Although Lance had warned Cheung not to get to close to him, they were still colleagues, and seeing as Lance was the group’s head, the opportunity for them to talk to each other still came.
The best example of this was during Lance’s income and expenditure report.
“A Barn Merchant on 2nd Avenue paid me 39,522 for the guy on the eighth, and I got fifty thousand for the thief I caught on the tenth.”
Cheung moved his hand toward Lance’s report in the chair next to him.
He didn’t look up as he inked the quill, which was difficult for him to use since he was used to ballpoint pens, and wrote the numbers into the A4 account book.
“And yesterday’s bodyguard’s payment was 800,000.”
Come to think of it, he was a bodyguard.
Lance peered over at the first page of the account book in Cheung’s hand as he was adding the word “guard” to the list of sorting items.
“Did you make this yourself?”
Cheung was so startled he almost fell out of his chair. He never expected Lance to speak to him.
It was true that they exchanged words that were essential to perform their jobs, but it really was the bare minimum.
Lance didn’t know if the newcomer, Cheung, was messing around, so the income and expenditure report always went straight to him from Cheung.
Even in situations like the current one where Cheung is informed of payments, the rule of “keep away from me” was usually still enacted. Lance usually read out the amount from business partners from the chair or the desk near Cheung and then left without hesitation.
Lance put down the notes of the report from Ken and the other members of the group and looked at Cheung suspiciously.
Cheung couldn’t say that Lance was the one who told him not to talk, so he sat up in his chair and nodded at the question.
He was sure that Lance already knew this, but their previous ledger was in shambles.
Although the dates were stated firmly, it was commonplace to see over the course of the month duplicate details written twice or thrice, and it was impossible to tell whether the month was even in the red or black, let alone the final net profit or loss, because the information was just jotted down in a messy manner.
At the beginning, it was clear that Lance had been solely in charge of it as it was in a clear, easy-to-understand format.
However after that, their number of people in Severus Eyre increased, and the accounting was relinquished to others, subsequently causing it to be unclear and incomprehensible.
For a moment, I had felt hopeful upon unearthing the beautiful ledger, but then he received the ledger from Ken that was convoluted from the accumulated entries.
To make matters worse, Ken’s explanation was entirely unhelpful from the way he prefaced it with, “I don’t really understand it well.”
For the time being, Cheung knew that he couldn’t rely on anyone else and started to do something on his own.
Although Cheung had never submitted a white paper(1) before since he was banned from working as a sideline, but Cheung has done bookkeeping and kept a household account book.
While casually listening to the castle’s previous bookkeeper, Cheung managed to draw a line on a brand new notebook and made his own account book with the dates listed vertically and business partners and sorting items on the side.
Each page included the weekly balance, and with that, Cheung could easily calculate in his head the final monthly gains or losses to list on the final page of the book.