flstandardbreds Chapter 2081 No wonder the Ye family has been declining year by year!
Chapter 2081 No wonder the Ye family has been declining year by year!
As the representative of the Ye family, one of the ten great families of Yanjing, Ye Ruyan was someone whom the top five middle-class families and the bottom five lower-class families depended on!
To his astonishment, Du Bancheng so ruthlessly branded him as a disgrace right from the very beginning.
This memorable scene immediately put immense pressure on the nine families of Yanjing present, leaving them with mixed feelings.
Meanwhile, Song Ziming, Wang Defa, Yang Weidong, Song Yi, and their ilk felt that the time had finally come when they could finally hold their heads high and were extremely excited and speechless with joy.
At this moment, after Du Xingyue finished speaking about Ye Ruyan, he stopped looking at her and turned his gaze to Yan Qinghe.
"Yan Qinghe!"
Yan Qinghe trembled and quickly bowed, "Elder Du!"
"Your grandfather, Yan Laowu, froze to death outside Chaoyangmen in the winter of 1928!" Du Xingyue said slowly. "Who collected his body? And who paid for his coffin?"
Yan Qinghe's forehead immediately broke out in a fine sweat, and his heart sank. He could only hurriedly reply, "It's...it's the Mu family!"
As soon as he said those words, he regretted them immensely.
Apart from Du Xingyue, no one else at the scene knew about these old stories!
But precisely because of this, Yan Qinghe felt as if he had fallen into an ice cave.
Facing Du Xingyue, he had no intention of causing trouble at all, and all his previous schemes had long been shattered!
"So you still remember!" Du Xingyue sneered. "Then what are you trying to do today, bringing your men to block Sister Mu's door? Repay a debt of gratitude?"
Yan Qinghe's legs went weak, and he almost knelt down.
Du Xingyue then looked at Zongwang Mountain.
Even Zong Wangshan, that brute, couldn't help but shrink back, not daring to meet his gaze.
“Zong Wangshan, your father, Zong Dabangzi, what year was that? When a steel plant had just been built in Yanjing, your father did something else: he stole steel from the plant and resold it. Who saved his life?”
Zong Wangshan froze, his face turning bright red at a visible speed. He held back for a long time, but seeing Du Xingyue's eyes staring straight at him, he could only hang his head and say in a muffled voice, "It's...it's the old lady of the Mu family!"
"I thought you'd forgotten, you cowardly dog!" Du Xingyue slammed his cane down heavily, sparks flying from the bluestone pavement. His tone was merciless, even uttering profanities. "So what the hell were you trying to do, causing trouble at the Li family's wedding banquet today? Repaying kindness with enmity? Isn't the old lady of the Mu family Li Xiangnan's great-great-grandmother?"
Zong Wangshan opened his mouth, but couldn't utter a single word.
Du Xingyue's gaze swept over them one by one.
Liu Wenyuan, Hou Wanjin, Qian Houjin... Every time someone is looked at, that person seems to shrink an inch!
Finally, his gaze returned to Ye Ruyan.
"Little Ye, tell me, what are you here for today?"
Ye Ruyan raised her head, took a deep breath, knowing that she couldn't escape being held accountable today, but she still wanted to find some reason to make up an excuse to get by, and she immediately started thinking.
Qian Houjin glanced at the scene and realized that the ten families of Yanjing were no match for Du Xingyue. A sudden thought struck him, and he quickly devised a plan. He glanced at Li Xiangnan, subtly understanding his intention, and hurriedly stepped forward, bowing, saying, "Elder Du, please calm down. We're here today mainly because of what Miss Ye has..."
"Old Qian!"
As soon as he said this, the old fox Yan Qinghe immediately understood his intention and reprimanded him, fearing that Ye Ruyan would be betrayed by Qian Houjin.
But with Du Xingyue already here, Qian Houjin was no longer afraid of the Nine Families of Yanjing. His back straightened up slightly, but he pretended to be heartbroken and said aggrievedly, "Elder Yan, Elder Du wants to know the purpose of our visit. What? What is our relationship with Elder Du? Are we supposed to keep it from him?"
"you……"
Choked by his words, Yan Qinghe's face immediately turned ugly, especially when Du Xingyue's thunderous eyes suddenly fell on his face, making it impossible for him to explain or shut up.
Wang Defa, Song Ziming, and other relatives and friends watched with great interest, their eyes shining.
Unexpectedly, that old bastard Qian Houjin has turned against us at this crucial moment!
Seeing that Yan Qinghe remained silent, and that the representatives of Chen, Wang, Lu, and Han also frowned and dared not speak, Qian Houjin, who was overwhelmed by Du Xingyue's imposing manner, immediately straightened his bent back and said directly: "Master Du, Miss Ye has accidentally obtained an old item from the Mu family, which is said to be an account book, and has come to return it to its rightful owner!"
"Oh?" Du Xingyue raised an eyebrow upon hearing this, glanced around, especially at Ye Ruyan's embarrassed expression, and then looked at the door of the side room. He immediately understood and chuckled, "So, after all this time, you actually came up with this idea! I'd like to see what kind of ledgers give you such confidence that you dare to try and show off your limited skills before an expert!"
