Chapter 211 - 210: Deadlock
"Shouheng."
Zhou Shuwei walked into the hall. Her eyes lit up for a moment when she saw Chen Shouheng, but the lingering look of sorrow on her face remained. "You... Why have you come so suddenly? Is something the matter?"
She noticed Shouye beside Chen Shouheng and gave a slight nod of acknowledgment.
Chen Shouheng stood and cupped his hands in a salute. "Miss Shuwei, forgive my intrusion. I have come on my father’s orders to return some silver coins."
With that, he pointed to three silver boxes in the hall. "My father specifically ordered me to return the silver you generously gave me for my training expenses at the He Niu Martial Arts Academy."
Zhou Shuwei looked at the three boxes of silver, but her face showed no trace of joy. Instead, a bitter expression appeared, her tone tinged with hurt and anger. "Are... are you here to draw a line between us, seeing as my family has fallen on hard times?"
"That was not my intention at all."
Chen Shouheng was surprised. He didn’t understand why Zhou Shuwei had suddenly become so sensitive. He asked, "Miss Shuwei, forgive my presumption, but has the Zhou Family run into some trouble? If there’s anything I can do to help, please don’t hesitate to speak frankly."
Hearing this, Zhou Shuwei’s body trembled slightly, revealing a deep-seated exhaustion.
She was silent for a moment before finally sighing, her voice hoarse. "Trouble... Heh, it’s more than just trouble... I’m afraid the Zhou Family... is finished this time."
As it turned out, the root of all this trouble began last year.
Ever since she left with Chen Shouheng to study at the He Niu Martial Arts Academy, the Zhou Family’s affairs, big and small, had been left in the care of Zhou Qingyi.
The Zhou Family had been in business for generations, and their various enterprises had established routines. Even with the Patriarch temporarily absent, things could still run as usual.
Logically, as long as no one made any foolish changes, it shouldn’t have made much difference whether the Patriarch was present or not.
But a single reckless decision by Zhou Qingyi had pushed the entire Zhou Family into an abyss, trapping them in an almost inescapable situation.
Midway through last year, at a gathering with her close friends, Zhou Qingyi was reunited with a childhood friend who had later married and moved to the south.
During the gathering, this friend mysteriously told Zhou Qingyi that she knew a major silk merchant from Nanyang. He was incredibly wealthy and was buying high-quality silk in large quantities, offering an extremely high price: thirty taels of silver per bolt.
Although the Zhou Family had many businesses, silk weaving remained their foundation, the very basis of their family’s standing and their main source of income.
For many years, their biggest client had been the Jiangzhou Textile Bureau.
The Textile Bureau’s purchases were guaranteed, but they kept the prices extremely low, consistently at fifteen taels per bolt.
For Zhou Qingyi, who was managing the family, this sudden high-priced order was undoubtedly an immense temptation.
The price was double.
Initially, Zhou Qingyi was still cautious, only providing a few hundred bolts of silk as a test.
The Nanyang merchant paid in silver as promised, and the transaction went smoothly.
After a few such deals, Zhou Qingyi’s wariness faded. Her trust in her friend who made the connection and the Nanyang merchant grew, and her guard dropped significantly.
Then, in the tenth month of last year, the other party suddenly made an astonishing request.
They wanted to purchase thirty thousand bolts of silk at once.
This quantity was nearly equivalent to the entire annual output of all the Zhou Family’s Textile Workshops.
Zhou Qingyi was shocked at first and didn’t agree immediately.
This was because the Zhou Family had a long-term Official Tribute Contract with the Jiangzhou Textile Bureau, requiring them to supply twenty thousand bolts of silk every year.
This was not just a task, but a qualification.
If they failed to deliver, they would not only lose this stable official order but also have their tribute qualification permanently revoked. They would even face hefty claims for compensation from the Textile Bureau. The consequences would be extremely severe.
