The Duke of Lu’s household had never placed an order at Thin Fragrance Studio before, and Luoyun could not imagine what had brought the Second Miss Fang calling out of the blue.

Since Luoyun could not see, she had no way of knowing that from the moment she came out through the side door, the Second Miss had been looking her over from head to toe without so much as a blink.

When Luoyun smiled and asked what fragrant goods the Second Miss Fang wished to select, Fang Jinshu had just finished measuring up the embroidered slippers visible beneath Miss Su’s skirt.

The closer she looked, the more irritated Fang Jinshu became. This blind woman’s feet were not exactly small — but they were not significantly smaller than her own either.

Fang Jinshu had been in low spirits for some time after the Sixth Imperial Prince’s marriage proposal fell through.

She had once told herself that given her father’s standing at court, consenting to marry the Shizi of Prince Beizhen’s household would be something of a condescension on her part. She had wondered whether the Shizi might at least recognize that her sacrifice made her feelings all the more precious.

Yet after all that deliberation, she had never imagined that the man of her dreams would dismiss her so effortlessly with nothing more than the excuse that he disliked large feet.

She had cried and she had made a scene — and if anything, it had only strengthened her resolve. All of Yanjing was laughing at her now. If she did not marry Han Linfeng after all this, would she not become a true laughingstock?

And so, after weathering that humiliation, the Second Miss Fang’s determination to marry into Liangzhou had grown only more fixed.

Several mornings ago, she had taken her personal maidservant and gone directly to Green Fish Lane, intending to intercept Han Linfeng and convey her genuine feelings to him.

But what she had never anticipated was this: after waiting in concealment at the corner of the lane entrance for quite some time, veiled hat and all, what she had witnessed was Han Linfeng walking at a leisurely pace alongside a young woman of striking beauty — chatting and laughing as they went.

When that young woman felt her way toward a carriage, Fang Jinshu watched Han Linfeng have his page boy bring the mounting step from his own carriage and set it considerately in place for her to step up on. He then drew a brocade sachet from his sleeve, took out a sweet from within it, and held it out to her.

The young woman seemed briefly to hesitate, then broke into a warm smile and accepted it, popping it into her mouth without any trace of awkwardness or self-consciousness.

Han Linfeng’s dark eyes remained fixed intently on the young woman’s smiling face, his own expression lit with a captivating, easy smile.

Anyone who did not know better might have taken them for a newly wedded couple stealing one last lingering moment before parting.

As Fang Jinshu stood there with her mouth gone quiet, her maidservant murmured in her ear about a new piece of gossip making its way around the city — that Han Shizi, though he had been sharply scolded by the Duke of Lu and had reduced his outings to banquets, seemed to have become rather taken with a blind girl who sold fragrant goods. Not only had he privately sent her a gift of considerable value, but he had personally appeared at the prefect’s yamen to plead her case.

The scene unfolding before her was confirmation enough that the rumors were true — Han Linfeng was truly carrying on with a lowly blind merchant girl.

That he could be so entirely unparticular, in fact, was even more of an insult to Fang Jinshu’s dignity than being dismissed for large feet.

All the resentment she had been quietly accumulating seemed at last to have found an outlet.

After enduring it for several days, she could bear it no longer. Today she had ordered her carriage to follow that one, her expression set in stone the whole way, until she arrived at this shop called Thin Fragrance Studio.

She intended to see for herself what it was about this blind girl that had so thoroughly captivated Han Linfeng.

Now the woman was right in front of her, and she could take a proper, unhurried look at her face.

No wonder Han Linfeng was enchanted — this blind woman had genuinely lovely eyes and brows, a graceful figure, a gentle and refined manner, and with the added element of her sightlessness, she had a helpless quality to her that invited tenderness.

After Su Luoyun offered her greeting, however, Second Miss Fang remained silent. Even without being able to see, Luoyun could sense that the visitor was looking her over carefully from head to foot.

She could tell immediately this was no friendly visit. She said nothing further in return — only stood quietly to one side, a composed smile on her face, waiting for the other party to speak.

