Chapter 154: Corruption Incident in Rongguo Mansion (Part 2)
“Second brother!”
Sun Shaozong was observing Jia Baoyu's condition when Xue Pan came up to him again and whispered, "Why do I feel like there's something wrong with Brother Bao? He wasn't like this when the sisters were here just now."
Even this guy could see it, which shows that Sun Shaozong's feeling was not wrong.
He took a few steps forward and said, "Please take the food away. We haven't eaten anything for the past two days and one night. If you eat too much, be careful that your stomach won't be able to digest it."
In fact, those maids and old women had been watching with fear for a long time, but they were afraid of angering Jia Baoyu and causing more trouble, so they did not dare to step forward to stop it.
Hearing someone speaking, he tentatively stepped forward to grab the food, but seeing that Baoyu had no intention of stopping him, he quickly took it all away.
But when Jia Baoyu heard Sun Shaozong's voice, he was shocked all over, looked up at him hopefully, and opened his mouth to greet him.
But then, he suddenly remembered something, and a look of confusion and fear appeared on his face. After hesitating for a long time, he only called out timidly, "Second Brother."
Seeing this, Sun Shaozong became even more confused.
He gave Xue Pan a look, but he just stared at him with wide eyes, looking confused.
Helplessly, he could only take over the responsibility and order: "Brother Baoyu and I have something to talk about. You guys go down first."
“Yes, yes, yes!”
Xue Pan finally reacted and quickly waved his hand like he was shooing away flies, "Get out of here right now! Don't delay our conversation!"
After all, he was the cousin's son, and was known for his arrogance. After a moment's hesitation, the maids and servants hurried out of the room.
Sun Shaozong then pulled over a stool and sat opposite Jia Baoyu, saying with a smile, "Tell me, what have you found out these days that has you in such a desperate situation?"
After a pause, he added, "Your family has caused such a big commotion that it will be impossible to cover it up in the future. It is better to speak out directly to save everyone from listening to rumors later."
Jia Baoyu didn't want to speak at first, but he could only frown and sigh, "If that's the case, I'm afraid our family will become the biggest laughing stock in the capital this time."
As he spoke, he recounted his experiences over the past ten days.
But that day Jia Baoyu learned about the absurd matter of 'one man promised to two families', and with the help of Lin Daiyu, he learned that the silver had been embezzled by the servants. He was furious and vowed to investigate the matter thoroughly.
Thanks to the price list sent by Sun Shaozong and the techniques on how to distinguish the authenticity of materials, Jia Baoyu was not completely in the dark when he started investigating the case.
In just two or three days, he discovered more than a dozen cases of embezzlement!
Those who were caught were basically relatives from the side branches of the Jia family.
This is because these people rely on their relative status to do whatever they want, and they feel more "righteous" than others, so naturally they don't bother to cover up anything.
According to Baoyu's personality, he would have exposed the matter immediately and let the elders in the family know that these people are "relatives in name but parasites in reality".
However, his idea was rejected by his assistant Lin Daiyu, on the grounds that Sun Shaozong had no grudge against the relatives of the Jia family and would not deliberately set up a trap to expose them.
Therefore, there must be something else behind this that has not been discovered!
Besides, the amount found was only over 3,000 taels of silver, which was distributed to each household, less than 200 taels of silver. If one had to turn against more than a dozen relatives just for this little bit of money, it would seem not worth it.
Baoyu thought it made sense, so he discussed it with Daiyu and decided that if they could find out anything else, it would be fine, but if these people were the only ones involved in the case, they would try to keep a low profile.
So after that, the two of them launched a more in-depth and detailed investigation.
Because of the previous experience, more corruption was discovered this time, involving both relatives of the Jia family and some powerful slaves.
Their methods are more covert than those of the previous ones. Most of them collude with outside merchants to do dirty things such as selling inferior products as good ones and falsely reporting prices.
As the investigation deepened, a big tiger gradually emerged.
"I found out that there were many cases of embezzlement, and they all pointed to the butler Wu Xindeng! I roughly calculated at the time that the unclear deficit he had was at least 30,000 taels!"
Wu Xindeng?
When Sun Shaozong heard this, he couldn't help but frown and blurted out, "The servant who died in your house was this Wu Xindeng?"
"It's this guy!"
Baoyu said bitterly, "I had already collected a lot of evidence and was about to expose him when he suddenly jumped into a well and committed suicide. And... he also posted a list of names all over the mansion!"
"List? What list?"
"A list of people who enriched themselves!"
As Jia Baoyu spoke, a mixture of emotions appeared on his baby face.
It turned out that the first people to be exposed on the list thrown out by Wu Xindeng were Jia Lian and Wang Xifeng.
In addition, there are Jia Mu's confidants, Wang Furen and Xing Furen's chambermaids, Zhao Yi Niang's brother, Jia He's servant, Jia Zheng's retainers...
There are all kinds of people, all of them are the closest people to the masters of the mansion, and the silver involved is as high as hundreds of thousands of taels!
This time, a single stone caused a thousand ripples!
Those who plead guilty plead guilty, those who complain complain, those who are sentimental are sentimental, those who are angry out of shame are angry out of shame...
Jia Lian even started a fight with Wang Xifeng, and chased Wang Xifeng so hard that she ran around the whole house - according to Jia Lian himself, this was because Wang Xifeng used his name to enrich herself, so he was extremely angry.
However, others privately believed that the conflict between him and his wife was caused by the uneven distribution of the spoils.
In short, the whole Rongguo Mansion was acting out the Monkey King’s rampage at the same time!
Seeing this, Jia Baoyu was also stunned, and then felt a little disheartened.
When he said that the Rongguo Mansion was a family of bandits, it was just what he said in anger, but now it seems that what he said was absolutely correct!
Especially since even several of his favored maids and servants were more or less involved , it made it even more difficult for Jia Baoyu to accept.
Just at this moment, pressure came from all sides, accusing him of making trouble out of nothing and stirring up so much trouble for no reason.
Jia Baoyu got so angry that he simply went on a hunger strike and committed suicide. He didn't eat or drink for two days and one night!
Hearing this, Xue Pan couldn't help but interrupt and asked, "Then why are you eating again all of a sudden?"
"this……"
Jia Baoyu was speechless for a moment, and then he forced a smile and said, "After all, I still have my grandmother and my parents. If they send me off when I am young, wouldn't that be extremely unfilial?"
After a pause, seeing Sun Shaozong staring at him intently, he twisted his neck uneasily and added, "Besides, I...I'm really too hungry to bear it."
"Haha, you kid..."
Xue Pan laughed and was about to say something to comfort Baoyu, but he felt a tightness on the back of his neck and found that Sun Shaozong had lifted him up from the chair.
Then Sun Shaozong gave the unquestionable order: "Go outside and keep an eye on them. Don't let anyone get close to eavesdrop!"
