Chapter 8: Reporting Maliciously

Chapter 8: Reporting Maliciously

Lady Sun woke up early, and as soon as she opened her eyes, her left eyelid started twitching incessantly. While having breakfast, the green-clad maid Cuicui rushed over in haste.

"Yiyuan is on fire! On fire!"

In a fit of rage, Lady Sun threw down the oily pancake in her hand!

She knew He Xianjin wouldn't quietly and obediently eat her vegetables!

Lady Sun lifted her skirt and ran towards Yiyuan like the wind, frantically bypassing the corridors to see a trembling figure huddled at the corner of the courtyard wall. Beside the figure stood Qu Erniang and Auntie Zhang. Looking into Yiyuan, there was no sight of blazing flames or billowing smoke anywhere?

"Where's the fire?"

Auntie Zhang silently pointed to the toilet room in Yiyuan.

Lady Sun looked over and saw a faint wisp of smoke rising halfway before abruptly dissipating.

Bristling with anger, she glanced at Qu Erniang, suppressing her fury. "Take Jiejie Jin to my room? Have a few maids and aunties check if there's any other fire in the courtyard. We must thoroughly investigate the cause of the fire!"

"Let's take her back to Castor Hall."

Qu Erniang swiftly wrapped another layer of coarse cloth around He Xianjin. "This fire is peculiar."

How could it not be peculiar!

A fire in the toilet room, unheard of!

Who would play with fire in the toilet room?

Playing with feces in the toilet room would be more normal than playing with fire.

That old devout woman in Castor Hall must suspect that she did something to Yiyuan!

Lady Sun held her breath.

Indeed, she had done something—she forbade the kitchen from feeding this girl enough food...

Before Lady Sun could say anything, she saw Qu Erniang and Auntie Zhang supporting He Xianjin and walking out. After a few steps, Qu Erniang turned her head. "Please accompany us to Castor Hall, Lady Sun. This courtyard is built with mortise-and-tenon joints; a fire is a serious matter. If mishandled, all the wealth our Chen family has accumulated by selling paper sheet by sheet will be gone!"

They were going to hold her accountable for this?

Lady Sun was so furious she nearly lost her mind. She looked up just in time to see He Xianjin's small face peeking out from the coarse cloth, giving her a secretive yet radiant smile.

Lady Sun: @¥¥%Q##%¥%#%! !!

She might as well die of anger!

He Xianjin tightened the coarse cloth around her and hurried after Qu Erniang, gradually catching the bitter scent of lime and the distinct smell of grass and tree bark.

The interior of Castor Hall was simple, featuring a square table, two lamps, three chests of drawers, and a wall lined with bookshelves filled with ledgers.

Aside from these, there were stacks upon stacks of various papers.

He Xianjin quickly scanned the room.

The owner of the house was a very pragmatic person.

Pragmatic people preferred straightforwardness.

Therefore, as Old Lady Qu entered the hall, He Xianjin made a swift decision between kneeling and not kneeling—kneel, you just burned down the toilet of someone's house.

He Xianjin crashed to the ground with a thud, kneeling with the indomitable spirit of a modern person.

"Old Lady, Xiaojin was wrong."

He Xianjin spoke calmly. "Xiaojin lit the wooden fence in the toilet room with a fire starter this morning. Once the fence caught fire, Xiaojin extinguished it with water and then asked Auntie Zhang to report the fire at Yiyuan to Lady Sun and you."

Lady Sun was about to hear what nonsense He Xianjin would spout, but when she heard this: Eh?

Old Lady Qu's eyebrows didn't budge. "You set a fire just to see me?"

He Xianjin nodded.

Yes, under Lady Sun's high pressure, between giving up and indulging, she chose to set a fire.

"Why do you want to see me?"

He Xianjin raised her head, her gaze clear and calm. "I don't want to get married. Compared to marriage, I can do much more for the Chen family."

He Xianjin pulled out a booklet bound with yellow hemp paper and hemp rope from her bosom and handed it to Old Lady Qu. "This is the account of Yiyuan's expenses and gifts received since Mother's death. The two elder sisters in Lady Sun's quarters sealed off the main room, so I didn't include the existing assets of Yiyuan that can't be immediately converted into money or silver in the ledger."

"The total amount in the ledger is the fifty taels allocated by Third Master for Yiyuan's funeral expenses. We received eighteen taels and four mace in gifts, spent thirty-nine taels and eight mace on the funeral and returning gifts, leaving a balance of eighteen taels and six mace."

Lady Sun was utterly confused, thinking He Xianjin wanted to settle accounts with the Chen family, so she scolded her in a low voice, "Money, money! A young girl, the Chen family has raised you for ten years. Isn't it a bit late for you to come settling accounts now!"

