Chapter 439 – Why Don’t You Just Steal? (Part Three)
“Wenzheng?”
Feng Jin, holding a towering stack of bamboo slips that blocked his view, didn’t hear Qi Guanrang’s response and called out again.
“Ah?” Qi Guanrang finally snapped back to reality, getting up to help Feng Jin with some of the bamboo slips. “When did Huaiyu arrive?”
“Just a little while ago. Jin thought you were sitting there in a daze, thought you fell asleep with your eyes closed,” Feng Jin replied.
He then brought the large stack of bamboo slips to a low table behind the screen in the administrative hall.
Feng Jin meticulously sorted them based on the fabric strips attached, which indicated their content. The work was rather tedious and required a good deal of attention. This small room was filled with such bamboo slips, documenting dozens of cases from the past few years in Xiangyang County, packed with complex and exhaustive details.
Despite Xiangyang County not being very large, the number of mixed-up issues was quite staggering.
To restore the county’s administrative system as soon as possible, Feng Jin had begun working overtime again, though not as frantically as at the beginning. He was eagerly hoping that his Lord would quickly recruit more capable personnel to help alleviate his workload.
The current administrative hall was clearly in a state of female dominance overshadowing the male presence, with the former ladies now converted into outside associates.
Fortunately, these educated ladies knew their letters and could read, or else the few men would be working themselves to death.
To facilitate their work, his Lord specifically opened another administrative hall, so that occasional interactions would not be too awkward.
After sorting for a while, Feng Jin noticed that there was again no commotion from outside, which made him suspicious.
“Wenzheng?”
What was going on with Qi Guanrang today?
In the past, even if he was reluctant to speak, he wouldn’t let it be this quiet.
With a frown of confusion, Feng Jin pulled out the bamboo slips from yesterday that hadn’t been processed and prepared to tackle them all at once today.
“What are you looking at?”
At that moment, Feng Jin realized Qi Guanrang wasn’t just sitting there asleep; he was clearly captivated by something.
“Wenzheng, what on earth are you so absorbed in… this thing…”
Feng Jin stopped rambling, his eyes widening further and further.
Suddenly, he loosened his grip, and the bamboo slips fell from his hands, crashing onto the ground in a clatter. One of them landed directly on Feng Jin’s toe, nearly making him wince in pain. Hearing this commotion, Qi Guanrang snapped back to attention.
The two exchanged glances, then in perfect synchronization, shifted their gazes over to the table.
Not bothering to clean up the slips, Feng Jin hurriedly sat beside the table, secretly adjusting his toes that were throbbing with pain.
He stared at the tea set on the table, exclaiming, “What is this thing that emits a shimmering rainbow glow…?”
Qi Guanrang looked puzzled. “Doesn’t Huaiyu recognize this?”
Surely not?
Feng Jin belonged to one of the Four Great Houses of Dongqing—the Feng family, steeped in a thousand years of heritage. Surely they had no shortage of good stuff at home?
Having grown up in such a family, was there anything in this world he had not seen?
If Feng Jin hadn’t seen this object, Qi Guanrang found it simply unbelievable.
To be fair, Feng Jin truly had never seen it before.
“It looks like tea ware… could it be from the Northern Border tribes?”
Feng Jin picked up a delicate transparent small bowl, carefully examining it, feeling its fine, cool texture.
It was the hot summer, the weather was sweltering, and without any ice blocks to cool the administrative hall, it was unbearable. But when he held the exquisite tea bowl, a sensation of unexpected coolness spread from his fingertips—refreshing and icy, with a delicate touch that he simply couldn’t let go of.
“Northern Border… probably not…” Qi Guanrang shook his head. His family hailed from the border regions, quite close to the Northern Border, and the customs between the two areas were intertwined with frequent trade—if such treasures existed, he would have heard of them.
“I wonder who left this here… it’s just sitting out in plain sight.”
Even though Qi Guanrang didn’t have a collector’s hobby, he could tell the item’s value was certainly high.
Feng Jin put the tea bowl back down, but his eyes couldn’t help but linger on it.
At first glance, he had already fallen for it.
“Should we find someone to ask who visited the administrative hall last night? Such a treasure can’t just appear out of nowhere.”
Just as Feng Jin was about to stand, he caught sight of Xu Ke, rubbing his eyes, looking like he hadn’t slept enough, with a faint dark circle under his eyes.
“Wenzheng, Huaiyu, you guys are really early today.”
Xu Ke greeted, noticing something was off with the both of them, and then his gaze was drawn to the stunning glass tea set, exclaiming, “What… what is this? The material is ice-cold and firm, with no seams… I’ve never heard of this…”
The three of them were captivated by the glass tea set, and just as they might’ve lulled into prolonged idleness, Jiang Pengji burst in with a meat bun in her mouth and a pot of red date and white fungus soup in her hand, swaggering into the administrative hall.
“What’s going on here? Why aren’t you managing affairs properly first thing in the morning?”
“My Lord.”
The three men turned to her in unison, bowing. But upon looking up, they noticed Jiang Pengji was holding something.
They recognized the red date soup, but had never seen a lump of it floating in the air!
“I saw you all looked tired recently, so I specially had someone brew red date soup for you; the temperature is just right.”
Jiang Pengji righted three upside-down tall glass cups on the table and poured a cup for each of them.
Even if the soup inside had poison, one would drink it if it was served by their Lord.
“Each of you gets a cup; just wash it after using it. If you don’t mind sharing cups, I won’t say more.”
Jiang Pengji poured herself a cup. She had unearthed these sweet, small-pitted red dates from the county warehouse, and they were super sweet. After brewing it into a thick soup, the sweetness had mellowed, and she suddenly felt a bit greedy this morning, so she had the maid help her simmer it for over an hour.
After letting the red date soup cool a bit, she then poured it into the large-bellied teapot.
“My Lord, what is this…?”
Feng Jin looked at the cup before him, then back at the large-bellied teapot beside Jiang Pengji. Since some of the soup had already been poured out, what peeked above made Feng Jin’s eyes widen slightly, as if he had spotted some prehistoric creature.
No need to mention, the material of this teapot shared the same origin as the cups on the table.
His Lord definitely knew the background of these items.
“It’s just a cup for drinking. Cleaning it is pretty simple. The only downside is that it’s a bit fragile; it won’t survive a drop.”
Jiang Pengji’s response nearly left Feng Jin and the others choked.
These glass treasures, she actually thought they could withstand a drop?
“Drink up. Don’t worry, I didn’t make this; it was the county’s maid who brewed it. It tastes pretty good.”
The three men were left speechless; it was not even about whether the red date soup tasted good or not!
Xu Ke lifted his cup, feeling the warmth radiating from the soup, “My Lord, where did these items come from?”
In fact, he wanted to know their worth—were they expensive? Could his meager fortune afford even one?
The cup was smooth and clear, catching a rainbow light that was irresistible to touch.
Such delicate texture, not even the most finely-skinned maiden could match.
Xu Ke not only had a voice fetish but a slight obsession with objects; one could see that from his reaction to bamboo paper moments ago.
“Thirty thousand coins,” Jiang Pengji replied casually.
