Speaking of it, Qiqian’er’s entry into the city was quite eye-catching.

Prince Hui’s mansion, such a large residence, sat empty over there, drawing all kinds of watchful eyes, with many people hoping to obtain it.

But in the end it went cheaply to the bond-servants who watched the gate. She Qingling was She Qingling, Chen Dasheng was Chen Dasheng—the deep affection between father and son was their own business, but there were those who looked down on you and would always mock your roots using old grievances.

Hadn’t they seen how even a man who once became Emperor was still judged by scholars as a rogue and a hooligan, a lecherous scoundrel—while the good deeds he did for the benefit of the nation and its people, those people disdained to mention?

Their mockery was nothing more than a way to show they held a few opinions different from everyone else’s.

Adding to this, Qiqian’er had spent two consecutive years living in Qingfeng, having no social dealings with Yandu. Having been aloof for so long, others felt she held herself above them, and everyone wanted to find an occasion to mock her a little, just to vent the resentment in their chests. But once Qiqian’er entered Prince Hui’s mansion, would she simply never go out again?

This infuriated some people to death.

During festivals and holidays, weddings and the taking of wives—wouldn’t it be a bit shabby if your household didn’t even have a single presentable invitation card out?

Not at all bothered by this, the young mistress in question was only afraid of others disturbing her.

In the blink of an eye it was early in the eighth month of midsummer. Cui Erdian married Lady Chai into his household—Lady Li, Lady Kou—and Chen Dingxiang’s child reached its hundred-day mark. The two daughters-in-law of the Chen family had once again brought two blossoms to Qinwei Lane: Dingxiang had given birth to a chubby baby boy for the Cui family.

From the moment the three children were born, the old madam had become thoroughly busy. Her favoritism was quite obvious—she went every day to see her granddaughter-in-law, asking whether the milk was sufficient, what she’d eaten, whether the baby was fussy. After asking, she’d leave; she wouldn’t stay even half an incense-stick’s worth of time longer.

It wasn’t that she looked down on having given birth to two granddaughters—the old madam didn’t care about such things. She simply favored Dingxiang, whom she had raised with her own hands.

If this had been an ordinary mother-in-law, the two granddaughters-in-law might have been angry. The trouble was, this was the family matriarch—when she came to visit, you were supposed to be grateful, not resentful.

Fortunately the Chen family’s foundation was solid enough. They’d hired a wet nurse and had household servants at their beck and call, so things stayed peaceful on that front. But the old madam and the Cui family were anything but peaceful—she practically wished she could plant herself permanently at the Cui household on Quanhou Street, short of personally going to attend her granddaughter through her confinement month.

What standing did she have now? An official-ranked lady of the court, someone whose every step carried the weight of wealth and status.

Wealthy she’d become, but at her core she was still a country old woman. Where she should have paid attention, she understood nothing; where she shouldn’t have bothered, she found fault with every trivial thing.

That old madam of the Cui family had always been shrewish by nature, but now she was living under someone else’s roof—in a house that was her daughter-in-law’s dowry property, living under the watchful eyes of her daughter-in-law’s brother and sister-in-law. Her son’s promotion depended on his brother-in-law’s connections, and the meat and vegetables her household ate were often supplemented by several of Dingxiang’s brothers.

Unable to provoke the Chen family, she’d turned into a nagging troublemaker instead, working against the old madam every single day. She doted on her grandson, naturally, but her stubborn temper wouldn’t allow her to speak well of anyone—she’d open her mouth and say things like “whose woman can’t bear children?” Such words were the most infuriating of all.

Would the Chen family’s old madam let her gain the upper hand? Not a chance!

After hearing a few too many such remarks, what should have addled the old madam’s mind instead sharpened it. She suddenly became shrewd, because now she was somebody—she carried herself with the air of one who’d driven donkey carts and cracked whips across a thousand miles following the army.

She devoted the rest of her life, it seemed, entirely to the Cui family’s old madam.

Every day, however many eggs her granddaughter ate, she’d take the bowl first and fish them out with chopsticks to count them precisely. If even one was missing, she’d sit herself down in their courtyard and browbeat the entire family until they didn’t dare leave the house.

That old madam of the Cui family was quite the character too—clearly knowing she was destined to lose, yet refusing to concede, fighting harder the more she lost. Dingxiang sat through a double confinement month, and the two of them quarreled through a double confinement month right along with her.

