Chapter 640 - 640 Temporary Peace
“I heard King An mention that five years ago, a family of four was killed when they went to the National Temple to offer incense. This organization did it.
“However, because there were too few clues, they had yet to find the person behind the scenes.”
“A family of four. What does that family do?”
“Merchants in the wood and bamboo business.”
“Investigate Seventh Su and see what he has done in secret. Also, keep an eye on my fourth son and the Prime Minister’s Estate.
“Remember to be careful and not alert the enemy.” When the Emperor said this, he pondered Butler Feng’s accusation and asked, “By the way, is Seventh Su in the capital?”
“He should be. I heard that Seventh Master Su was struck by lightning in King Kang’s Residence some time ago.”
“He was struck by lightning? When did this happen?” The Emperor asked.
“It was around when King Kang’s young daughter was a month old. He should be almost fully recovered by now.”
The Emperor’s eyes narrowed after hearing this, as it was the middle of winter. It was impossible for thunder to strike in the middle of winter, so it meant Mother God did this.
Seventh Su must have done a lot of sinful things.
He then remembered how the First and Fourth Princes had forcefully replaced the officials under them.
The Fourth Prince had always been in the capital, while Seventh Su had been traveling all year round under the pretext of doing business.
So…
He instructed, “Investigate Seventh Su properly.”
“Yes.” Xiao Heng responded and left.
After Butler Feng returned to the residence, he wrote a letter to King Rui and told him everything that had happened recently.
After that, he had people deal with the corpses and transport them to the barren mountains outside the city. He also sent two people to guard the bodies nearby.
Naturally, Prime Minister Su did not stay idle. After leaving the palace, he immediately sent someone to call Seventh Su back.
He told his son how Butler Feng was confronting them and told him to calm his subordinates down for the time being.
After that, the capital temporarily regained its stability.
There was also good news that came soon. Grain merchants had shipped over a new batch of rice from the south and a relatively small amount of sweet potatoes.
Although the price was more than ten times more expensive, it was fine if these batches of rice were used as seeds.
Coincidentally, there were still about 100 acres of empty paddy fields in her manor. Zhou Ying bought these rice seeds for her paddy fields while transferring some sweet potatoes to her newly built manor.
After confirming that the country was celebrating the Dragon Boat Festival in May, Zhou Ying also bought a batch of glutinous rice and dumpling leaves from the grain merchant. She also took the opportunity to take out another batch from her interspace and distribute it to Qingshui Town.
After that, she started cleaning up her restaurant in the capital.
She found an opportunity to take out a large number of fresh dates, candied dates, beans, salted duck eggs, fresh meat, and cured meat from her interspace. She began to wrap dumplings of different flavors and sell them as a prelude to the opening of her new restaurant.
Perhaps it was because of the fresh taste that business was going great, especially in the wealthy circles of the East and West City. All dumplings were fully booked until the day before the Dragon Boat Festival.
At noon during the Dragon Boat Festival, Niu Fugui walked into the main courtyard with an account book and reported, “Madam, all the accounts are done.”
“Oh, from your expression, I know we’ve earned a lot in the past half month.”
“Yes, including the gifts we gave out, we sold another 200,000 dumplings, earning a net profit of 5,600 taels of silver.
“It would be ideal if we could do this once a year as an easy way to supplement our coffers.”
“It’s selling well because salty dumplings are a new flavor profile everyone wants to try. This is the reason we can raise the price.
“We might not be able to earn so much in the future, but maybe we can give it a try when our restaurant opens up.
“Good work to everyone. I bought two sheep in the morning, and we’ll have a barbecue for dinner tonight..”