Chapter 357: Volume 1 Chapter 357: Having Money

Consort Tai looked at her daughter with a hint of surprise, never expecting her to voluntarily mention sending news to the Empress.

Princess Zhaoqing felt a bit embarrassed under her mother-in-law's gaze, and she said softly, "I just think the Empress is actually not bad."

Consort Tai then laughed, "It's not bad that you think that way. In this world there are no absolute enemies, nor absolute friends. The Empress is different from ordinary people; look at the things she does—some of them benefit her, yet she insists on doing them, and not only does she do them, she succeeds. Sometimes even her mother-in-law admires her a bit."

In fact, Consort Tai truly regretted it; if she had known the Empress was like this from the start, she would never have let her son divorce her, and she would not have constantly opposed her.

If they hadn't divorced, and she had assisted her son, who knows who would be sitting on the emperor's throne today?

Consort Tai vaguely knew some things—both the early Fire Thunder and later cannons bore the Empress's mark. Without those formidable weapons, the three divisions would not have switched sides so quickly, and if they hadn't defected, she and her son would not be in such a difficult situation.

But thinking about it now is useless; a loss is a loss.

Having treasures but not cherishing them is also their karmic retribution. Fortunately, it's not too late yet; after relentless effort, she has managed to climb out of the liquidation list, and she is already quite content.

Consort Tai once had fantasies, perhaps one day her son could still turn things around?

But looking at Suizhou, she now dare not entertain even the slightest such thought.

"Then let's send a letter to the Empress," Consort Tai said with a smile. "Actually, whether we send it or not doesn't matter—the Empress is so smart she surely already knows—but this also counts as us stating our position."

Adding flowers to brocade is easy; giving charcoal in the snow is hard.

As the year's end approached and the cold winter set in, the dye workshop had already stopped work. Although the dye pools were heated to prevent freezing, controlling the water temperature became harder, and defects increased. Seeing the loss rate, Rong Luoge directly halted work at the dye pools, planning to resume after the New Year when temperatures rise.

The weaving workshop, however, was unaffected; thus the artisans from the dye workshop were temporarily assigned to help at the newly built weaving workshop in the glazed tile workshop.

This way, once the New Year arrives, those workshops can start up directly, saving a lot of time.

Rong Luoge began to tally her recent income; all previous earnings had gone to Han Xinglan for weapon-making, leaving nothing left. At year's end she needs to hold the year-end banquet, the emperor's grand feast for officials, and she also must host a banquet for the ladies of the court—all of these require real money.

Not to mention the year-end awards to officials—what a spectacle. Alas, the imperial household truly has no surplus grain.

Rong Luoge thought that being made emperor would mean piling mountains of gold and silver into one's privy purse, but for her and her husband, income constantly falls short of expenses; they might be the poorest emperor and empress in history.

Ah!

Worrisome.

She fiddled with the abacus, trying to squeeze out a bit more silver, when, brows furrowed with worry, Han Xinglan returned with good news—Rong Yan was already on his way back to the capital and would arrive before the New Year.

Yo, we've got money!

Rong Luoge almost jumped up—it's not easy, his return is truly timely.

Seeing Rong Luoge's expression, Han Xinglan couldn't help but laugh, "Are you that happy?"

"Of course I'm happy." Rong Luoge handed him the ledger she'd been keeping for the past two days, "Take a look yourself—how much money we have left. If Rong Yan doesn't come back, we'll have to scrape by this year."