It's only been a heavy rain.

Rainwater falls into loose soil, mixed with scattered litter and leaves, making the swampy roads even more muddy and difficult to navigate.

Tall conifers grow scattered in the mire, and they have been rooted here for thousands of years, and the long years have allowed them to grow thick branches, and the long needle-like leaves still bear the water stains of the snow melt.

There weren't many conifers in the swamp, and it would not have been possible to grow this muddy moor, but their branches and foliage were so luxuriant that a shadow hung under each tree, and shadow has always been a dangerous term, and in this shadow, the soil of the swamp squirmed softly, and the soil grains pushed away in a circular ripple around them, revealing half a purple-black head and a pair of green eyes, quietly peeking into the moor's path.

Water ghosts, or ghouls, are the most dangerous monsters in the swamps.

They were once human beings, but for various reasons drowned in the swamp, and the residual resentment of their lives and the bad soil of the mire grew up, awakening them from the land of the dead and becoming slaves of the mire, dragging passers-by into the swamp to nourish the land.

No one wants to go through these damn swamps if they could.

However, the Bitter Shore Swamp is an important trade route in the north, and it is necessary to cross this swamp to reach the city of Thran in the northwest.

The scale of the Tun Luo merchant group is not large, plus the carriages used to load goods, there are only six carriages and seventeen frost horses, they are mainly engaged in the business of spices and essential oils, and the purchase price of Buya's fennel powder is only six silver coins a bag, and transporting them to the Stone Fort can be sold for the price of one gold coin, which is sixteen times the profit margin! The essential oils of Star Harbor are also profitable, and they can be sold to the fireworks lane of Thran, and the value can be increased to more than twenty or thirty times.

Merchants are profit-seeking, not to mention such huge profits, enough to drive them to take huge risks, carrying truckloads of goods through this dangerous swamp every six months.

Wheels wrapped in tough deerskin made visible marks on the swampy pavement, and three samurai with swords patrolled the convoy back and forth with the reins of their horses.

They are the permanent guards of the Tun Luo Merchant Regiment, all of them are good at retiring from the local army, and the combined attack of the three of them can repel a twelve-person mountain bandit team, with them to protect the merchant group, even if they encounter a surprise attack by water ghosts, the loss will not be too serious.

In the carriage at the front of the car, the young man was half-squatting on the wooden board, holding a quill dipped in viscous ink, writing on the paper spread out on the seat, and two middle-aged men with beards were standing behind him, looking at the paper written by the young man without blinking, their breathing rate slowed down significantly, and their voices were softer, as if they were afraid of disturbing the young man's train of thought.

The ink was about to reach the end of the paper, but the young man suddenly stopped his brushstrokes, which made the two middle-aged people nervous, and they were afraid that something would happen at such a critical moment.

"There is not enough paper. The young man's clear voice said.

The middle-aged man immediately breathed a sigh of relief, and hurriedly took out another crumpled piece of paper from his pouch and handed it to the young man.

There was silence for a long time, and finally it ended when the young man put down the quill and picked up two pages.

When the slightly short and fat middle-aged man took the two pages, the excitement and joy in his eyes were almost impossible to hide, and his scribbled beard trembled slightly with the change of expression of his expression, he settled down, and said in a deep voice to the tall and thin middle-aged man next to him: "Ledger!"

The tall and thin man had already prepared, and at the same time as his voice fell, he had already taken out a thick book from the bag he was carrying, it seemed that it should have been used for a long time, whether it was the cover or the corners of the paper, there was serious damage, and there was an obvious feeling of swelling and behind the originally neat paper on the side, there were still a lot of scattered papers stacked underneath, obviously this was because after using the existing paper, he did not change the booklet, but continued to paste other papers to continue to use.

What books are worth the business group reluctant to replace?

Naturally, it is a precious ledger that records the details of every transaction in every quarter since its establishment, and even if a fleet fires, it is necessary to ensure that the ledger is intact, and this dilapidated book is even more important to the Tunro merchant group than those truckloads of spices and essential oils.

Their gaze kept switching back and forth between the two pages of the young man and the ledger, and the short and fat man spoke, and the tall and lanky man flipped the page.

The ledger records the general ledger for each quarter, and the two pages are similarly neatly written with a long list of calculations.

Anastomosis, anastomosis, anastomosis!

Along the way, the paper and the quarterly accounts on the ledger almost all matched. Except in the third quarter two years ago, the results on paper were three silver coins and twenty-seven copper coins less than recorded on the ledger.

Is this a miscalculation?

No, the stocky middle-aged man suddenly remembered that in this quarter two years ago, when he finally counted his inventory, he found that there was less money than recorded in the ledger, for which he even cleared out two small helpers suspected of theft, and now he remembers...... It seems that the amount less is exactly a little more than three silver coins?

The short and fat man only looked at the amount, and the tall and thin man saw more, he was originally the head of the accounts of the merchant group, and this kind of field was what he was good at, so his shock was heavier than that of the short and fat man.

"The results on paper were correct, and I counted two amounts in that quarter. ”

It is quite difficult to admit his mistakes, or the mistakes of a long time ago, and the tall and thin man's voice is a little jerky and ashamed, but more of it is still excited ecstasy.

"This set of calculations...... That's right!"

At the top of the paper written by the young man is a joint calculation composed of three calculations, many of which are set blank and used to put in the key amount of each quarter of the business group.

The equation is used to calculate the total amount of quarterly accounts, and the reason why it is written more than one page is that the young man has written all the general ledger calculations of the merchant group for the entire forty quarters of the past ten years after substituting the transaction proceeds of the previous years and the local taxes.

After checking with the ledger, the correctness of the equation is proved.

This is of great significance to the Tun Luo Merchant Group, which used to spend ten days or more at the end of each quarter to hire someone to collect and collect the accounts, and it was not possible to guarantee that it was completely correct, and it would take a lot of time, manpower and financial resources in the process.

But with this formula, you don't even need half a day to get the quarterly income accurately!

The stocky middle-aged man took a deep breath and bowed to the young man in sincere thanks.

"Brother Hodge, you've done us a great favor. ”