Li Sheng's remark, "Jenny is back," was said with a gloomy, sinister tone.
Paired with his neurotic face, squeezed dry by Xu Qinghuan's exploitation, the effect was surprisingly good.
The teacup in Xue Hong's hand trembled, and a few drops of tea splashed onto her sable fur. Her eyebrows twitched in distress.
"Jenny?" Xue Hong wiped the tea stain with a pained expression while suspiciously sizing up Xu Qinghuan. "Where did this famous figure pop up from? Or is this another eccentric you've managed to recruit?"
In Xue Hong's understanding, there were usually only two situations that could make someone like Xu Qinghuan reveal such a ruthless expression.
Either money was being handed out, or someone was about to suffer terribly.
Xu Qinghuan didn't answer right away. She just slowly picked up her teacup and blew on the floating foam.
She looked exactly like the ultimate villain in a TV drama preparing for a showdown.
"Sister Xue," Xu Qinghuan put down the teacup, the smile on her face completely disappearing, along with the gentleness she had just shown when teasing the child.
What replaced it was a shrewdness that sent chills down Xue Hong's spine, perhaps even greed.
"Let's speak plainly." Xu Qinghuan leaned forward slightly, exuding an intense sense of pressure. "These past few days, I've closed my doors to visitors. Rumor outside has it that I'm at the end of my wits, or that I hollowed out my body writing 'A Moonlit Night on the Spring River' and am now at home nursing my kidneys."
Xue Hong's mouth twitched. Only this County Princess would dare to say something as wild as nursing kidneys in broad daylight.
"Is that not the case?" Xue Hong also put away her spectator-like attitude. Her merchant instincts sensed the smell of money, or perhaps conspiracy.
She leaned back against the armchair, crossing her arms in front of her chest in a defensive posture.
"Not only have you been hanging on Old Man Mo's every word these past few days, County Princess, but you've also had your subordinates scouring the city for carpenters and blacksmiths, not even sparing coffin makers."
Xue Hong narrowed her eyes, her gaze sharp.
"Looking at this setup, it certainly doesn't seem like you're cultivating your moral character. Rather, it looks like you're brewing up some wicked scheme."
Xu Qinghuan was amused. Now this was more like it.
Talking to smart people saved so much trouble. No need for a warm-up; she could just unleash her ultimate move.
"I wouldn't call it a wicked scheme. I just want to add a little spice to Jiangning's business world."
Xu Qinghuan lightly tapped her fingers on the desk, signaling the coming storm.
"Sister Xue, let's talk about something vulgar. How is the cotton cloth business in your shops this winter?"
As soon as these words came out, Xue Hong's tense face instantly collapsed.
She immediately flared up, slamming her teacup heavily onto the table with a crisp clatter.
"Don't mention it! Just bringing it up makes me want to curse out loud!"
Xue Hong stopped pretending to be a dignified noblewoman. She slapped her thigh, spit flying as she spoke.
"The Wang and Xie families are practically like Pixiu, they only take in and never let out!"
"I don't know where they got the official approval from, but claiming it's to supply the imperial merchants in the capital, they directly confiscated all the cotton yarn around Jiangning!"
"Now the price of cloth on the market changes three times a day! It's five hundred coins a bolt in the morning, and by evening it can rise to eight hundred!"
Xue Hong's chest heaved violently with anger, her pearl necklace trembling wildly along with it.
"I have money! My Xue family has plenty of silver! But I have nowhere to spend it!"
"I wanted to restock, but those weavers all hid from me, saying they signed death contracts with the Wang family and wouldn't dare sell me a single thread!"
"My dozens of cloth shops are basically just swatting flies now, aside from selling off some old inventory!"
This was true commercial monopoly. This was a so-called dimensional strike.
In this era, it was far too easy for aristocratic families wielding administrative power and means of production to crush a merchant.
Xu Qinghuan listened quietly, her heart completely unruffled. She even felt like laughing.
