The Gap That Will Soon Wipe Away Their Smiles

Just how much silver is involved in this betting pool, and what’s the actual shortfall Vincent Su faces? A quick calculation makes it clear.

The total amount wagered has reached over ten million taels. After deducting a 20% tax paid to the Eastlyn treasury, there’s still more than eight million taels left—an amount equal to several years of the empire’s entire tax revenue. The sum is so huge that it’s almost impossible to count.

Ignoring the odd tens of thousands, let’s call it eight million taels. Subtract the 720,000 taels allocated for charity, then the 360,000 taels split between Serena Feng and Vincent Su as their 5% prize share, and Vincent Su is left with a shortfall of 6.92 million taels.

Of course, Vincent Su isn’t completely empty-handed. The Su clan’s businesses can scrape together about two million taels, so his real deficit is around five million taels.

You might say five million taels isn’t much—Serena Feng could just sell a few thousand boxes of her prenatal formula and cover it. But that assumes you have prenatal formula to sell, and a market big enough to absorb it.

Five million taels isn’t something you can just worry out of thin air. Even if you mobilized the entire Northlyn realm, you wouldn’t be able to raise that much in a short time.

And besides Serena Feng, who else in this world can make money out of thin air, running a business with zero cost? Vincent Su’s headache over silver isn’t without reason...

On the day of the contest, everyone was tense. From the steward to the cleaning grannies at Feng Manor, as soon as they saw Serena Feng, they cheered her on—not because they’d bet a lot and wanted to win money, but because, as servants of Feng Manor, they genuinely hoped Serena would win.

“Miss, you’re definitely going to win.” That’s what Spring and Autumn said to her when she got up in the morning.

“Miss, we believe in you.” That’s what Jada Tang and Mira Tang said when she went to check on the shadow guards and Victor Yun.