Now, with nothing left in this world that she wanted, the Cui family’s old madam just wanted to beat that old plague-hag from the Chen family once, before she died.

Would the Chen family’s old madam let her have her way? No chance!

Fortunately Dingxiang had a strong temper, and Cui You was also someone who could let things go—otherwise these days would have been unlivable.

The two old madams were locked in bitter rivalry like fire and water. Had this happened in a previous life, or before entering the capital, Qiqian’er would certainly have gotten involved to help mediate between them.

Now? She was busy to death and had no wish to deal with the matter at all.

Worried that the old madam might overexert herself and bring on some ailment, and unwilling to trouble Physician Cheng over something so trivial, she simply hired a doctor who specialized in elderly care to keep watch over the whole household. She also had the maids and matrons attend carefully, mindful that the old madam might collapse from anger if she lost an argument, or that her throat might give out from all the shouting…

Midsummer made Yandu lively with all sorts of happenings, including that mad nun—no one knew where she was hiding. Jiu Si Tang had turned Yandu practically upside down searching, yet on the appointed day, she vanished and reappeared as she pleased, making off with one of Tan Shiyuan’s eyes. His Majesty was thoroughly enraged this time—Meng Dichen was fined three months’ salary, and Jiu Si Tang’s branch office was punished with the rod once again.

But this time, none of the capital’s major offices got involved. Everyone reasoned: we’re all equally ranked second-tier offices, and since Meng Dichen looked down on us from the start and didn’t want us mixed up in his affairs, then fine, we simply won’t go.

At the end of the day, for a case that offended the court while earning no thanks for the effort, whoever wanted to take it could have it.

That morning, Chen Dasheng, having finally run out of ways to shirk his duty after being scolded by His Majesty’s men, went off resentfully, full of reluctance, to take his watch shift at the Daliang Palace. Qiqian’er, having finally sent off this nagging nuisance, let out a long breath.

Some people simply weren’t of much use in this world—when he was home, she couldn’t get anything done; she’d end up revolving entirely around him instead.

Once he’d left, Qiqian’er finally had the matrons carry her by bamboo sedan to the side storehouse, where a pile of accounts awaited settlement.

The moment she entered the courtyard, she saw Ge Sansu dressed in coarse hemp clothing, hair tied up in a man’s topknot, coarse thorn branches stuck crudely in her hair, face tanned dark, squatting on the ground like a man, haggling without the slightest concern with the delivery steward.

Prince Hui’s mansion had been wealthy—in the old days, the garden paths had mostly been paved with pigeon-egg-sized pebbles arranged into various patterns.

Now that they were renovating the house, Qiqian’er looked over the old construction and saw that many of the pebble paths were badly damaged. She wanted to buy materials and hire craftsmen to fix them up properly.

But she never expected that pebbles would be so expensive, and unavailable locally—they’d have to be transported by waterway from thousands of miles away to Yandu.

As it turned out, the merchants in the capital who sold pebbles didn’t sell by weight but by the piece, the cheapest going for two to three coins each, and for rare, scarce colors, sometimes fifty coins apiece.

That rivaled the price of a fine meat bun—sometimes one small decorative stone was worth an entire steamer basket of pure meat buns. Spending money like this made her heart tremble.

In the small side courtyard, Ge Sansu held a stone up to measure it against another—whether it was a pure white one worth three coins, a black one worth two, or a red one worth twenty, they all had to match this size exactly.

She didn’t mind the tedium, going through them one by one. Sometimes if she found a chip as small as a mung bean, she’d toss the stone out as defective.

The steward selling the pebbles complained with a bitter face: “Young master, please go easy on us. These are just meant to be laid underfoot—do us a favor, don’t make the old craftsman fuss so much over that spot. You could just bury it face-down, couldn’t you?”

Ge Sansu rolled her eyes at the steward: “It’s a three-coin item—I’m offering you two and a half, and you’re still not satisfied?”

If one looked closely, that eye-roll already carried more than a hint of Guan Si’er’s style.

The steward fell silent.

Qiqian’er walked over smiling and said, “Third Brother, you’ve worked hard.”

The household had been taking on more people lately, and while the close attendants knew Ge Sansu was a woman, the newcomers genuinely believed her to be a young man—and moreover, a young master from the madam’s own relatives.

Qiqian’er jokingly called her “Third Brother,” and everyone else called her “Cousin Young Master.”

