Chapter 194: Collecting Debts

The night market in the evening was ultimately missed.

Zhou Wangshu was sulking, unwilling to go out.

Su Yaoguang, thinking that she hadn’t yet arranged the matters agreed upon with Cui Rong, gathered her skin care masters to discuss having them teach students.

Cui Rong had arranged one hundred people, and she already had ten skin care masters, perfectly allowing each to teach ten people. If the teaching went well, they would be given a bonus.

Su Yaoguang was always generous. Ever since the girls began working with her, their finances improved significantly, and working at Taoyao Square gave them considerable respect. Now that they were given a new task, it was a sign of trust, and of course, they were willing to accept this order.

Since they were to teach students, they needed to organize a complete process to ensure they wouldn’t teach inconsistently and damage their reputation.

That evening, the girls gathered to discuss and arrange Taoyao Square’s signature moves. They had some before, but everyone hadn’t unified the entire process.

Noisy sounds emanated from outside, followed by the sound of banging.

Upon hearing the commotion, everyone went out to see Zhou Wangshu already standing under the eaves, looking toward the opposite direction.

"What’s happening over there again?" Zhang Zhaodi followed out. "It’s one thing to be so noisy during the day when it’s lively anyway, but being this noisy at night, how’s anyone supposed to rest?"

"Aren’t those people from the Gambling House?" Su Yaoguang said, "I remember seeing them around Zhong Chushan."

Zhou Wangshu nodded: "His name is Shousan."

Hearing this, Su Yaoguang called out toward the opposite side, "Shousan."

Hearing someone call him, Shousan turned around, saw Su Yaoguang and Zhou Wangshu, and immediately jogged over, diligently like a servant of their household.

"Miss Su, Young Master Zhou, I hope we didn’t scare you?" Shousan said with a grin, "Don’t worry, we’re just here to collect a debt, it has nothing to do with anyone else."

"You’re collecting a debt from the Fenghua Pavilion, what kind of debt?" Su Yaoguang asked curiously.

"Gambling debt!" Shousan replied, "Jiang Yihui owes one thousand taels of silver in our Gambling House, we simply need to collect it from them, don’t we?"

"One thousand taels?" Su Yaoguang clicked her tongue. "I wouldn’t even dare to spend like that."

Although Taoyao Square made quite a bit of money, capable of producing not just one thousand but even five thousand taels of silver, having experienced hard times, they couldn’t bear to spend money like that.

"He is so generous, he doesn’t care about such small amounts of money, gambling every day and losing every day, and still borrows money to gamble. Now, since the agreed time arrived and he hasn’t repaid, we had no choice but to come and collect. Enough said, Miss Su, Young Master Zhou, I must continue to bang on the door. If they don’t open, we’ll charge in and take everything out."

Just as Shousan ran back, another wave of people approached.

"It’s here, smash it for me, break the door, and drag the people out for me." The madam of the brothel led the thugs to arrive.

"Mommy, what’s going on here now?" Zhang Zhaodi asked.

The madam waved her handkerchief, saying: "Don’t even ask, that shameless Jiang Yihui has visited our girls and won’t pay. He promised to pay today, and I haven’t seen him yet."

Both the Gambling House and the brothel came simultaneously to demand repayment, yet Fenghua Pavilion remained silent. But there must be someone inside, just not sure whether Zhong Lanhua managed to escape.

"Alright, stop watching." Su Yaoguang said, "We still have proper business to attend to, let’s not join the commotion."

The girls turned their heads repeatedly, curiously glancing over to the opposite side.

"Previously, they even drove Jiang Yihuan away. Now it seems Jiang Yihuan really narrowly escaped a disaster. If she hadn’t left, these debts would have been on her."

Su Yaoguang tugged on Zhou Wangshu’s sleeve: "You miser, stop looking, let’s go inside."

"Who’s the miser?" Zhou Wangshu was unhappy with this nickname.

"Whoever answers is the miser." Su Yaoguang made a face at him.

Zhou Wangshu caught up with Su Yaoguang, unhappily saying: "You and that Cui guy ate well together!"

"So you saw us." Su Yaoguang suddenly realized. "No wonder you’ve been in a bad mood since earlier; it turns out you think I didn’t take you to eat."

Zhou Wangshu: "..."

Does he really need that bite of food?

"We were discussing business." Su Yaoguang explained, "You know how boring business discussions can be. If I brought you along, wouldn’t that stifle you? The most important thing is that I didn’t know you were at the dance house. If I had, I would surely have called you. The food there is good, but with your good relationship with Young Master Chen, you probably haven’t missed out, right? Just because I didn’t invite you for one meal, do you really need to be so petty? And you say you’re not a miser, I’ve never seen a guy as stingy as you."

"Who cares about that bit of food?" Zhou Wangshu was even more displeased.

Now that things had reached this point, some questions needed to be clarified.

He nudged the jade pendant on her waist, asking: "What’s going on with this? Even if our engagement is fake, the written agreement is real, right? In the government office, I’m your legitimate husband, right? We haven’t divorced yet here, and you’re accepting jade tokens of affection from other men, isn’t that disregarding me too much?"

"Who said this jade pendant represents a token of affection?" Su Yaoguang touched his forehead, "And there’s no illness here, why are you speaking more and more incomprehensibly?"

"You said it’s a representative token of status." Apart from an affection token, what else could it be?

"I am cooperating in business with Young Master Cui, in the future I must inspect how business is going at the shop, so how can I prove my identity? This jade pendant serves as proof. Young Master Cui and I each have one, the subordinates can recognize people through this pendant in the future." Su Yaoguang flipped the pendant over, showing Zhou Wangshu, "Look, it has ’Taoyao Square’ written on it."

Zhou Wangshu: "..."

So it’s something that represents identity.

"Right now you look like a child fighting over candy." Su Yaoguang chuckled, "Now that it’s explained, aren’t you less angry?"

Zhou Wangshu touched the tip of his nose: "I wasn’t angry."

"Alright." Su Yaoguang also didn’t want to bicker with him.

She lay on the windowsill, watching as people from across the brothel and Gambling House broke the door and dragged out Zhong Lanhua.

Zhong Lanhua shouted loudly, so desperately as if they were slaughtering a pig without letting others know.

"How could my Hui’er possibly owe so much silver? You people are deliberately extorting us. I want to report this to the authorities!" Zhong Lanhua screamed.

"Even if you report, this money must be repaid." The madam said sharply, with hands on her hips, "You should go out and ask around, who goes to a brothel without paying? My girls are each as beautiful as flowers, how could you filthy men sleep with them for free?"