CH 88

Ever since entering the Imperial College, there had never been a time where Cui Xie returned home with the sun still high in the sky. His early arrival home caused those of the Cui Residence to feel that things were strange and were worried that he had fallen sick or had some accident at school that caused the instructors to send him back.

Both the Laoye and Furen were gone. If he were to collapse, who would this family of old and young, women and children, rely on then?

Cui Liangdong, the Head Steward, hearing that Cui Xie had returned, followed him into the small courtyard, scrambling to help Cui Xie change his clothes. He carefully watched Cui Xie’s complexion and expression, softly asking, “Eldest Young Master, what has happened? Why have you come home so early today?”

Cui Xie originally did not have problems, but had remembered something after being prompted by Cui Liangdong. He took a sip of tea, looking at the swirling vapor from the mouth of the cup as he spoke, “There is precisely a problem. The five-year plans that you ordered the three shopkeepers to do, are they completed yet? It is two days overdue and still haven’t seen anyone send any over yet.”

Cui Liangdong felt bitter in his heart and secretly regretted chiming in, making Cui Xie remember that five-year plan. People did business relying on the blessing of the Heavens, who had ever made such a long-term plan? Who could predict whether there would be wine or rain next year, whether the price of the manufacturing location would increase in price, whether there would be new customs added to river travel….To put it bluntly, who could know when the Emperor would fall to his demise?

The shops of the Cui Residence relied on acquiring stock from the south and selling them. If the cargo was flipped over on the road, one would suffer a financial loss. There was no guarantee that the business would become better and better every year.

This Young Master still wanted to close a shop based on a nonsense plan written on paper. Wasn’t this just forcing people to fake it? It’s just that, no matter how good the writing looked on paper, at that time, it may not be necessarily possible to earn money…..

Cui Liangdong spewed slander in his heart but he didn’t dare to be unhappy and strongly forced a smile, “I have already sent some subordinates to keep an eye on the Shopkeeper of the Southern goods shop  to finish the plan. Thinking of it, the other two should be about finished. Eldest Young Master please wait temporarily, I will go call them to explain their plans to the Young Master.”

Cui Xie changed into the leisure robes Colonel Xie had given him, stood up and said, “No need to bring it over to my courtyard, have the shopkeeper and accountant send it to the main courtyard. I will look over it with my grandparents and siblings. Then, have someone go to the cosmetics shop and invite Cui Qi over and ask him to bring the inquiry form with him. Bring the three shopkeepers into the main courtyard together. I am a person who likes to discuss things openly. This way, no one will be dissatisfied and spread some untrue rumors behind my back.”

Although he was the real person in power in the Cui Residence, it was not good to have things decided by the will of a single individual. It was still necessary to make full use of the advantages of democratic dictatorship system and hold a democratic vote within the Residence.

But what would the outcome of this democracy be, he had long had some estimates in his heart.

Just now, Cui Liangdong had thought that Cui Xie was ignorant of worldly affairs but after suddenly hearing ‘gossip behind my back’ and seeing the meaningful smile lurking on Cui Xie’s lips, he felt that these words were attacking him. His old face flushed slightly and he repeatedly said, “What is Young Master talking about? How can the Cui Residence have such deceitful servants that dare to talk poorly about their Master behind their backs? If there is such a person, I, Cui Liangdong, will be the first to beat him to death with a plank!”

Cui Xie smiled and waved a hand towards him, stepping out of the room first, “Go back to where you need to go, I will be waiting for you in the main courtyard.”

The main courtyard was packed to the brim with people at this time.

Due to his early return, upon hearing it,  those concubines of the inner courtyard grew anxious. Has something happened to the pillar of the household? They did not have enough status to meet with him, so they asked the two concubines with children to go to the main courtyard to inquire about the news, under the pretext of paying their respects.

As soon as Cui Xie stepped into the courtyard, several pairs of eyes landed on him, their scorching gazes almost burning his face alive.

Under their watchful gazes, he first paid his respects to his paternal grandparents and informed them that the Head Steward would report on the five-year plans later. The group of people who had come to pay their respects were relieved to hear that there were no problems with his health and studies, and that he had only come back early to take care of business matters. Feeling their hearts calm down, they greeted him sequentially,  including the two young children that been brought with their biological mothers. 

The Old furen asked someone to bring in refreshments and beamed, “Just do whatever you need to do. It is not like we understand these things, what is the use of listening to them?”