This kind of unruffled, dignified bearing only added to the indescribable irritation rising in Miss Fang’s chest. She finally spoke, her voice cold: “I heard the fragrances here are fine — I came to have a look. Bring out all the best goods from your shop.”

When Luoyun instructed her assistants to bring out the various fragrant wares for display, Fang Jinshu picked up one after another, gave each a cursory sniff, and began finding fault with a cutting tongue.

In the end, every premium item in the shop was subjected to her disparagement, one by one — and several customers who had stepped in were frightened off by the young lady’s rather pointed remarks.

Xiangcao stood to one side, bristling with indignation, and was on the verge of speaking up when the young mistress pinched her arm. She had no choice but to swallow her temper and stand there in silence, listening to this Second Miss Fang hold forth at great length.

When Fang Jinshu finally ran out of breath, her mouth having gone somewhat dry, she found that the shop’s proprietress had still offered no rebuttal whatsoever. It was growing rather tiresome. She said coldly: “If this is what your shop has to offer — these inferior scraps — you have the nerve to call this a proper establishment?”

Even at words as harsh as these, Luoyun did not take offence. She only smiled gently and replied: “I lost my sight to illness, and my father, worried I would never find a husband and would struggle to get by, arranged this little shop for me. At first it was meant only for basic livelihood. Later, I was fortunate enough to earn the favor of Princess Yuyang, and managed a few transactions from there. It truly cannot compare to the established shops that have been in Yanjing for generations, so it is entirely understandable that the young lady finds it beneath notice. As for these humble goods I sell to keep body and soul together — if I were not a blind woman earning a living, I would truly be too embarrassed to put them on display. I hope the young lady will not laugh at me too unkindly.”

Her tone was soft and unhurried throughout, and when she spoke of her own blindness, she wore an expression of gentle self-deprecation — a marked contrast to the Second Miss Fang’s aggressive manner.

Those quiet words, for all their lightness, thoroughly blocked Fang Jinshu’s next move.

She had come today deliberately to pick a quarrel, but a quarrel required someone willing to fight back. She had been sharp-tongued for quite some time, and her target had simply refused to take the bait. And then, at the very end, the woman had lightly tossed out the explanation that she was “only a blind woman selling modest goods, asking for nothing more” — and with that, there was nowhere left for Fang Jinshu to go.

After all, she was a young lady from a Duke’s household. Coming here to work out her jealousy had already been difficult to justify. To continue making things difficult for a blind woman after such a response would make her no better than the shrewish bullies of rural villages.

The fire of her confrontational mood was extinguished by more than half. Fang Jinshu felt her interest waning, and found herself with an odd sense that she had made herself rather foolish.

But then she thought of her own wholehearted devotion, so thoroughly disregarded by the Shizi — and tears pricked unbidden at the corners of her eyes. She looked at the blind woman before her with a forlorn expression and said quietly: “Is it only because you are pitiable that he looks at you differently?”

Su Luoyun understood perfectly what those words implied, but she could not let on that she did. She thought to herself: so the Shizi’s romantic debts have been laid at her door — this truly was a calamity she had done nothing to deserve.

And so she kept up her pretense of ignorance, giving only a blank, bewildered sound of acknowledgment.

Fang Jinshu, however, seemed to have found at last someone with whom she could share her heart. She said in a wistful, murmuring tone: “Everyone says he is dissolute — they do not know his worth. I remember the year he first came to Yanjing. He went hunting with a group of young men from noble and marquis households, and I had gone along as well with my brother. Gradually the group became scattered, and we had the misfortune of crossing paths with a bear that had just woken from its winter sleep. Everyone else took to their heels in a panic, each one caring for no one but themselves. Only he did not abandon me — he took my hand and ran with me, and we climbed a tree together. We stayed up there until the guards came and drove the bear off and rescued us.”

Su Luoyun listened in silence. So the Shizi had this episode of gallantry to his name as well. If it were not for his habit of hiding his true capabilities, he likely would not have climbed the tree at all — he would have drawn his sword at once and killed the bear outright, then calmly gone about extracting its gallbladder.

