Chapter 692: Chapter 691: A Cunning Switch
Lu Xinlong felt a bit dissatisfied, given that they had to share profits with the village constable and others. Clearly, it was the Lu Family managing the pig farm and the business, and it was they who were putting in the silver, yet they managed to take a forty percent share without investing, essentially giving it away for nothing.
And that was not all; the village constable and his ilk acted high and mighty. The Lu family mbers had to grovel before him, bowing and scraping like grandchildren, yet their own family seed to see nothing wrong with it.
But what he hated the most was that when his father wanted to ask for the hand of the village constable’s daughter, she had bitterly mocked him.
Phooey! What was so great about that girl? Sure, she was sowhat pretty, but she reeked of a fox’s stench, unbearable and fouler than pigs. To actually say he was a lazy toad aiming for swan at, truly infuriating!
Other than being born into a good family, what else did she have that gave her the right to mock him?
And then there was the village constable’s son, Ma Guang. Why should he be treated as an honored guest by the Little Flower Fairy? Wasn’t it their own money that gave him that status? Yet he claid to be penniless, phooey, what a load of rubbish; whatever he had, wasn’t it given by Lu Xinlong himself?
But Ma Guang was not entirely wrong; the family’s silver coin was tightly managed — it was hard even to get one tael of silver, let alone ten taels for courting Little Flower Fairy’s favor.
Self-interest and fissures made Lu Xinlong’s scales tip. He thought, just as Chunhong said, if they could mix in a few bad pigs and switch them out for good ones, the money from the sale would be his own, and he wouldn’t have to stew over an empty purse.
If they could sell off the pigs without any issue and soone found sothing wrong later, they could simply destroy the evidence. He wouldn’t lose anything; rather, it was the Lu Family that would lose out, and since the constable and others held shares, they would suffer losses too.
Under Chunhong’s instigation and provocation, Lu Xinlong decided to go ahead with it. He was the eldest legitimate grandson of the Lu Family; surely he could make decisions about a re dozen or so pigs.
The switch was simple. Lu Xinlong was in charge of the pig farm. He bought good wine and dishes, getting the two workers who looked after the pig farm so drunk they lost consciousness. anwhile, Chunhong’s thugs from the gambling house used a wheelbarrow to quietly switch the good pigs with ones they’d brought over.
Watching Chunhong’s batch of pigs blend into his own pig farm, they were nearly indistinguishable at a glance, except maybe a bit less lively, making it impossible to tell which ones were the diseased pigs that had been smuggled in.
That very early morning, he also watched as a diseased pig was dragged away to be slaughtered and mixed with good at to be sold in town. The custors buying the at suspected nothing, so he completely let his guard down.
The good pigs they had swapped out were all sold to a broker that Chunhong knew, albeit for two taels of silver less than what she had previously quoted.
Lu Xinlong was sowhat displeased, as it wasn’t what they had agreed upon. Chunhong said there was nothing she could do about the buyer backing out. With this batch of pigs, if they didn’t deal with it quickly, what would they do if the Lu Family or the village constable discovered it?
With that reminder, Lu Xinlong dared not complaint. Even if it ant selling below the market rate, he agreed as readily as a pecking chicken, eager to get rid of this batch of pigs and get his hands on so real silver, even if Chunhong skimd off half.
Lu Xinlong was feeling sullen, but Chunhong, with her soft words and Wen Yu’s grace, took quite so effort to cheer him up. Thinking of his woman, he felt that the trade-off was not so bad after all.
Having received the other half of the silver, Lu Xinlong finally bought a golden hairpin and gained entry into the residence of the Town Flower, the much-revered Little Flower Fairy.
As Lu Xinlong nervously tapped his leg, listening to Little Flower Fairy play and sing, he was utterly unaware of the storm that was about to hit.
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