Tsk, tsk, tsk.
Look at this backward commercial warfare. They were actually still playing the game of hoarding for profit and administrative intervention.
It was truly too low-end!
Xu Qinghuan frantically complained to the system in her mind: Sys, look at these natives. They can't even play out a decent business war. Shouldn't I teach them what the true iron fist of capitalism is?
The system replied coldly: Host, please note that your mission is to squander money, not to start an industrial revolution.
Xu Qinghuan rolled her eyes. Squander money? If I bring down the Wang family, wouldn't their money become mine? This is called roundabout squandering!
"They want to drive us independent merchants to our deaths." Xue Hong took a deep breath, forcibly suppressing the anger in her heart, her tone revealing a sense of powerlessness.
"The Wang family holds the approval from the Jiangnan Weaving Bureau, as well as the three thousand weaving girls known as the best in Jiangning."
"They intentionally hold back their goods before the new year, hyping the market price of cloth to the skies, just to break the capital chains of our smaller businesses so we are forced to sell our shops to them at a low price."
"This is called big fish eating small fish."
Xue Hong sneered, her eyes full of unwillingness to concede.
"Once the new year passes and they've eaten us clean, they'll drop the price of cloth again. By then, the entire cloth industry in Jiangning will belong to the Wang family!"
After hearing this, Xu Qinghuan clapped her hands lightly twice. Clap, clap.
The applause sounded particularly piercing in the quiet heated pavilion.
"A thorough analysis and rigorous logic, worthy of the head of the Xue family."
Xu Qinghuan spoke words of praise, but an undisguised mockery hung on her face.
"What a pity." She shook her head, her tone light and airy.
"Their greed is too ugly, and their efficiency is too low."
Xue Hong was stunned: "What do you mean?"
"Relying on monopolizing raw materials, on administrative pressure, and on those so-called three thousand weaving girls working day and night..." Xu Qinghuan extended a finger and waved it in front of her eyes.
"This kind of moat, in the face of true power, can be pierced with a single poke."
She casually pointed to the window paper outside.
Xue Hong frowned and stared at Xu Qinghuan for a long while. Suddenly realizing something, she leaned forward abruptly.
"County Princess, could it be that you want to..." Xue Hong lowered her voice and asked mysteriously, "Do you want to write another poem and curse the Wang family to death?"
Xu Qinghuan almost spat out her mouthful of tea. No, why were these people's thought processes always stuck on writing poems? Was she some literary giant? Was she some cursing queen? Although she was indeed pretty good at cursing.
"Sister Xue." Xu Qinghuan helplessly rubbed her forehead. "The marketplace is like a battlefield. Those aristocratic families have skin thicker than city walls. Even if I cursed their ancestors back to life, they wouldn't make a single coin less."
Xue Hong looked disappointed: "Then what do you want to do? Besides this, I can't think of any other trick you have to deal with the Wang family."
"After all..." Xue Hong sighed, "They have actual cloth, real looms bought with silver and gold, and manpower. We can't exactly go rob them, can we?"
"Rob?"
Xu Qinghuan laughed, her body shaking with amusement, her smile incredibly sly.
"Robbing is too crude; that's what bandits do."
"What I am going to do is ten thousand times more ruthless than robbing."
Xu Qinghuan stood up and walked over to Xue Hong, looking down at this strong woman who had struggled in the Jiangning business world for decades.
"Sister Xue, tell me, what is the Wang family most proud of?"
Xue Hong answered without hesitation, "Of course it's those three thousand weavers! That is the foundation the Wang family has accumulated over several generations. Every single one is a skilled hand, capable of producing hundreds of bolts of cotton cloth a day!"
"Three thousand weavers..." Xu Qinghuan repeated softly, a hint of pity in her tone.
"What if I told you that I could turn these three thousand weavers into the Wang family's biggest burden overnight?"
Xue Hong's pupils shrank drastically. "That's impossible!"
