What should have erupted into a great, widely-talked-about broken engagement was thus concluded in complete silence.

Both families swiftly reached an agreement, citing an incompatibility of birth characters as the grounds for dissolving the match. The Su family did not even ask the Lu family for any compensation, simply allowing them to carry the betrothal gifts back in full.

When Su Luoyun heard all of this, her mind was as clear as a mirror.

It appeared that Master Lu had conducted himself with some degree of decency after all, and had not made a spectacle of the fact that the Su family’s mistress had once been a kept woman of dubious origins. He had most likely used the matter as leverage to compel her father into agreeing to dissolve the engagement quietly.

After all, having formed a connection with a family of this kind was hardly something to boast about. Master Lu also valued his reputation, and moreover the Lu and Su families still had dealings in official and commercial matters. If the whole thing could be resolved discreetly, that was by far the best outcome.

The Lu family had gotten what they wanted. The Su family, however, was in no state to be calm about it. Caijian was the most utterly lost of all — watching as her parents showed no sign whatsoever of intending to go to the Lu family to negotiate a reconciliation, she came sniffling to Tianshui Lane, begging Su Luoyun to intervene and try to persuade Young Master Lu.

“Elder Sister — I know that Young Master Lu listens to you most of all. If you speak to him, he will surely hear you…”

Su Luoyun showed no reaction and continued flicking her abacus beads. She said coldly: “If I had that much influence over him, the very first thing I would have done after my accident left me blind was have him tear up his engagement to you and throw it in your face.”

Caijian’s weeping stopped short. The mind that had been singlemindedly fixated on marriage finally cracked open a small fissure, and she recalled how exactly it was that Luoyun had lost her sight.

“Elder Sister, I… it was not on purpose. Why must you bring it up again…”

She truly had not meant it at the time — it was just a push, and who could have guessed that Elder Sister would happen to fall on a stone.

Luoyun let out another long sigh.

A single “it was not on purpose” was apparently enough for Caijian to go on her merry way and prepare happily for her marriage into the Lu family.

This illustrated the principle perfectly: when one has done something wrong, the most essential thing is to convince oneself. Once the heart is at ease, even murder and arson become trifling matters of no consequence.

In the art of self-deception, she still had much to learn from Caijian.

Only right now, Caijian’s muddled head did not seem to have worked things through clearly. If she were in Caijian’s position, she would have no time to run out here weeping and wailing over useless matters — she ought to be asking her mother what ruinous piece of evidence had fallen into someone else’s hands.

She felt her way into the question, asking Caijian what had actually happened at home. But Caijian had no idea — she only said that her maternal uncle on the Ding side had been summoned to the residence.

Then her mother and father had closeted themselves with the Ding uncle in private, followed by the sounds of tables being overturned and crockery being smashed.

Her father, who had always preferred to conduct himself in a measured and refined manner, had apparently flown into such a rage that the veins stood out on his temples, and he seized a table leg that had been kicked off and chased the uncle all around the courtyard with it.

Of course Caijian had no idea what had driven her father into such a fury.

The truth was this: after Ding Shi had been bought out of the establishment years ago, she had always harbored a quiet worry in the back of her mind about the fact that she had once been entered into the lowly register at Hongyun Lane.

She had been at pains to curry favor with Su Hongmeng at every turn, and naturally did not wish to bring any trouble upon him. So she had summoned her elder brother, who had by then started a family of his own, handed him the silver, and asked him to act as intermediary and clean up the matter of her degraded registration.

The matter itself was simple enough — it was just a question of greasing the right palms through the proper channels. But the Ding uncle was a man of limited vision who, confronted suddenly with such a large sum of money, had been seized by greed.

He had made some inquiries, gathered a rough sense of what was involved, and heard that it was sufficient simply to buy out the contract and retrieve the indenture. As for formally striking the name from the register — that was time-consuming and troublesome, and the silver his sister had given him was barely enough to cover the necessary bribes at each level.

Since Su Hongmeng had already bought out his sister’s contract, what was the point of going to all that further trouble to have the degraded household registration officially expunged?

