Fortunate Wife

After eating at Shangguan Xue, Li Man talked with his sister again, and then returned to his residence.

As soon as I returned to the room, I saw several men sitting around the table to settle accounts.

Li Shanian and Li Yan were holding a pen and drawing some pictures on a piece of white paper, while Li Mo and Li Shu sat quietly by the side with dignified expressions.

Li Man didn't dare to make a sound, afraid of disturbing their thoughts, so she went to the west window alone, took the cup on the small table, poured a cup of tea and drank it.

However, Li Shu's eyes were sharp, and he quickly spotted her. Before she could boo him, this guy rushed towards him excitedly, "Daughter-in-law, you are back."

"Hmm. Have you all eaten?" Li Man asked as she put down her cup.

Li Shu nodded, and pulled her to the table together, "Second brother and fourth brother are counting the bills in the shop."

Li Man sat down, saw Li Yan's brows were furrowed, and asked, "Is there something wrong with this account? Why are there so many? It's rare to bring all the accounts that have been confiscated over the years? Fall"

"No." Li Yan shook his head, and waited for Li Hua to finish reading the book in his hand before making a mark and then answering Li Man.

"This is the account of the five shops for this year."

"Oh, that's not a lot." Li Man turned her head, saw that there was still a thick stack on the couch, and frowned slightly, "Haven't you looked at those yet?"

"Yeah." Li Hua nodded, putting away the book at hand, and took another one.

Li Man took a book casually, looked at the dense records on it, and frowned even more, "What is this all about? Why is it so messy?"

There are even ink marks that have been altered in some places, but it is a little weirder.

She took the account book and sniffed it carefully at the tip of her nose, and then wiped the handwriting with her fingertips twice, and sure enough, there was ink dust on her hand.

She looked at Li Yan and Li Hua suspiciously.

Li Hua pursed her lips, and Li Yan nodded, admitting her guess, "Yes, the book you are holding should have been finished recently."

"Fake account?" Li Man was surprised, these people are too courageous, right? Aren't you afraid that the emperor will investigate and kill their heads?

"It's not entirely fake, but out of the fifteen shops, only five lost money in the end, and three of the five are currently in a semi-closed state, and one has suffered a serious loss and has closed its doors. The staff have been dismissed, and only the old shopkeeper is left. One person, still waiting for them to settle the accounts, the last one is still in business, but it is only a small profit."

Even, the profit was not as good as that of their small clothing store in Shennvgou.

After hearing this, Li Man's eyes widened, with an expression of disbelief, and said, "How could this be? It means that the remaining five shops are also paralyzed. Give it back to us, and we will announce it ourselves." Bankrupt?"

Li Yan didn't say a word, the matter was far worse than he imagined.

Unwilling to give up, Li Man pointed to a pile of ledgers on the couch, and said, "There are still so many over there, why don't we take a look at the five families, why are they all dead horses?"

"Basically the same." Li Yan said.

Li Man was annoyed, "Then what do these people want to do? One by one is losing money and is about to go bankrupt, and they took these books to show us, isn't it a waste of time?"

Li Yan sneered, "This mess is hard to clean up, I'm afraid they still want us to make up for these shortfalls."

"Cough." Li Man choked, "They are..."

Thinking of the shopkeepers who came over in the morning, and their bright little eyes, Li Man just cursed fiercely, "Old fox."

"It doesn't matter, Li Yan, don't look at the account books, call them tomorrow, and throw them all."

"It doesn't matter." Li Hua said helplessly, "The emperor has issued an order to return these shops to the Shangguan family, which belongs to the Shangguan family. Therefore, we must take care of these things, otherwise, things will get worse in the future. At that time, the Shangguan family will still be implicated."

Li Man was a little dazed, and gritted her teeth secretly, no wonder the old emperor returned the shops so readily. It turns out that these shops have now become a trap for biting people, not only did they not get any money, but they also had a shortfall waiting for them to fill in.

"Then let them close up and go out of business, okay?"

Think about it, they don't have any extra money to fill this shop now.

"At present, only one is in business, and the other four are closed. However, even if they close their doors, these accounts must be clarified." Li Yan said.

Li Mo listened to it for a long time, but was silent all the time. Now that they said they wanted to close the door, he said in a deep voice, "I have to do it. These are the only properties left by the Shangguan government. What is the government going to do here?"

"Yeah." Li Man thought for a while, and was also very depressed.

