Jizhou. Shen Medical Hall.

Though it had not been open for business very long, the reputation of Shen Medical Hall had quickly spread throughout all of Jizhou City.

Li Chi and his people almost never visited the Shen Medical Hall, but they had heard a great deal about how Shen Rujian ran it.

The woman was genuinely impressive — her mind and methods were so sharp it felt almost out of reach.

When Li Chi’s group first heard how the Shen Medical Hall was being run, Yu Jiuling said it wouldn’t be long before the place shut its doors for good. Yet somehow the business had thrived and flourished beyond all expectation.

Even visits to Shen Medical Hall were stratified by wealth. Rich patients had their way of being seen, and poor patients had theirs.

By conventional thinking, ordinary folk would feel looked down upon by such an arrangement, and the business would suffer for it. In practice, nothing of the sort happened.

When common people came to the Shen Medical Hall for treatment, they lined up in the main hall. Every day, five resident physicians were guaranteed to be on duty in the main hall — patients came and went in turn, proceeding strictly according to the hall’s rules, except in cases of acute illness or serious injury.

Wealthy patients, on the other hand, could pay ten taels of silver and be escorted to the rear courtyard — a finer environment, a more refined atmosphere, and each physician attending to them one-on-one, with correspondingly more expensive medicine.

Someone had once made a scene, demanding to know why the wealthy could be seen first. Shen Rujian’s reply was four words.

Because they have money.

In one sense, she was a thoroughgoing merchant, through and through. In another, she was a bodhisattva.

Because the fees ordinary people paid for treatment were next to nothing — sometimes nearly nothing at all — yet they were never given perfunctory care.

Over these few short months, the Shen Medical Hall had effectively pushed every other clinic in Jizhou City into the shadows. Even patients who lived far away preferred to come to Shen Medical Hall and wait in line rather than go to any other clinic, to the point where the other medical halls had come to despise her with a passion.

More amusingly, one physician feigned illness to come in as a patient and found fault with everything in sight, only to have the staff see through him immediately — he had no illness at all.

That physician then started making a scene, accusing the Shen Medical Hall of fraud, rolling around and throwing a fit.

Shen Rujian said only one sentence.

“Throw him out. If he’s hurt in the process, treat him. If he dies, pay the family.”

And he was indeed thrown out, beaten black and blue.

After that, no one dared cause trouble again, because everyone understood one thing quite clearly: the physicians at Shen Medical Hall were genuinely skilled, and the guards at Shen Medical Hall genuinely could hit.

On the fifteenth of every month, the Shen Medical Hall gave out free porridge to the people. It was said to be medicinal porridge — good for warding off ailments and nourishing the body.

So every fifteenth, the line outside the Shen Medical Hall stretched like a dragon, alarmingly long.

The porridge too came in two kinds. For ordinary folk, it was free — so long as you lined up properly. It ran until it ran out. Anyone who caused trouble was thrown out, without the slightest leniency.

A gang of idlers and thugs had come once, pushing straight to the front of the line. Seven or eight of them were beaten by the Shen Medical Hall’s guards until they were spitting teeth.

For officials and the wealthy who wanted the medicinal porridge, they were invited to the rear courtyard — comfortable, pleasant, impeccably attended.

But a single bowl of the porridge cost five taels of silver. It was said to use entirely different ingredients from what was served to ordinary folk — far more precious, and with far greater medicinal efficacy. Or so they said.

The first month, Shen Rujian had someone deliver over five hundred taels of silver to Li Chi, saying it was three-tenths of that month’s earnings.

The second month it was over eight hundred taels. The third month, over a thousand.

Reportedly the biggest earner was the bone-setting and therapeutic massage offered in the rear courtyard — wealthy patients only, naturally, at ten taels of silver per session.

Yet every single person who had been through it felt those ten taels were thoroughly worth it. After the massage, they felt like an entirely new person — loose-limbed and light.

And this: if you came the first day, try coming back the next — the Shen Medical Hall wouldn’t take your business again. Therapeutic massage and circulation work, twice a month at most.

But there were no shortage of clients. In a great city like Jizhou, officials and the wealthy were staggeringly numerous.