And so he went through the motions in outward compliance while doing nothing of substance, made a show of going through the process once, then came back and told Ding Pei it had all been resolved.

Ding Pei, being young at the time, actually believed him, and gave the matter no further thought afterward.

Now that the Lu family had exposed her disgraceful past, Ding Pei suddenly recalled those early days. She hastily summoned her elder brother and demanded to know how exactly he had handled things at the time.

The Ding uncle refused to admit anything and held his position through several denials — until Su Hongmeng caught the inconsistencies, pressed him with one question after another, and at last extracted the truth: he had pocketed that silver for himself years ago.

This sent Ding Pei trembling all over with fury and weeping uncontrollably. And Su Hongmeng kicked the table to splinters and then chased this useless, shiftless lout around the courtyard, beating him without mercy.

Master Su had only just entered the Bureau of Monopoly Trade, had only just reached a position of equal footing with Master Lu, and had not yet had any chance to feel proud of himself — when all of it came crashing down in an instant. From now on, whenever he encountered Master Lu, Su Hongmeng would feel a suffocating, gut-twisting sense of shame, as though stripped bare.

Now that the truth had finally come out — the whole disaster had been caused by his brother-in-law — that day, if not for Ding Pei physically intervening and stopping him at the last moment, the beating would very nearly have crossed into a criminal matter.

As for Ding Pei herself — she had been doing so well as the official wife all these years that she had quite forgotten what her origins were. Now that someone had suddenly yanked the cover off her past, she too was thrown into complete disarray.

Once she knew it was her brother’s blunder that had caused the disaster, she berated him furiously with all the passionate frustration of someone watching iron refuse to become steel — yet she still had to send him back to Shu territory to find out how the information had leaked, and then find a way to buy off the midwife and stop her mouth.

But Luoyun was not worried that her uncle had left any traces behind.

He had many friends in the world beyond official life, and the former comrade who had helped him — hearing of his niece’s circumstances — had been filled with righteous indignation and promised to keep the secret absolutely. Most conveniently of all, this comrade had already been promoted and transferred to Yanzhou, a thousand li away. Even if Ding Pei tried to track him down, there would be no one to find.

When Ding Pei learned that the lowly register bearing her name had been taken by someone, and that the midwife had provided a signed and sealed testimony, she would no doubt spend her days in anxious dread, wondering whose hands her secrets had fallen into.

Just as Luoyun had anticipated, in little more than ten days the Su family was thrown into chaos both inside and out. In addition to placating the endlessly crying and wailing Caijian, and dispatching her brother to Shu territory to investigate, Ding Pei also had to endure her husband’s cold disdain.

Su Hongmeng, though he doted on this wife who was ten years his junior, had always done so on the basis of her deft and capable management of everything around him, her gentle and attentive manner, and her ability to add luster to his life at every turn.

He had never once imagined that the youthful indiscretion he had assumed would remain forever unknown would be exposed so utterly and without cover before others.

Though Ding Pei had not given herself to anyone else at the time, he could hardly go around explaining to everyone, one by one, that his cherished wife had been a woman in desperate straits who had been rescued just in time and was completely untouched.

In his shame-fueled anger, Master Su proceeded to heap all the blame onto Ding Pei — insisting she had dragged him down. He had originally intended to take Ding Shi as a concubine. But she had wept and made a scene and absolutely refused to be a lesser wife.

And he himself had been young and foolish at the time, had never anticipated that he would one day advance further in position, and had let his better judgment be softened until he elevated a woman of impure origins to the status of official wife.

And now he had ended up in the humiliating position of being mocked by Master Lu without a word of rebuttal, and had caused his children’s marriage prospects to be ruined in the bargain.

If Master Lu was willing to keep his mouth shut, that would be one thing. If the news leaked, the three children Ding Shi had borne would have their reputations destroyed entirely.

Su Hongmeng, turning over every memory of the secret romance with Ding Pei in those early days — all the sweetness of it — now saw it all as a cascade of compounding mistakes from the very first misstep.

With these thoughts in mind, Su Hongmeng naturally began to pick quarrels and nurse a festering resentment, venting his suppressed fury. He issued a strict order that Ding Pei was to stay home during this period and not go out to show herself.

