Chapter 8: A Treasure Bestowed by Heaven
The nearly weightless strands of hair brushed past the back of his hand and swept against his wrist. The faint tickling sensation seemed stretched out by time.
Xuan Qiao calmly withdrew his gaze. "What is it?"
Yuan Jiabai said, "Here, this number is wrong. It should be nineteen thousand and sixty-five."
Just in case Xuan Qiao couldn't see it clearly, Yuan Jiabai hovered his finger over the column, swiping back and forth a few times to point it out.
Xuan Qiao furrowed his brows and looked closely, realizing the sum on this page did indeed seem off. He pulled an abacus from the drawer and quickly flicked the beads. When he arrived at the final result, he couldn't help but raise an eyebrow in surprise.
The sum he calculated was exactly "19,065".
Not a single digit off from what Yuan Jiabai had said.
Xuan Qiao recalled that it had only been a mere three to five breaths since he turned to this page. Yet, in such an incredibly short amount of time, Yuan Jiabai was able to blurt out the correct answer without relying on any tools...
Yuan Jiabai's triumphant voice rang out, "I was right, wasn't I? The calculation here is wrong."
Xuan Qiao looked up with an amused smile. "Are you skilled at arithmetic?"
Yuan Jiabai cleared his throat and replied with modest restraint, "I'm alright."
In reality, Yuan Jiabai was highly sensitive to numbers. Every time his mother tallied the household accounts, she would call him over, and ledgers that usually took three days to settle would be finished within a single afternoon.
Xuan Qiao didn't say anything further. He simply turned to the next page of the ledger and asked, "Take a look at this page. Are there any mistakes?"
Yuan Jiabai leaned in to look. Again, after merely three to five breaths, he shook his head. "No, this page is entirely correct."
Xuan Qiao turned the page again, gesturing for Yuan Jiabai to continue.
None.
He flipped another page.
Yuan Jiabai reached out. "This part is wrong. It should be eight hundred and twenty-one."
Without a word, Xuan Qiao picked up the abacus to calculate and confirmed the error.
Like this, Xuan Qiao flipped through over a dozen pages in succession. Yuan Jiabai found a total of seven errors. The amounts varied in size, but he didn't make a single mistake. Furthermore, some of the tampering had been done so carefully and covertly that, even with Yuan Jiabai pointing them out, Xuan Qiao was almost deceived.
Suddenly, Xuan Qiao looked at Yuan Jiabai and began to laugh.
Yuan Jiabai blinked. "Your Highness?"
"Jiabai, would you be willing to do me a favor?"
"Please go ahead, Your Highness," Yuan Jiabai replied. "If it's something I can do, I won't hesitate to help."
Xuan Qiao smiled. "You can certainly do it. In fact, you're the perfect person for the job."
Yuan Jiabai's mind raced. "Do you want me to audit the accounts?"
He wasn't actually stupid. The Crown Prince had originally just wanted him to "do whatever pleased him," but suddenly needed his help. And during this brief time, the only skill he had displayed was his mathematical prowess.
"Exactly." Xuan Qiao nodded, tapping the ledger with his long, slender fingers. "I will hand this ledger over to you. I want you to find every single error in it, without missing a single one. Can you do that?"
Yuan Jiabai's eyes sparkled. Like a soldier making a solemn military pledge, he said firmly, "I can!"
Even if he couldn't, he had to try. It wasn't easy finally finding something he could actually help with.
"Rest assured, Your Highness. I will definitely hand it in before my day off."
Yuan Jiabai took the ledger and trotted over to sit on a chair in the reception area on the other side of the study. With a resolute expression, he prepared to tackle this ledger with the same intense dedication as a student facing their university entrance exams!
Xuan Qiao watched Yuan Jiabai with a calm gaze, myriad thoughts flashing through his mind.
He treated Yuan Jiabai as his savior, and even if this savior had no great ambitions, it didn't matter to him. But looking at it now, perhaps Yuan Jiabai truly was a treasure sent by heaven to assist him.
He had retrieved this ledger from the Ministry of Revenue. It recorded the specific expenditure of official funds by a certain official involved in the construction of the Tan River dam seven years ago.
Naturally, the construction of a dam couldn't be completed overnight. Taking ten to twenty years was standard, so the project wouldn't be overseen by a single person from start to finish. This particular official was transferred there seven years ago and had only been brought back to the capital two years ago.
