Chen Baoxiang’s expression was rather complicated, and she did not move for quite a while.

Wang Qingfan clasped his hands and waited at her side for a moment, then chuckled softly. “My wife was out for a stroll just a while ago and took a liking to this piece, so she bought it. Does the official also have a fondness for it?”

“I couldn’t afford to be fond of it.” She gave a dry laugh and looked back at him. “It seems today Xiangzha Pavilion’s sky lantern has been claimed by your honored wife.”

What would she write on it, she wondered? An advertisement for the shops and wineries under her name, perhaps? Or a prayer for good harvests and national peace, to earn a fine reputation?

Wang Qingfan smiled without particular concern. “The family would never allow something so conspicuous. My wife will most likely leave it blank.”

Chen Baoxiang: “…”

Xiangzha Pavilion had been open for quite some time now, with everyone coming for the sky lanterns and writing all manner of things on them. This might be the very first time a sky lantern was to be left blank.

She was inevitably curious. “Your family’s standing has flourished for hundreds of years — and still you must tread so carefully?”

“Without treading carefully, it couldn’t have flourished for hundreds of years.” Wang Qingfan let out another sigh.

He pointed to the terraces and pavilions below and said to her, “Everyone says the life inside these high gates is free of want — a life fit for immortals. But Official Chen, even immortals have their difficulties. You must maintain this level of splendor, and you cannot let it decline on your watch.”

“Look at that private academy below — it has well over a thousand students, every one of them counting on us to open a path for them to rise through the ranks. Then look at all the servants coming and going and the expenses of the household — at the very least it costs tens of thousands of taels a month.”

Where was the money to come from? Whose doors must be knocked on to get things done? That was what he was forced to rack his brains over.

“Relatives within the clan are constantly quarreling, and you are expected to smooth things over. Outside parties come to curry favor, and when they do wrong under your banner, you are the one who must clean up the mess. Sometimes you have done absolutely nothing, yet filth is still thrown at you, costing you several farms and shop fronts — and perhaps even a few days waiting in a government office.”

“When the family’s influence is on the rise, you may be asked to sacrifice your career to put the emperor’s mind at ease. When the family’s influence is in decline, you must contract a marriage alliance to stabilize your position.”

Wang Qingfan smiled bitterly and lifted the freshly brewed cup of tea a servant had just set on the table. “Even this two-tael portion of Xixue tea is only possible because of years of cultivating connections in every direction — and even then it amounts to the most trivial of conveniences.”

Chen Baoxiang rested her chin on her hand and listened. She had a fairly good sense by now of why this person had invited her here today.

He was playing on her sympathy — purely and simply playing on her sympathy.

She played along with an obliging sigh. “So there are all these difficulties.”

“I’ve only mentioned the lighter ones.” Wang Qingfan glanced to the side at the waist pendant that had just been purchased and was now hanging from the curtain rod. “The greater difficulties — Zhang Zhixu surely understands them as well.”

As fellow sons of great clans, the things he faced were the things Zhang Zhixu faced. His helplessness was Zhang Zhixu’s helplessness.

Chen Baoxiang gave him a look. “Zhang Zhixu doesn’t seem nearly as troubled as you.”

Wang Qingfan broke into sudden laughter, shaking his head repeatedly.

“My dear Official Chen — he is not without trouble. He is far more troubled than I am. He simply does not want you to know.”

“My Wang family’s centuries-old foundation is firmly established, and all our descendants need do is maintain what we have — and even that is this difficult. As for him — the Zhang family saw over ten members demoted last year, has made enemies of multiple great clans, and his elder brother has repeatedly defied imperial edicts and incurred the sovereign’s wrath. How could that possibly be a comfortable position to manage?”

Chen Baoxiang was struck still.

Fengqing seemed to have stopped bringing up family matters with her for a long while now. Every time they met, the two of them would just crouch together griping about some official at court, or debating which street had the best meat pies.

He looked like he was doing perfectly fine — busy every day with things he actually wanted to do, seemingly without a care in the world.