When she considered it that way, it was hardly surprising that this young lady had given her heart to him. The masculine courage he kept hidden, and the elegance that surfaced naturally in his manner of speech, did indeed set him far above the spoiled and idle young men of noble households.

Fang Jinshu, having spoken her fill at length, finally seemed to recover herself. She rose and turned to Luoyun with a cold look: “Do not think that your good looks and your pitiable circumstances will be enough to elevate yourself into a noble household. Inside the walls of a great house, even as a servant or a concubine, you need eyes in the back of your head and must live every day on a knife’s edge. Since you already know your own life is difficult, do not put your hopes in a marriage match to save yourself. I say this out of pity for you. The question is whether you have the sense to hear it.”

With that, Fang Jinshu turned without a backward glance, collected her maidservant, and left.

Xiangcao had listened to the whole thing from beginning to end without making any sense of it.

Once their visitor was gone, she helped the young mistress back into the inner room and murmured, puzzled: “What possessed that young lady — coming in here to say all that to you?”

Su Luoyun had a perfectly clear understanding. Rumors linking her to Han Linfeng had evidently reached Second Miss Fang’s ears, and the young lady had come here to take out her jealous frustrations.

But since Luoyun knew that she and Han Shizi were nothing of the sort, she simply laughed it off with unconcerned amusement — and then asked, with casual curiosity: “Did that young lady look at my feet by any chance?”

Xiangcao nodded immediately: “How did you know, young mistress? She looked very carefully indeed — she nearly wanted to produce a measuring tape for your shoes!”

Su Luoyun burst out laughing, then shook her head with a helpless sigh. She now had a perfectly clear understanding of why Han Shizi had rejected this particular young lady without hesitation.

He most likely had little fondness for a woman as forceful in character as the Second Miss Fang.

Given that man’s deep and inscrutable nature, he would probably seek out a woman who was gentle and softly yielding — someone with an uncomplicated mind, easy to spend time with, unlikely to impose too many constraints on him, and inclined to defer to him in all things.

As it stood, however, his marriage was still unsettled, and she had, through some absurd twist of circumstance, ended up deflecting his unwanted admirers on his behalf. Truly an unreasonable injustice.

The next time they crossed paths at the lane entrance, Su Luoyun mentioned the episode to Han Linfeng in tactful terms.

Not as a complaint, naturally — merely as a neighborly gesture, a friendly reminder to her distinguished neighbor that a grown man ought to be thinking about marriage.

Should a suitable match present itself, she hoped he would make it known to those around him sooner rather than later, so that his admirers would not spend their days and nights pining without direction for their feelings to settle.

Han Linfeng heard that the Second Miss Fang had come to make trouble for Su Luoyun and furrowed his brow slightly, though his mouth said only: “I am sorry the young miss was put through that. Rest assured — it will not happen again.”

After saying this, the two of them had emerged from the lane, and Han Linfeng, who had been about to board his carriage, turned and asked Su Luoyun: “What sort of wife do you think I ought to seek?”

Ah? Su Luoyun was momentarily caught off guard. What did she know about what kind of wife would suit the Shizi?

But the Shizi had asked in earnest, so she could only offer some suitably general response: “Shizi is accomplished in both learning and talent, and of exceptional appearance — naturally you would be suited to a heavenly match: someone of distinguished birth, with a gentle and virtuous temperament, worthy of the title of Princess Beizhen…”

Han Linfeng watched her deliver this perfectly smooth and socially appropriate reply with a composed, fitting smile — as though the question had nothing to do with her whatsoever.

He gave a faintly sardonic smile, as if on the verge of saying something, but in the end said nothing at all, and boarded his carriage and departed.

Su Luoyun did not mind that the Shizi seemed unimpressed by her words. It had been a social exchange, nothing more — what difference did it make whether she had answered well or poorly?

She was hardly Han Linfeng’s mother. The Shizi was perfectly free to find his own wife without any reference to what she had said.

But a few days later, when she and Lu Lingxiu were once again enjoying an invitation to a banquet at Princess Yuyang’s residence, Su Luoyun heard tell of a new romantic development concerning Han Shizi.

