The brushes, ink, paper, and inkstone were ready. All that remained was a table and stools for business.

Li Wu rummaged through the house for quite a while and eventually produced a set of wooden table and stools thick with dust. Shen Zhuxi looked at the half-rotting furniture with some reluctance — but before she could say a word of refusal, Li Wu had already cleaned them up with quick, practiced efficiency.

The table and stools looked acceptable once cleaned, not nearly as bad as before. Shen Zhuxi accepted them, though hesitantly.

“One stool is enough.”

Li Wu glanced at her. “You’re going to make your customers stand while they wait?”

Shen Zhuxi was stumped and immediately fell silent.

In the palace, wasn’t it the lot of almost everyone to stand and wait on her? Standing was fine enough — standing was better than kneeling, after all.

Li Wu, seeing she had nothing more to say, hoisted the wooden table onto his shoulder without any effort and walked out.

And so a peculiar scene appeared on the streets of Yutou Town: a tall, broad-shouldered man striding ahead with an ugly-colored wooden table balanced on his shoulder, and a young woman half-jogging behind so as not to be left behind, a wooden stool in each hand.

“What made you think of writing letters for people?” Li Wu asked, turning his head.

Shen Zhuxi quickened her pace to draw level with him, and said, “Yesterday next to the bun stall there was a letter-writing stand. The business looked pretty good, so I thought I’d try it.” At this, Shen Zhuxi’s expression grew proud. “My calligraphy is certainly better than his.”

Li Wu glanced at her feet — still struggling to keep pace — and slowed his stride.

“Old Zhu is the only scholar in our town. He studied under a well-known graduate of the imperial examinations in Jinzhou. Your calligraphy will be better than his?”

Shen Zhuxi didn’t notice the slowed pace; she only heard the doubt in his words and said indignantly, “Mine is definitely better.”

“Even if your calligraphy is better than his, no one will come to you for letter-writing.”

“Why not?!”

“Want to bet something?” Li Wu said. “If by closing time today you still haven’t gotten a single customer, you pay me back ten times the cost of the writing supplies.”

Ten times meant eighteen taels becoming one hundred and eighty taels. Shen Zhuxi had complete confidence in herself and agreed without hesitation. “Fine! And if you lose, you return my earrings to me and still give me the full five hundred taels!”

“You’ll regret this.”

“You’ll be the one regretting it!”

Neither giving an inch to the other, the two arrived — without quite realizing it — at the busiest street in Yutou Town. It was around noon now. People came and went in steady streams. The food stalls lining both sides of the road called out to passersby, urging them inside for a meal. The nearest to Shen Zhuxi was a confectionery stall — the owner was busy at the stove, a large ceramic bowl beside him filled with what appeared to be a sweet filling, the faint pink of rose petals just visible within. A tall stack of bamboo steamers rose to one side; the topmost was open, revealing a mound of flour white as snow, steam curling upward and dispersing, leaving behind only its clean, pure fragrance.

Shops occupied both sides of the wide street; wherever there were no shops, stalls had already been set up. Shen Zhuxi had arrived too late — no matter where she looked, she couldn’t find an empty spot to settle.

Li Wu cared not in the slightest. He walked straight toward a wonton stall that had an overhead awning for shade, and as casually as if rearranging furniture in his own home, simply kicked aside one of the stall’s unoccupied tables and set down his own in the shaded spot.

Once the table and stools were arranged, he finally looked up at the stall owner. “You don’t mind if I put it here for a bit, do you?”

The stall owner oiled his smile. “Not at all, not at all.”

Shen Zhuxi felt bad. She stepped forward and murmured, “This doesn’t seem right…”

“What’s wrong with it? Moving a table one spot over and it can’t be used anymore?” He glanced at the wonton stall’s table and stools, now sitting at an odd angle, then looked toward the owner at the stove. “Old Zhu, right?”

“Right, right…”

An absolute bully, Shen Zhuxi thought privately.

Li Wu settled himself on one of the wonton stall’s benches and turned his palm upward toward Shen Zhuxi. “What are you standing around for? Sit down.”

Shen Zhuxi fidgeted her way onto the stool across from him, arranged her writing supplies, borrowed a bit of clean water from the wonton stall owner, ground the ink to a glossy black, and waited for customers.

