Wanjin Lady

Chapter 400 Peeling an Orange

The man was wearing an ivory-white brocade robe and had a graceful figure. Then he stretched out his arms, tapped his feet lightly, and using the low wall on one side, he grabbed the railing with both hands, and with a neat somersault, he landed steadily in front of her.

A burst of elegant bamboo fragrance suddenly rushed into my nose.

The man was tall and stood outside the door and windows, instantly blocking out the moonlight.

"How did you-"

"I happened to be patrolling here and saw the lights on on the second floor, so I stopped by to take a look." Wei Zheng coughed softly, "I heard that business at the Red Mansion has been very poor these days?"

Wenwan frowned.

Drop by?

This man was wearing new clothes, smelling of fresh air after a bath, and was spotless like a young man in a club who had just washed himself and was waiting to be picked by a rich woman.

"Dismal?" Wen Wan smiled and shook her head. "Not really. Ups and downs are common in business. Today he laughs at me, tomorrow I laugh at him. We all take turns being the banker."

Wei Zheng's gaze passed over the young lady's jade-colored gold-thread earrings and fell on her cluttered desk. He climbed through the window and entered. The candlelight on the windowsill swayed slightly in the wind from his clothes. He walked to the desk and touched the pile of documents on the table with his fingers. "What are you doing?"

Wen Wan quickly closed the window.

Zhang Chunhua and the others are downstairs. If someone finds out... Wei Zheng is in her room at night, there will be no need for Chunri Tower to perform "The True and False Daughter" tomorrow. Instead, they can just write a light comedy called "My Enemy is Thrown into a Pig Cage" overnight!
"I'm studying how to find the opponent's weaknesses."

"Rely on these?" Wei Zheng took over Wen Wan's seat and asked, "What are you going to do?"

Wen Wan pointed to the employment contracts signed between Honglou and the female workers, "The female workers who work here have all signed contracts. The contracts clearly stipulate non-competition and confidentiality clauses, as well as compensation agreements."

Wei Zheng used a paperweight to hold down the document, glanced at it briefly, and then laughed, "That's inappropriate. Targeting the weak is morally untenable and easily gives others a reason to criticize you. Besides, this method only treats the symptoms, not the root cause."

"That's right," Wen Wan nodded. "These past few days, I've bribed a few women living down the alley to go to Chunri Tower and gather intelligence for me." She pointed to the densely packed text and tables on the paper. "I've figured out Chunri Tower's daily customer flow, customer flow times, labor costs, and product costs. Based on this information, I can infer their daily turnover and revenue."

Wei Zheng's eyebrows raised, his heart touched, and even a little curious, "Without the account book, how can you calculate the other party's profit?"

The young lady had a smug smile on her face, and her eyes seemed to be brighter than the moon outside the window. "Put a bench at the entrance of Chunri Building, and hire a woman who can count the number of people entering the store."

"Spring House has one manager, six female workers, four kitchen staff, and one accountant. According to Bozhou City's current market conditions, Spring House's monthly labor expenses are approximately thirty taels."

"As for milk tea, soap water, mung bean paste, and sour plum soup...these are products of the Red House store. I know their profit and cost details clearly."

"Auntie Liu at the end of the alley said Chunrilou sells about sixty to seventy cups of milk tea a day. Based on the pricing and sales volume at Chunrilou, it's basically safe to say...while Chunrilou appears to be doing brisk business, it's actually barely breaking even. Not to mention the upfront investment in the land deed and renovations. In other words...Chunrilou is constantly losing money trying to gain publicity."

"A price war can only be won quickly. Jia is determined to seize the market through price, but this strategy kills one thousand enemies and hurts eight hundred of his own."

"I'm anxious, but Jia will be even more anxious than me."

The young woman rattled off a long string of words, which Wei Zheng didn't quite catch. He only saw her bright, sparkling eyes, and the habitual smile that lingered in her lowered gaze when she was scheming against others. His mind was filled with images of her hands resting on the edge of the table, those long, white, delicate hands, like freshly made tofu. Further up, her neck was glistening with moisture, the curve of her collar alluring…

She was too close.

The scent of soapberry and wild gardenia mixed together...it was like something was beating on his brain, making the string called "reason" loosen more and more.

Wei Zheng's evaluation of himself is: his heart is filled with lust.

There were oranges in the lacquer box at the corner of the table. Wen Wan was talking excitedly, from how she was going to deal with Jia to how wisely and bravely she could predict her opponent's predictions. Suddenly, a peeled orange was handed to her.

Wen Wan was talking in a flowery way when she said without thinking, "When you peel an orange for a girl, you have to remove the pith!"

Wei Zheng suddenly looked up, his hand pausing from peeling an orange, "What did you say?"

Straight men are hopeless.

Wen Wan smiled and said, "I said, when you peel an orange, you have to remove the outer peel."

Raise your eyes.

The young lady's eyebrows were curved, and the candlelight was reflected in her pupils. At that moment, it seemed as if a layer of wind blew in the originally closed room, blinding Wei Zheng's eyes.

In a daze, the face of the young woman in front of him slowly overlapped with the face of the woman in his dream that he couldn't see clearly, making it impossible for him to distinguish between reality and dream.

"So..." Wen Wan took the orange from his hand naturally, peeled off the white outer skin one by one, then broke it in half, left one half open and put it into her mouth, "What do you think?"

Wei Zheng's scattered gaze gradually focused. He suppressed the strange feeling in his heart and lowered his head to continue peeling the orange. "If you want to deal with Jia, just give it a try."

If Wei Zheng also agrees, it seems that this is indeed a good plan!

Wen Wan didn't notice Wei Zheng's strange behavior, and happily wrote her revenge plan on the table with a charcoal pencil. Wei Zheng laughed at the way she held the pen, "Junior sister, you are the teacher's adopted daughter after all, why don't you practice calligraphy?"

Now thinking about it, why did he seem gentle, tough, calm and calculating in the past?

But the person in front of me... the one with the raised eyebrows, the uncontrollable smile on her lips, the smug laughter, and even the revenge plan written on paper because of her scheme against others, is obviously a little girl who has not yet grown out of her childishness!
What kind of good person would plan revenge?!

Wen Wan was completely oblivious to the cloyingly sweet gaze from the person beside her, utterly absorbed in the excitement of dealing with Jia Shi. Upon hearing this, she wasn't annoyed at all, saying, "It doesn't matter if it's a white cat or a black cat, as long as it catches mice, it's a good cat!"

"Oh, right." Wen Wan was halfway through writing her revenge plan, calculating the date, "Shouldn't Sun Lanzhi be in Kyoto by now?"

Wei Zheng considerately picked up a charcoal pencil beside him, and under the candlelight, he picked up his dagger and sharpened the edge of the charcoal pencil for her. He then used a handkerchief to wipe away the charcoal ash on the table. "She arrived in Kyoto three days ago. I've sent people to make arrangements. The people from the Music Bureau won't make things difficult for her."

"Ten more years..." Wen Wan exhaled heavily. Compared to the previous dynasties, the Great Chen Dynasty was already considered merciful. Girls who were imprisoned in the Jiaofangsi were allowed to be released at the age of twenty-five. She knew in her heart that if it weren't for Wei Zheng's mediation, Sun Lanzhi would not have been simply imprisoned in the Jiaofangsi. She pursed her lips slightly, unable to express her gratitude in front of Wei Zheng, so she avoided the question, "What crime did Sun Qunfang commit? Why did he collude with the Japanese to frame you?"