After Transmigrating as a Disabled Villain - Chapter 16

Steward Qin hesitated for a moment, then decided to tell the truth. “Master instructed Miss to manage the Qin family’s shops in Jiuqu County.”

Qin Mo looked as if he had been struck by lightning. “Impossible. The Qin family is mine. I’m Father’s son.”

Steward Qin moved his lips but held back from speaking. Miss was also Master’s daughter. If Eldest Young Master continued being so disappointing, the Qin family might not necessarily end up belonging to him.

As for Miss, she seemed different from before.

The Qin family was about to change…

The Qin family was indeed about to change, because on Qin Chu’s first day in charge, she encountered a major problem. At the time, she was sleeping soundly in class when the little maid suddenly shook her awake with force. “Miss, bad news. Something big happened.”

Eldest Young Master Gu had taken a land deed and gone to seize one of the Qin family’s wineries: Qinghe Winery.

Qinghe Winery was one of more than ten wineries owned by the Qin family. Each winery had wine cellars, and they brewed wine in cycles according to age.

The bad part was that the wine stored at Qinghe Winery was this year’s new batch for the Qin family. It had just reached ten years of age. It was the Qin family’s largest supply of ten-year aged wine and also the stored wine meant to be sold over the next year.

The other wineries either had wine that had not yet reached the proper age or wine being saved for twenty-year aging. They could not be touched at all.

Once Qinghe Winery was taken by the Gu family, what would the Qin family’s wine shops sell for the next year? Especially for those major wine merchants—once supply was cut off, they would definitely come cause trouble. At that time, paying compensation would be a small matter. Losing old customers would be the real trouble.

In the chaos, Manager Chen, the oldest among the senior managers, remembered Master Qin’s instructions before leaving. “Hurry and call Eldest Miss here.”

After Qin Chu was shaken awake by Guanzi, she took a carriage to the shop. What faced her was a group of Qin family long-term workers who had rushed over from Qinghe Winery.

“Eldest Miss, Eldest Young Master Gu took the land deed and seized the winery. He even drove all of us out.”

“Eldest Miss, all of us signed contracts with the Qin residence. You have to take us in.”

“Eldest Miss, you can’t abandon us. We all have elders above and children below. If we have no work to do, can we still receive wages…”

“Eldest Miss…”

Qin Chu instantly lost all sleepiness. She was not clear on the situation and did not dare make any casual promises, so she hurried into the shop.

“What exactly happened?”

The senior managers all looked toward Manager Chen. Manager Chen was not only the oldest among them, but also the one with the most authority. There was no other reason—Manager Chen came from the Chen family and was the biological father of Chen Xia, Qin Chu’s cousin. In other words, he was Qin Chu’s maternal uncle.

Uncle Chen then explained how the Gu family had taken the land deed and gone to seize the winery. He also clearly stated Qinghe Winery’s importance.

At the end, he added, “The land deed is real. It has Eldest Young Master’s signature on it, as well as Master’s seal. But Master never mentioned this matter.”

Meaning, the problem lay with Qin Mo. Master Qin would not be foolish enough to hand over such an important winery at such a critical moment, especially to the Gu family, who were competitors.

The senior managers suddenly somewhat understood why Master Qin had handed the shops to his daughter. What else could it be? Compared to Eldest Miss Qin, who only caused minor trouble, his son, who created a huge pit the moment he acted, was clearly even less reliable.

Qin Chu understood what Uncle Chen meant. “I’ll return to the residence now and ask Elder Brother. Managers, please first calm the people outside.”

At the Qin residence, after Qin Mo heard Qin Chu’s purpose for coming, he said indifferently, “I gave it to them. I am the Eldest Young Master of the Qin family. The Qin family has so many wineries. Can’t I even dispose of one winery?”

Qin Chu kept her temper steady. “Did Father know about it? The land deed has Father’s seal on it. And what did the Gu family give you that was worth exchanging an entire winery for?”

Otherwise, Qin Mo’s signature alone would not count for anything. After all, the Qin family’s land deeds were all under Master Qin’s name.

Qin Mo pursed his lips. Of course he had secretly stamped it in the study. Father had never guarded against him.

He stubbornly said, “What does it matter how I got it? The Qin family is all mine. I can do whatever I want with it.”

Qin Chu took a deep breath. Don’t get angry. Don’t get angry. It was not worth getting angry at an idiot.

