In truth, Xu Yuan had harbored doubts about Su Jinxuan's words all along.
Just as she did not trust him, he was not about to take her word at face value either.
However, the information in that secret dossier had indeed confirmed that Su Jinxuan's family suffered a catastrophic upheaval during her childhood.
While her parents were alive, her family had been quite well-off.
During their lifetime, her parents operated a modest trading firm spanning Jiangnan Prefecture and Jincheng.
The Suqin Cloth Firm.
Its primary business was cloth and silk, along with perfumes, cosmetics, and rouge designed specifically for women.
Because Su Jinxuan's father had been a classmate of one of the managers at Jiangnan Prefecture's Tian'an Chamber of Commerce back then,
they relied on this tenuous connection, along with some lavish gifts, for the Suqin Cloth Firm to secure a peripheral trade partnership with that commercial juggernaut.
Precisely because of this, when her entire family was slaughtered, the Black Scale Guards had privately investigated the incident.
A partner firm had vanished out of thin air, and through the slaughter of its entire household at that. Naturally, it warranted an inquiry.
The perpetrators had covered their tracks meticulously, but through their unique information networks, the Black Scale Guards still managed to piece together the broad strokes.
Two factions had targeted Su Jinxuan's family.
One provided the coin, and the other provided the muscle.
The ones footing the bill were three commercial guilds within Jiangnan's cloth trade,
while the muscle was a band of mountain bandits from outside the prefecture seat.
Once the deed was done, the bandits who provided the muscle were thoroughly wiped out by the three paying guilds.
At that point, the Black Scale Guards did not delve any deeper, as the Suqin Cloth Firm was merely the lowest tier of material supplier for Tian'an Chamber of Commerce.
It did not involve core interests, so there was naturally no need to intervene.
Back then, Tian'an Chamber of Commerce handled the matter in a very straightforward manner.
A mid-level steward was dispatched to reprimand the three unruly guilds. After extracting a hefty sum in compensation, the matter was brushed aside.
Tian'an Chamber of Commerce took the compensation.
The three guilds obtained the properties at a bargain through subsequent government auctions.
The local authorities collected revenue from the auction while simultaneously eradicating the bandit threat.
Ah, a world where nobody got hurt had been achieved~
Of course, even after pocketing the benefits, the case files regarding the incident remained preserved within the local Black Scale Guard archives.
Now that Xu Yuan had ordered a reinvestigation, the old files were reopened. The Jiangnan Prefecture Black Scale Guards immediately launched a thorough probe into those three original cloth guilds, but they turned up empty-handed.
All the people from back then were dead.
Even after days of exhaustive effort, the Jiangnan Prefecture Black Scale Guards failed to find a single living soul. Every trail broke off halfway because key figures had already died.
Qin Weijiu had conducted himself with extreme professionalism in this matter.
Fortunately, the Black Scale Guards of the Chancellor's Manor were equally professional.
Switching angles several times, they eventually uncovered a few clues surrounding the Suqin Cloth Firm's former properties.
Su Jinxuan's parents were dead, but the land deeds and real estate registered under their names could not vanish into thin air.
Su Jinxuan had been rescued and had left behind no heir, so once the statutory period expired, the government auctioned them off.
Indeed, Qin Weijiu had merely rescued Su Jinxuan herself back then; he did not help her safeguard her family's estate.
There were many reasons not to help, the most crucial being a lack of motive.
Although saving Su Jinxuan was a meticulously orchestrated act, Qin Weijiu had to present it as a whim of circumstance.
*I took pity on you and saved your life in passing, and now I'm supposed to go out of my way to help you protect your family fortune?*
Without blood ties or close friendship, where in the world would one find such benevolence?
Operating on this principle, even when helping Su Jinxuan seek revenge and tying up loose ends, Qin Weijiu waited years until he had gradually fostered a bond of "family" with her before making a move.
Everything was conducted with utter caution.
Yet even the best plans could not withstand pig-headed subordinates.
Those assets were nothing to Qin Weijiu, but to some of his underlings, they were choice cuts of meat.
Over the course of a dozen years, the former properties of Su Jinxuan's parents passed through various hands before ending up registered under a man named Xi Cang.