And this official was currently a staunch member of the Second Prince's faction.
The reason Xuan Qiao dug out this ledger was because, in his previous life, the Tan River experienced months of incessant rain two years from now.
This eventually caused the water levels to surge, and the dam, unable to hold back the pressure, collapsed.
Fields were flooded, houses were destroyed, and the common people were left destitute, starving, and half-naked, with corpses littering the landscape.
A great disaster is always followed by a great plague. A sweeping epidemic subsequently claimed the lives of tens of thousands of civilians.
Xuan Qiao needed to find the discrepancies within this ledger to chop off one of the Second Prince Xuan Wen's arms. Only then could he convince Emperor Xiande to dispatch someone new to reinforce the dam, saving as many lives as possible.
Having handed the ledger over to Yuan Jiabai, Xuan Qiao didn't rest either. He smoothly picked up the rest of the memorials and continued his work.
Many of these were matters he had already handled in his past life, so dealing with them now was much easier and came naturally to him. He could even handle them more thoroughly than before.
Sunlight cast slanted shadows through the window lattices. The two people in the room did not disturb one another, creating an inexplicably harmonious atmosphere.
This peace continued until Qi Guangde came in to announce that lunch was ready, inviting Xuan Qiao and Yuan Jiabai to head over.
Xuan Qiao nodded.
He glanced over and saw that Yuan Jiabai was still sitting in his chair, acting as if he hadn't heard Qi Guangde at all. His lowered profile looked incredibly serious and engrossed.
Xuan Qiao walked over, not deliberately lightening his footsteps, but Yuan Jiabai still showed no reaction.
Such deep focus, excellent. Xuan Qiao smiled and reached out, placing a hand over the ledger. Yuan Jiabai's head snapped back, looking up at Xuan Qiao as if he had just been abruptly awakened.
With a dazed expression, he asked, "Your Highness?"
Xuan Qiao smoothly slipped the brush from his hand and said, "It is time for lunch. Are you not hungry?"
Yuan Jiabai rubbed his belly and gave a silly grin. "I'm starving. I feel like I could eat a whole cow!"
Xuan Qiao chuckled. "We don't have a whole cow, but there is plenty of meat. Let's go."
The two headed to the main hall together, first washing their hands in the basin. Yuan Jiabai had gotten ink on his hands and had to use some soap locust powder to scrub it completely clean.
There were sixteen dishes spread across the table. cold, hot, meat, vegetarian, dry, and soups. everything one could possibly want.
True to Xuan Qiao's word, there was plenty of meat.
Yuan Jiabai had originally planned to just grab the nearest seat, but to his surprise, Xuan Qiao waved him over, asking him to sit by his side. Having already been halfway down, he had to awkwardly lift his butt back up and shuffle over to the seat right next to Xuan Qiao.
After the young eunuch finished testing for poison, they could finally eat. Yuan Jiabai was absolutely famished.
Fearing any unexpected situations on his first day of "work," he hadn't dared to eat much at home that morning, just two flatbreads and a boiled egg.
Combined with a whole morning of intense mental labor, if Yuan Jiabai wasn't young and in decent physical shape, he probably would have face-planted straight into the floor when he stood up in the study earlier.
Suddenly, a large chicken drumstick appeared in his bowl.
Yuan Jiabai looked up and saw the Crown Prince smiling at him.
"Your Highness, can I eat it with my hands?" The drumstick was too big and hard to pick up with chopsticks. Right after asking, Yuan Jiabai flashed a bright smile, "Thank you, Your Highness!" He didn't give the Prince any chance to refuse at all.
Xuan Qiao couldn't help but laugh. "I don't recall saying 'yes'."
Chewing on the savory chicken, his lips coated in a gleaming layer of grease, Yuan Jiabai shot back, "Is Your Highness going to say 'no' now?"
He asked this while tearing off another piece of meat, eating with absolute relish.
Xuan Qiao asked, "What if I am?"
Yuan Jiabai raised an arm to cover his eyes. "Then I'll just pretend I can't hear you."
Everyone in the room was amused by his completely nonsensical action. A few stifled chuckles echoed in the hall, and Xuan Qiao laughed aloud in pure delight. He genuinely felt that Yuan Jiabai's personality was endearing to the extreme.
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