Although the Zhou Family had its own silk shops, their customers were mainly the wealthy families of Jiangzhou. Their purchasing power was limited; selling a few hundred bolts a year was considered good. They couldn’t possibly absorb such a massive output themselves.
Maintaining their relationship with the Textile Bureau, though less profitable, was the bedrock of the Zhou Family’s business.
However, her friend persuaded her insistently, painting a picture of enormous profits.
She claimed that even if the Zhou Family’s own production was insufficient after fulfilling the tribute, they could still buy silk from the market at a ten to twenty percent markup to cover the shortfall.
By reselling it to the Nanyang merchant, they could still net a massive profit of over one hundred thousand taels of silver.
Tempted by the enormous profit and egged on by her good friend, Zhou Qingyi finally couldn’t resist. She gritted her teeth and made the decision.
She ordered all the Textile Workshops to work day and night, and they finally managed to produce thirty thousand bolts of high-quality silk before the agreed-upon date.
The transaction was set to take place at Yangqiu Pier in Jiangzuo County.
The Zhou Family dispatched elite Guards, with the Grandmaster Tributor, Elder Zhan, in charge of escorting the shipment.
But what awaited them was not a merchant ship laden with silver, but a meticulously planned trap.
The Nanyang merchant ship suddenly launched an attack. A large number of experts poured out from the ship and assaulted them without a word.
The Zhou Family Guards fought to the death but were heavily outnumbered and suffered grievous casualties.
Elder Zhan was also severely injured, only managing to fight his way out of the encirclement by risking his life.
And the entire shipment of thirty thousand bolts of silk was plundered by the enemy.
From the day of the transaction, Zhou Qingyi’s good friend who had set up the deal vanished as if she had evaporated from the face of the earth, leaving not a single trace.
Only then did it belatedly dawn on Zhou Qingyi that she had fallen into a deliberately orchestrated scam targeting her family.
Initially, it seemed like just a loss of thirty thousand bolts of silk. Plus, there was still plenty of time before the usual delivery date in June.
During the winter last year, if the Zhou Family had aggressively bought up silkworm cocoons and hired more weavers, they could have rushed production.
Then, by buying more from the open market, scraping together the twenty thousand bolts for the Textile Bureau wouldn’t have been terribly difficult.
This course of action would still have cost the Zhou Family a fortune, but for them at that moment, any problem that could be solved with silver taels was not a real problem.
As long as they could secure the tribute for the Jiangzhou Textile Bureau, they could slowly earn back the silver coins and accumulate wealth later.
But misfortunes never come singly.
Just as the Zhou Family was still reeling from this shocking scam, at the end of last year, the Jiangzhou Textile Bureau suddenly issued a new directive.
Because four counties, including Mirror Mountain and Lishui, had implemented the policy of replacing rice paddies with mulberry fields, the total area of mulberry cultivation had greatly increased. With an expected rise in silk production, the tribute quotas for all Tribute Merchants were to be raised accordingly.
The Zhou Family’s quota was suddenly raised from twenty thousand bolts per year to forty thousand, with delivery required before the fifth month of the coming year.
For the Zhou Family in their current state, this order was like a bolt from the blue, adding frost to snow.
A skilled weaver could produce, at most, only fifteen bolts of silk a year.
Forty thousand bolts would require the full year’s labor of three thousand weavers.
The Zhou Family Textile Workshop only had a little over two thousand weavers. Even if they worked day and night, it would be absolutely impossible to complete the task of forty thousand bolts in four months.
Expand production?
Recruiting new weavers, purchasing new looms, buying massive quantities of cocoons... all of it required time, and more importantly, enormous amounts of liquid capital.
What was even more fatal was that because the Textile Bureau had increased the delivery quotas for all Tribute Merchants, every silk merchant in Liyang, and indeed all of Jiangzhou, began to restrict their sales to save stock for their own official tribute.
There was simply no stock available on the market. Even if one was willing to pay a high price, it was impossible to acquire much silk.
