But An Jing paid no heed, speaking unhurriedly, "Not only are you light-fingered, but your eyes are also failing you, huh? Are we your grandparents? Shameless!"
At this moment, the bearded hulk, sweating from the pain, replied simply with an ellipsis: "..." Weren’t you the one asking me to call you that?
An Jing didn’t care how the bearded hulk felt; instead, she smiled toward her own husband.
Xiao Changyi, seeing that An Jing had had her fun, stooped down to search through the inside pocket of the bearded hulk’s sleeve. He found a small porcelain vial, and then, in front of everyone, opened the vial and poured out the mouse droppings onto a table within everyone’s reach for all to see.
Seeing that the small porcelain vial was filled with mouse droppings, everyone understood the situation. It was clear that the bearded hulk had been causing trouble for the Qian Wei Tavern, which was being wronged.
Wang Youbao took the opportunity to say, "Dear patrons, as you have seen, our establishment was wrongfully accused. I hope you will not hold any misunderstandings."
Since it was clear that the bearded hulk had staged the whole affair himself, naturally, no one held any further misunderstandings.
The crisis at the Qian Wei Tavern was thus averted, but the matter was far from over.
An Jing then demanded, "Speak, who sent you to cause trouble for the Qian Wei Tavern?"
"No one, I just didn’t like the sight of Qian Wei Tavern!" the bearded hulk refused to reveal.
"Would you take a dislike to a tavern for no good reason?" An Jing chuckled softly, then turned her head and had a waiter bring over a kettle of boiling water.
Receiving the kettle from the waiter’s hand, An Jing directed the spout toward the bearded hulk’s head and threatened, "If you don’t talk, I’m going to pour this water on you. Even if it doesn’t cook you, it will peel your skin off."
Everyone listening felt their scalps tingle. This lady was truly ruthless!
The bearded hulk immediately became frightened and confessed, "It was Wang Youtao! Wang Youtao gave me a hundred taels to ruin the reputation of the Qian Wei Tavern, to ensure it would go out of business!"
An Jing had only intended to intimidate the bearded hulk and had no real desire to cruelly pour boiling water on his head. Seeing that the bearded hulk had fessed up, she handed the kettle back to the waiter.
Yu Daming, fetch some rope and tie him up. Take him away for the government to deal with," An Jing ordered.
Upon hearing An Jing’s words, Yu Daming, who had been standing behind Wang Youbao, immediately fetched some rope to tie up the bearded hulk. Then, he delivered the man to the government.
Yu Daming did not forget to bring along the physical evidence—the small porcelain vial of mouse droppings—to the government office as well.
The waiters in the tavern were very observant; they had already seized the chance to clear the tainted stew from the table while Yu Daming was tying the man up and also cleaned the table to avoid grossing out the rest of the customers.
Seeing Yu Daming escort the bearded hulk out of the tavern, An Jing turned around and said aloud with a laugh to those present, "Everyone, there were no such things as rats at the Qian Wei Tavern before, there are none today, and there will be none in the future. All our dishes are clean. If any dish is found unclean in the future, please feel free to point it out. The tavern is willing to compensate double the price of the dish."
Compensating the price of the dish? This was unheard of.
Double the compensation, no less?!
Of course, this was also very much to their own advantage.
The customers who were present at the tavern for a meal were immediately tempted. They felt that they could dine at the Qian Wei Tavern with more confidence in the future. The best-case scenario was clean dishes, and if a dish was unclean, they could receive double the money in return. They had nothing to lose.
However, some still harbored doubts and asked An Jing, "Aren’t you the owner of this tavern? Can you really make decisions for it?"