For men, there were male physicians to do the massage. For women, female physicians. People initially assumed no woman would come in for this — only to discover that women came more, and spent more freely.

After the massage, there were also the Shen Medical Hall’s own cosmetics and beauty preparations to browse, along with various wellness powders and the like.

When Li Chi heard all of this, he was filled with absolute admiration for Shen Rujian.

Even rough estimates made it clear: every month the Shen Medical Hall was pulling in several thousand taels, and of course that figure would only keep rising — after all, the hall had only been open three months.

In Li Chi’s estimation, this wasn’t earning money. This was raking it in with a pitchfork.

Li Chi thought about it, and since Military Commissioner Zeng Ling had invited him over, he might as well try to squeeze a bit more out of Zeng Ling while he was at it.

Nearly all of Jizhou’s medicinal supplies were in Li Chi’s hands. He was thinking of sounding out Zeng Ling — was there any possibility of selling those supplies to the Jizhou army? If it worked out, that would be a sizable sum.

The Military Commissioner’s Residence.

When Li Chi walked in the gate, he looked around. The place was remarkably plain — nothing like the home of a man of such standing. Even a wealthy merchant’s house would be more refined than this; at the very least there would be a decorative rock garden and a lily pond, and those with more taste would plant the courtyard full of flowers and greenery.

But Zeng Ling’s military commissioner’s residence had a straight, clear view all the way to the main hall the moment you stepped inside. The courtyard held only a few trees. The ground was flat and smooth, with not a single blade of grass.

When Li Chi came in, Zeng Ling was already standing in the courtyard waiting for him. The moment he saw Li Chi, Zeng Ling broke into a smile — warm and open, with not even the faintest trace of artifice, like greeting an old friend.

But Li Chi was mildly taken aback when he saw Zeng Ling — for he hadn’t expected Zeng Ling to be sitting in the courtyard weaving a basket.

Made of red willow. And by the look of it, his technique was decent.

“Commissioner, this is…?”

Li Chi asked with genuine curiosity.

“One of the serving staff’s cleaning baskets broke. Someone said we should go buy a new one. My hands got itchy — I remembered I’d learned this when I was young, so I thought I’d repair it.”

Zeng Ling said with a smile: “Should save at least a hundred copper coins.”

Li Chi thought about this for a moment. So that’s how it is. Well then, I’m definitely not returning that hundred thousand taels.

Zeng Ling called for tea to be brought, then gestured toward the stone table and stone stools in the courtyard and said: “Shall we sit out here? Cooler outside, and more comfortable.”

Li Chi nodded: “As the Commissioner prefers.”

Once they were seated, Zeng Ling asked Li Chi: “Do you play chess?”

Li Chi shook his head: “I’m afraid I’m a poor student. I don’t know the game.”

He did. He simply had no desire to play chess with Zeng Ling. The deliberate-loss games he played to humor Gao Xining — now those were smooth as silk, more water thrown than in the entire South Ping River.

Zeng Ling smiled and said: “Still worth learning chess. You’ll find a use for it — a great many people enjoy the game, especially men of standing.”

Li Chi smiled and said nothing in particular response.

Seeing that Li Chi wasn’t taking the thread, Zeng Ling paused, then simply came out and said what he’d come to say. No more circling around.

“I’ve heard, young master Li, that you are also the third-ranking leader of the Yanshan Camp?”

Zeng Ling asked, and as he did, his gaze slid sideways to gauge Li Chi’s reaction.

Li Chi nodded: “For now, I am.”

Zeng Ling asked: “Why do you say that?”

Li Chi smiled: “The Yanshan Camp is full of talent. I’ve been away from the stronghold for so long — that makes my position something of an irregularity. Sooner or later, I’ll still have to step aside.”

That was the actual bait.

Zeng Ling took it, as expected.

Zeng Ling said with a smile: “Yu Chaozong is a man of principle, with a well-earned name for justice and honor. I doubt he would be as cold about it as young master Li suggests. Moreover, with young master Li’s abilities, so long as you render the Yanshan Camp some service, your place as third-ranking leader will be perfectly secure.”

Li Chi thought: you’ve taken the bait, so let’s follow the line.