Unable to fulfill the official tribute, what awaited the Zhou Family was the revocation of their Tribute Merchant status, severe punishment from the Textile Bureau, and... complete ruin.
When Zhou Shuwei finished her story, a deep sense of exhaustion and helplessness was evident in her eyes.
After hearing this interlocking conspiracy, Chen Shouheng was also astonished. He pondered for a moment before asking, "This matter... Have you reported it to the authorities? What did they have to say?"
A bitter smile touched Zhou Shuwei’s lips as she shook her head. "We reported it. The Jingwu Bureau even opened a case. But so far... they have no leads."
Her gaze drifted out the window. "It’s as if our Zhou Family’s Treasure Ship, loaded with thirty thousand bolts of silk, simply vanished from the Lishui River. No sign of the living, no sight of the dead. The Jingwu Bureau... couldn’t find a single clue."
"How is that possible?"
Chen Shouheng’s brows furrowed in disbelief. "These days, the Court has set up numerous checkpoints along the Lishui shipping route. A ship that large would be a conspicuous target; even a common small boat would find it hard to evade inspection. Moreover, thirty thousand bolts of silk is no small amount. Loading and unloading it would take a very long time and cause a considerable commotion. How could there be no trace at all?"
"That’s what I can’t figure out either."
Zhou Shuwei said bitterly, "The people from the Jingwu Bureau searched every pier and warehouse along the river, questioning many boatmen and laborers. Not a single person had seen that ship, nor were there any signs of unusual cargo transport. The ship and its cargo... it’s as if the Lishui River swallowed them whole."
Chen Shouheng pressed on, "What about Miss Qingyi’s friend who made the connection? And that so-called Nanyang merchant? Have their identities been investigated?"
"They were investigated, and the results were even more chilling."
Zhou Shuwei’s tone grew cold. "The Jingwu Bureau went to the address Qingyi provided to inquire about her friend’s husband’s family. They were told that their daughter-in-law had died of an illness three years ago. As for the Nanyang merchant, he wasn’t from our dynasty to begin with. His appearance and identity were both fabricated. In a sea of people, it’s impossible to track him down."
"What about their Martial Arts style? Elder Zhan fought them. Did he notice anything?" Chen Shouheng grasped at the last possible clue.
Zhou Shuwei shook her head again. "Elder Zhan said their movements were like ghosts and phantoms, their techniques sinister and vicious. Their Inner Strength was even stranger, carrying a malevolent, cold energy that invaded the meridians. It clings like a maggot on a bone, extremely difficult to dispel. Elder Zhan suspects... they might be from some demonic or heretical sect."
Chen Shouheng fell silent. If even the Court couldn’t find anything, he certainly didn’t have any better ideas.
He subconsciously glanced at his brother beside him and saw Chen Shouye also shake his head slightly. He then said frankly, "Miss Shuwei, this matter is complex, and the forces behind it are likely immense. I... can’t think of a good solution at the moment either."
"However, when I return, I will report the full details of this matter to my father. If there’s any way we can help, the Chen Family will certainly do everything in its power."
At the mention of Chen Li, a faint glimmer of light suddenly appeared in Zhou Shuwei’s previously dim eyes. "Speaking of your esteemed father, there is indeed something I must ask."
"Miss Shuwei, please feel free to speak," Chen Shouheng nodded.
Zhou Shuwei said, "Elder Zhan was wounded by the villain’s Evil Poisonous Palm Power. That strange Qi Strength has lodged itself in his Dantian and meridians. It’s exceptionally stubborn. Elder Zhan has been trying to heal himself by circulating his own power, but his progress is extremely slow. He says it might take several months, or even longer, to completely purge it."
"Now, with powerful enemies all around, the Zhou Family is in a precarious position without Elder Zhan to protect us. I was wondering... if it would be possible to ask your esteemed father to help Elder Zhan with his recovery?"