The Minister of Revenue was so incensed that his breathing turned unsteady.
"May I ask, Your Highness, if You intend to audit the accounts without using a counting board, then what method do You propose to calculate them?"
Princess Sheng An tilted her head in puzzlement, her tone as innocent as ever.
"Is this not something one can discern at a glance?"
The Minister's brows twitched as he looked up.
"Surely Minister Yan is capable of such a thing as well?" she asked sweetly.
Minister Yan blinked. "...?"
That was not the response he expected. For a moment, gazing into those pure, guileless eyes, he nearly believed she was being sincere.
Yet the very next moment, he heard her tone shift into that unmistakably faux-sympathetic lilt, saturated with sarcasm beneath its veneer of innocence.
"Surely not… Are there truly people who can't even do this?" Then, she added with a playful lift of her brow, "Shall This Princess take out an abacus just to make it look convincing?"
"No need!"
Minister Yan's face darkened instantly.
"Do as You please, Your Highness. I would be most honored to witness Your skills."
"Very well then."
Princess Sheng An shrugged, resting her chin in her palm with a smile. She waited deliberately for Minister Yan to seat himself across from her and begin furiously flicking the abacus beads before she leisurely opened the first ledger.
Inside her mind, she began speaking to Yun Ni.
"Work time! The Excel sheet is ready, right?"
"Ready!" Yun Ni responded promptly. "Just call out the numbers!"
"Got it."
Princess Sheng An calmly began reciting the figures from the ledger—adding, subtracting, multiplying, dividing as needed.
As soon as she finished each line, Yun Ni, seated comfortably in the villa, returned the calculated result almost instantly.
These ledgers had been prepared specifically for this match between her and Minister Yan. Some entries had even been deliberately altered to trip them up.
Only when she reached those altered entries did she lift her delicate right hand and casually jot down corrections with her brush.
To outside eyes, the contrast was jarring. Minister Yan's abacus beads clattered incessantly, his fingers moving so swiftly they nearly left afterimages.
Opposite him, Princess Sheng An lounged as though she were a disinterested student paging through a storybook during class, occasionally remembering to scrawl something just to keep up appearances.
No matter how one looked at it, she did not seem to be taking the task seriously.
More baffling still, she was turning the pages faster than Minister Yan.
While he was still halfway through his first volume, she had already begun the second.
"Does Princess Sheng An truly know how to audit accounts?" murmured one official among the onlookers, unable to suppress his doubts. "The figures must be intentionally large and complex, since the ledgers were meant for a challenge. And yet Her Highness hasn't even used an abacus, and flips through them so quickly. How could she possibly have finished the calculations?"
"I don't know," whispered another. "But she certainly looks confident. Could it be…"
"Shh! Keep your voice down. That's not something we should speculate about!"
…
The murmuring of the officials had no effect on the mental conversation between Yun Shu and Yun Ni.
All three ledgers were swiftly completed. Yun Shu stretched lazily and, while Minister Yan's abacus continued to clack, she leaned on the table and dozed off for a moment.
From the dragon throne, Emperor Xuanwu narrowed his eyes.
Was she afraid she hadn't acted arrogantly enough just yet?
Still… had the little rascal really finished auditing all the ledgers?
Surely she wasn't planning to pull another trick?
He pondered this for a while but found no conceivable method by which she could fake the results. Finally, he gave up and simply waited until Minister Yan had completed his own review before coughing once and speaking in a deep voice.
"Xiao Wu."
"Mn… huh?"
Though she had only been pretending to nap, Yun Shu had nearly fallen asleep for real. She startled awake and stood at once.
"Father Emperor, have my calculations already been reviewed?"
"Not yet."
Emperor Xuanwu's lips twitched subtly.
"Whether right or wrong, you and Minister Yan shall verify each other's results."
"Oh."
Rubbing her cheek where a faint crease had formed from sleeping on her hand, Yun Shu retrieved her answer sheet and flipped through it casually.
"Let's see… the third page of the first ledger Minister Yan held—the final total should be two hundred thirty-seven thousand, two hundred fifty-eight taels of silver, and one hundred ninety-three wen in coin. Is that correct?"
"…That is correct," Minister Yan confirmed, glancing at his own figures with a slight frown. "That is the same total I calculated."
"Still on the same ledger—middle of page nine…"
To quell any suspicion, Yun Shu read every answer aloud herself.
Minister Yan's responses remained largely unchanged throughout, offering nothing but "Correct," "That is right," and "I arrived at the same result" again and again.
Once the final answer was confirmed, Yun Shu let her paper flutter onto the table.
"The match is over. All our answers are identical, and This Princess completed the audit faster."
She raised her brows, smiling faintly with a glimmer of mischief in her eyes.
"Therefore, would it not be fair to say that This Princess is the victor?"
…
The Xuan Zhen Hall fell silent.
Minister Yan stood frozen, brows deeply furrowed, his fingers clutching the wrinkled edge of his paper. He stared at the girl seated before him, her lips curved in a lazy smile, her expression openly taunting.
At last, he bowed low and spoke solemnly.
"Your Highness, this minister cannot fathom how You managed to calculate such complex figures without an abacus. Might I humbly request that You enlighten me, and grant us the honor of understanding Your method?"
"Did This Princess not already explain? A glance is all it takes. A natural talent, perhaps."
Yun Shu chuckled lightly, her tone utterly relaxed, as though she'd just heard a joke.
"Does Minister Yan not believe me? Or rather, does Minister Yan suspect that This Princess already knew the answers beforehand?"
"Your servant dares not," Minister Yan replied quickly, though he remained bowed in place.
"This Princess thinks you dare quite a bit," she replied, clicking her tongue.
"Enough. If I do not put an end to this doubt today, who knows what rumors you lot will spread behind This Princess' back. My patience is rather thin, and I do not take kindly to unjust suspicion.
Here's a suggestion. Let Right Prime Minister pose a few questions at random. This Princess and Minister Yan shall compete again, here and now."
Her gaze swept the room.
"If This Princess wins once more, then surely Minister Yan will have no choice but to yield gracefully?"
After all, with the Right Prime Minister setting the problems, who could possibly claim she knew the answers in advance?