His Peasant Wife : Yao Ling

"Just give me the report!" Lin Jian demanded.

Mi Hui knew that although Young Master Lin always had a happy smiling face, he actually had a pretty big temper and she didn’t want to offend him by not believing in his judgment. She knew when she had to retreat, so she just directly gave him the report.

"There’s a movement from the Han Kingdom, they send one of their princesses to become Emperor Qin’s concubine. It seems like they want her to fight head-on with our Empress Huai Yi," Mi Hui explained.

"Hmm... a barbaric kingdom want to fight for affection now, huh? It seems like their kingdom is pretty scared of General Wu. Have our network heard something about this Han princess?" Lin Jian asked curiously.

"Han Kingdom’s people always love nature and it seems like the princess has an affinity with butterflies. When she dances, she can attract butterflies and because of that uniqueness, it makes her become famous with that heavenly dance."

"Affinity with butterflies?" Yao Ying was interested with that news, after all... it was a unique talent, to begin with. He didn’t really believe in that rumor, but the Han sure had an interesting way to make Emperor Qin feel curious.

"Do the Han people have some kinds of tricks? I don’t believe this kind of thing is possible." Lin Jian was very skeptical of the news.

"Do you think this princess will be able to shake Empress Huai Yi’s power?" Lin Jian asked Mi Hui.

Mi Hui hesitantly answered, "Some rumors said that it’s possible. This princess is said to be an unparalleled beauty and despite the burly posture of Han women, this princess has a slender and slim body. Because her mother is a Shu woman and she inherits the mother’s look."

Lin Jian looked up in surprise, "What? The popular Shu woman who ran away from the Han Emperor?"

"Yes," Mi Hui answered.

"Interesting... very interesting." Lin Jian never thought that he would get such a piece of amazing news. His father would definitely like this story.

"Gather more accurate information about this girl," Lin Jian ordered. His curiosity was piqued and he would get the bottom of this princess’ background.

Yao Ying wanted to ask a lot of things but he knew it would be wise to talk about this later when there were only the two of them left. It seemed his knowledge about the political matter was too little. How could he handle Mi Hui if he didn’t want to learn about politics? He sighed inwardly. It seemed that he had to start to learn about it.

"Any other important pieces of information?" Lin Jian asked once again.

"There has been an attack to a few of our master’s business chain. Lately, it’s getting messier and the business starts to become unstable. On the other hand, the political side is getting better. The left prime minister has agreed to support our side, but the right prime minister still stubbornly refuse our offer to work together."

"So... the old man still persists in supporting Chu Wang, huh?"

"Yes, Young Master," Mi Hui answered.

"How bad is the attack to our master’s business chain?" Yao Ying asked curiously.

Mi Hui glanced at him but nonetheless answered him. "Pretty bad. It seems like a few people work behind the scene together and also at the same time. One attack at a time should be manageable, but together like this... it put a bit jeopardy."

When it was about business, Yao Ying’s mind started to work -- unlike when he heard about the political side. "Lin Jian, what kind of business chains that the master has? Is it all embroidery business?"

"Not all of them are embroidery. Some of them are hua lou, restaurants, and woman’s accessories. The master only chooses the most famous shop in each big city and acquire them one by one, the network intelligence on each big city will be handled by one person who will also make a greater network on nearby small cities."

Yao Ying nodded in understanding. "The ones that were being attacked? Which business?"

Mi Hui hesitantly answered, "Embroidery. A few cities have been attacked at the same time."

Yao Ying felt that this information was pretty interesting. "I run the embroidery here, but no one attacks us. It makes me feel interested in knowing the attack details." Yao Ying seemed to forget that Mi Hui didn’t really accept him yet, because his mind was solely on the attack. "Tell me about the attack!"

Lin Jian nodded at Mi Hui and he knew how business-minded this Yao Ying was. Who knew that he probably would come out with a good idea to handle them?

"The first one, a group raided our final products that were sent to the palace and our people were killed while our products were burnt to ashes."

"Hmm... this is a blatant provocation. It’s not about the business aspect anymore. They want to ruin the shop’s name because the palace will get affected by it if they didn’t receive the products on time," Yao Ying analyzed. "How about the products? Are there any backup?"

Mi Hui shook her head. "No, but fortunately, the product was made ahead of time. There are still a few days left to start again from scratch. It seems like they need to pull an all-nighter in a row. However, the fabric is rare."

Yao Ying asked her about the fabric and when he heard about it, he noticed that it was the fabric that Yao Ling wanted for her inner garment. It seemed like this Empress had a weird preference. She wanted the inner part of the robe to use this specific fabric because it felt good to the skin, otherwise, she would feel itchy. She didn’t really make a fuss about the outer part, but she wanted the embroidery to a special technique. The outer robe and the inner robe had to have two different embroideries. Yao Ying shook his head in awe, because of the Empress’ unreasonable request.

If the embroiderer didn’t have a good skill and experience, she wouldn’t be able to fulfill the request and also make it in only a few days time. "Does our master has a solution?"

"We just received the information just now. It seems like they are currently discussing this matter," Mi Hui answered.

Yao Ying looked at Lin Jian and whispered, "I think I can solve this problem, but I need my wife’s consent first. She’s the one who will do most of the work, but I’m not sure whether I’m allowed to involve her. I don’t want her to drink the poison."

"We can talk about this after the report is finished," Lin Jian whispered back. He understood Yao Ying’s concern, but he didn’t want to let Mi Hui know about this matter.

"That’s the first attack. What about the others?" Lin Jian asked.

Mi Hui explained about the rest of the attacks. Basically, they were playing around with the suppliers and the customers. Orders had been canceled last minute, the fabric that they ordered hadn’t been sent due to various reasons, the price of the fabric suddenly raised, and a few of their best embroiderers were taken. But fortunately, they could only bribe the oblivious people that worked in the stores. Some of the inner circle embroiderers had been poached too, but they reported it, so the countermeasure had been prepared.

The persons in charge of those stores -- whose rank was the same as Wang Luo Hai -- weren’t idiots. The orders that had been canceled were sold at the store and the price was even higher than the bulk orders. Because of the good quality, they were sold easily.

For the fabric that had been played by the suppliers, their stores always had backup suppliers, so it wasn’t really a big deal. After that, each store quickly terminated its cooperation with the shady suppliers. Even when those suppliers regretted their stupidity, everything was too late. There was no second chance for betrayers.

Those attacks were easily handled before it was too late, but only the palace’s order that hadn’t been solved. Yao Ying was quite impressed with the way each store dealt with the problems and he understood that he had to prepare more countermeasures --- just in case, something like that happened to Fu Rong.