Ding Pei endured it all, submitting to every demand with gentle attentiveness and hoping Su Hongmeng would work through his temper sooner rather than later.

Under the weight of this blow, Master Su’s enthusiasm for official life diminished considerably — he went to the Bureau of Monopoly Trade less frequently, and instead spent most of his time at the riverside wharves inspecting incoming fragrance shipments, simply unwilling to go home.

Su Luoyun calculated the timing carefully, took along a large food hamper, and arrived at the riverside dock at the noon meal hour to bring Su Hongmeng his lunch.

She knew her father’s tastes, and had these dishes specially ordered and prepared at a high-end restaurant.

Su Hongmeng had no desire to go home and face Ding Shi’s aggrieved and ingratiating expression. When his eldest daughter made a deliberate effort to please him by bringing meals, though he had no great inclination to speak with her either, he ate the food in cold-faced silence.

At first he still made cutting remarks here and there, but Su Luoyun did not talk back — she simply served him attentively, picking out the best morsels and placing them in his bowl.

Seeing that Luoyun seemed to have some remorse, Su Hongmeng accepted this with a cold huff.

After a few such visits, the fragrance merchants who came and went at the wharf had all seen the proprietor of Shouwei Pavilion dining with his blind eldest daughter in the workers’ shed down at the docks.

From a distance, it truly looked like a picture of a devoted father and a filial daughter, enjoying a moment of family warmth.

Though the daughter could not see, she served him meticulously and poured his wine with careful respect — she did not look like a disobedient child at all.

And indeed — what feud between father and daughter could last beyond the next morning? It appeared that Master Su had reconciled with the daughter who had struck out to run her own establishment.

A few days later, the two merchants who had previously sold all their frankincense to Ding Shi came one after another to the door. After saying a few words along the lines of hoping the young miss would not take offense, they each produced some smaller, miscellaneous pieces of frankincense and asked whether the young miss was willing to buy what was left over from their stores.

It appeared they had caught wind of recent developments and felt they could not afford to offend the daughter of Shouwei Pavilion — so they had come to repair the relationship.

After all, Su Hongmeng was at the Bureau of Monopoly Trade now, and had direct oversight of their business.

Luoyun had spent so many days delivering meals precisely for this outcome. If they were willing to sell, she was certainly willing to buy.

Frankincense was an indispensable ingredient in many of the finest fragrance products, and both of these merchants held valid permits from the Bureau of Monopoly Trade — their goods came through legitimate channels. Whatever quantity they had, she would take all of it.

The frankincense was only small, miscellaneous beads, barely enough to fill Princess Yuyang’s pre-ordered commissions. If large orders from other noble patrons came in later, there would not be nearly enough. Whenever the opportunity arose, she would need to acquire more.

Regardless, the first step had been taken, and Luoyun felt her energy and determination surging.

The Wei dynasty held the aromas of a prosperous age in the highest regard. Among households in the capital with any pretension to refinement, incense was burned in the privy, clothing was fumigated with fragrance, fragrance was used outdoors to repel insects, and the writing of texts and correspondence was unthinkable without it.

If a fragrance shop carried good products, the flow of business would never stop throughout the year — not only enough to support a younger brother’s studies, but potentially enough to make one extraordinarily wealthy.

When Shou Xiang Zhai had built a great enough reputation, she would no longer need to squeeze her way through trading fairs. The finest fragrance materials would come to her of their own accord.

When she returned to the shop, Luoyun gathered the several newly hired young assistants and taught them step by step how to steam and wash dried flowers, and how to extract flower oils.

If a fragrance shop was to sustain itself over the long term, it had to cultivate several skilled and seasoned craftsmen. These young assistants were diligent and appeared sharp-witted, and though they could not yet compare to the senior craftsmen of Shouwei Pavilion, with time the day they could would be in sight.

However, having had her formula stolen, Luoyun had grown more careful. Until these assistants had signed a long-term contract with the shop, none of them were permitted to enter the inner room where fragrances were blended. Any found doing so would be immediately dismissed.