He Xianjin looked at Lady Sun, at a loss for words.

In terms of intelligence, Lady Sun and Chen Fu should have a blissful marriage for a hundred years.

Old Lady Qu raised an eyebrow as she took the ledger from He Xianjin.

The paper was very rough, but the hemp thread binding was neatly done. The writing was somewhat strange, the strokes thin, looking as if they weren't written with a brush.

Auntie Zhang stole a glance and suddenly understood.

Oh, that day when Jiejie Jin asked her for yellow hemp paper and bamboo tubes, she was doing this?

Using yellow hemp paper to make a ledger and bamboo tubes to write?

Madam Qu flipped through the pages and was immediately stunned.

On the first page, two pieces of information were clearly stated: the account establishment date, from the fourth to the thirteenth of the eleventh month in the fourteenth year of Zhaode; and the name of the account book, "Total Expenses for Ainiang's Funeral at Yiyuan."

The second page was divided into two rows, with columns in the middle listing heavenly stems and earthly branches. The upper part recorded receipts, while the lower part recorded payments. The debit and credit sides, or the incoming and outgoing transactions, were clearly detailed across two pages. The entries were meticulously organized, with the incoming and outgoing amounts equal, and the receipts and expenditures clearly distributed. Major and minor categories were instantly recognizable, and the overall approach adopted was "daily settlement," where daily changes were totaled on the basis of the previous day's figures, with summaries every five days and totals every ten days.

This method of accounting...

Madam Qu looked at Xianjin in shock.

He Xianjin appeared composed on the surface but felt ashamed inside.

Sorry, fellow Shanxi merchants.

Borrowing your newly created "Four-Legged Dragon Gate Account" for a moment.

He Xianjin deduced that this system was roughly modeled after the accounting practices during the Northern Song Dynasty before it was embroiled in warfare. During the Yuan and Song periods, accounts primarily used the "Flowing Original Account," which recorded single-entry income and expenditure, with monthly settlements. This belonged to the "single-entry accounting model," with an obvious drawback: it was akin to a simple ledger, such as recording "on x year, x month, x day, Xiao Hua spent five dollars on hair accessories," which would be considered an expense, or "on x year, x month, x day, Xiao Hua found eight dollars on the street but chose to keep it instead of turning it over to the police," which would be classified as income.

"Single-entry accounting" essentially recorded time and basic income and expenditure. When faced with large transactions or non-cash transactions, it became inadequate.

"Double-entry accounting" first emerged in history with the invention of the "Heaven-Earth Combined Account" by Shanxi merchants, also known as the "Four-Legged Dragon Gate Account." Its fundamental principle was: "For every incoming transaction, there must be an outgoing one, and they must be equal." In broad terms, it distinguished between "receipts, payments, due, and deposits."

In short, "single-entry accounting" recorded time, while "double-entry accounting" recorded categories.

If major businesses used time-based accounting, not only would the process be cumbersome, but reviewing old accounts would result in a mess of worthless records. Therefore, during the late Qing and early Republican eras, when private capital rapidly developed, more convenient systems like the "Dragon Gate Account" and "Four-Legged Account" were born.

With a background in business studies and a family enterprise, He Xianjin started small, roughly transforming He Ainiang's funeral expenses into the form of a "Four-Legged Dragon Gate Account," demonstrating to Madam Qu that accounts could be kept in this manner.

In essence, He Xianjin was using the wisdom of later generations to outshine those of the past, leveraging the development condensed over long years to take advantage of the narrow-mindedness and backwardness of the old times.

Well, it wasn't exactly honorable, but it was straightforward.

Not something to advocate, but highly effective.

Madam Qu gently closed the account book and squinted at the slender yet clear-eyed girl sitting below her. "You... you want to be an accountant?"

He Xianjin pursed her lips and softly replied, "I can be an accountant."

And I can be more than just an accountant.

"Just like you, who can be the spokesperson for the vast Chen family, leading them from Jing County to Xuanzhou, and mobilizing the entire family's resources to support an official, transforming the Chen family."

He Xianjin's tone gradually grew firmer. "Compared to marrying an accountant, I can be an accountant myself."

"You may throw any messy account book at me, and then summon the head accountant from the mulberry paper mill in the eastern part of the city to compete with me. Let's see who calculates faster and who keeps the accounts more accurately."

Upon hearing He Xianjin's words,

Madam Qu shot a glance at Lady Sun first.

Lady Sun's face instantly turned pale.

May heaven bear witness!

She had merely starved He Xianjin, she hadn't even begun forcing her to marry yet!