"I just heard Mr. Bookkeeper say that there is a serious deficit in the Hou Mansion now, and I haven't heard you say it, so I'm here to ask." Liu Tian said, looking at Lin Feng's reaction, he probably didn't know.

Lin Feng frowned: "When did you hear about it?" ”

"Just now, Lin Yuan went to Mr. Bookkeeper to ask about his dowry, and when he learned that his dowry was only five hundred taels, Lin Yuan was very angry and kept asking for an increase in the amount of the dowry, but Mr. Bookkeeper blurted out that the house was already in serious deficit, and there was not so much silver to take out for Lin Yuan as a dowry." Liu Tian told Lin Feng everything he knew.

And Lin Feng thought silently for a long time: "I'll go out first, and you can eat by yourself in a while." ”

Liu Qian nodded obediently, and then watched Lin Feng walk out.

She knew that Lin Feng should be going to check the accounts in this Hou Mansion.

In fact, Lin Feng did go out to the shop owned by the Hou Mansion.

These shops are all the property of the Hou Mansion, but Lin Feng is not familiar with them, he only knows the existence of these shops, and he has never inspected them as the owner.

When he walked to the shops, he found that these shops seemed to be making good profits, after all, they were all in the downtown area.

There are still a lot of rich ladies and ladies in some cloth shops who are picking up fabrics, and there are still many people in jewelry stores who are picking things.

He transferred several shops, even if it was a bad shop, there were a few incomes a day, Lin Feng roughly calculated, none of them averaged down this day, excluding those labor costs, how could there be a profit of dozens of taels, right, how could it finally become a deficit?

If there is no problem in these shops, it can only mean that there is a problem with the person who manages the store or takes over the money in the Hou Mansion.

After Lin Feng went, he deliberately took back the income and expenditure of the account room, and after studying it carefully for a long time, he found that Sanfang had the most income in his hands, but the purpose of Sanfang's withdrawal of money would never be explained.

After knowing these things, Lin Feng didn't say anything more.

This Hou Mansion looks glamorous on the outside, but the inside has long been hollowed out by those moths.

"Have you checked it all?" When Lin Feng came back after eating, Liu Tian put the food on the table and asked.

"It's a bit of an eyebrow, but I'll treat it as if I don't know about it in the future." Lin Feng said a word, and then looked at Liu Tian, his eyes showed some tiredness: "Qian'er, now this Hou Mansion is just a virtual chart, if I don't have anything in the future, will you still be with me?" ”

"How do you say that?" Liu Lean stepped forward and gave Lin Feng a gentle hug: "When I like you, you also have nothing, you can before, of course you can in the future." ”

Lin Feng's mood was a little better, he sat down at the table, and when he saw the dishes on this table, the corners of his mouth raised slightly: "I really have no regrets about being able to eat the food you cooked after a tiring day." ”

"What are you talking about, if you want to praise me, I will praise it." Liu Qian smiled with him and put a piece of fish meat in Lin Feng's bowl.

After this meal, the two of them tacitly agreed not to say a word about the deficit of the Hou Mansion.

It's just that Lin Feng and Liu Tian can endure it, but Lin Yuan can't bear it, she directly found Lin Feng: "If my dowry is only five hundred taels, if the Zhang family knows about it at that time, it will definitely make a fuss, can it be said that I, a young lady from the Hou Mansion, can only use such pomp and circumstance to marry?" ”

Although Lin Yuan is not really Miss Houfu, but in the end, her wedding is also something that many people will pay attention to, if it is only five hundred taels, then these dowries will be laughed at even if they are carried out.

But Lin Feng didn't plan to add a dowry to Lin Yuan: "You must know more about the situation in this Hou Mansion than I do, after all, the previous account room also listened to the words of the third room to do things, how much money and how many things you took from the Hou Mansion's account room, presumably you know more than me, right?" ”

Lin Yuan frowned: "What are you talking about, how can I know?!" ”

Lin Feng pointed at Lin Yuan with a sneer, he didn't know how much these three rooms had done behind his back, but after checking everywhere recently, it became clear that these three rooms were originally in charge of the Hou Mansion's diet, but later, they took advantage of Lin Feng's unfamiliarity with these things, and used the things to attract Lin Feng's attention, and then took all the profits from the Hou Mansion shops outside into their own hands.

It stands to reason that these three houses should have a lot of money, but because the three houses are still making some of their own investments outside, those shops don't make money at all, not only do they not make money, but they also lose all the money they spend from the Hou Mansion.

Originally, under such circumstances, normal people would sell these shops, but Liu Tilt Sanfang did not, they valued these shops very much, and even felt that these shops would lose money if they were just unlucky.

Therefore, even if they lost money, they still wanted to save their shops, so they used the silver they took from the Hou Mansion to fill the gaps in their shops.

After a long time, naturally Sanfang has no silver in his hands.