It was said that the Shizi had recently acquired the company of a renowned beauty from the south of the Yangtze region. Her looks went without saying — and her feet were dainty and delicate, filling a pair of small embroidered slippers to perfect prettiness.

Han Shizi apparently was very taken with this new favorite and kept her by his side whether he was drinking or riding out through the streets.

Reportedly, Second Miss Fang had encountered the Shizi on several occasions during this period, but he had looked straight through her as if she were invisible. This had sent the Duke of Lu’s daughter into a fury resembling a demon’s possession, and she had unleashed such sharp and cutting remarks on the beauty from the south that the poor woman had been driven to tears more than once.

The Second Miss Fang was a formidable person in her own right — and being so thoroughly disgraced by Han Linfeng only hardened her resolve to marry him. She had even stated outright that since her reputation had been ruined on account of her feet, if he intended to take no responsibility, she would petition the Emperor directly and implore His Majesty to issue an imperial decree of marriage.

Word had it that the Duchess of Lu had gone in tears to the Empress herself, asking her to intercede. The Empress had been so moved by a mother’s anguish that she too had shed tears — apparently recalling something of her own heartache from the time she had been the one to give Princess Yuyang in marriage.

The ladies of various noble households were quietly whispering amongst themselves that this Second Miss Fang had about her the same mad tenacity that Princess Yuyang had once been famous for.

The way things were going, this absurd match might actually come to pass.

Pity that her judgment was not as sound as the Princess’s — at least when Princess Yuyang had set her heart on someone, it had been Zhao Dong, a man who had gone on to distinguish himself with genuine military accomplishment. As for the Second Miss Fang’s chosen man — what sort of useless creature was he? All surface, no substance.

By the look of things, the Duke of Lu, however unwilling in his heart, would in all likelihood end up accepting this worthless young man as a son-in-law.

As for Su Luoyun — she had clearly become old news in Yanjing’s gossip circuit, thoroughly forgotten. Any whisper connecting her name to anything had dissipated within days, and no one gave another thought to the inconclusive little lawsuit involving a female fragrant goods merchant.

The matchmaking stars of the capital had been busy of late. Not only were the great noble households all alight with new betrothals, but even ordinary families were hurrying to settle their children’s marriages before the arrival of autumn, aiming for auspicious wedding days when spring returned the following year.

Su Caijian, after a period of despondency following the Lu family’s broken engagement, had rallied and set herself on a new course. Word was that she had recently entered into a new betrothal — and this time, not to a scholarly gentleman, but to a young man from a family that ran a shipping concern.

It seemed Old Master Su had drawn some lessons from his experience. Since the educated and particular families paid close attention to the distinction between legitimate and concubine-born children, he had this time simply arranged Caijian’s betrothal to a merchant family, sparing himself the worry of that detail surfacing later to cause trouble.

A wealthy merchant family — food and clothing assured, and far less fastidious about such things. More importantly, Shou Wei Zhai had numerous business dealings with this Dong family, and an alliance through marriage would bring mutual benefit, allowing both sides to rise further together.

Caijian, who did not understand her father’s painstaking calculation, went to meet the Dong family’s young man — and found him to be a person of immense girth, round as a pig. She refused on the spot, following the example of her elder sister from some time ago: throwing things, smashing bowls, and weeping that she would not marry him under any circumstances.

Unfortunately, Caijian lacked Luoyun’s sharp and precise manner of speech — the ability to identify exactly where to press with their father. She simply went around and around saying the same thing: that Young Master Dong was fat as a pig.

Su Hongmeng found his second daughter insufferably ungrateful and turned to Ding Pei with a dark expression, asking her to have a proper talk with her foolish daughter. If she refused even this kind of match, he would simply find some household servant or page boy from within their own compound and marry her off to him.

Ding Pei had no objection to the Dong family at all. Having grown up poor herself, she knew intimately the misery of being short of money. The Dong family, though not the equal of the Lu family, was comfortably prosperous. Moreover, knowing her own origins had been exposed as a blemish, she was anxious to see her daughter married off quickly, before more whispers surfaced to cause further damage.

