The moment those words left her lips, even Caijian could no longer maintain her composure, and she tugged at her mother’s arm, silently urging her to stop.

Without Su Hongmeng present, Ding Pei had no need to put on a show of virtue. She simply shook off her daughter’s hand and said with composed calm: “You made a bold declaration to your father back then, about setting up your own household — yet now you can barely keep up with everyday expenses. And your great patron, Princess Yuyang, has gone back to Shouwei Pavilion to commission new incense. Without that distinguished client, I expect your shop can hardly keep running either. If you sell the land to your uncle on the Ding side, I will handle your father myself. If you refuse to sell, then you must do as I say — write out several usable formulas and go to your father with an apology. And if you agree to neither…”

Ding Pei smiled slightly: “Then you’ll spend through whatever you made selling the land, and at most sell off that dilapidated shop afterward — and then all you can do is cling to this crumbling old courtyard with your brother and beg for scraps. What a pity that Guiyan is at such a formative age. Following you, who knows what hardships he’ll have to endure…”

Su Luoyun had not initially anticipated that Ding Shi would set her sights on the farmland her mother had left behind. Though her father had once claimed he would not interfere with her mother’s dowry, with Ding Shi stirring up trouble, it was quite possible that the transfer of the land deed would indeed be obstructed.

This venomous woman was determined to drive her into a dead end from which there was no escape, to be entirely at her mercy!

Just then, the sound of knocking at the gate suddenly rang out from the courtyard.

Nanny Tian went to open the door and stopped short in surprise — standing outside was none other than the manservant from the Prince Consort’s residence, the very one who had come to retrieve the fragrance materials last time.

Today the manservant seemed to be wearing an entirely different face, all smiles and springtime warmth, and he called out his congratulations at the top of his voice the moment the door opened: “Is the eldest miss of the Su family at home? I’ve come to bring her good news!”

Once he had entered the main hall and presented himself before Su Luoyun, there was not a trace of the cold, cutting manner he had shown when he came to collect the ambergris. He clasped his hands together and beamed, heaping praise on the eldest miss of the Su family for her extraordinary skill in blending fragrances.

Su Luoyun listened to a stretch of flattery, then ventured carefully: “From what I could tell, the Princess did not seem particularly pleased with the new incense before — I wonder what has brought your honored master to send you here this time…”

At this, the manservant waved his hands vigorously in denial: “Why would the Princess be displeased? It was simply that there hadn’t been time to try it on the Prince Consort yet. Afterward, the Prince Consort took several of the capital’s young lords out to hunt in the outskirts of the city, and while there he received half a box of incense from Han Shizi. He liked it tremendously, and upon returning home asked the Princess to find more of the same. When the Princess smelled it, she felt it was somehow familiar, and it was only after asking the Shizi that she learned it had also been made by the young miss. You see how it worked out! Since the Prince Consort likes it, the Princess thought she might as well purchase a larger quantity from the young miss.”

At these words, Ding Shi at the side could barely hold her expression together. Still smiling, she prompted: “My good young sir, are you not perhaps mistaken? Did the Princess not place a new order with our Shouwei Pavilion just a couple of days ago?”

The manservant turned his head at this, caught sight of Shouwei Pavilion’s proprietress, and his smile dimmed slightly. He said in a neutral, dispassionate tone: “The Princess has changed her mind again, and feels that Shouwei Pavilion keeps offering the same few things with nothing fresh or novel. She will likely be sending someone to your establishment in the next day or two to cancel the order.”

Ding Shi heard this and had to draw in a sharp breath, barely managing to suppress the fury rising within her. She had finally maneuvered this wretched girl into a corner — and now Princess Yuyang had turned around and reversed course entirely?

Su Luoyun turned to Nanny Tian at that moment and said: “A distinguished guest from the Prince’s household has come — I have no time to entertain the First Madam. There is no need to see her all the way out; please show her to the door.”

Such an obvious dismissal — how could Ding Pei fail to understand it? Knowing that Su Luoyun had secured this substantial commission and no longer had any need to sell the land, she left with an ashen face, taking her daughter with her, swallowing her frustration all the way out.

Su Luoyun smiled and gestured for Xiangcao to wrap up some tea money for the manservant’s errand, but inwardly her mind was turning continuously.

The incense she had given Han Shizi had somehow found its way to Prince Consort Zhao — how could it be such a coincidence?

She harbored a suspicion that Han Shizi had asked for the incense expressly in order to help her along. But she was nothing more than a small-time merchant woman — what could possibly have motivated a son of the imperial family to go to such lengths on her behalf?

