Third Madam Sun woke up early. The moment she opened her eyes, her left eyelid wouldn’t stop twitching. As she was eating breakfast, her maid Cuicui—dressed in green—came rushing in.

“The Yi Courtyard is on fire! It’s on fire!”

Madam Sun threw down her oily pastry in a rage. She just knew He Xianjin wouldn’t obediently eat her boiled greens and behave!

Lifting her skirt, Madam Sun dashed toward the Yi Courtyard like a gust of wind. Rounding the corridor in a panic, she saw a shivering figure huddled in the corner of the courtyard wall, surrounded by Nanny Zhang and Old Madam Qu. But inside the courtyard—no flames, no smoke?

“Where’s the fire?”

Nanny Zhang silently pointed toward the latrine.

Madam Sun looked over just in time to see a wisp of frail smoke shoot halfway into the sky before sputtering out.

Grinding her teeth, Madam Sun glanced at Old Madam Qu and suppressed her fury. “Take Miss Jin to my room. Have a few maids and matrons check the courtyard for any other signs of fire. We must investigate the cause thoroughly!”

“Take her to the Castor Hall,” Old Madam Qu said crisply, wrapping He Xianjin in another layer of coarse hemp cloth. “This fire is… strange.”

Strange indeed! A fire in the latrine—unheard of! Who plays with fire in a latrine? Playing with feces would be more normal than playing with fire.

That old crone in Castor Hall must suspect she did something to the Yi Courtyard!

Madam Sun held her breath. She had done something—she’d ordered the kitchen not to feed the girl properly. Before she could say anything, Old Madam Qu and Nanny Zhang had already lifted He Xianjin and started walking her out. After a few steps, Old Madam Qu turned and said, “Third Madam should come to Castor Hall as well. The courtyard is built with mortise-and-tenon wood—if a fire isn’t handled properly, the Chen family’s paper-selling fortune could go up in smoke!”

They were going to interrogate her? Madam Sun was so furious that she nearly lost her mind. Just then, she looked up and saw He Xianjin’s palm-sized face peeking out from the coarse hemp cloth, flashing her a secret, radiant smile.

Madam Sun: @￥￥%Q##%￥%#%!!!

She might as well die of rage!

He Xianjin tightened the cloth around herself and hurried after Old Madam Qu, gradually catching the acrid scent of lime and the earthy tang of grass and bark.

Castor Hall was simply furnished: a square table, two lamps, three chests of drawers, and a wall cabinet filled with ledgers. Aside from that, there were stacks of paper in various colors.

He Xianjin scanned the room quickly. The owner was clearly a pragmatic person. And pragmatic people preferred directness. So when Old Madam Qu entered the hall, He Xianjin made a swift decision between kneeling or not. After all, she’d just set fire to the family’s latrine.

With a thud, He Xianjin knelt, radiating the unyielding backbone of a modern woman.

“Old Madam, Xiao Jin was wrong.” Her tone was calm. “This morning, I used a firestarter to ignite the latrine’s railing. Once it caught, I doused it with water, then asked Nanny Zhang to report the fire to Third Madam and you.”

Madam Sun had been bracing for nonsense. After hearing this: huh?

Old Madam Qu’s brows didn’t move. “You set a fire… just to see me?”

He Xianjin nodded. Yes. Under Madam Sun’s oppressive rule, caught between surrender and rebellion, she chose arson.

“Why did you want to see me?”

He Xianjin looked up, her gaze calm and steady. “I don’t want to get married. Compared to marriage, I can do far more for the Chen family.”

She pulled out a booklet bound with jute paper and hemp string and handed it to Old Madam Qu. “This is the posthumous ledger for Yi Courtyard—expenses and gifts received. Since the main room was sealed by two of Third Madam’s maids, I didn’t include the fixed assets that can’t be immediately converted into cash.”

