Chapter 102 -

Chapter 102: Chapter

The heavy wooden lid creaked open. Inside the box sat three thick leather-bound ledgers, a stack of stamped receipts, and a small iron key.

Old Madame Bai’s sharp eyes narrowed. She reached into the box, her long, bony fingers picking up the topmost ledger. As she flipped through the pages, her face grew darker with every second.

"What is the meaning of this?" Old Madame Bai’s voice echoed through the quiet hall, cold and dangerous. "These are true account books of the southern farm. The harvest records, the grain sales... and receipts showing thousands of silver coins paid directly to a private city vault."

She slammed the ledger down on the rosewood table with a loud crack.

"Chengbang!" Old Madame Bai barked, her eyes piercing straight into Second Uncle. "Explain why the main estate books say our fields produced nothing, while these ledgers show three thousand bags of high-grade wheat were sold last month alone!"

Second Uncle’s face turned completely white. Sweat broke out on his forehead, trickling down his neck into his heavy silk collar. His hands began to shake as he fumbled with his teacup, nearly knocking it over.

"M-Mother!" Second Uncle stammered, jumping up from his chair so fast his knees hit the table. "I... I know nothing about this! This is a mistake! A total lie!"

"A lie?" Yimei spoke up, her voice calm, clear, and cold. She stepped forward, pointing a light finger toward the stack of receipts on the table. "Second Uncle, those receipts carry Manager Zhao’s personal seal alongside your private signature. Every month for the past three years, Manager Zhao redirected half of the farm’s harvest to private merchants, reported a fake drought to the main household, and split the stolen silver with you."

"Shut your mouth, you shameless woman!" Madame Liu shrieked, standing up beside her husband, her face twisted with rage. "How dare a low-born girl accuse my husband of stealing from his own family?! You forged those papers! You and Zhengyu are trying to frame us!"

"Silence!" Old Madame Bai roared, slamming her wooden staff onto the floorboards with a deafening thump.

Madame Liu gasped, instantly shutting her mouth and dropping back into her chair, trembling.

Old Madame Bai turned her cold, heavy gaze back to Second Uncle. "Chengbang. Speak."

Second Uncle’s chest heaved as he looked around the room. He saw Old Master Bai Tianming sipping his wine in cold silence, completely unwilling to help him. He saw Madame Chen and Wenliang watching him with vicious, triumphant grins. He saw the young cousins whispering behind their hands.

Panicking, Second Uncle dropped to his knees right in the middle of the dining hall, bowing his head repeatedly against the cold floorboards.

"Mother! You must believe me!" Second Uncle cried out, his voice cracking with desperation. "It was Zhao! It was all Manager Zhao! That greedy worm tricked me!"

"Oh?" Zhengyu said smoothly, leaning back in his wheelchair with a dark, mocking smile. "Manager Zhao tricked you into signing private bribe receipts for three years?"

"Yes! Exactly!" Second Uncle yelled, looking up with wild, bloodshot eyes. "Zhao came to me three years ago saying the soil was bad! He said he needed extra silver to fix the water gates! I trusted him because he was an old servant of the family! I signed those papers thinking they were official farm requests! I didn’t know he was stealing the grain and forging my name on sales receipts!"

Second Uncle pointed a shaking finger at Yimei, shouting at the top of his lungs. "Zhao lied to me! He managed the farm, not me! He saw that I was busy handling family business in the capital, so he used my authority to fill his own pockets! Mother, I am innocent! Zhao is the thief! He stole the family’s money and used my good name to cover his crime!"

Yimei looked down at Second Uncle, a small, dangerous smirk touching her lips. "If Manager Zhao acted entirely on his own, Second Uncle... then why did we find two thousand silver coins wrapped in your private family seal inside Manager Zhao’s secret wall safe today?"

Second Uncle froze solid on the floor, his breath catching in his throat.

"And why," Yimei added softly, stepping closer, "did Manager Zhao confess everything the moment Liu Feng tied him up? He is currently locked up, waiting for Grandmother’s official guards to bring him to the court."

Second Uncle’s mouth opened and closed, but not a single word came out. He looked up at Old Madame Bai, his face completely drained of color.

Old Madame Bai’s face was as dark as a storm cloud. She stood up slowly from her chair, her grip on her wooden staff so tight her knuckles turned white.

"Drag him down," Old Madame Bai commanded coldly.

Two tall guards stepped forward instantly, grabbing Second Uncle by his arms.

"Mother! No! Mother, hear me out!" Second Uncle screamed, thrashing against the guards’ grip. He looked back at Old Madame Bai, his face twisted with pure rage and despair.

Old Madame Bai raised her heavy wooden staff and slammed it against the floorboards with a loud THUMP. The echoing sound made everyone in the dining hall jump in terror.

"Silence!" Old Madame Bai roared, her eyes burning with tears of betrayal. "This family business has been in our blood for generations! My late husband built this estate with his own sweat and blood to make sure his children and grandchildren would never go hungry! And you... you steal from your own blood! You starve our farmers, sell our grain in secret, and fill your own pockets while the First Branch suffers!"

She pointed a shaking, bony finger right at Second Uncle’s face.

"You and Tianming are brothers!" Old Madame Bai cried out, her voice cracking with pain. "Brothers from the same womb! How could you wish such terrible, evil things upon your own brother’s family?! How could you sabotage his fields and poison his name?! Chengbang... I am so, so disappointed in you!"