In the morning, she pledged to the ancestors of the Shangguan family that she would guard the family property of the Shangguan family, including those shops, and wanted to use these as Shangguan Xue's dowry in the future.

Did she get discouraged in less than half a day?

"No." Li Man took two deep breaths and regained his composure, "Brother is right, we have to do it. Anyway, the shop is ours. Although at present, it is basically in a state of loss, but as long as we all work together, I think the total can get through it.”

It's hard to do what she said to look good.

Especially the business of these shops, two porcelain shops, one silk shop, are in a state of serious loss, one tea shop, can basically maintain, and one similar to a modern grocery store, it is a small profit.

They can open grocery stores, but porcelain, silk, etc.

Satin, including tea, they don't understand the market at all.

Seeing that none of them spoke, Li Man thought for a while, and then said, "In this way, let's treat a dead horse as a living horse doctor, anyway, no matter how bad it is, I can earn five stores."

"Daughter-in-law, let's open a restaurant." Li Shu suddenly suggested, anyway, he heard the first two big ones about the business accounts they talked about, but since the wife said that there is a restaurant, in his opinion, opening a restaurant The restaurant is the best, after all, the skill of the daughter-in-law is there, he dares to say, it is definitely better than the royal chef in the palace.

As soon as he said this, the others looked at him in unison.

"Am I wrong? The restaurant is better than the porcelain silk." Li Shu said.

Li Man looked at him with bright eyes, "I didn't say you were wrong."

Then, she looked at the others and said happily, "I think Li Shu's suggestion is very good. Let's change to a familiar line of business. Even if we don't want to be a restaurant, we can do something else. Trees move to death, people move Well, maybe, our reform will bring the business back to life."

"Hmm." The others also nodded.

Li Yan pushed these books aside and said, "In a while, let's go to these shops to see where the problem is, and then we can discuss other things."

"Okay." Li Man agreed.

Once there was a clear goal, everyone started to do things more actively, and did not rest anymore. Li Mo took the carriage himself, and took his wife and younger brothers to the five shops.

In one afternoon, all five shops were visited.

There are three tea shops with a big lock on the door, and the door is closed immediately. In the other tea shop, there is only a young waiter, who is sitting on a bamboo chair and dozing. Look very loose.

Even if Li Man claimed to buy some good tea as a gift, he was lazy to recommend it, and just waved his hand at them, saying what, go to another place, this shop will not be able to survive and close.

In the last grocery store, the business is still deserted, and there is only one young waiter, but he is very enthusiastic and can speak well.

After Li Man and the others entered the store, he followed behind them, enthusiastically introducing various products, and he could really turn dead into life.

Li Man thought that this person must be a chatterbox, but the business in this store was really deserted, but he couldn't hold back the chatter, and when a customer came, he would not let go of it.

In the end, Li Man unexpectedly bought a wooden basin and two wooden brushes by mistake.

Back at Shangguan Mansion, it was already dusk, Shangguan Xue waited in her room with the wound on her face.

"Sister, why did you go this afternoon? I've been waiting for you for a long time."

"Is there something wrong?" Li Man asked curiously, taking the water brought by the maid and washing her face.

Shangguan Xue looked at her brothers-in-law, embarrassed to say so, so she pulled Li Man's sleeve, pulled her to the inner room, and then took out a small medicine bottle from her bosom.

"That big villain sent someone to send me off."

"What?" Li Man picked up the medicine bottle, opened it and smelled it, and a very special fragrance came to her nostrils, "It smells so good, what is this?"

"It's medicine." Shangguan Xuexiao blushed, pointed to her nose, and explained, "It is said that if you wipe this, there will be no scars on your face."

"Oh, that's really a good thing." Li Man picked some up with her fingertips, and felt that they were very similar to modern creams. Suddenly, her eyes lit up and she asked, "Can this thing get rid of scars?"

Shangguan Xue was taken aback, "Yes, right?"

"That's great, you can't use up so much, give me some." Thinking of the scars on Li Yan and Li Shu's faces, Li Man felt very distressed. If this thing can really remove the scars, it would be great.

Shangguan Xue was stunned by what she said, "Okay, take it if you want it."

"Thank you very much." Li Man took the medicine bottle and went out. She wanted to find two men to try it. Anyway, women can use this thing, and the two big men are not afraid of disfiguring their faces.

Besides, what Yan Jin gave must not be too bad.

However, Shangguan Xue, who was left alone in the back room, was very annoyed. She didn't come to her sister to talk about these things, and also, save some of the ointment for her.