Cui Xie replied, “I am still young and afraid that I cannot think clearly about some things. If I lose money, it will cause my family to suffer with me. Have Yun-jie and He-ge listen as well. Although they are young, they should know of the Residence’s matters.”

While the two children did not understand the use of this, their mothers understood that this was the da-ge’s way of elevating his younger sibling’s status. Perhaps in the future, they would be allotted some money and property, and their faces lit up with delight.

The Old furen gave them a sideways glance and said to Cui Xie, “Don’t indulge them. What other families have children listening to business matters outside? It is useless even for us two elders to listen and it is inconvenient for your grandfather to sit up. If you add in the two children, there will be no place for the stewards to sit when they arrive.”

Relying on the fact that she had given birth to a son, Wu-shi was full of confidence and interjected, “He-ge and us are shu-born and have no expectation of the future. As long as we can help take care of the family business for da-ge, that is good enough. Let him listen to it from a young age, so that he can understand the market when he grows up.”

Cui Xie did not even look there and insipidly commented, “He is studying with the Teacher and will enter school in the future. What kind of family business will he take care of? Calling him to listen, that is merely for gaining some insight, lest he doesn’t understand anything and be easily deceived when he goes out in the future.”

He-ge was not quite up to par and Yun-jie was already twelve years old. In this evil, feudalistic society, it was time to prepare for marriage. It was not bad to hear about the economic matters of running a shop.

Cui Xie had already planned for everything before he came and had arranged for everything, “Isn’t the wheelchair ready? Sitting on the wheelchair, Grandfather can stay near the door and listen. Let’s hang a breathable, thin muslin curtain on the door and set up a screen to make a partition. If we ask the stewards to talk outside, our entire family can listen from the inside. If one does not wish to continue listening, one can head into the side halls to take a rest.”

The Grandfather softly snorted twice and Old furen, leaning over his face, listened for a while before ordering the wet nurse to go out and have someone carry in the wheelchair. A screen was set up and soft cotton cushions and mattresses were laid on the wheelchair.

This wheelchair was not quite the same as modern ones: the shape of the chair was the same as that of a reclining chair. It was wide and long, and the back of the chair leaned backward, forming a smooth and excessively wide arc with the rest of the chair. Reclining on it felt like half sitting and half lying down. One’s waist was completely supported by the chair’s back. A patient suffering from muscle weakness, like Old Cui Laoye, could comfortably sit in it.

The wheels of the wheelchair were installed at the rear and two downward-curving wooden poles protruded from both sides of the front edge for support on the ground. Pushing a wheelchair was a bit like pushing a wheelbarrow. One must first press down the handles located on the back of the chair. Once one pushed to a suitable position, they could relinquish one’s grip, the chair would stand firmly in place.

Cui Xie watched as they fiddled with the mechanism. He helped dismantle the armrest and then instructed everyone to take a step back. He went to personally pick up the patient. He was a man who practiced martial arts and was much stronger than the young women filling up the room. He moved the old man’s hands in front of his chest, bent his grandfather’s knees and wrapped around his shoulders with one arm and the other one around the old man’s knees. Cui Xie then effortlessly picked him up and set him on the wheelchair.

The old Laoye grunted a few times in surprise and the Old furen hurriedly translated from him and asked Cui Xie how he was so strong.

Cui Xie helped his Grandfather to arrange his limbs comfortably, set a cushion on the back of his neck and while tucking in the quilt, he explained, “In Qian’an, I became friends with one of the Young Masters of a local commander. Under their permission, I was able to learn some martial arts at the barracks and gained some strength.”

Old furen’s expression dimmed and she sighed, “You still have the blood of the old Liu clan flowing in your veins, you must have a destiny with warriors ah…”

Cui Xie straightened up and smiled, “Perhaps. I am glad that I have the strength to carry my Grandfather and have him suffer a little less.

Old furen let out a “ah”, “It is good to learn martial arts and keep fit, otherwise one can easily fall sick from studying so hard. Don’t work too hard when learning martial arts. Practice using those big swords less, lest you compact your muscles and bones and cannot grow any taller in the future.

…..That couldn’t be!

No, that must be superstition! It was bogus science!

At that time, the little brother who taught him martial arts had been a head taller than him!

Not wanting to think too much of it, Cui Xie went out and ordered someone to set up the screen and hang up the gauze curtain, drawing aside the originally heavy hanging curtains partitioning the door to gold hooks located on either side of the entrance. While arranging the decorations, he also called for people to prepare a stack of mulberry paper, mix ink and paint and waited for those shopkeepers and Cui Qi to come and report on their assignments.