"How could that be? Those weavers are cash cows! As long as they are fed, they generate wealth. How could they ever be a burden?"
"What if..."
Xu Qinghuan bent down, her face almost touching the tip of Xue Hong's nose. Her peach-blossom eyes were brimming with ambition.
"What if the cloth I produce here doesn't require that many people, nor that much time."
"The output is ten times, a hundred times theirs."
"And the cost is only a tenth of theirs."
"Perhaps... even lower."
Xu Qinghuan's voice was very light, yet it exploded like thunder in Xue Hong's mind.
"Do you think, when that time comes, his three thousand weavers—who need to be fed, paid, and managed when they fall ill and ask for leave—will just become money-losing liabilities who only know how to open their mouths to eat?"
Xue Hong opened her mouth wide, staring blankly at Xu Qinghuan.
She wanted to retort, to say that there was no such sorcery in the world, that this violated decades of her understanding of commerce.
However, looking at Xu Qinghuan's certain gaze, looking at this woman who had once suppressed the entire audience with a single poem at the Splendid Banquet, Xue Hong suddenly felt her throat tighten. She couldn't utter a single word.
Fear. It was a kind of fear she had never experienced before. Not the fear of being oppressed by the power of the Wang family's patriarch, but an instinctive shudder in the face of the unknown.
What exactly did this woman want to do? What she was plotting wasn't just snatching a piece of meat from the Wang family's mouth; she wanted to flip the entire dining table!
Gulp. Xue Hong swallowed hard, feeling a layer of cold sweat already forming on her back.
"County... County Princess, don't frighten your older sister." Xue Hong forced a smile that looked uglier than crying.
"How could such a thing exist in this world? Unless you are an immortal who can turn scattered beans into an army."
Xu Qinghuan straightened up, adjusted her sleeves, and returned to her usual languid demeanor.
"I can't be an immortal, but I am quite familiar with the business of snatching trade from the King of Hell."
She walked to the window and looked at the heavy, swirling snow outside.
"Sister Xue," Xu Qinghuan suddenly asked out of nowhere, "I heard that your business in the north hasn't been easy to manage lately?"
Xue Hong's heart skipped a beat. Although she managed secret properties in the north for a certain prince very discreetly, it wasn't a top secret in the eyes of those who cared to look, especially the woman in front of her, who had the Embroidered Uniform Guard standing behind her.
"What do you mean by that, County Princess?" Xue Hong asked warily.
Xu Qinghuan turned around, her back against the snow's glare from the window. In that instant, her figure appeared somewhat towering, even a bit intimidating.
"I have a second brother in the north. He says it's bitterly cold over there, and the soldiers don't have enough clothes to wear."
"And you—you have money, you have the channels, but your neck is being choked by the Wang family. You can't ship out a single bolt of cloth."
Xu Qinghuan walked to the table, dipped her finger in tea, drew a circle on the tabletop, and then pierced it with one thrust.
"This is a dead end."
"But as long as we join forces, this becomes a killing trap."
Xu Qinghuan looked at Xue Hong, the corners of her mouth curling into a smile that was both an invitation and a temptation.
"Patriarch Xue, do you want to do a deal with me?"
"A deal that can bankrupt the noble families, drive the price of cloth in Jiangnan and even the entire Great Qian Dynasty into the mud, and allow you to stand tall in front of that person in the north?"
Xue Hong stared fixedly at Xu Qinghuan's finger. Her heart beat wildly in her chest, pounding so hard against her ribs that it hurt.
It was greed. It was a thirst for power. It was the instinct of a merchant who simply could not refuse when faced with a massive profit capable of changing the world order!
After a long time, Xue Hong's red-painted nails dug deeply into her palms.
She raised her head, the fear in her eyes dissipating, replaced only by a gambler's madness.
"As long as the County Princess dares to do it."
"I, Xue Hong, will bet my life and fortune on you!"
Xu Qinghuan smiled, and this smile was much more sincere.
"Good."
