Chapter 53

Chapter 53

Gao Mingzhu snickered to herself, but her face betrayed nothing. She merely said calmly, "It's fine, I'll just clean it myself later."

Lin Xiangsong nodded, then pulled a set of keys from his pocket. "This is the key to the office, this is the key to the cabinet, and this is the key to the main door downstairs... I'm handing all these materials over to you now."

His gaze swept over the locked filing cabinet, his expression turning somewhat somber.

"Alright." Gao Mingzhu took the keys.

Lin Xiangsong didn't leave immediately. He stood there for a moment.

Gao Mingzhu paid him no mind, looked around the office herself, then took the keys, inserted one into the lock, and opened the cabinet door.

Lin Xiangsong watched as she pulled out a thick stack of account books from the filing cabinet. His face darkened further, his lips moved as if to stop her, but he held himself back.

But it didn't matter—Gao Mingzhu didn't have real skills anyway. Even if she looked, she wouldn't be able to make sense of them!

Still, to be safe, he softened his tone slightly. "Mingzhu, I owe you an apology. The past couple days have been really uncomfortable. The truth is, jobs aren't easy to come by right now. I was just thinking about my son, hoping to get him a proper job so he'd have an easier time finding a wife. But since you're not willing, let's move past it. Do your work well, and we'll be working together a lot from now on."

Gao Mingzhu turned around, her face still wearing that polite yet distant expression, her tone flat. "Alright, Village Head, I understand."

"..." Lin Xiangsong was left speechless.

Come on, if she actually had skills, fine. But she didn't, and it had been exposed. For someone so young, she's got some nerve!

Lin Xiangsong took a deep breath, forcing a smile. "Alright, I'll be going now. Take your time sorting things out. If you have any problems, come find me."

At that, as if recalling something, he added pointedly, "I'm the Party Branch Secretary of this brigade. I handle everyday issues and disputes. Don't bother Ah Shan—he's the Production Brigade Leader, he already has enough on his mind with production work!"

"Alright." Gao Mingzhu nodded in acknowledgment. As for what she would actually do, that was her own business.

Lin Xiangsong felt a bit more at ease seeing her agree.

She probably wouldn't spot the problems in the account books. Even if she did notice something wrong, she'd come to him first to report it. So he had nothing to worry about.

He'd just have to figure out how to get rid of her as soon as possible!

After Lin Xiangsong left, Gao Mingzhu started cleaning the office. She went downstairs to fetch a bucket of water, rolled up her sleeves, and began scrubbing.

Though the dust was thick, there wasn't much trash. Gao Mingzhu was quick at cleaning, finishing up soon. She opened the windows wider for ventilation, thinking a couple of days of airing out should do.

She picked up the basin of dirty water to go downstairs and dump it.

Just as she stepped out, she nearly bumped into someone. The dirty water sloshed in the basin, almost splashing all over the person.

Luckily, the person reacted quickly, dodged quickly to the side.

"Sorry—" Gao Mingzhu started to apologize, only to realize it was Lin Tianxiong again, and swallowed the rest of her words.

After dodging, Lin Tianxiong wasn't angry. Instead, he reached out as if to steady the basin she was carrying, smiling. "Accountant Gao, are you alright?"

Gao Mingzhu pulled her basin back, avoiding his touch, her tone cold. "I'm fine."

With that, she brushed past him, carrying the basin downstairs.

Lin Tianxiong, seemingly oblivious to her coldness, followed. "Sorry, Accountant Gao, did I startle you just now? I just wanted to come and say hi, I didn't expect you to come out..."

"No." Gao Mingzhu didn't stop walking.

"That's good! By the way, we haven't formally introduced ourselves, have we? Hello, I'm Lin Tianxiong."

"Don't you already know my name?"

"...Yes, I know your name, Accountant Gao. Is it because I called you out earlier that you're upset? I'm really sorry, but I couldn't lie in front of everyone... How about this: since you want to learn, I can teach you from now on..."

Gao Mingzhu suddenly stopped, turned around, and snapped at him in annoyance, "Can you just stop being so annoying! I never said I was upset you pointed out my mistake, and I don't need you to teach me. Please be mindful of propriety—stop following me!"

It seemed less like she was angry about maintaining distance from male comrades and more like she was venting on Lin Tianxiong for making her lose face earlier.

"..." The smile froze on Lin Tianxiong's face, looking somewhat at a loss.

Gao Mingzhu ignored him, quickly wrung out the rag, fetched another basin of clean water, and headed upstairs without looking back.

Lin Tianxiong watched her disappearing figure at the top of the stairs, and the gentle mask on his face finally showed a crack.

What a spoiled girl—looks like a pampered little princess from a well-off family...

Thinking this, Lin Tianxiong narrowed his eyes.

He wondered what her family does... Judging by her words, actions, and dress, her background was probably something special, right?

By the time Gao Mingzhu had finished thoroughly cleaning the office, it was already noon.

Naturally, the brigade office didn't have a canteen, so lunch was eaten at home.

She went home, made a simple meal, and then returned to the office.

She took out the account books and documents from the cabinet, sat down at the cleaned desk, and began to carefully examine them.

Gao Mingzhu was a top graduate from an overseas university, majoring in economics and management. As soon as she opened the recent income and expenditure statements of Qingshui Brigade, she only had to glance over them for a few seconds before laughing coldly inside.

This Lin Suanshu was probably just a hack. The accounts were crudely done, with many signs of alterations and corrections.

To outsiders, it might just look like mistakes being corrected, but in her eyes, the alterations were obviously deliberate.

And the accounts were full of loopholes—the signs of embezzling and skimming in various ways were too obvious.

Just last month, through various pretexts like wear and tear of tools and grain spoilage, about ten yuan had been skimmed.

She flipped to the accounts from the month before, roughly the same amount. Going back a few more months, the situation was similar, with amounts ranging from a few yuan to twenty yuan.

The amounts weren't large, and with nearly a thousand people in the whole brigade and so many income and expense items, ordinary people wouldn't calculate so precisely, making it hard to spot anything wrong.

When she reached the accounts for last year's year-end dividends, she finally found a pretty big discrepancy: two hundred yuan was missing from the cash portion, and the grain quantities didn't match...

And these were just the more obvious issues. There were more hidden ones that required detailed calculations.

She spent the entire afternoon in the office, buried in the accounts, crunching numbers.

The Lin father and son were keeping an eye on her, but they just thought she was pretending to be diligent because of the morning incident, so they didn't think much of it.

Brigade officials rarely stayed in the office. Production team heads, for instance, usually went out to supervise and arrange production. The village head and the security director also had to go out to work or patrol.

They only occasionally returned to the office or home for a break.

Working hours weren't fixed either. For people like the village head and production team heads, they just had to get their work done, no need to clock in.

For an accountant, who didn't have to work in the fields, they usually spent more time in the office, but only as long as they completed their own tasks.

Around five in the afternoon, Gao Mingzhu saw it was about time and started packing up to go home.

She planned to take these account books home to continue studying, so she took a thick stack home.

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