Knowing such a situation, Lin Feng naturally would not pity Lin Yuan, after all, Lin Yuan, as the eldest daughter of Sanfang, has always been a very thoughtful person, so Lin Yuan may not know these things that Sanfang did, and it is even very likely that she is the mastermind of this matter.

A moth bent on hollowing out the Hou Mansion, how could he agree to give Lin Yuan some more dowry?

Not to mention that the Hou Mansion is already in deficit now, even if there is no deficit, Lin Feng doesn't want to use the things of the Hou Mansion to subsidize a selfish person like Lin Yuan.

Yes, when Lin Yuan proposed to increase his dowry for the third time, Lin Feng only sneered: "Since you already know the current situation of the Hou Mansion, you shouldn't keep asking for it like this, you don't want to think about it, you want to save face, even if you give you all the silver in the Hou Mansion as a dowry, what can you help the Hou Mansion when you go to the Zhang family?" And there are other younger brothers and sisters in this house to marry, and you have taken so much silver alone, how will these younger brothers and sisters marry in the future? ”

Lin Yuan opened his mouth, not knowing how to refute.

However, Lin Feng didn't take her seriously at all, and only said contemptuously: "You want to fight for face, and I also want you to marry in glory, but now that the mansion is already in deficit, I can't let more than 100 people in this mansion have no food because of you alone." After saying that, Lin Feng asked people to send Lin Yuan out.

But even if it is said so clearly, even if it is behaving like this, Lin Feng still wants to do something with Lin Yuan's dowry, so that the outside looks more gorgeous, at least to support the scene.

Lin Yuan was rejected and was very aggrieved, but now this Hou Mansion is Lin Feng's house, so even if she is very dissatisfied, she still has to listen to Lin Feng's words, and she really knows what Sanfang is doing, so when Lin Feng said this, Lin Yuan's heart was still a little trembling.

She saw that Lin Feng had already made up her mind, so she could only wipe her tears and walk to her room, feeling that she was really miserable, and she would encounter such a thing, and at the same time, she began to hate Lin Feng.

As for Lin Feng, after Lin Yuan left, he sighed slightly, if this dowry was known by others, he would definitely laugh at the Hou Mansion, if the huge Hou Mansion was known, there would be no silver, not to mention the issue of reputation at that time, such words would reach the ears of the Hou Ye, and he would definitely feel that Lin Feng was incompetent.

Lin Feng didn't want people to look down on him, and he didn't want to be looked down upon by Hou Ye, so he had to solve this matter well.

"What are you thinking?" It wasn't until Liu Tian walked into Lin Feng's courtyard with a food box that he saw him sitting in the gazebo in the courtyard and didn't know what to think.

"I'm wondering, is there a way to make others not see that Lin Yuan's dowry is actually only more than five hundred taels of silver." When the dowry is raised, if the dowry team is not large enough, if the dowry is not dazzling enough, it will definitely start to talk about the Hou Mansion when it is seen. These voices are not good, and when they reach the ears of Hou Ye, they will ask Lin Feng about his sins.

"Isn't that easy?" Liu Qian smiled lightly, took out a plate of dishes from the food box and put it in front of Lin Feng: "This dish is carved into a thin box with radishes, and chopped vegetable leaves and minced meat are placed in it, and then steamed on the steamer. ”

Lin Feng glanced at the dishes that Liu Tian said, this was a square piece, and it looked no different from the radish piece, and he couldn't tell what was in it at all.

He suddenly understood: "You mean, we are going to build some ornate chests, and use these chests to carry out those ordinary dowries, and the people outside can only see the chests, and they can't see the contents at all, so we don't have to worry, is that what you mean?" ”

"The children can be taught." Liu tilted his head and shook his head, making Lin Feng frown.

Seeing that he breathed a sigh of relief, she hurriedly stepped forward and served Lin Feng a bowl of soup.

Drinking a sip of hot soup before meals warmed his stomach, and Lin Feng's appetite became a lot better.

After the meal was finished, he took Liu Tian out to find the carpenter and build Lin Yuan's dowry box.

There are a lot of fabrics in Lin Yuan's dowry list, but these cloths are not particularly good fabrics, they are all relatively ordinary cotton and linen fabrics, which are not easy to display in front of people, and occasionally there are two good satins but they are not fresh colors.

So Liu Tian and Lin Feng asked the carpenter to make two camphor wood boxes, carved them, and put red lacquer on them to put these cloths, and made a few good small boxes for some jewelry and other things.

Then, Liu Tian found two good pieces of cloth, cut them and covered them on different boxes, first covered the cloth at the bottom of the box, and then put some more valuable jewelry on the cloth, so that the moment he opened the box, he would at least feel that there were a lot of good things inside.

As for how the Zhang family would react when they lifted the covered cloth and looked down, this was not something that Liu Tian needed to consider.