Shen Zhuxi waited a long time. Even the sun overhead seemed to inch forward only the smallest degree. Yet her “stall” drew no interest from anyone. Her hopeful gaze swept over the passersby — they glanced at her with various expressions, but not one stopped to ask how much she charged for a letter.

Even a discount would do.

Shen Zhuxi was growing vexed: why had the letter-writer yesterday been doing brisk business, while she sat here with not a soul approaching her? Her calligraphy had been taught by her imperial father and by Fu Xuanmiao himself — how could an ordinary scholar’s compare?

Under ordinary circumstances, to receive even one character written by her hand would have been an impossible dream. Now a single copper coin could buy an entire letter. Could there be a better bargain than that? So why was no one coming?

Shen Zhuxi stared plaintively at the passing crowd, entirely at a loss.

Then Li Wu stood up abruptly from the bench, his face scrunched with contempt.

“It occurred to you that you’re missing a sign, didn’t it?”

Shen Zhuxi felt it like a flash of lightning: “That’s right — I still need a sign!”

Li Wu exhaled a long, heavily disappointed sigh, gave her a look of pure exasperation, shook his head, and walked away.

Shen Zhuxi watched his retreating back and muttered, “…Hmph. Just wait until I open for business — then you’ll have something to cry about.”

She took out a sheet of rice paper, dipped her brush, then gently wiped off the excess ink on the rim of the inkstone, and thought through the question: for this eye-catching sign, should she use running script? Or standard script? The slender-gold script she’d learned from Fu Xuanmiao wasn’t bad either — what if someone had a preference for that style?

Before she’d even decided how to set brush to paper, Li Wu had already come striding back at a brisk clip.

He placed a familiar-looking letter-writing placard next to her table. Shen Zhuxi leaned over for a look and stared. “Isn’t this the sign from that letter-writer yesterday?”

There were plenty of wooden placards around, but one that said “Letter-Writing Service” in that particular handwriting — in exactly that familiar style — was another matter entirely. This was unmistakably the one Shen Zhuxi had seen just the previous day.

The placard was here. But where was the scholar?

Shen Zhuxi looked toward the direction Li Wu had come from. Heads and shoulders filled the street. The scholar was nowhere to be seen.

“How could you just take someone else’s things?” Shen Zhuxi said, alarmed.

“How is this taking?” Li Wu said impatiently. “That scholar has been running his stall in this town for seven or eight years — everyone knows he does letter-writing. This sign is useless for anyone else. I’ve put it to good use. Go ask Old Zhu the scholar — shouldn’t he actually be thanking me?”

Shen Zhuxi was stunned speechless by his shamelessness and stared at him for a long moment.

Li Wu met her gaze with satisfaction. “I’m only doing this because I feel a little sorry for you. Think nothing of it — no need to thank me.”

Truly shameless!

“Brother!”

Li Que came waving his hand, with the mountain-like Li Diao’er at his side.

He walked up, glanced at the placard in front of Shen Zhuxi’s table, and said in surprise, “Is Shen’s younger sister going into the letter-writing business?”

Shen Zhuxi nodded, a little embarrassed.

“But…”

Before Li Que could finish, Li Wu cut him off. “Do you have any melon seeds?”

“I’ll go get some!”

Li Que said yes at once, turned, and headed toward a nearby roasted goods stall. Shen Zhuxi watched him smile and say something she couldn’t hear, and the stall owner scooped out a ladleful of seeds for him.

Li Que came running back with a ladle full of melon seeds.

With melon seeds in hand, Li Wu’s bully manner escalated. He crossed his right leg over his left knee, letting his ankle rest on the opposite thigh, and in full public view, began bouncing his leg and cracking seeds with supreme ease.

Shen Zhuxi watched his bouncing right leg and the scattered seed husks on the ground, and couldn’t help wrinkling her brows. To hide her disdain before Li Wu could catch her, she turned her head away just in time.

Li Wu only caught the frown creasing her brow — but his leg stopped bouncing all the same.

A moment later, as though uncomfortable, he put his foot down and shifted into a more open, relaxed posture, and tossed the seed husks back onto the table instead.

Li Que took all of this in, and grew thoughtful.

