Wang Gang lay on the ground, panting heavily, sweat streaming freely down his bare upper body.
He had just finished practicing his swordsmanship. Now, he only needed to stop once or twice to circulate his cultivation and recover while completing a thousand thrusts. This positive reinforcement kept him happily at it every day.
It also kept him especially busy these days. After his daily sword practice, he still had to study. The Ministry of Rites examination, also known as the provincial examination, would take place next February, when he would compete with examination candidates from across the realm for those three hundred or so places.
He dared not take it lightly.
Ever since the emperor of the Great Song had personally stepped in to advertise the imperial examinations, more and more people throughout the realm had taken up studying, and the competition had grown fiercer and fiercer. One careless moment, and his boat might well capsize.
"The court is filled with nobles in vermilion and purple, every last one a scholar!" Wang Gang murmured, then broke into a quiet laugh. Those who could wear purple and red robes were not merely scholars, but the cream of the scholarly crop.
Ability, luck, brains-not one could be lacking! Yet what use was any of it? When the Jin troops marched south, they would all panic like dogs that had lost their homes!
Wang Gang turned to look at Yingge, who was wiping away his sweat while excitedly sharing gossip from the household, and thought, When the time comes, I'll just stay home. The Jin troops won't make it here anyway. By the time the Mongols invade, the grass on my grave will be tall!
"Young master, what do you think happened to the mistress? I heard she's shut herself away in the lodge for over ten days now. Aren't you going to see her?"
His thoughts interrupted, Wang Gang could not help recalling Li Qingluo's vacant eyes and utterly distraught appearance that day. He felt nothing but satisfaction.
Those two had caused his death in his previous life, and he felt only bone-deep hatred for them. Simply killing them, however, would be letting them off too easily!
He would take his time. He would make that pair of cheating scum suffer every torment, until living was worse than death!
"All right, tell me about something else!" Suppressing the hatred in his heart, Wang Gang interrupted Yingge's chatter and forced a smile. "You're our household's resident know-it-all!"
"Mm-hmm! There's also Steward Wang. He's been going around with a dark expression every day lately. One of the servants said..." Halfway through, Yingge suddenly glanced around and lowered her voice. "One of the servants said Auntie Wang found out Steward Wang had been visiting Spring Breeze House!"
"Oh! Really?"
Wang Gang immediately perked up, his irritation swept clean away. Grabbing his clothes, he began dressing as he said eagerly, "I'll go show Uncle Zhong some concern... Hahaha..."
Yingge nodded repeatedly, her eyes shining, her face brimming with curiosity as she pleaded, "Young master, tell me all about it when you come back!"
"All right, all right. Wait here!"
Wang Gang darted out before he had even finished dressing.
The accounting room in the central courtyard.
Wang Zhong was studying a ledger with a grave expression when he suddenly heard a noise outside the door, followed by a dark figure bursting in. Before he could make out who it was, a familiar voice rang out. "Uncle Zhong, I heard you got caught!"
"Caught doing what?" Wang Zhong looked at his young master's gloating face and said calmly, "Throughout my life, I have acted with a clear conscience toward myself and others. How could there be any talk of getting caught?"
"You really didn't?" Wang Gang eyed the old steward suspiciously. "I heard Auntie caught you visiting Spring Breeze House, so I came to see how you were doing!"
"Where did such absurd nonsense come from?" Wang Zhong said frankly. "Throughout my life, I have always acted... cautiously!"
Wang Gang scoffed. "It's all over the household! I heard it from the young maids in the rear courtyard! Who knows where they heard it?"
"What! Who dares besmirch my good name!" Wang Zhong's expression changed sharply. "Someone is trying to ruin my reputation!"
Wang Gang raised an eyebrow at him. "Auntie really doesn't know?"
"She really doesn't. I haven't been there in quite some time!"
"Then why are you always looking so miserable?"
"Ah..." Wang Zhong sighed softly and handed over the ledger. "These were meant to be handed over to the mistress of the household after your marriage, but with things between you two turning out like this, I can only keep managing them for now."
Wang Gang leafed through the ledger, unsure what he meant.
Wang Zhong continued, "Ever since Chancellor Wang came up with that Labor Service Recruitment Law, our family has had to pay the government that blasted service-exemption fee every year. Our estates only bring in so much rent each year. Once this tax and that tax are deducted, there's hardly any income left!"
Wang Gang nodded. This reform of Wang Anshi's was intended to free up the common people's labor by distributing the corvée obligations originally imposed on ordinary people among the landowning and gentry classes, using service-exemption fees to hire people to perform the labor.
These measures would not be abolished until Sima Guang came to power during the Yuanyou era. As for whether they were good or bad, that depended on one's position, making it impossible to judge.
Wang Zhong pointed to several pages in the ledger. "We also had a few shops in town, but these past two years, they've been going from bad to worse. Only the small inn Wang Yi manages still turns any profit."
Wang Gang examined those pages and frowned. "Bring me the ledgers for these shops from the past two years."
Wang Zhong nodded and called into the inner room. Before long, an accountant came out carrying a thick stack of ledgers.
Wang Gang took a ledger and glanced through it, then picked up paper and a brush and began writing and drawing. He read very quickly, often turning a page after just a couple of glances.
Wang Zhong could not help furrowing his brow. Who checked accounts like that? Looking at what Wang Gang had written on the paper, he saw nothing but symbols like ghostly scrawls.
Ah! His young master might be good at studying and taking the imperial examinations, but auditing accounts was not something one learned merely by reading a few classics and histories.
He had checked these accounts himself and found nothing wrong. When he asked at the shops, all he heard were complaints about poor business! They were all longtime members of the household, too, so he could hardly rebuke them too harshly and could only offer a few words of encouragement.
While he was thinking, Wang Gang had already finished reading one shop's ledgers. Setting down his brush, Wang Gang declared decisively, "These accounts are false!"
Wang Zhong started in alarm and hurriedly asked, "How can you tell?"
Wang Gang pointed to the numbers on the paper. "When a shop operates normally, these sums accumulate from small amounts into larger ones.
"So, looking only at the leading digit, the probability of a 'one' appearing is roughly thirty percent, while a 'two' appears less than twenty percent of the time. And so on-the larger the digit, the less likely it is to appear.
"But in this shop's ledgers, the different digits appear at roughly equal rates. These accounts have clearly been falsified!"
Wang Zhong's expression grew grave. Although he did not know what Benford's Law was and could not understand the ghostly scrawls on the paper, he understood the meaning.
He hurriedly summoned the accountant and had a ledger from a previous year brought out. Upon examining it closely, he found it matched Wang Gang's description exactly. Then he opened this year's ledger and immediately slammed the table in fury. "Those damned scoundrels dare deceive their master! I'm going to find them!"
Wang Gang reached out to stop him and asked calmly, "Uncle Zhong, how do you plan to handle them?"
"Give them a beating and throw them out!"
"What if they refuse to admit it?"
"That won't be up to them!" Wang Zhong sneered. "Before, we had no evidence, and they were longtime members of the household, so I let them keep some dignity. But now! Hmph!"
Wang Gang smiled wryly. He had forgotten this was not the modern world, with all its laws and legal procedures!
Wu Song had killed Pan Jinlian and Ximen Qing-two lives-and the county magistrate, finding his circumstances deserving of sympathy, had merely sentenced him to military exile. Let alone simply beating these fellows who had stolen what they were entrusted to guard!
Still, Wang Gang stopped him. "If we do that, those shops will probably have to close!"
"Oh? What do you intend to do, young master?"
"Wait another fortnight before we do anything!"