After asking this much, she understood. The Gu family had recognized that Qin Mo knew nothing and had deliberately asked for Qinghe Winery. Qin Mo had no idea how important Qinghe Winery was, so he had secretly taken the land deed behind Master Qin’s back. As for Master Qin, he had never thought to guard against his own son…

As for why Qin Mo did it, Qin Chu could more or less guess. Thinking of how Qin Mo had mixed in with the Gu family and appeared at Qiu Jinning’s birthday banquet, and how Gu San had repeatedly toasted Qiu Jinning, what else was there not to understand?

As the sunset gradually sank, Qin Chu rushed back to the wine shop again. “Elder Brother gave away the winery behind Father’s back. Since things have already reached this point, solving the problem is most important. When Father returns, he will naturally deal with him.”

Uncle Chen was not surprised by this result. “The wine in the shop can last at most one month. After one month, we can first sell stored wine from the other wineries. Wine that has not reached ten years can be sold at a lower price and can support us for a while. The key is supplying some old customers. We definitely cannot give them wine that is not yet ten years old. There are two batches of wine that are over ten years but not yet twenty years old that can be taken out early, but that will cause considerable losses.”

Surviving this year would not be difficult, but once the cycle was broken, it would be hard to operate smoothly afterward. Without several years, they would not recover.

Qin Chu asked, “About how much would the losses be?”

Uncle Chen roughly calculated. “At least one hundred thousand taels. If next year’s production cannot keep up, it will only be more.”

Although it was not enough to seriously damage the Qin family’s foundations, it still hurt them somewhat. Especially the portion of old customers they might lose—if handled poorly, they might decline for several years.

He had watched Qin Chu grow up and knew his niece had no means to turn the tide. Even if Master Qin hurried back now, he would be overwhelmed. The senior managers had already prepared for the worst.

Qin Chu grasped the key point. “In other words, if we can make up for the lost stock from Qinghe Winery within one month, then there will be no loss?”

Of course, aged yellow wine could not be brewed within one month. But there was one kind of wine that could be brewed in a short time: beer.

If she remembered correctly, beer had appeared in her modern country in the nineteenth century. It did not exist in ancient times.

But the Baiyue Dynasty was a fictional world from a novel and could not be judged by ordinary logic.

Thinking of this, Qin Chu immediately confirmed it with Uncle Chen and the senior managers. After making sure beer had not yet appeared, she formed a further plan.

“Sell the stored wine first. Have the brewers and long-term workers from Qinghe Winery follow me. During these days, release news to our old customers that the Qin family will introduce a new kind of wine.”

On the sixth day of the fourth month, one of the Qin family’s small wineries hung up a new sign: Bailu Winery.

Sacks of wheat were transported into the winery. The workers were divided into several groups, each responsible for a different stage of brewing the new wine.

Qin Chu knew the wine recipe could not be leaked, so she chose to personally handle the step that made the beer foam. She would not leave it to anyone else.

This way, even if someone with ulterior motives gathered all the craftsmen responsible for the other steps, they still could not brew beer identical to the Qin family’s.

For several days in a row, Qin Chu buried herself in the winery. As for the county school, she directly took a long leave.

Only on the day of the county school’s monthly exam did she return.

Seeing that the invigilator was Qiu Jinning, Qin Chu was dazed for a moment. Once she became busy, she had forgotten about searching for aged strong liquor. She did not know whether her cheap father had made any progress, so when she looked at Qiu Jinning now, her gaze felt somewhat guilty.

Qiu Jinning stood on the platform with the same cold expression as last time. Her gaze swept lightly over Qin Chu without any pause, as if she had not seen her at all.

A trace of disappointment passed through Qin Chu’s heart. When she had seen Qiu Jinning just now, she had even felt a little happy, but the other person treated her like air.

Through one exam after another, the two did not even meet each other’s eyes.

The last exam was arithmetic. Qin Chu finished early, and her gaze landed on Qiu Jinning.

Perhaps her gaze was too direct and lingered too long, because when Qiu Jinning looked over, her gaze paused slightly. The two silently looked at each other.

It lasted only a brief instant before Qiu Jinning expressionlessly withdrew her gaze.

Qin Chu pursed her lips. Suddenly, an uncomfortable feeling spread faintly through her heart. It was extremely shallow and light, so faint that she had no time to examine it closely.

After the exam papers were handed in, Qiu Jinning gave them to Teacher Li, who had come to collect them outside the door. But she did not immediately leave. Instead, she looked toward Qin Chu.

Qin Chu’s heart tightened. She watched Qiu Jinning walk toward her, step by step. Each step was like a light drumbeat falling densely on her heart.

“Qin Chu, why have you not come to the county school recently?”

That soft question made the students of Class C, who had originally been about to leave, stop moving. In tacit agreement, they all sat back down in their seats, one by one staring straight at the blackboard while their ears perked up.