Ge Sansu herself hadn’t expected that she’d ever have this kind of freedom in her life. Since she wanted to pass the time anyway, she threw herself daily into hard labor, working off her energy. Guan Si’er came to see her every day after he got off duty—she was dark-skinned and plain-looking, but he didn’t mind at all; truly, every crooked pot finds its matching lid.

Ge Sansu looked up at Qiqian’er and smiled, pointing to a basket of selected pebbles off to the side: “This is the last basket. Perfect timing, sister-in-law—go ahead and settle the account with him quickly.”

Qiqian’er’s mouth twitched the moment she heard “settle the account.” Taking the ledger, her soul nearly left her body. Heavens! Just a few broken paths, and several thousand strings of cash had gone out the door again.

She didn’t know it, but very few wealthy households in Yandu even had pebble-paved paths—this was something Prince Hui’s family had accumulated over five generations.

After settling the stone accounts, the matrons and stewards came over with more ledgers, wanting money yet again.

The household couldn’t afford rare flowers and exotic plants, so instead they bought large quantities of trees to fill out the garden. But they couldn’t afford mature, established trees either—transplanting those would be a massive undertaking—so they settled for saplings of magnolia, red maple, ginkgo, osmanthus, pomegranate, camellia, and phoenix trees.

Ping Shen had found good sources—the most expensive, the phoenix trees, cost fifty coins each; the cheapest, pomegranate saplings, were twelve coins each. This single expense came to over five hundred strings of cash, just to fill up the broken-down courtyards of the household. But even so, it would take at least five years before the trees matured enough to properly receive guests, and all of them would need to survive, which meant several skilled gardeners would need to tend them carefully.

Clutching her heart as yet more baskets of copper coins went out the door, Qiqian’er sat numbly in the main seat, utterly disheartened, wondering how money had stopped feeling like money at all.

She was already exhausted like this, and a few days ago Jixiang’s wife had come to whisper in her ear that the senior wives of Hulu Street were saying she was petty and stingy.

That was infuriating. Weren’t they the petty ones, giving themselves airs?

In her ears was the constant clatter of the four accountants next door working their abacus beads—a sound that only ever meant money going out, never coming in, unbearably grating.

Just as she was drifting off in a daze, Jixiang’s wife came in smiling and said, “Madam, the Earl’s wife from the Chang family has arrived at the gate.”

“Earl’s wife” generally referred to Lady Chai, Chang Lianfang’s mother.

Qiqian’er startled and asked, “At this hour? Why has Godmother come?”

Jixiang’s wife replied, “She’s brought quite a lot of things with her.”

This was proper family, so Qiqian’er quickly changed her clothes and went out personally to greet her, bringing her in through the side gate.

Once inside the courtyard, Lady Chai refused the sedan chair and instead simply held Qiqian’er’s hand, her manner both affectionate and warm: “Good child, your household is in such a busy state, I won’t add to the chaos. Let’s just find a spot right here by the gate, and we, mother and daughter, can sit and talk. I’ll say what I need to say and then be off.”

Even though, in the end, due to mismatched birth charts, only a niece had been married off instead, Lady Chai was still endlessly grateful—at least it had opened the door, and it was such a good match besides.

She’d brought no small amount of things—it took more than ten servant boys half a day to finish unloading everything at the gate.

The Chang family, upon entering Yandu, had also settled into a bestowed residence, and they too had gone through major renovations, leaving behind a great deal of surplus material—good lumber the carpenters hadn’t used up, and the like. They were genuinely generous people; whatever was left in the house, down to the last scrap, they’d had it all shipped over, with Lady Chai personally delivering it herself.

This was remarkably thoughtful of her—regardless of how much or little it amounted to, it came from pure sincerity. She hadn’t even bothered to check whether the household was observing a period of mourning; she’d simply come, openly and without hesitation, and Qiqian’er was deeply grateful for it.

She led Lady Chai into the Qu Courtyard—Lady Chai had no idea who “Qu” referred to—and as she wandered around, unable to hide her envy, she said, “This place is wonderful, wonderful! With space like this you could bear eight or ten sons and raise two or three more generations of grandchildren, and never have to worry again!”

Then, not bothering to conceal her envy, she added to Qiqian’er, “If my own shabby place were even a little bigger than this, we wouldn’t have needed to worry about our Third Son at all.”

