When I’m finally free of Tai, I go take a good look at the inventories that were delivered. They are more thorough than I was expecting.


    Each is at least an inch thick and just a preliminary glance tells me it’s not because they wrote in extra large print.


    But first things first, I finish up checking the last ledger and then check all the big numbers. You know the ones that are all about total department funding and net expenses and they don’t match.


    The reports with the secret funds match themselves and the reports of the household ledgers match themselves, but there is at literal ten percent discrepancy between the two.


    This is not what I wanted to find. After putting up with all their tears of remorse and lump reimbursement to repay what they stole, I thought I would be through the worst of it.


    Then all I would have to worry about was my staff being easily bribed because they took out loans from who knows where to get that cash to me asap.


    Instead, I still have to find a few thousand gold pieces, certainly more than any singular department skimmed off the top. Either they are all somehow in on it together, or I need some new suspects.


    I quickly double check my numbers before calling the butler lurking outside my door and tell him “Bring in all the department heads immediately. Their absence will be viewed as a confession of guilt.”


    He closes the door behind him with the utmost respect and propriety, but I can hear him running through the hall sounding the metaphorical alarm.


    Now I know that they didn’t have access to the household ledger. It was kept in a special safe by the accounting clerks, who technically work directly under the Lord and Lady.


    I guess the Lord or Lady could have been cooking their own books to amass a personal slush fund that the other didn’t know of.  But where’s the money now?


    It’s enough gold that I know Jun will want it found. A thousand gold can by fifty swords or even more spears. And a bit over three thousand gold would look mighty pretty in his war chest.


    The first to arrive is the head chef. She enters with a look of a martyr, crying and saying, “My Xinhai didn’t do it. He’s a good boy and all the gold he borrowed I returned yesterday. He couldn’t have done it.”


    I silence her with a wave of my hand while we wait for the others. The momma’s boy arrives next and enters without a smidge of remorse let alone guilt.


    They pack in just fine like yesterday morning, but they are clearly worried.


    I grill them in turn about who, what, where, and when the money and ledgers were handled. The results are interesting.


    They never directly talked with the late Lady about their department budgets. Instead, everything was handled through clerks.


    I get a list of names. Then I ask where the late Lord and Lady White Fang kept personal valuables.If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    With no loyalty to the dead, the head housekeeper blurts out, “The late Lady had a small safe in her main closet behind the shoe shelves. The late Lord had a similar safe in his personal library behind the bookshelves on the western wall just next to the window. They are both protected by powerful arrays, so no one was able to loot them.”


    I tell them to stay put and open the door to go find one of the cultivators. But I don’t have to go far, because Tai is standing outside waiting for me.


    My office is totally bugged. I should have seen that coming. But it’s not like I did anything wrong.


    The bug can be tomorrow’s problem. I hand him my list of twelve suspects and assume he heard everything.


    He leans in close and asks, “How much?”


    I whisper to him, “3,614 gold pieces last year. I haven’t had time to check further back.”


    He lets out a whistle and gives me a nod. Then he rushes off at the speed of blur cultivators like to move at.


    I pretend that that wasn’t rude and go back to my desk. Not wanting to let them out of my sight just in case, I make them all stand silently while I start looking through the inventories.


    Though I do let the head chef make me a cup of tea. I’ve only taken my first sip when there is a polite knock on the door.


    I say, “Enter.” And the head butler opens the door with a slight bow. On the other side are Tai and Jun.


    Tai has several bodies over his shoulder like sacks of potatoes and Jun is holding someone up by his collar. I can’t tell who, because their nose is broken and has bled snotty clumps everywhere.


    Jun says, “Please assemble all the staff at the training ground immediately.”


    The departments heads rush out knowing their lives depend on it.


    I walk straight there just a few steps behind Jun and try to avoid stepping in the blood trailing on the floor. Though I’m certain I fail, cleaning my shoes is technically housekeeping’s problem now.


    I stand on the patio in roughly the same spot where I watched the last set of executions. Jun throws the bloody nose guy in the courtyard dirt and Tai piles his captives on the ground next to him.


    Ming stops his drilling and guards the beaten staff with Tai. The staff assemble into the same walkway the spectators crowded into on execution day and just as silently.


    Jun comes and stands next to me, overlooking the courtyard and staff. He stares them down calmly and carefully. Like he is in completely control and wants everyone to remember that.


    After a few minutes, staff stop arriving and I guess everyone is here that is coming.


    Jun loudly says, “I have called you to assemble today to show what happens when those that betray me, because I must have failed to make it clear the first time.”


    He steps forward and drags the bloody nose guy off the ground. “Despite the generous amnesty which Lady Ellen offered everyone yesterday, these four ignored it in favor of keeping their stolen profits. The head clerk, his personal secretary and two the vault guards embezzled thousands of gold pieces from the White Fang Estate and thought they had gotten away with it.”


    He drops the man back into the dirt, who curls into a ball. “Lady Ellen revealed their treachery as soon as your unearned amnesty was through. It took my brother even less time to find them and the gold.”


    He kicks the man, and he flies across the courtyard into one of the training dummies with a loud bang. “As Lady Ellen stated, they will be punished to the full extent of the traditional house rules. Brother Ming, what are the house rules regarding embezzlement.”


    Ming nods, a flash of understanding as he finally figures out what’s happening. “A public beating, where if the guilty confess to where the money is they receive an honorable beheading. Otherwise, they are to be flogged to death.”


    The guilty don’t even try to defend themselves as Ming and Tai slap them across the courtyard like rag dolls. One tries to say something and then Tai promptly breaks his jaw.


    Jun stands there cool as a cucumber and I’m just grateful for the veil. I pick a spot on the roof across the courtyard and stare at it, so I look like I’m taking the whole scene in, because I know I’m going to start flinching otherwise.


    It doesn’t take too long for two cultivators to beat four mortals to death. No one questions their guilt. No one says anything. No one sheds a tear.


    When it’s over, Jun says, “It is finished. You may resume your duties.” I follow him as he heads back into the manor.


    He leads me back to my office. At the door, he smiles and says, “Good job today. Let me know if you need anything else.”