If it were truly so, this favor he had done her… was far too weighty a debt.

Still, it was genuinely the case that Prince Consort Zhao had taken a liking to the wild thyme incense. In the Princess’s own words, with all the fine fragrances she had provided him over the years, she had never once seen him so fond of any of them — he was using this one every single day.

Moreover, though the incense’s scent was ordinary and carried a faintly humble quality, it was remarkably effective at masking the odor of perspiration, and the longer one inhaled it, the more it refreshed and gladdened the spirit.

From that point on, Princess Yuyang was thoroughly won over by this blind young woman from the Su family. The girl could not see a thing, and yet she understood the Prince Consort’s tastes better than his own companion of over a decade — she was truly remarkable!

Only, the half box was not a great deal, and the box that Luoyun had originally presented to the Prince Consort’s residence had been carelessly scattered by the Princess out the window long ago. And so this time the Princess was sending her manservant to purchase more.

Su Luoyun, however, put on an expression of difficulty and told the manservant that the incense was extremely laborious to prepare.

Five-year-old children had to pluck the white stamens from within the wild thyme blossoms using only their lips, so as to preserve the flower’s innate spirit. This was then combined with dew gathered on fifteen full-moon nights over the previous year, buried beneath the roots of a plum tree for ten days to absorb the cool floral essence — only then could the fragrance be extracted and distilled.

She had originally prepared only two boxes: one was presented to the Prince Consort’s residence, and the other was given to Han Shizi.

Now that the Princess wanted more, she would simply have to wait.

The manservant listened to this elaborate, painstaking process with a dazed expression, and in the end could only urge her to work as quickly as possible before returning to report to the Princess.

As for Xiangcao, standing to one side listening to her young mistress spin what sounded like a tale straight out of strange fiction — an almost mythical account of the incense-making process — she too was left utterly dazed.

Once the manservant had been seen off, she cautiously asked her young mistress just what sort of incense she had been describing. Xiangcao was quite certain that when she had helped the young mistress make the incense, it had involved absolutely nothing so elaborate.

Luoyun simply sighed and said pensively: “From now on, all incense made for the Princess will have to be described as this elaborate…”

If she had learned anything from the first time the Princess had rejected her work, it was this: with goods presented to personages of this sort, if the materials were not sufficiently costly, then the craftsmanship must be presented as intricate and exacting — and if one could weave a story around it, evoking something almost otherworldly and transcendent, so much the better.

Presenting something so plainly and directly as she had done the first time — she had quite deserved to have it sent back. Now, having learned her lesson, she had, without a teacher, slid a small step in the direction of a rather cunning merchant.

And indeed, when the manservant returned and recounted to the Princess the elaborate refinement behind the incense, Princess Yuyang nodded in admiring understanding — no wonder the Prince Consort had taken such a liking to it. It seemed this seemingly plain and unremarkable incense truly did contain hidden depths!

Ten days later, when Luoyun personally delivered the incense, Princess Yuyang savored it slowly and carefully, and truly did detect a note of something extraordinary within the ordinary.

Pleasing the Prince Consort was Princess Yuyang’s lifelong heart’s desire. To have finally found something that suited his taste filled the Princess with genuine joy. Add to that the painstaking labor involved — such efforts were deserving of the most generous reward.

And so the Princess was not in the least stingy with what she bestowed: in addition to the payment, bolts of cloth, and hair ornaments, she also presented Su Luoyun with an additional eighty taels of silver in reward.

On the evening the silver arrived, since Luoyun could not see, she had Nanny Tian spread two small chests of silver ingots across the bed, then pressed her face against them — cool and smooth — savoring in full the giddy, indulgent feeling of sudden wealth.

Su Guiyan too was overjoyed, congratulating his elder sister on her triumphant opening.

Luoyun let out a soft, quiet breath. With this silver in hand, she would no longer need to feel tentative and restrained in whatever she set out to do.

How fortunate that Prince Consort Zhao was a man of such deep feeling — moved by scent to remember one long gone. The incense she had blended was layered and complex, yet the wild thyme fragrance woven within it could not be mistaken, and that was undoubtedly why he had grown so fond of it.

Of course, this private sentiment was not something the Prince Consort could well explain to the Princess… Thinking it through, the Princess was of imperial blood and jade stock, and yet within this relationship she made herself so small — and she embraced it willingly. There was something both admirable and sorrowful in that.