“Service, is it…”

Li Chi sighed: “Commissioner, you don’t know — the talent in the Yanshan Camp these days is staggering. A young man who joined recently took down two entire provinces in only seven days, yet is still only the eighth-ranking leader. I’ve been idle this long — what service could I possibly claim against that?”

Zeng Ling said with a smile: “Daizhou and Xinzhou — just small territories. If young master Li could claim a third of Jizhou’s territory for us, I imagine the Lord of Heaven Yu would be overjoyed.”

Li Chi said: “A third of Jizhou?”

He shook his head with a sigh: “Where would I come by such a third?”

Zeng Ling smiled: “As it happens, I have just such a proposition. If it goes through, I would be willing to offer a third of Jizhou’s counties as thanks to Lord Yu.”

Li Chi put on an expression of great surprise: “What kind of proposition could that be? Commissioner, surely you’d be getting the short end of this deal — you can’t be serious.”

Zeng Ling thought to himself: you’re laying it on a little thick, young man.

But he still smiled warmly and said: “If young master Li can bring about a joining of forces between myself and Lord Yu, I will certainly put forth a third of Jizhou’s counties as a token of gratitude. Doing so would be to everyone’s benefit — yours, mine, and Lord Yu’s.”

Li Chi continued in wide-eyed amazement: “That does sound like it would benefit everyone. Only, I wonder Commissioner, is there anything else in mind…?”

Zeng Ling said: “Jizhou belongs to the people of Jizhou. Lord Yu and I are both men of Jizhou — of course we would hold fast to this homeland together. Today, the Qingzhou and Yuzhou armies have already seized large stretches of territory, and my Jizhou forces alone cannot recover them…”

Li Chi’s expression said: now I understand.

He asked: “So Commissioner’s meaning is that you’d like Lord Yu to step forward and persuade those two men to withdraw their troops? That does seem workable, actually — Lord Yu holds immense prestige and has always been known for his sense of justice. If he’s willing to say a word, moved by principle and guided by reason, those two commissioners would surely be persuaded.”

Zeng Ling thought to himself: persuade your grandmother.

Li Chi thought: please don’t speak ill of other people’s family.

Zeng Ling laughed somewhat awkwardly and said: “What I mean is that if Lord Yu were willing to commit his forces, joining with the Jizhou army to resist the outside threat and protect the hundreds of thousands of common people under Jizhou’s jurisdiction…”

The moment he heard those words, Li Chi immediately cut Zeng Ling off.

“A fight, is it?”

Li Chi kept shaking his head: “Fighting is bad. Lord Yu is a man of letters. Men of letters don’t like fighting.”

Zeng Ling narrowed his eyes and looked at Li Chi.

But Li Chi shifted course abruptly and lowered his voice: “That said — Commissioner, did you know? Lord Yu actually has one vulnerability. Aim squarely at his vulnerability and you can absolutely win him over.”

Zeng Ling’s eyes brightened slightly. He smiled and asked: “I wonder, what vulnerability of the Lord of Heaven that young master Li is referring to — what does it concern? Or rather, who?”

Li Chi lowered his voice further, going conspiratorial: “This is between you and me, Commissioner — not a word to anyone else. It would be, how shall I put it… not good.”

Zeng Ling said quickly: “Naturally. From your lips to my ears, no other person will know.”

Li Chi then appeared to say this with some reluctance: “Lord Yu has something about him that only I know, so only I could tell you, Commissioner… You probably don’t know — in fact, you definitely don’t know — what Lord Yu’s family does for a living.”

Zeng Ling frowned. Yu Chaozong’s father had once served as an imperial official, a provincial administrator. Of course he knew what his family did.

Still, he asked: “And what does Lord Yu’s family do?”

Li Chi lowered his voice: “They sell medicine!”

Zeng Ling was raising his teacup for a sip when that “they sell medicine” nearly made him spray every last drop into the air.

Li Chi said with complete sincerity: “You buy his medicine. Become his best customer, his most valued client. That way, when you come to ask something of him, Commissioner, Lord Yu will never be able to refuse. After all, you’ve been spending money with him.”

Zeng Ling: “That’s… heh heh heh… that’s… what sort of medicine exactly?”

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