Supporting Lady Chai as she sat, Qiqian’er personally poured her tea and said, “Listen to you—what’s there to worry about? Our Choutou and Xiaohua’er are practically closer than womb-mates. Xiaohua’er never thought twice about looking after us in the past.”

Lady Chai was delighted to hear this: “That child has always been like that. Give him a bit of sincerity and he’d want to repay it with half his life. His father and I used to worry he was too honest for his own good, but now, well—there’s that old saying, in this world, sincerity is still repaid with sincerity more often than not.”

She glanced around, then, without bothering to hide her curiosity, asked directly, “Good child, this hasn’t cost you little money, has it?”

Qiqian’er’s face fell at once. She held up nineteen fingers’ worth and said, “We’ve been at this for so long, and only the front gate area has just barely been cleared. A few days ago it rained, and when we took a look around, we found half the rooms need their roof tiles replaced—and these tiles happen to be larger than ordinary ones, so we’ll need to have a separate kiln fire them specially. And this is all before the place is even livable—it just keeps needing money!”

Lady Chai was startled by the figure of nineteen thousand strings of cash as well. As a household manager herself, she mentally ran the numbers before saying helplessly, “Only a household like yours could bear this kind of expense. My dear, do you know how ordinary people out there manage to live?”

Qiqian’er shook her head, confused.

Lady Chai gestured with some exaggeration: “Take our petty clerks here in Yandu—a month’s pay comes to about five or eight strings of cash. Your godfather has men like that under him. After taking their salary, they first set aside one string for supporting their parents, then save one string as a base, leaving three strings for the household’s living expenses. Even ranked officials don’t dare spend more than a hundred coins a day on food and socializing at the office. Just imagine how hard that life must be.”

Qiqian’er nodded blankly. Back when she’d made her home in Qingfeng, she’d never imagined life would come to this—who in Yandu could even afford to live here?

After a long silence, this young woman who always prided herself on being strong finally said, “Godmother, I never imagined it would come to this. Now, in this household, even finding a mouse’s nest requires careful calculation.”

Lady Chai laughed and said to her warmly, “Every household is like this! I won’t hide it from you—I’ve wanted to come for a while now, but it never felt quite right either way. These past days we’ve gone back and forth over whether to come or not.”

Qiqian’er found this puzzling: “We’re not strangers. Godmother, if you wanted to come, you should have just come. If it weren’t for the mourning period, I ought to have gone to kowtow to the old madam myself. What’s there to hesitate over?”

Lady Chai pursed her lips: “What’s there to hesitate over? Your household is nothing like it used to be. Dasheng may look like he’s out there in the wind and sun doing manual labor, but at the very least he’ll end up a prince of the second rank one day. In the old days, whatever we had at home, we’d have sent it straight over to Qinwei Lane without a second thought. Now? I won’t lie to you, I circled the house eight times, afraid people would gossip about us sending broken tiles and scrap wood to a household like yours.”

Neither of them needed this explained—they both knew exactly where the problem lay.

Qiqian’er lowered her head, somewhat dejected: “These past days, I haven’t had a single moment of peace. I keep wishing I could go straight back to Qinwei Lane—life was simple there, and I could manage it myself. Godmother… I’m afraid now that I won’t do well, that people outside will gossip about me.”

Seeing this young woman—who normally sparred constantly with her own daughter-in-law—looking so downhearted, Lady Chai finally burst out laughing. This household-managing matriarch laughed without covering her mouth, tilting her head back, showing her white teeth, laughing heartily for a good while before saying, “Child, you’re overthinking this completely. Why don’t you take a look at me instead!”

Qiqian’er looked up: “Eh?”

Lady Chai pointed at her own face: “Look at me. My own family background was nothing special either—back then it was your godfather who was marrying above his station with our family! We never imagined back then that he’d end up following the true dragon and suddenly become a person of high status! In the blink of an eye the children grew up, and we dragged the whole family here to Yandu. Go ask around and find out your godmother’s reputation!

In all of Yandu, I’m the only one who’s picked up a blade and chased the men of my household onto the roof more than once. What kind of reputation do you think that’s earned me? And yet I’m the one managing the whole family’s food and clothing and expenses—I’ve never once dared to slack off on my duties.