The three shopkeepers and accountants had arrived early, but Cui Qi did not know where to go after receiving the order, so he did not arrive until much later. The Head Steward asked the Young Master if he wanted to wait until Cui Qi arrived, but Cui Xie merely replied, “Do not worry about him. You all can talk first.”

Each of the three individuals present held a five-year plan in their hands ——while it was said to be a plan, but in fact, it was just two thin pages of paper. One page was filled out according to Cui Xie’s asset appraisal form and the other page contained the amount of incoming and outgoing assets predicted for the next five years.

The Southern goods store was called the Cui Clan’s Southern Goods store, located in Shijia lane in the east of the city. It was the shop closest to the Tongzhou canal and was the most valuable of the Cui Residence’s properties. The remnants in the store were worth about seven to eight hundred taels and there were about five or six clerks plus accountants, the shopkeeper, porters and laborers. It cost about thirty taels of silver for a year’s pay. In addition, there were about fifty or sixty taels used to mitigate unexpected wear and tear. Including the silver given as filial piety to every yamen and administrative unit located on the same street, the total added up to nearly two hundred taels.

But new products from the South earned a lot of money. A shipment of cargo transported from Suzhou to the capital could have their worth tripled.

Cui Dahui, the shopkeeper, wanted to take advantage of these huge profits to make things difficult for Cui Xie and hadn’t wanted to make a plan. However, Cui Liangdong had the idea of getting involved with this shop and desperately wanted it to do better. He personally looked at the accounts of the Southern goods shop and after working with him for a few days in the store, they finally made the accounts look appropriate in every way.

In that five year plan, except for the first year where the money could not be paid, in the remaining years, the profits would be doubled in a year and after three years, it would be doubled five times. It was no problem to earn thousands of taels a year after five years.

Based on the popularity of the Zhirong Study when it had published the《Integrated Fragrant Diaries》 and the 《Three Kingdoms》, a thousand taels a year was not that much; But based on how much these three had bewailed about their poverty when they had first met, these predicted earnings were simply too miraculous.

Cui Xie remained silent and drew coordinates on the mulberry paper to show a graph of the predicted earnings. Numbers such as profit, expenses, and losses were added on the board using brushes of different colors and connected into a line graph.

After drawing the graph, it could be seen that the income of the Southern Goods store was almost a 90-degree vertical upward trend and the rest of the numbers fluctuated irregularly, alternately soaring and plunging without pattern. The data had fundamentally not been compiled carefully at all.

Cui Xie had originally wanted to arrange the three trend charts vertically in a row, but after drawing this one, he found that the coordinate diagrams could only be drawn horizontally and not vertically.

The line trends of the two other shops, the fabric and cosmetics shop, hovered at around a fifty or sixty-degree angle. Compared with the Southern Goods store, they immediately looked unsightly.

Looking at the graphs, the two shopkeepers hated and regretted ——they hated that Cui Liangdong dared to make up numbers to this extent to please the Eldest Young Master; and they regretted that they were not bold enough to make up such numbers.

After Cui Xie finished drawing these line graphs, he could not hold back from laughing. Picking up the paper, he told Song Yan, “Take it inside and show it to my grandparents.”

The young manservant took the paper and went in to pass it on. Cui Xie sait inside the main hall browsing through their submitted plans and comparing the items in each one by one, ‘Aggregate benefits of gaining money’, ‘Sources of money’, ‘Where money is deposited’, ‘Salary distributions’ and ‘losses accounted for’. He did not utter a single word during this time.

After a long period of silence, the Old Laoye grunted a few times and the Old furen’s voice sounded out from the inside, “Although us old couple have not touched the account books for more than ten years, but looking at the amount of taels, it seems that these numbers are false. Your grandfather says he is unable to handle the matter, you can simply go ahead to do what you see fit. It  does not matter which shop you decide to exchange for money. If we can wait for their business to get off the ground again, then we can live frugally for a few more months and wait until next year ….”

The two children did not even have the right to speak and were strictly controlled by the mama and wet nurse. Hence, they just sat and listened from inside the hall.

Cui Xie said, ‘Let us wait until Cui Qi arrives. He has an inquiry form in his hands that I want to look at.”