But thinking about it carefully: the Zhang family’s difficulties — he couldn’t possibly stand apart from them. And those elders could not possibly be unmoved by his repeated reform memorials, submitted one after another.

Not to mention this examination — though Fengqing was of one mind with her in wanting to find even a little more fairness within the existing system, he was different from her. He still had to go home and face all the members of the Zhang family.

The great clans had long used the examination and recommendation systems to maintain their status through the generations. For a commoner to become an official, they had to enter as a disciple under one of these families’ patronage. The more official-disciples a family accumulated, the broader the family’s influence naturally grew.

That was their lifeblood.

And now Zhang Zhixu had a knife resting against his own family’s lifeblood. Never mind that no officials at court would help him — even people within the Zhang family itself would throw obstacles in his way.

Chen Baoxiang suddenly rose to her feet. “It’s getting late. I need to be going.”

Wang Qingfan nodded and personally walked her to the door, adding at a leisurely pace, “Anything that has existed for hundreds of years has its indispensable purpose. A young person’s hot-blooded desire to punish evil and uphold justice is admirable, but in this world good and evil grow together from the same root. Who can swing an iron sword straight and true and wound nothing they didn’t mean to wound?”

“When old great clans fall, new great clans rise in their place. What fairness is there — only a different method and different people reaping the benefits. All of history stands as a mirror. I hope, Official Chen, that you will think carefully.”

The further Chen Baoxiang walked, the heavier her heart grew.

Not because she truly thought he was right, but because if the eldest son of the main branch of the Wang family had come to say this to her — then what would Fengqing be facing?

She left the Wang family compound and rode without stopping straight for the Secretariat residence.

Before, it had almost always been Zhang Zhixu who went to her place. Now that she was going to find him, Chen Baoxiang nearly took the wrong turn.

When she reached the east side gate, she found Zhang Zhixu’s Secretariat residence already ringed three layers deep with people.

There were students hoping to ingratiate themselves with a powerful patron, sacked officials grumbling and cursing, distant relatives who had come to take advantage of the situation, and merchants seeking favors.

Someone in the crowd said something unknown, and suddenly the crowd was inflamed. People began grabbing stones and hurling them at the courtyard inside.

Chen Baoxiang’s expression shifted. She cracked her horsewhip and shouted, “Stop!”

The sharp crack of the whip rang out down the street. The crowd was startled and turned back to look.

“It’s her.”

“She has the nerve to shout at us — she had a hand in us losing our livelihoods too.”

“Two of a kind, in it together. The two of them are the ones who’ve ruined the spirit of Great Sheng.”

Voices of reproach rose from all sides. The people who hated Zhang Zhixu evidently hated her too.

But perhaps because that whip had laid a deep furrow into the ground, these people only moved their lips — none dared to come and lay hands on her.

Chen Baoxiang gave a cold laugh, swept them all with her gaze, and leveled her whip at the Secretariat residence. “Whoever lives in there — if he were cold-hearted, the garrison would have had every one of you hauled off to prison long ago. You dare to cause a disturbance here and throw things only because you’re taking advantage of his good temper and knowing he won’t hold it against you.”

“He won’t hold it against you. I will.”

“Wu Chang, Duty Officer of the Yonghe Ward Garrison — where are you!”

At that single shout, Wu Chang came stumbling and scrambling over from where he had been sitting quietly drinking tea nearby. He bowed repeatedly toward her, straightening his official cap with one hand. “General Chen, please calm yourself, please calm yourself — the garrison troops will be here at once.”

At that, the crowd immediately scattered in all directions.

Chen Baoxiang’s expression still had not eased. She swung down from her horse and made to go inside.

A group of people who had been standing off to the side waiting immediately pressed in around her, trailing in her footsteps.

Chen Baoxiang: ?

She turned back and gave them an unfriendly look.

“We’re all his uncles and older relatives — going back three generations we all lived under the same roof.” They scrambled to explain. “Just paying a family visit, just paying a family visit.”

“Paying his family a visit, not mine. Why are you following me?”

“We happen to be going the same way.”

“You are not.” She reached for her sword, its cold light flashing for a moment without expression.

“Come within striking distance of me, and you die.”