The person Su Luoyun admired most of all was, in truth, Han Linfeng — the one who had first given her the key insight.

By all accounts, he should have been one of those lordly sons ruined by a life of ease and wealth, spending his days in fine clothes, galloping horses, abandoning himself to wine and pleasure.

And yet in the several exchanges they had shared, she had found him to be a person of perceptive and subtle mind — by no means the brainless wastrel his reputation suggested. This curious dissonance was rather like what Xiangcao had experienced seeing Han Shizi before and after washing his face: as though he were two entirely different people.

Everyone had a side of themselves unknown to others. Even if the Shizi were a man of no learning and no achievement, he would surely have some qualities worth acknowledging.

With this in mind, Su Luoyun felt it would be somewhat discourteous not to express her gratitude. And so, alongside overseeing the shop’s renovation, she gave thought to how she might offer her thanks in a measured and appropriate manner. Her eventual resolution: once her fragrance shop opened for business, she would supply the Shizi’s residence with fragrance materials free of charge indefinitely.

One day at dusk, at the mouth of the lane, Su Luoyun again happened upon her distinguished neighbor out for a stroll — and naturally offered a word of thanks.

Han Linfeng, however, said that Miss Su was being far too polite; it had been nothing more than a small effort on his part, and nothing but a coincidence.

Su Luoyun did not see it that way: “Your Lordship is too modest. Had it not been for your prompting that day, I would never have thought to use wild thyme as my starting point.”

Han Linfeng looked down at Su Luoyun’s unfocused, beautiful eyes and said in a measured tone: “I merely mused aloud about the ordinary way of things in life — it was you who thought to seek out the old servant, and you who decided on the materials thereafter. If I had a fraction of your cleverness, I would long since have made something of myself, instead of whiling away my days at the bottom of a wine cup.”

Su Luoyun was momentarily at a loss for words, because what Han Shizi said was entirely true — he was indeed squandering his years, living without purpose or direction.

But she could not agree with him aloud, and it was even less her place to overstep the bounds of her station and counsel the Shizi to apply himself. That was the role of the Shizi’s own mother, or of his future Shizi consort.

And so the two neighbors fell into silence, walking side by side for a few steps before exchanging polite farewells at the mouth of the lane.

The setting sun slanted into the entrance of Tianshui Lane. Xiangcao watched Han Linfeng bow his head to speak to her young mistress — a man and a woman of no connection to each other — yet the man was strikingly handsome and the young woman carried herself with gentle elegance, and the sight was truly a pleasure to behold.

What a pity, though, that such a breathtakingly handsome man was a good-for-nothing, and an imperial kinsman entirely beyond her young mistress’s reach. In the end, they were two people with no real ties to each other — occasionally their paths crossed, but ultimately each would go their own way…

With the Princess’s reward silver in hand, the expenses of the Su family’s small courtyard grew considerably more comfortable. As the weather turned gradually warmer, the brother and sister set up a dinner table in the courtyard, and now there was a whole, substantial fish and red-braised pork trotters heaping out of the bowl.

When those aromas rose up, they would from time to time attract the cat from next door — the distinguished neighbor’s cat, called Arong.

Grateful for the Shizi’s kindness, Luoyun would always set aside large pieces of fish belly to mix into Arong’s bowl.

When she thought of the anonymous letter she had once written to put a stop to the Shizi’s worldly amusements, Luoyun felt a twinge of guilt.

The late Emperor’s anniversary of passing had long since gone by, and yet the neighbor’s household had not held any banquets for quite some time — she did not know whether that was the result of her letter. This, at least, showed that Han Linfeng was not entirely beyond redemption. He had simply been pampered since childhood, and had not much practice in thinking of others.

In her remorse, all Luoyun could do was add two more dried fish strips to the cat’s food bowl, as a token of her apologies.

With money at hand, the pace of renovation on the new shop sped up considerably. Su Guiyan had a fine hand at calligraphy, and it was he who personally inscribed the shop’s signboard for his elder sister.

On the day the signboard of Su Luoyun’s shop was hoisted up high, and firecrackers were set off, Han Linfeng happened to be passing by on horseback with Guo Yan and his set.

The sound of the firecrackers drew Guo Yan’s attention, and he could not help glancing back — his gaze landing on the large characters reading “Shou Xiang Zhai” on the signboard above.

Young Lord Guo was somewhat curious, and could not help reining in his horse. He turned to Han Linfeng beside him and asked: “Shou Xiang Zhai? What does this shop sell?”