“Come on, Cloud Treader — a little faster, just a little faster…” Listening to Yu Weiwei’s tense encouragements, Hua Zhi looked out at the two horses running nearly neck and neck in the distance, guessing that the other one must be Gale Wind.
“They won! They won — Cloud Treader won!” Yu Weiwei grabbed Hua Zhi’s arm and shook it with excitement, then turned back to look at Miss Zhu with an expression of undisguised triumph.
Miss Zhu had remarkable composure. Even in this situation, she only smiled serenely and said nothing at all.
“Weiwei, how much did you bet in total?” A girl in the front row turned around to ask.
“All together?”
“Yes, inside and outside combined.”
Yu Weiwei held up ten fingers and then two more. “I even brought out my savings. If I’d lost, I would have absolutely made my cousin pay me back.”
Hua Zhi let a look of curiosity cross her face but did not press further. Yu Weiwei noticed but offered no explanation, only smiled cheerfully. “I saw you put in two hundred taels earlier?”
“I didn’t bring very much silver with me.”
“A small stake for fun — two hundred taels is plenty. Wu Madam, no rush on settling ours — give Miss Hua her winnings first.”
The woman who had first proposed opening the pool passed over two bank notes. “Small pool, easy to settle — but I’ve taken quite a loss today.”
“You’ve only given back a little of what you won last time.” Yu Weiwei glanced at the bank notes and tucked one into Hua Zhi’s hand. “Buy yourself some sweets.”
Hua Zhi looked down at it. She had put in nothing — not a single coin — yet just like that, two hundred solid taels had come back to her. Win and you want to keep playing; lose and you want to recover what you’ve lost. That was the appeal of gambling.
“Do you want to go see my horse?”
“Your own horse?”
“That’s right.” Yu Weiwei could barely contain her pride. “My father bought me a mare. I raised her myself from when she was this small, and later when she’d grown a bit she was brought here to the racetrack — more space, and Little Treasure is happier here.”
Watching her talk with such animated gestures, Hua Zhi nodded along agreeably. She was not the easiest person to converse with, but she was an excellent listener — and Yu Weiwei was very satisfied with her. She gave Hua Zhi a push toward the exit. “Let’s go, let’s go — go see my Little Treasure.”
“Please give me just a moment, Miss Yu — I need to say a word to my younger brother first.”
Just then, Zeng Han and the others were making their way over. Yu Weiwei went to meet him and, with her characteristic boldness, declared, “Cousin, Hua Ling and I are off to see Little Treasure — you’d better take good care of Young Master Hua.”
Zeng Han knew his cousin well enough to know she acted on impulse. He turned to look at Hua Zhi, prepared to step in on her behalf at the slightest sign of reluctance — but when he actually looked, he paused. She didn’t seem unwilling at all.
Hua Zhi said gently, “Young Master Zeng, if it’s inconvenient…”
“Not inconvenient at all. Leave your brother to me — you have nothing to worry about.” Zeng Han pulled Liu Zi close. “I’m taking him to see Cloud Treader. My cousin knows where to find us, so go and enjoy yourselves.”
“Since when did you need to tell me that.” Yu Weiwei cast a few discreet glances back and forth between the two, then linked her arm through Hua Zhi’s and led her down from the stands.
After the two had walked away, someone lowered their voice and said, “Brother Zeng, are you aware that the Zhu family has been looking to propose a match with the Yu family?”
Zeng Han’s brow furrowed. He had little patience for such tangled affairs — his eldest brother was capable and handled everything at home — but that didn’t mean he didn’t understand them. The Zeng and Yu families were of one cloth; the Zhu family and the Zeng family had never eaten from the same pot. What exactly was the Zhu family after?
“Young Master Zeng.” A soft, gentle voice pulled Zeng Han out of his thoughts. Seeing it was the Miss Zhu from the Zhu family, he gave her a shallow bow in return.