He reached out to Ye Ruyan: "Give me the account books!"
Ye Ruyan hesitated for a moment, but still took out the brown paper bag from her briefcase and handed it over with both hands, without any temper.
Du Xingyue took it, but did not open it immediately.
He touched the seal of the document bag with his finger, then brought it to his nose and smelled it, and suddenly laughed.
“Antiqued kraft paper!” he said calmly. “It should be the antique-style paper that Rongbaozhai in Qianmen produced last year. This kind of paper has a characteristic that it softens when it gets damp. The air is humid today, so feel it; aren’t the corners of this paper already soft?”
Everyone instinctively looked over.
Sure enough, the corners of the document bag had become somewhat limp, creating a stark contrast with the dry center.
Du Xingyue then untied the string sealing the booklet and took it out.
It was a thread-bound ledger with a dark blue cover, yellowed paper, and some tears at the edges, making it look quite old.
But Du Xingyue only glanced at the cover before shaking his head.
"The silk used for the cover is made with old yellow dye from the Tianjin Dyehouse in 1975." He ran his finger across the cover, confident: "This dye, like the one before, will rejuvenate when it gets damp! Look, where my finger just touched, isn't the color lighter?"
As everyone leaned closer to examine it, they found that the small patch where Du Xingyue's finger had touched was noticeably lighter in color than the surrounding area.
Ye Ruyan's face turned even paler.
Du Xingyue opened the ledger, but instead of looking at the contents, he lightly scratched the corner of the paper with his fingernail.
Extremely fine scraps of paper drifted down.
He put the scraps of paper in his palm, brought them to his lips, and blew on them.
The scraps of paper floated gently into the air, clearly visible in the sunlight.
"See that?" Du Xingyue said casually, "This paper is brittle; it crumbles easily when scraped! It's handmade paper from 1930; it's tough, you can't even scrape off such fine crumbs with your fingernail!"
He then held the ledger up to the light.
Sunlight shines through the paper, revealing tiny fibers within it.
"The paper contains fluorescent fibers!"
Du Xingyue put down the ledger. "This is an anti-counterfeiting technology that the Yanjing Paper Mill only had in 1958! Paper from the Republic of China era didn't have this!"
Finally, he turned to a page with words on it, bent down, and smelled it.
suddenly.
"Ah!"
He sneezed loudly.
Du Xingyue rubbed his nose and laughed: "I mixed rosin into the ink, trying to make it smell like old ink! But I added too much, and it's pungent! Real old ink smells good, this stuff stinks!"
The entire room fell silent!
All eyes were fixed on that ledger.
No one expected that Du Xingyue, without checking the contents, could clearly explain the origin and shortcomings of the account book simply by looking at the materials and structure of the paper and the account book, based solely on his experience and knowledge.
Snapped!
Du Xingyue closed the ledger and tossed it aside lightly.
The ledger traced an arc before falling back into Ye Ruyan's arms.
It wasn't thrown, it was tossed.
With undisguised contempt.
“Little Ye,” Du Xingyue looked at Ye Ruyan, his voice flat and emotionless, “this ledger, the paper is from 1958 onwards, the ink is new stock from the Tianjin Port Ink Factory last year, the aging technique is from the ‘Fake Liu’ school in Qianmen. Hmph, he had a stroke last year, this must have been made by his apprentice, the skill is ten miles off!”
boom!
The scene fell silent once again.
Du Xingyue paused, then added the final blow: "When your father, Ye Guangcai, was alive, he at least put some effort into forgery! You even cut corners when forging, no wonder the Ye family has been declining year by year for the past ten years!"
That's a really harsh statement.
The poison caused Ye Ruyan to tremble all over, her face turning from white to green, and then from green to red.
She clutched the ledger tightly, her knuckles turning white from gripping it.
The ledgers scattered in her arms, the pages rustling, and one page drifted down, landing right next to the charcoal brazier in the yard.
There was still a burning charcoal fire in the basin.
The paper touched a spark, and with a whoosh, a corner of it caught fire.
Ye Ruyan frantically tried to swat at the enemy, her hands and feet flailing about, looking utterly disheveled.
Some people around couldn't help but let out low snickers.
Du Xingyue stopped looking at her and turned to face everyone.
He leaned on his cane, his back ramrod straight, and his voice suddenly rose in pitch:
"I established the rules of the Eight Noble Families thirty years ago: no bloodshed at weddings, no obstruction of the road at funerals! Anyone who breaks the rules is going against me, Du Xingyue!"
His gaze was sharp as he scanned the ten representatives.
"Among those gathered in this courtyard today are officials, businessmen, and old neighbors. Go and ask around, in the past forty years, in which wedding or funeral in Yanjing City has anyone dared to cause trouble after I, Du Bancheng, attended?"
No one spoke.
No one dared to speak.
Du Xingyue paused for a moment, then slowly said, "The ledgers are fake."
"Even the sincerity is fake!"
"Now, who among you still wants to enter through this door?"
He raised his cane, pointing the end of it towards the tightly closed door of the side room.
The sandalwood cane gleamed with a cold, hard luster in the sunlight.
Like a sword drawn from its sheath!