“The total ledger shows that Third Master allocated fifty taels for funeral expenses. We received eighteen taels and four qian in condolence gifts, and spent thirty-nine taels and eight qian on the funeral and return gifts. The remaining balance is eighteen taels and six qian.”

Madam Sun was completely lost, thinking He Xianjin was trying to settle accounts with the Chen family. She snapped, “Money, money, money! A young girl like you—Chen family raised you for ten years, and now you want to talk numbers?”

He Xianjin gave her a long, unreadable look. Intellectually speaking, Madam Sun and Chen Fu were probably a perfect match.

Old Madam Qu raised an eyebrow and took the ledger. The paper was coarse, but the binding was neat. The handwriting was unusual—thin strokes, clearly not written with a brush.

Nanny Zhang glanced at it and suddenly understood. Ah, so that’s why Miss Jin had asked her for jute paper and bamboo tubes the other day?

Jute paper for the ledger, bamboo tubes for writing?

Old Madam Qu opened the book and was immediately stunned.

The first page listed two pieces of information: the accounting period (from the 4th to the 13th of the 11th month, Year 14 of the Zhaode era), and the ledger title: “Yi Courtyard Funeral Expenses for Madam He.”

The second page was laid out in two columns, divided by heavenly stems and earthly branches, with income and expenditure clearly marked. The entries were balanced, categories well-organized, and the format followed a “daily clearing” method—each day’s changes added to the previous day’s total, with summaries every five and ten days.

This accounting method…

Old Madam Qu looked at He Xianjin in shock.

He Xianjin’s expression was open, though inwardly she felt a bit guilty—apologies to the Shanxi merchants of old. She’d borrowed their early Qing dynasty “Four-Legged Dragon Gate Ledger.”

From her reading, she’d learned that in the peaceful Northern Song era, bookkeeping still relied on “flow-style ledgers”—simple income and expense records tallied at month’s end. The flaw was obvious: they were too simplistic. For example, “On X date, Zhang Xiaohua bought a five-tael hairpin” was an expense. “On X date, Zhang Xiaohua found eight taels on the street and kept them” was income. Single-entry bookkeeping only tracked time and basic transactions. Faced with large sums or complex flows, it fell apart.

The first composite bookkeeping system in Chinese history was the “Heaven-Earth Ledger,” invented by Shanxi merchants—also known as the “Four-Legged Dragon Gate Ledger.” Its core principle: “Every income must have an expenditure; every transaction must balance.” It categorized entries into “incoming, outgoing, and retained.”

In short, single-entry tracked time, composite tracked categories. Big firms using time-based ledgers ended up with messy, dead accounts. So in the late Qing and early Republican era, private capital boomed—and more efficient systems like the Dragon Gate ledger emerged.

He Xianjin, with her business education and family background, had used this method to roughly record Madam He’s funeral expenses and present it to Old Madam Qu—demonstrating a new way to keep accounts. In essence, she was using the wisdom of the future to crush the limitations of the past. Using the progress of centuries to challenge the narrow vision of a bygone age.

Not exactly noble—but definitely bold.

Not advisable—but extremely effective.

Old Madam Qu gently closed the ledger and squinted at the slender, clear-eyed girl before her. “You… you want to be a bookkeeper?”

He Xianjin pressed her lips together and said softly, “I can be a bookkeeper.” I can be more than a bookkeeper.

“Just like you—you became the decision-maker of the vast Chen family, led them from Jing County to Xuanzhou, and rallied the whole clan to support one official, transforming the family’s fate.” Her voice grew firm. “Rather than marrying a bookkeeper, I can become one.”

“You’re welcome to throw me a messy ledger and call in the senior bookkeeper from the mulberry bark workshop in the east of the city. Let’s compete—see who calculates faster, who gets the numbers right.”

At that, Old Madam Qu shot Madam Sun a sharp look.

Madam Sun’s face turned ghostly pale. Heavens above! She’d only starved He Xianjin—she hadn’t even started forcing her into marriage yet!