"Why?" Xiao Jingcheng frowned as well.
"I'll feel uneasy if I use money with an unknown source," Ye Wanmian said truthfully. "Moreover, since you stole the silver from Xiao Yixuan, he will surely send people to investigate. If they trace it back to us, won't that put us in danger?"
No matter how much she loved money, she wasn't stupid enough to use marked official silver!
Her words were so righteous that Xiao Jingcheng couldn't help but want to laugh. So that's what she was worried about. He tore open the package, grabbed a silver ingot from it, and stuffed it into her hand, saying lazily,
"Take a look at the mark on the silver."
Why was he so insistent!
Ye Wanmian glared at him twice, then turned the silver ingot over as he said and looked at its bottom.
The silver ingots in circulation on the market were all minted by specific banks. Naturally, the official silver was marked with the symbol of the official bank. However, the silver ingot in her hand was marked with a character "Wan".
Ye Wanmian had wandered in the folk for two years. How could she not have heard of the name of the Wan Family Bank? The Wan Family Bank was the largest private bank in the Jiangnan area apart from the official bank. In the Jiangnan area, most of the gold, silver, and copper coins in the hands of the common people came from the Wan Family Bank.
This meant that this silver had nothing to do with Xiao Yixuan.
If it wasn't taken from Xiao Yixuan, then where did it come from?
Ye Wanmian looked at Xiao Jingcheng, her eyes full of questions.
"You're not wrong if you say it's robbery," Xiao Jingcheng grinned. That smile was full of malice, completely different from the unattainable and ice - cold crown prince in Ye Wanmian's impression. "However, the person I robbed wasn't Xiao Yixuan, but someone else."
Xiao Jingcheng then told Ye Wanmian that he had beaten Zhuang De up, then followed the clues to find Zhao Hu, and also taught a good lesson to this group of hooligans who had been running gambling dens and bullying the common people for years.
"Zhao Hu signed a deed and promised to give me 20% of the gambling den's income every month. As for the protection fee, it will be collected once a month, and the amount will be halved."
Finally, he pointed to the silver ingot in Ye Wanmian's hand. "So, this of mine is not robbery but robbing the rich to aid the poor."
What a noble act of robbing the rich to aid the poor!
Ye Wanmian almost choked on her saliva. She couldn't hide the shock on her face.
He, the noble crown prince, actually did such things as robbery... no, robbing the rich to aid the poor. Was this appropriate?!
As if seeing through Ye Wanmian's thoughts, Xiao Jingcheng said, "Don't look at me like that. Don't forget the purpose of my trip to the south of the Yangtze River."
Ye Wanmian was stunned.
The crown prince had led officials from various departments and the guards of the Eastern Palace out of the capital and headed south this time to inspect the people, supervise local officials, uproot the cancer, and clean up the officialdom.
And the reason he was being chased and killed this time should be related to the private salt case he had investigated in Ningzhou.
Ye Wanmian felt relieved now.
If the silver was really stolen from Xiao Yixuan, she really wouldn't dare to use it. But if it was the ill - gotten money of those hooligans, she had no qualms about using it.
However, she still had many questions. "If that's the case, why not just shut down the gambling den and order them not to continue bullying the common people and collecting protection fees?"
Why did he still let those scoundrels stay and continue to roam freely in Dongli Town?
If it were someone else, Xiao Jingcheng would be too lazy to explain so much. But to some extent, Ye Wanmian had shared weal and woe with him, and she had also carefully investigated and helped him find his body. So Xiao Jingcheng was very patient with her and explained,
"Blocking is never as good as diverting. They've been running amok and being idle in the town for so long. If you suddenly make them have nothing to do, they'll have nowhere to vent their energy and will think of other schemes. At that time, it will be the common people who will suffer."
"Now, they just collect less protection fees, and their behavior is restricted to a certain extent. The pressure on the common people will also be reduced, and their attitude towards them will be better than before. In the long run, they will naturally live in harmony."
Ye Wanmian stared blankly at him, sizing him up carefully from head to toe.
Xiao Jingcheng couldn't help but raise his hand to touch his face and asked, "What's wrong? Is there something dirty on my face?"
"Nothing," Ye Wanmian came back to her senses and turned her face away.
She always felt that Xiao Jingcheng was different from a couple of days ago.
A couple of days ago, he was like an annoying three - year - old child, irritable and hard to serve. But looking at him today, it seemed... as if he had grown up overnight and was more like a crown prince strictly trained by the three tutors of the crown prince.
How could a person change so much all of a sudden?
Could it be the after - effect of his soul leaving his body?
"Cough," she cleared her throat. "Since it's robbing the rich to aid the poor, I'll accept it without being polite. However, this can't be counted as part of the 3,000 taels."
She pulled back the silver she had pushed back just now.
Xiao Jingcheng almost burst out laughing.
"Of course. Consider this as the interest I'm giving you."
With this money, Xiao Jingcheng finally didn't have to worry about being glared at and treated differently by her when staying in this small courtyard. Mo Zhizhang had only given her 50 taels, while he had given 360 taels!
"Since you didn't rob Xiao Yixuan, what's going on with him? I just heard his guards say that there was a theft in Liuxiang Tower," Ye Wanmian was extremely curious when she remembered Xiao Yixuan's expression when he left.
Xiao Jingcheng said meaningfully, "I just gave him something to do so that he won't always stare at Huichun Hall. Don't worry. He won't come here to spy for the next few days."
Losing 5,000 taels of silver notes would be enough to give that guy a headache for a while. Presumably, Xiao Wuchen would also trip Xiao Yixuan up, and there were also the Ye siblings...
Xiao Jingcheng said, "I just went to Liuxiang Tower to inquire and heard an interesting story about the two from the Ye family. Do you want to hear it?"
Ye Wanmian's eyes lit up. "What interesting story?"
She didn't know that Xiao Jingcheng had followed her to that small grove last night, nor did she know that Xiao Jingcheng had heard every word of her conversation with the dogs clearly.
Looking into her sly and bright eyes, Xiao Jingcheng's hands itched. He wanted to touch her fluttering eyelashes. Suppressing the strange feeling in his heart, he said,
"I heard that Miss Ye woke up early this morning to find her bed full of caterpillars and dead rats. She was so scared that she turned pale, almost went crazy, and had a high fever. Young Master Ye invited a doctor to see her, but with little effect."
The bed full of caterpillars and dead rats?
Just imagining that scene made Ye Wanmian's hair stand on end, not to mention Ye Wanxing. But the only ones who could do such a thing were probably those cute dogs in Dongli Town, right?
She didn't expect them to be so naughty and actually catch caterpillars and dead rats and throw them on Ye Wanxing.
Ye Wanmian gloated and thought that she couldn't be blamed for this. It was Ye Wanxing who had provoked her first, hired people to make trouble in Huichun Hall, and tried to ruin her reputation.
Just scaring her with caterpillars and dead rats was already a lenient punishment for her.