Chapter 513: Taking Possession of Weilade's Assets!

"Is this Weilade's manor?" Knight Mi Gen's tone was icy; he had no patience for the Weilade family.

"Y-yes! My lord Knight!"

Hearing this, Mi Gen continued: "My lord is Count Gervas. By the decree of Your Majesty, all of Weilade's assets now belong to my lord!"

"C-C-Count Gervas?!" The middle-aged man's face instantly turned deathly pale, and his speech became stammering!

"Do you have any objections?" Mi Gen raised an eyebrow, questioning coldly.

With a thud, the middle-aged man hurriedly knelt on the ground.

"My lord Knight, I dare not! I welcome the arrival of Lord Count Gervas!"

At this moment, Gervas had already stepped forward. "What is your name? Do you already know I was coming?"

"This is Lord Count Gervas! Answer quickly!" Mi Gen, fearing the middle-aged man did not know Gervas's identity, hurriedly scolded him.

The middle-aged man shivered again and hurriedly said, "I greet Lord Count Gervas. My name is Roniel; I was originally the butler of this manor!"

"I indeed received notice three days ago, when officials from the Civil Affairs Office came to the manor, saying that Lord Weilade... Weilade had been executed for colluding with the Beastmen."

"And all his assets were bestowed by Your Majesty to you, Lord Count Gervas!"

"Oh? You are the butler of this manor, so where are the other servants?"

"Lord Count Gervas, all the other servants have fled!"

"Only I received the order to ensure the manor's assets were not lost and safely handed over to you, Lord Count!" Roniel continued answering.

"Very good! Now, take me inside the manor to look around!"

Gervas did not beat around the bush and directly ordered Roniel to lead the way.

Roniel rose respectfully, then immediately opened the main gate and led Gervas and his party into the manor.

One must admit, this fellow Weilade knew how to enjoy himself.

The manor's area was very large, roughly a thousand square meters; remember, this was inside Eagle City!

Within such a city, every inch of land was precious, especially in the Chengnan district, which could be described as gold per square inch.

With such a large area, the manor possessed a front garden, a back garden, and two side courtyards.

The front garden featured a small plaza and various flowerbeds.

The back garden contained a pond and a pavilion.

The left courtyard had a considerable open space, suitable for the master's own exercise or hosting small events.

The right courtyard was the servants' rest area and the stables.

All in all, though small, it had everything necessary; it was truly a grand villa within the city.

Of course, the interior decoration of the small building in the center of the manor was equally luxurious, matching the decoration of some great noble manors.

However, the scale of this Weilade manor building was a bit small, unable to compare with the massive manors built outside the city, often spanning tens of thousands of square meters.

"Excellent! Excellent! Roniel, is it? It seems you have been very diligent these days, not letting those servants take away valuable items from inside the manor building."

After looking around, Gervas was very satisfied with the manor.

Although he would likely spend very little time living here, no one would refuse to have a grand villa in a golden area equivalent to a provincial capital from his past life.

"Lord Count Gervas, although those servants have fled, they actually cannot run very far; they are basically still inside or outside Eagle City."

"Therefore, they also know they cannot and dare not be greedy; otherwise, their only fate is to be sent to the gallows!"

"Very well! Now that the manor has been inspected, take me to see Weilade's other assets!"

"By the way, since you are Weilade's butler, you should also know all of Weilade's assets, right?"

"If you can provide me with a detailed list, perhaps after I finish taking possession, I can give you a generous reward."

"By then, you won't have to worry about your livelihood in the future!"

Upon hearing this, Roniel was immediately overwhelmed with excitement.

As for whether he, as Weilade's butler, harbored resentment toward Gervas or would try to sabotage Gervas's takeover.

That did not exist.

Not to mention Weilade's crime was colluding with the Beastmen, which is why he was executed.

Just the fact that the person opposite was a proper Count, whose single word could decide his life or death, meant he would naturally do his utmost.

"Lord Count Gervas, upon learning you were about to arrive, I have prepared the list over these past few days..."

Soon, Roniel brought Weilade's asset list out from the small building and handed it to Gervas.

Gervas carefully counted for a moment and found that Weilade's assets were indeed quite numerous.

Besides this manor, there were many shops in the Chengdong, Chengnan, and Chengxi districts within the city.

Especially in Chengnan and Chengxi; the list recorded eight shops on the main street in Chengnan.

And in Chengxi, there were even more than ten shops on the main street, and a whole row of shops on the side street.

And besides within the city, Weilade also had two manors outside the city...

Of course, calling them manors is not strictly accurate; more precisely, they should be called farms.

One farm encompassed a thousand mu of fields, specifically raising dozens of peasant families responsible for farming.

The other farm was specifically raising cattle, sheep, chickens, and ducks, also with dozens of peasant families responsible for care and breeding.

All in all, all these assets combined were worth at least around three thousand gold coins.

Of course, this actually still did not quite match the status of Weilade, the Honorary Hou Jue.

Because Weilade's original assets were indeed much larger.

It was because of Gervas that his assets were halved.

For instance, because his son wanted to deal with Gervas and indirectly offended Catherine, Weilade learned that Catherine was actually the granddaughter of Duke Hernand.

He could only offer half of his assets as a gift to Catherine to apologize, thereby avoiding the wrath of the Hernand family.

Then came this Northern Region campaign, to get Gervas sent there while securing an important position for himself.

Minister Weilade curried favor up and down the chain, spending several hundred gold coins in cash.

This drained the estate's treasury to the bottom, leaving almost no gold coins for Gervas.

Fortunately, Gervas was an easy-to-please man; an asset of three thousand gold coins was essentially like picking it up for free, more than enough to satisfy his appetite.

Afterwards, after taking a stroll around the city, Gervas discovered that those shops were basically all used for renting out.

Only three shops were controlled by Minister Weilade himself, used for selling goods.

The goods he sold were all output from the farmsteads outside the city, so the shops were only in Chengnan and Chengxi.

Of course, don't look down on these farm products just because their value is low; with sufficient quantity and the middlemen's markup being cut out, the income was still quite considerable.

The three shops, in this great city with a population reaching nearly a million, could bring Minister Weilade an income of two hundred gold coins a year.

This was already equivalent to the net income of two barons.

Therefore, Minister Weilade was willing to lower his own status and personally take part in selling these "low-end" goods.