He cleared his throat and said, “Younger sister Shen, that placard looks a bit familiar — where did you get it?”

“What?” Shen Zhuxi turned back. “Li Wu got it.”

“No wonder it looked familiar — it’s one Brother Zhu lent, isn’t it?” Li Que said. “Brother Zhu, now there’s a person — just like my elder brother, warm-hearted through and through. Everyone for miles around knows my elder brother’s name. Elder brother is honest and dependable, always thinking ahead, has a house and land, and handles everything with such foresight that anyone who meets him has to say he’s outstanding—”

Shen Zhuxi looked at Li Wu dubiously, agreeing only with the last part.

The man himself is standing right there — who would dare say otherwise?

“…Talking nonsense,” Li Wu said, flicking a melon seed at Li Que.

Li Que caught it with a quick snatch, grinning as he pointed the sharp end of the seed between his teeth, gave a neat crack, and remarked at leisure:

“Younger sister Shen is new here — wasn’t I just trying to put her at ease? Elder brother, you’re not one for many words, so doesn’t it fall to me, your little brother, to smooth things over?”

“Mind your own business.”

“Got it—” Li Que’s eyes curved into crescent moons, and even the pockmarks on his face seemed less daunting somehow. “Little brother will remember: take care of himself first, then take care of elder brother.”

While the two spoke, Li Diao’er stood to one side and cracked melon seeds with single-minded focus. Before long, a sizable pile of husks had accumulated at his feet, and only a thin layer of seeds remained in the ladle.

Shen Zhuxi turned back, listless, and resumed gazing hopefully at the passersby on the street — why in the world wasn’t anyone coming to her stall?

Even a little business would do!

However hard she stared, the passersby refused to stop. They would glance at her, then glance at the three people sitting behind her, and then — eyes wide with wariness — quicken their steps and remove themselves from the vicinity with all speed.

Shen Zhuxi suddenly turned to Li Wu. “Are you scaring them off somehow?”

Li Wu’s melon seed stopped just short of his mouth. The ankle that had been resting on his knee dropped down as well.

He frowned. “Scaring them off how?”

“You don’t want to lose the bet, so you’re cheating! You’re giving them looks, and they’re too afraid to come!”

“What are you talking about?”

“You’re giving them signals behind my back — that’s why they won’t come near!”

“What nonsense is this?” Li Wu’s frown deepened, his irritation rising. “I’m sitting here cracking seeds — and you think I’m sending signals over the back of your head?”

Li Que shot him a glance, wanting to point out that this was practically an admission of guilt.

Neither of them, however, caught the implication buried in those words.

Li Que sighed and went back to cracking seeds.

“Then go crack them somewhere else!” Shen Zhuxi said, annoyed.

“I’m more than happy to leave this spot!”

Li Wu suddenly flung down his melon seeds, rose to his feet with a dark expression, and startled Shen Zhuxi half out of her wits.

She found herself doing exactly what the passersby had done — staring up at this man with wary eyes when he was truly in a temper, his bearing intimidating and imposing. The casual ease and accommodating manner he’d shown her lately had made her forget: he was still a bully.

Li Wu looked at her shrinking posture, and his face seemed to darken further. He gave her one cold look, then strode out of the wonton stall in a few large steps.

Shen Zhuxi exhaled with relief and murmured, “…What a strange man.”

“Elder brother, wait for me!” Li Diao’er grabbed what remained of the seeds, spread his two enormous feet, and went running after Li Wu.

Li Que picked up the empty ladle, stood, and said to Shen Zhuxi, “Younger sister Shen, my elder brother means no harm — don’t take it to heart.”

Shen Zhuxi managed a thin smile. “I won’t.”

“What bet did my elder brother make with you?”

Shen Zhuxi recounted the terms of their wager.

Li Que pressed his lips into a smile and said, “By closing time at the latest, someone will come to you for a letter.”

He said it with great certainty, as though he already knew how things would end. While Shen Zhuxi was still puzzling over it, Li Que had already taken the ladle and left. He returned it to the roasted-goods stall and strolled off in the direction Li Wu had gone.

Shen Zhuxi looked up at the sky, then looked back hopelessly at the passersby who still showed no interest in her — and couldn’t help feeling deflated.

Before closing time — would she get her first customer?