The man's name was inconsequential. What mattered was that he was the second elder brother to the son-in-law of the president of Konghua Chamber of Commerce.
Konghua Chamber of Commerce was a formidable local presence, nominally unaffiliated with any faction.
At this stage, the trail went cold once again.
For a large chamber of commerce to swallow and consolidate various businesses was the most ordinary occurrence in the world.
The Jiangnan Black Scale Guards reported this upward, and just as the inquiry was about to wrap up, a pivotal piece of intelligence arrived from the Black Scale Guard headquarters in the Imperial Capital—Konghua Chamber of Commerce was backed by the sect to which Qin Weijiu's clan belonged.
This revelation instantly revitalized the Jiangnan Prefecture Black Scale Guards.
Qin Weijiu had not touched the estate of Su Jinxuan's parents back then, but his hidden pawns had seized her family's holdings.
Seizing them openly might not have raised suspicions. After all, Su Jinxuan trusted him so deeply, and their relationship resembled that of siblings; managing them on her behalf with the intent of returning them when the time was right remained a possibility.
Occupying them in secret, however, carried implications worthy of deep contemplation.
While still not definitive proof, it provided the Jiangnan Black Scale Guards with a fresh angle of investigation.
The bottom-up inquiry had stalled because key figures in the three guilds had been eliminated, but with this new lead, they could conduct a top-down investigation.
As the investigation unfolded, the Jiangnan Black Scale Guards discovered that the broken ends of both trails converged.
The Suqin Cloth Firm established by Su Jinxuan's parents had relied on Tian'an Chamber of Commerce, whereas those other three guilds had been backed by Konghua Chamber of Commerce.
The means of uncovering this was rather simple.
Much like modern brand-name clothing collaborating on joint releases, once those small cloth guilds scraping by in the cracks secured a partnership with a major chamber of commerce, they could hardly wait to plaster the agreement across their foreheads.
It served as a de facto seal of quality.
One needed only to visit and question the veteran stewards who had worked in the cloth trade for over twenty years to learn the truth.
More importantly,
the cloth guild properties of Su Jinxuan's three enemies had all ended up affiliated under Konghua Chamber of Commerce.
Konghua Chamber of Commerce had absorbed all the assets of those three guilds lock, stock, and barrel.
Aside from the figures in charge who had died and been replaced, the remaining mid- and high-level stewards had experienced virtually no turnover over more than a decade.
When Xu Yuan first read this, he laughed aloud.
After acquiring a company, even if you did not want to cause immediate panic with sweeping changes, shouldn't you at least install a couple of your own confidants in key positions?
What did it mean for Konghua Chamber of Commerce to acquire three cloth guilds and not replace a single steward in over ten years?
First holding stock through nominees, and now returning the assets to their original master?
***
More than an hour later, Xu Yuan finally pushed open the door and entered the room.
The interior remained dim. The exquisite meal had already been cleared away by the maids, leaving only the young woman sitting alone on a stool before the small round table.
Su Jinxuan had her back to the door. Her spine was held very straight, yet she looked somewhat frail.
Xu Yuan stepped closer and noticed that beneath her pale green-and-white silk gauzes, her delicate body was trembling faintly.
Advancing two more paces, he heard Su Jinxuan's voice drift softly over, edged with a tremor:
"D-do you have proof... of Mister... Mister Qin's connection to that Konghua Chamber of Commerce?"
Hearing this, Xu Yuan walked silently in front of her.
He had stepped out earlier precisely to fetch this.
Together with Ying'er, he had used a communication array to have the Imperial Capital transmit this crucial evidence over.
He simply had not expected the material to be so voluminous; printing it with the formation movable-type press had taken over an hour.
*Thud—*
With a thought, Xu Yuan retrieved several thick stacks of ledgers from his Sumeru ring and dropped them onto the floor with a dull thud.
Su Jinxuan stared blankly at the floor covered in account books for a long while before speaking in a low voice:
"This is..."
Xu Yuan took a seat, poured himself a cup of tea, and said at an unhurried pace:
"The ledgers of Konghua Chamber of Commerce over the past dozen years. Every month, a substantial sum of silver, medicinal herbs, finished pills, and other resources flowed out to the Tianyu Sect. You may see for yourself."
Chapter 63