Watching Caijian carry on like this, Ding Pei was so furious she resorted to twisting the girl’s arm.

Whatever it was Ding Pei said in the end, Caijian subsequently went about like a wilted eggplant after frost — dazed and despondent from one day to the next — and finally stopped speaking of breaking the betrothal.

Had she not meddled in the first place, this daughter would have gone off to marry without any of this fuss.

But Ding Shi had been vicious enough to attempt framing Luoyun and sending her to prison. To receive without returning would be poor manners. Su Luoyun was not the sort to swallow injuries in silence, and she naturally wished to send her stepmother a fitting gift in return.

She had held onto this particular piece of leverage without acting on it before because she had felt her father’s affection for Ding Pei still remained.

All of Ding Pei’s unpleasant secrets were things her father already knew. If he felt sympathy for Ding Pei and was determined to shield her, then holding the certificate of her base-register status was useful only for tarnishing her reputation — nothing more.

But that slap at the yamen entrance had told Su Luoyun the time was nearly right.

When a man’s heart turns to disgust, even the most passionate love becomes leftover food gone sour — impossible to stomach any longer.

As for the matter of exposing Ding Pei’s origins, it was not suitable for Luoyun to act directly herself.

She knew that over these past years Ding Pei had used favoritism toward the Ding family’s kin to cultivate deep ties with several members of the Su family’s extended relatives. So Luoyun selected the very kinsmen who had been pushed out of the shop by Ding Pei’s maneuvering, had the information passed along through several carefully indirect channels, and sent each of those relatives a copy of the official record of her base-register status.

Within a single night, word of the Su household’s First Madam’s true origins was flying in every direction, spreading without cease.

Even the secret that Su Caijian had been born while her mother was still a kept mistress made the rounds in convincing detail.

Someone went even further, speculating that Caijian might not be Old Master Su’s own daughter at all, but a child her mother had brought along.

The new betrothal that Caijian had only just managed to arrange was cancelled by the other party in polite but firm terms only days after the betrothal gifts had been accepted.

The Dong family stated that though theirs was not a household of great wealth and rank, and they did not stand on ceremony about the distinction between legitimate and concubine-born children, they did have a house rule against accepting women of lowly professional origins as daughters-in-law.

A merchant family’s money was earned through hard work. They did not ask their son’s wife to be exceptionally beautiful or capable, but she must come from a decent and honest household.

As for Miss Su Caijian — the young lady herself seemed acceptable enough, but her mother’s background was far too problematic, and moreover it had been concealed from them before the betrothal was agreed. The Dong family’s elders had spoken: the Su household’s domestic affairs were too tangled and messy, and they did not wish to become entangled in it. They would rather not proceed.

If the first broken engagement had wounded Caijian’s feelings, this time — being cast off first by a young man of such unremarkable appearance — was a blow to her pride that cut far deeper.

There was no need now for Ding Pei to twist her daughter’s arm. In her fury and grief, Caijian turned the full force of her anguish against Ding Pei, weeping until she could not contain herself.

As for Su Hongmeng — whatever remained of his feeling for his wife had long since dwindled to almost nothing. The scandal he had feared day and night had now erupted into open talk all around him, and yet he found, in some hidden corner of himself, an unexpected sense of release.

Now that this family shame had been made public, he had a pretext to send Ding Pei back to the countryside to let the storm pass.

His two sons were about to sit for the imperial examinations, after all. If their prospects were damaged because of their mother, that would be unacceptable.

Though Ding Pei had once tried to hold him in check by threatening to reveal his private dealings with the Academy Director.

Su Hongmeng had since thought the matter over and concluded: if he let a fragile, pretty wife keep him under her thumb, what sort of man did that make him?

She had only overheard a few of his careless words in passing — a woman like that, what could she really overturn?

Now that her own disgrace had been aired, if she had any concern for her sons, she ought not to cause a scene. She ought to go to the countryside of her own accord.