While they were off fighting, I was here at home worrying myself sick over them… today it’s this daughter-in-law who’s never satisfied, tomorrow it’s that one who’s unhappy! Have I not done well? And yet whenever they talk about me, they never say a kind word—they call me a rude, coarse woman, and on top of it, they blame me for making it hard for my own niece to find a good match…”

Lady Chai grabbed Qiqian’er’s hand: “Good child, if it weren’t for you saving me, I would have wanted to divorce that old wretch just to spite him—it still wouldn’t have been enough. That’s how it is—you’re not allowed a single flaw. Heaven itself has forgiven you, so why won’t people’s tongues let you go? It’s simply because you’re doing better than they are!

Just look after yourself. If you live your life through other people’s eyes, constantly trying to make everyone else say you’re good, that’s simply impossible. Just set your mind at ease—there are plenty of people better off than you, and plenty worse off too. Whatever disdain they show on the surface, who knows what kind of life they’re really living behind closed doors!”

These were truly heartfelt words. Qiqian’er hadn’t expected Lady Chai to be so candid with her—having known the Chang family across two lifetimes, only now did she finally feel a real sense of kinship with them.

Lady Chai poured out her heart to Qiqian’er, teaching her a great deal, staying until noon and sharing a simple meal with her before finally leaving.

Qiqian’er walked her out arm in arm, watching until Lady Chai’s carriage disappeared from sight before turning back into the mansion.

She needed an older female relative to lean on for guidance, and Lady Chai had appeared at just the right time.

What Qiqian’er didn’t know was that while she struggled with the household every day, her irritating godfather was doing it on purpose.

Chen Dasheng had eaten his midday meal in the palace, and afterward scurried straight off to his godfather’s small courtyard.

For a while now, She Qingling had stopped attending court and no longer wandered around the palace. He’d handed off his duties as Chief Eunuch as well, and now spent his considerably more leisurely time tending his little vegetable garden.

Once Chen Dasheng entered the courtyard, he sat himself down obediently at the writing desk that had been prepared for him, beside which the secret reports sent in from scouts stationed everywhere had piled up like a mountain.

He needed to arrange all the various pieces of information by order of importance and urgency, as his godfather had taught him, before finally presenting them to the Emperor.

She Qingling had picked a good deal of green vegetable leaves, all placed in a basket beside him—these were meant for his son to bring home to his daughter-in-law. He’d eaten plenty of the noodles she’d ground by hand… ah well! To put it plainly, he did feel a bit guilty for making things hard on her.

Taking the gourd ladle from a young eunuch’s hand to rinse the mud off his feet, he asked with a smile, “What’s your wife up to at home?”

Chen Dasheng looked up and complained, “You only give her that little bit of household allowance—Qian’er isn’t a deity, you know! And you still have the nerve to ask!”

She Qingling waved this off indifferently, sitting down on his little stool, arranging the vegetable leaves neatly as he spoke: “She needs to get out of Qinwei Lane eventually. She needs to understand the difficulties other clan matriarchs face. That wife of yours has good character and a solid foundation in every way, but she never dares to take hold of things—always hesitating, and that indecisiveness is unbearable to watch. If I don’t push her a little, how else will she ever manage?”

Chen Dasheng huffily dumped a pile of mismatched leaves into the basket and picked up another armful to sort through: “How old is she even?”

“Old enough to go out and meet people, isn’t she? Just look at the wives she picked out for you boys—every single one of them cut from the same cloth, the type who’d happily shut the door and retire from the world entirely. I’ve wondered myself how she managed to dig up such identical people from whatever obscure corners she found them in. These girls can all manage a household just fine, but they all share one big flaw that needs correcting—this reluctance to go out simply won’t do.”

There was nothing wrong with this reasoning. Chen Dasheng was only grumbling on his wife’s behalf—even as his hands worked deftly, quietly slipping into the palace memorial a report about Tan Shouyi’s delay en route to his post in Jindian over trivial matters, and the resulting waste of local post-station resources.

He placed these things with great subtlety. When His Majesty was in a good mood, he never inserted anything; but once enough had accumulated and the timing was right, he’d slip in a few sheets—not overdoing it. Alongside Tan Shouyi’s case, there’d naturally be others concerning equally unremarkable officials.

These days, in officialdom, some wastage of silver along the road was considered normal—what senior official didn’t travel with a retinue of family members in tow? Such trivial losses were usually just tossed into the miscellaneous folder without much thought, and His Majesty essentially never saw them.

Hmm… whatever things His Majesty did end up seeing—those were the things certain interested parties wanted him to see.