He ceased talking and silence fell onto the room again. Cui Jinzhi, the shopkeeper of the fabric shop had relied on making profits with Tailor Yu buying from his stock, hence he had some assurances in his heart. But, as for the other two shopkeepers, their hearts pounded and their anxious eyes roamed all over Cui Xie, vexed that they could not see through the other.

Which shop did he plan to shut down? How could they make him change his mind? If the shop was closed, even if they could go to another as an Assistant Shopkeeper, how could that really compare with the feeling of being a Shopkeeper?

As everyone was waiting, it seemed like their hearts were palpitating and there was an announcement from outside the door: “Cui Qi-ge is here!”

The three shopkeepers hated that they could not just run out and block him from entering, wanting to ask him what he was carrying and which shop Cui Xie planned on closing. Cui Liandgong secretly exhaled a breath and ordered Songyan to serve him tea as soon as possible, and to treat Cui Qi like a guest.

Cui Qi had  been stared down from the moment he had walked into the courtyard, but his expression remained unchanged. He pulled out a thick stack of paper from his sleeves and handed it over in front of Cui Xie, grinning, “This is something da-ge ordered and the counts have already been made. Da-ge can take a look to see if it is suitable to use?”

On the paper, the form was completed according to Cui Xie’s requirements. From the distance of location, the assessment of the surrounding environment, to the flow of people outside the door, the flow of customers, the working attitudes of the shop’s staff, the sales volume of the goods and return rate….it was all clearly written. Although these were only the numbers within the past ten days, it was still very accurate if you were to average the numbers.

Cui Xie took this data and compared these three shops, drawing a histogram with the Southern goods being represented by a blue color, the fabric shop being represented by a black color and the cosmetics shop being represented by a red color. Just looking at the data, things were unclear and looking at the line graphs was confusing. Such a histogram with strong contrast in color and length allowed people to visualize at a glance which one was doing well and which one was not.

Among the three stories, the cosmetics shop had the most consistent foot traffic on average. There were dozens of customers every day and the price of goods was not very high. The clerks were quite diligent in their service and there were regular repeat customers. The fabric shop was not very popular at first, but after claiming connections with Tailor Yu, they were able to sell good materials that went out in whole bolts. Although the Southern Goods shop had customers, their overstocking situation was very serious. The more expensive the dry goods were, the less likely they were to be sold. The cheaper ones could be sold well but did not create much cash flow and new goods couldn’t be bought. Hence, many customers were lost due to this problem.

Cui Xie drew these plots one by one for them to see and then sent them into the hall, so that his Grandparents and younger siblings could understand them too.

He did not need to say a single word. Everyone in the courtyard knew which one was going to be sold.

The other two shopkeepers felt the thrill of escaping death and exhaled sighs of relief. But, upon thinking more deeply about the stack of materials and contrasting data visualization techniques that they didn’t know how Cui Xie had obtained them, they felt their bodies chill. Thinking about being subject to this kind of surveillance in the future, how much money and how their operations ran were to be compared clearly in these graphs, compared to that, it seems that being a mere Shopkeeper was quite boring.

Unwillingingly, Cui Dahui rushed forward to grab at Cui Xie and like a barrage of gunfire, he spat out, “The Southern Goods store is not doing well at the moment, but it will still make money in the future! The five year plan in my store was not done right. Young Master, if you decide to keep you, I can earn you one thousand taels in the future, no, I can earn three thousand taels back!”

Cui Xie gently grabbed his hand and led him a few steps away. Slightly raising his chin, he sneered, “Your five year plan? The numbers on the plot are practically about to fly into the sky, you dare to treat it as the real thing? To not have the accountant report the figures of the previous few years and visualizing them, that was saving face for you. Don’t think that you can fool me just by making numbers.”

He had never seen such a situation even with a TV series or a popular movie and their box office sales. Did they really think that liberal arts students like him did not know arithmetic?

The household had already been democratized, now it was time to switch over to a dictatorship.

He pushed Cui Dahui out and instructed Cui Liangdong, “Prepare to clear out the Southern Goods shop. Make a big sign of the same height as me and put it outside the store. Write on it ‘This store will be closed due to poor management and all products must go, all are…”

All to be sold for ten yuan was not appropriate.

For a moment, he could not figure out how to fix a price and said, “Follow the accountant to obtain the store’s inventory and price list. Estimate a suitable discount and let me take a look. Later on, put up the sign and tell the clerks to stand outside the store and make some noise and make it more lively. This way, everyone passing by will know that our store is closing and there are only ten days left. Until then, the items will be discounted and this offer will only last until the expiration date.”