But if she refused — if she still intended to threaten him with that small handle she held over him — then he would not hesitate to set aside all sentiment from their years together, have the serving women gag her mouth, bind her with rope, and throw her onto the cart to be driven back to the rural estate by force.

Having laid all his plans carefully and rehearsed his arguments, he proceeded to state his case in terms of moral propriety and the greater good, hoping Ding Shi would recognize the situation and volunteer to return to the countryside.

What he had not anticipated was that he had poked a hornets’ nest.

For all of Su Hongmeng’s posturing and preparation, Ding Shi was far from caught off guard.

From the very moment his attitude toward her had begun to shift, she had watched for her opportunity, and while he slept had slipped quietly into his study and copied out account ledgers he had brought home.

Moreover, during the period when he had colluded with the Academy Director to divert and sell off stockpiled imperial tribute goods, there had been a considerable volume of correspondence exchanged with the downstream black-market traders. On some evenings, when Ding Shi came to the study bringing his late-night tea and snacks, he would hand her the letters to toss into the brazier.

She had, without drawing his notice, secretly set aside and hidden a portion of that correspondence.

Most damning of all, Ding Shi had also bribed Su Hongmeng’s personal page boy, who provided her with a thorough understanding of his recent dealings and social contacts. She knew clearly which superior officials he was closest to.

Go to the countryside? Did he truly take her for a fool who could be so easily managed?

A man named Su was beginning to discard the old and welcome the new. If she truly went to the countryside, he would likely find a pretext before long to put out a formal notice of divorce.

Ding Pei had grown up in poverty, living beneath the roof of her brother’s household and his wife, making do on other people’s sufferance. It had made her the kind of person who assumed the worst of people before anything else — and she had a mind as cunning as a fox.

On Su Hongmeng’s side, everything had been prepared and accounted for: the cart was harnessed and the horses hitched, the serving women assigned their roles, and if Ding Shi refused to go willingly, the plan was to force her back to the countryside.

But Ding Pei had long since received word through her bribed page boy, and had already long since summoned reinforcements of her own.

And so: no sooner had Su Hongmeng called in two of the extended family’s serving women to take hold of Ding Pei, than Ding Pei’s own brother arrived at the gate with his two strapping sons and three or four drinking companions, and began pounding on the door.

Though the Ding family’s maternal uncle was himself a spineless sort, the two sons he had raised were local bullies with a reputation for lawlessness throughout the countryside.

At their father’s order, they barged into the courtyard, kicked aside the page boys who tried to block them, seized the wood-splitting axe, and with one stroke brought down and killed the horse that had been harnessed to the cart.

The others smashed and threw things, shouting and cursing at the top of their lungs, while the brazen elder cousin — covered in the horse’s blood — planted himself squarely in the courtyard entrance, eyes blazing, and announced outright that whoever dared to send his sister away, he would end his own life on the spot — a blade in pale, a blade out red, going down together with the heartless man who had wronged her.

Su Hongmeng shook with rage from head to foot, shouting for the authorities to be called. Breaking into a private residence and spilling blood — when handed over to the yamen, they would catch a flogging before anything else was said.

But Ding Pei only laughed coldly and flung out a letter. Then she caught Su Hongmeng by the ear, and in a sweet, delicate murmur, reeled off a series of figures — each figure a piece of iron-clad evidence of Su Hongmeng’s dealings in diverted imperial tribute goods.

Su Hongmeng went cold with shock. He could not fathom how letters that should have been thrown into the brazier had ended up in Ding Pei’s hands — nor how she had managed to piece together those particular figures from the accounts.

He scrambled in a panic to cover her mouth.

But this time Ding Pei shoved him away with one firm push, and told him coldly that every dangerous piece of evidence she held had been safely stored away. She hoped the Master of the household was prepared for banishment, exile, and the confiscation of all family assets.

She was the Su family’s person in life and the Su family’s ghost in death. The crimes he had committed would drag the whole family down with him. If the Master were condemned to death, she would be the one to wrap his body in straw matting and see it into the ground — and then take their children into exile to serve out whatever punishment followed.