his brow. “We didn’t pay any attention before, how could we have imagined that they could profit from it.”

Xie Chongjun had been busy for several days and was just about to sleep a little longer when the steward woke him up and told him about this matter.

"Where are the people you arranged?"

The steward was trying to say this: "Hu Jiang... has been arrested... I dare not ask anyone else to go, or I might be targeted by the government."

"Thank you... That Yang Liu Niangzi found a lawyer and wrote legal documents for people everywhere. As soon as Hu Jiang was arrested, the legal documents were submitted. I didn't even have time to bribe him."

Xie Chongjun stood up and walked out. He wanted to go to his study to sort out the matter of the Yang family's water shop.

"master."

Just then, a maid brought in a basin of hot water. Every morning, Xie Chongjun liked to apply a hot towel to his face, but today, seeing the rising steam, a surge of anger welled up in Xie Chongjun's heart.

He gave the maid a cold glance, which frightened her so much that she knelt on the ground.

After Xie Chongjun left, the head maid stepped forward and said, "Take her away. She doesn't need to come to the inner courtyard to serve anymore."

The maid was chased out of the main house, sobbing, but she quickly wiped away her tears and quietly went to Master Xie's room to report everything she had heard.

Master Xie was staring at the note on the table, which depicted a clay stove, the kind that the Yang family's water shop displayed outside.

Hearing Xie Chongjun's anxiety, he said, "I'm afraid he hasn't figured it out yet. He thinks that a water shop can't do business for a few coins, but he didn't realize that hot water is cheap, but everyone can afford it. Moreover, people use it in the morning and at night, so it adds up to a big business."

"The Xie family, thinking themselves to be wealthy and powerful, had long looked down on ordinary people and naturally wouldn't bother to think carefully about the reasons behind it."

As he spoke, Master Xie threw the note into the warm brazier and burned it: "This is just the beginning. My tenth sister's bigger business is yet to come, and the Xie family is about to suffer."

Second update!
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(End of this chapter)