Just as Qin Xuehua and her two daughters were seething with resentment over their declining quality of life, a chaotic, heavy tread sounded from the front courtyard, mixed with the servants' flustered greetings.
"Fifth Young Master, you're back?"
"Fifth Young Master, what happened to you...?"
Right after that, a figure stumbled into the flower hall.
When they saw who it was, Qin Xuehua, Zhang Wanning, and Zhang Qingyue were all stunned, hardly daring to believe their eyes.
Zhang Heng's hair was disheveled, his robes were smeared with soot and some unidentifiable stains, his eyes were sunken and bloodshot, his lips were cracked, and his face was etched with utter exhaustion and... despair.
It had been barely more than a day since they had last seen him—the Fifth Young Master of the Marquis Estate, who just yesterday had been brimming with confidence and sworn to make a great success of things.
Now he looked so haggard that he might have been a disheveled middle-aged man drained of all vitality, utterly unlike his usually polished self.
He kept muttering hoarsely, "It's over... it's all over now... It can't be fixed... We can't deliver the orders..."
Qin Xuehua's heart clenched, and her voice trembled.
"Heng'er, my Heng'er, what happened to you?
What's wrong?
Don't scare Mother."
Zhang Wanning and Zhang Qingyue hurried over too, shock and worry written all over their faces.
"Xiao Heng, say something! What on earth happened?"
Zhang Wanning urged him anxiously.
Only after his mother and sister pressed him repeatedly did Zhang Heng seem to come around a little.
He raised his head and looked at his family's concerned faces. His lips quivered a few times before he finally broke down and said, "The Alchemy Room... Dingsheng Workshop's Alchemy Room... it's completely... completely in chaos."
"The Earth Fire Formation is getting more and more unstable, and the Alchemy Furnace Inscriptions keep failing. This afternoon, three more main furnaces exploded.
"Now, fewer than three out of every ten furnaces in the entire Alchemy Zone can produce Pills reliably. Our output... is less than a tenth of normal."
"And that's not all..."
Zhang Heng's voice caught in his throat.
"Those big orders we took before, especially the batches of high-grade Pills reserved by the palace and several princes' estates, are due in just a few days! But now... we can't make them at all.
"If we fail to deliver on time, the contracts say we'll have to pay... pay triple the deposit.
"The palace order alone had a deposit of fifty thousand taels! Triple that is a hundred and fifty thousand taels.
"And with the other clients... the penalties alone could add up to over... over four hundred thousand taels."
"Four hundred thousand taels?"
Qin Xuehua's vision went black, and she nearly fainted.
They had only just mortgaged the ancestral estate to cover the debt of seven hundred and sixty thousand taels, and now they were facing another four hundred thousand taels in compensation?
Even if the Marquis Estate were piled with gold and silver, it couldn't withstand this kind of strain.
Zhang Wanning let out a shriek.
"Four hundred thousand taels?
"How could it be that much?
"Xiao Heng, what on earth did you do?
"Dingsheng Workshop used to make money hand over fist every day. Nothing like this ever happened before.
"How did everything fall apart after you'd only been in charge for two days... and now we might have to pay so much?"
She felt for her younger brother, but hearing about this astronomical compensation—and thinking of how she had just been cut off from her Spirit Beast canvases and had to endure a lower standard of living—stoked a fierce anger mingled with fear.
So she complained somewhat recklessly.
"Didn't you say you'd do better than Zhang Yu?
"How did you end up making such a mess of things?
"If I'd known..."
"Enough."
Zhang Qingyue, who had been silent until then, suddenly cut Zhang Wanning off sharply.
She was just as alarmed, but seeing her younger brother on the verge of collapse, she knew that blaming him now would do no good. It would only make him fall apart even more.
"Fourth Sister, Xiao Heng has been working himself to the bone over Dingsheng Workshop. He's worn out in body and mind."
Zhang Qingyue's tone was stern.
"Besides, this may not all be Xiao Heng's fault. Maybe the Alchemy Room already had problems when Zhang Yu was in charge, but they were well hidden and only came to light after Xiao Heng took over.
"The most important thing now is to find a way to solve the problem, not to blame our own family."
She was defending Zhang Heng, but she was also giving everyone—including herself—a reason they could accept.
It wasn't that Zhang Heng was incompetent; it was that Zhang Yu had left behind a rotten mess full of traps.
At her words, Qin Xuehua immediately seized on them as if they were a lifeline, nodding again and again.
She held the dispirited Zhang Heng tight, so heartbroken that tears rolled down her cheeks.
"That's right, that's right. Qingyue is right. That wretch Zhang Yu must have planted the seeds of this disaster long ago.
"If anyone's to blame, it's that heartless beast.
"Mother believes in you. You were just unlucky enough to inherit this rotten mess."
Once again, she skillfully shifted all the blame and responsibility onto Zhang Yu, who wasn't even there.
Only then could she continue to dote on her son with a clear conscience and preserve the illusion that "her son was the most outstanding."
In his mother's arms, and with his sister's "understanding," Zhang Heng managed to catch his breath, but the despair in his eyes did not fade.
He knew that whoever was responsible, the mess in front of him was real, and so was the enormous compensation.
"But Mother... what should we do now?"
Zhang Heng's voice was hoarse. "The Array Masters we called in are helpless against the Earth Fire Formation and the furnaces, and the orders... are about to miss their deadlines."
Qin Xuehua panicked too. She was a sheltered lady of the inner household; how could she know anything about this?
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