They all came with guarantors and were children from respectable families in the surrounding villages, but one could never fully know the heart of another. She had only just taken them on and had no sense yet of what kind of character each possessed.

The fragrance formulas were precious and could not be tampered with. Establishing these rules would also give her proper grounds for managing the assistants.

The assistants all noted the rules and followed them to the letter, not overstepping by a single inch.

With assistants in place, what was still lacking was a seasoned senior craftsman capable of anchoring the whole operation.

Su Luoyun turned the problem over for a long while, then quietly sent word to invite Master Li from Shouwei Pavilion to call on her.

This Master Li was the very one who, after the incident in which Xiangcao had been drugged, had secretly passed out the paper wrapper bearing the knockout powder. He was a man who understood the meaning of gratitude, and was by far more upright in character than the other craftsman, Master Xiao.

Yet this upright man had not had an easy time of it in the days since.

After the secret of what had happened to Xiangcao at Shouwei Pavilion had been leaked, Ding Shi had made numerous indirect inquiries at the shop, probing from different angles.

Though there was no hard evidence, Master Xiao had whispered insinuations behind Master Li’s back — suggesting he had bitten the hand that fed him. Ding Shi was far too adept at getting a grip on people. And so the petty harassments directed at Master Li came in an unending stream of underhanded maneuvers.

Master Li was still employed at Shouwei Pavilion at present, but his wages had been cut considerably from what they had been before. More importantly, he felt perpetually unsettled inside, and had even come to regret having stuck his neck out and helped the eldest miss of the Su family.

Now, hearing that Miss Luoyun intended to have him join her establishment, he hesitated.

It was not that he was unwilling to change positions — it was that he feared this young woman’s business would not last.

Having been immersed in the fragrance trade for so many years, he knew all too well how many hidden pitfalls it contained. Planting oneself firmly enough to hold a steady position in the capital was not something that could be accomplished on the strength of one or two noble patrons alone.

If Miss Su’s enterprise failed, she could simply return to being the eldest daughter of the Su family without any real consequence. But he would have offended Shouwei Pavilion, and would be entered into the fragrance guild’s blacklist — not a single establishment would take on a craftsman who had turned against his employer.

Luoyun heard Master Li fall into a long silence and guessed at the hesitation behind it.

In truth, she had anticipated every one of these concerns long before. And so she had Xiangcao bring out the deed to twenty acres of farmland that she had prepared well in advance, and told Master Li: if he was willing to come, she would put it in writing.

If Shou Xiang Zhai prospered, she would give Master Li a two-part profit share in the business — in addition to his monthly wages, he would receive a share of the annual earnings.

But if the shop did not prosper and closed down, beyond the severance payment, she was further willing to compensate Master Li with twenty acres of farmland — she would not leave him with nothing.

Luoyun knew that to invite a capable person to step forward, one could not rely on words alone. The man had a family to feed — she could not put him at risk.

Terms this open-handed and decisive were more than many a bold man would be willing to put on the table. Master Li was struck speechless. He had just opened his mouth to ask whether the young miss was simply saying this to deceive him, when Su Luoyun was already picking up her brush, writing it out, and pressing her seal.

That unhesitating certainty was clearly not an impulse of the moment. Only then did Master Li feel fully assured that she meant every word.

With the young miss showing such open-handedness and boldness, Master Li hesitated no further. When he returned and gave his resignation to his former employer, however, he felt somewhat unable to say the words at first.

After all, he had worked there for many years — he felt a lingering twinge of guilt, and if the proprietor had spoken to keep him, he might perhaps have wavered a little longer.

As it happened, Shouwei Pavilion not only made no attempt to retain him — the Madam Ding who managed the shop in her husband’s stead sent him off with a round of cutting, barbed remarks, telling him he had far better not think too highly of his own abilities. If he left Shouwei Pavilion’s doors, he would be reduced to begging, and there would not be so much as leftover scraps for him to eat.

Master Li’s stubborn pride flared up. He simply walked away without asking for the remaining half-year’s wages he was owed, bundled up his belongings, and transferred immediately to Shou Xiang Zhai.