“Congratulations on Cloud Treader’s back-to-back first place victory.”
“Thank you.” Zeng Han returned the courtesy with a distant bow. “I’m just on my way to see Cloud Treader — please enjoy yourself, Miss Zhu.”
Once they were down from the stands, Dou Qingyang leaned in and murmured, “Is that Zhu girl interested in you?”
Zeng Han instinctively glanced back. Miss Zhu was still standing in place, motionless.
“See? I wouldn’t believe for a second she has no such intentions toward you.” Dou Qingyang nudged him with his elbow. “You’ve got trouble on your hands.”
And not small trouble at that.
The two exchanged a look and said no more on the matter there; they called out cheerfully to the rest of the group and headed off together toward Cloud Treader’s stable.
Liu Zi spoke little and played the part of the agreeable younger brother without a single misstep — no one found him off-putting, and after displaying respectable horsemanship in a quick race against one of them, he had more or less settled into their circle.
By the time they returned from the racetrack, dusk had already fallen.
Yu Weiwei poked her head out of the carriage. “Hua Ling, how many more days are you staying in Jinyang?”
Hua Zhi kept her answer open-ended. “A few more days at least.”
“Then let’s go out together again tomorrow?” Yu Weiwei beckoned for her to come closer and said in a low voice, “I’ll take you somewhere really good.”
Zeng Han tapped his little cousin on the head. “You act like Hua Ling is just like you — all she does is play.”
“Everything I experienced today was completely new to me. If Miss Yu says it’s fun, it must be — and if Miss Yu doesn’t mind that I’m no fun, I would very much like to go.”
Yu Weiwei’s eyes lit up. She shot a triumphant look at her cousin. See — she had known it all along. This Hua Ling was the easiest person to get along with; otherwise she would never have invited someone whose personality she could already tell was not quite on the same wavelength as hers.
“Then it’s settled — I’ll come find you tomorrow.”
Hua Zhi smiled and nodded, then gave Zeng Han a bow and turned to go inside.
Liu Zi didn’t rush to follow. “It’s not as though I can follow my elder sister in any case — Brother Zeng, would you take me out again tomorrow?”
Zeng Han gave an easy laugh. “Sure, we’ll go out — but…”
He thought for a moment, then said, “Bring some silver with you tomorrow. Not a lot — enough to join in the fun, that’s all.”
Liu Zi leaned in conspiratorially. “You mean that thing they were doing at the racetrack today — opening those betting pools several times?”
“That’s right. People in Jinyang love doing that. As long as you don’t take it too far, there’s no harm in it. If you’re not comfortable with it, that’s fine too.”
“I won’t mind at all — I thought it was quite fun actually. If I’d had silver on me today, I would have already joined in.”
Zeng Han was quite pleased and gave him a pat on the shoulder. “All right then — I’ll be off.”
“Thank you for today, Brother Zeng.”
Zeng Han waved it off with his usual ease, swung up onto his horse, and rode away.
In the rear courtyard of the inn, Yu Mu and Jia Yang were already waiting. They were about to report when Hua Zhi held up a hand. “No rush — let me first sort through what I learned today.”
Liu Zi moved quickly; despite a brief delay, he arrived only a moment after Hua Zhi and stepped into the room. “Elder Sister Hua Zhi, what an eye-opening day this has been. In just one day, in that one place alone, they opened eleven rounds of betting.”
Hua Zhi gestured for him to sit. “Following Yu Weiwei’s group, I participated in six rounds. At the peak I was up twelve hundred taels, and by the end I’d lost back four hundred.”
“That was relatively fortunate. Zeng Han’s luck wasn’t great today — he lost twenty-eight hundred taels. The biggest loser of the group was out over five thousand.”
The two exchanged a glance. Both of them felt a heaviness settle over their hearts. Gambling had never been anything good — no matter how refined a veneer it was dressed in, it did not change the fact that it was gambling.