Master Li had been a senior craftsman at Shouwei Pavilion — meticulous, steady, and reliable. In the old days, all the fine work at Shouwei Pavilion — the steaming, the kneading, the grinding — had passed through his hands.

But the old saying had it right: the one who knows how to do the work loses out to the one who knows how to talk about it.

He was a man of quiet, undemonstrative character, unlike Master Xiao who was skilled at making himself visible and indispensable in the proprietor’s eyes. And so in the proprietor’s estimation, Master Xiao had always seemed the more capable of the two.

At first, when Master Li left, Ding Shi was not particularly concerned — with Master Xiao there, she felt the shop still had its cornerstone.

And so she had made no effort to retain Master Li, only sent him off with cold contempt and had the accounts department withhold his wages for the final half-year, making him work those months for nothing.

Only that blind woman Luoyun would see value in such a plodding, slow-witted old craftsman. Did she really think Shouwei Pavilion would fall apart without Master Li?

But then, half a month later, customers began coming to the shop one after another, reporting that the incense Shouwei Pavilion was selling was producing black smoke and ruining perfectly good silk garments. It was only then that Ding Shi began to sense something was wrong.

No amount of fine talk from Master Xiao could fix things now. She called in the shop assistants in a fury and demanded to know what had happened. Only then did she learn: this type of incense required sifting and purification.

Previously this work had all been done by Master Li. Each time he had run the powder through the sieve eighty-one passes, a full three hours of work, until the powder was fine and smooth before stopping.

But after Master Li left, this work had been taken over by Master Xiao. He found it too exhausting after doing it a few times and pushed it off onto a newly hired shop assistant.

The young boy, cutting corners with no one to supervise him, ran the powder through the sieve a handful of times, decided that was more or less enough, and proceeded on his own authority to the next step.

The result was that this painstaking, exacting work went wrong, and the finished product came out entirely different from what it should have been.

Once Ding Shi understood what had caused the problem, she sat Master Xiao down for an earnest, weighty talk, impressing upon him the need for care and precision in everything. This time they had only ruined a customer’s silk clothing and compensated a few taels of silver. Next time, if some marchioness’s or noble lady’s court ceremonial robes came back blackened, could the shop afford the compensation?

Master Xiao agreed to everything with great enthusiasm.

But a few days later, other incense products in the shop began going wrong as well — either turning damp and refusing to burn properly, or losing their staying power far sooner than before.

Customers stopped coming back with complaints eventually, but the shop’s business began declining in a straight downward line.

Ding Shi looked at the figures in the account ledger and flew into a rage, summoning all the craftsmen and assistants, berating them one by one, and demanding to know what had happened, and why the quality of the incense had deteriorated so badly of late.

At this point the shop manager ventured a quiet reminder — since Master Li had left, many tasks had been executed without sufficient care and attention. He too was at a loss, and was wondering whether the proprietor might need to personally go and invite Master Li back.

Hearing this, Ding Shi finally grasped what sort of man the Master Xiao she had placed such faith in truly was — and what a genuine craftsman she had so carelessly let go.

The pity was that she had been far too merciless in how she had handled things at the time, having effectively driven Master Li away with her mockery. Even if she now wished to turn things around and bring him back, it would require Su Hongmeng himself to intervene.

Ding Shi did not dare let this matter reach Su Hongmeng’s ears. What with the Lu family’s breaking of the engagement, Su Hongmeng was already looking at her with nothing but displeasure — how could she go and invite further trouble?

Yet she had no choice but to tell him, because Su Hongmeng had already noticed something was wrong just from looking at the incoming account ledgers.

Ever since Su Hongmeng had entered the Bureau of Monopoly Trade, he had taken a hands-off approach to the shop.

Ding Pei, though of poor origins, had been reasonably sharp and managed the shop competently enough to spare him considerable worry — he needed only to review the account ledgers at the beginning of each month.

But recently, looking at the ledgers with their bleak figures, he felt his temper surging like fire in his liver. He summoned Ding Shi and demanded an explanation — and only then learned that Master Li had transferred to Shou Xiang Zhai.

Su Hongmeng came close to hurling the teacup at Ding Pei.

Master Li had been personally trained, hand by hand, by his late wife Hu Shi.