Self-combing was great—vowing never to marry, and others couldn’t force you—that way she wouldn’t have to worry about being sold off by Shopkeeper Wang every day!

But Aunt Hong hesitated: “A’Mei, don’t be impulsive. Self-combing women don’t have children, so after death, no one offers incense, and the family won’t provide burial rites. Lonely ghosts are very miserable.”

Lin Yuchan laughed: “No problem, I don’t care!”

Her father, Lin Guangfu, was addicted to opium—if his daughter died, he’d just throw her in a mass grave. She’d rather not have that kind of “burial rites.” As for incense offerings and such feudal dregs, she had no psychological burden about them at all.

Aunt Hong’s tone became more stern: “After self-combing, if you’re unclear with men, according to our Shunde customs, you’ll be drowned in a pig cage.”

This time, Lin Yuchan was startled: “Ah?”

Having traveled to such an unlucky world, she hadn’t harbored hopes for sweet romance anyway. But not dating was one thing—self-combing women already didn’t marry or have children, so why should they still submit to such insane feudal customs?

This meant that even if she self-combed, if she later encountered what happened to Aunt Hong today, if she couldn’t dodge it, even if she didn’t seek death, others would help her “defend her chastity”…

She couldn’t help glancing at Su Minguan. Young Master Su looked at her pale face with schadenfreude, as if saying: “How can you have the best of both worlds? Your wanting to run wild is pure dreaming.”

“Besides, you’re of slave status—to self-comb you need your master’s consent.” Su Minguan stood up and efficiently cleared the dishes. “Also, Aunt Hong, you’d better return to your hometown to hide for a while. If those foreigners today are petty and go back to stew in their anger, they might report to officials and have people come to trouble you.”

Aunt Hong laughed: “I still have business to do. These foreigners came with the steamship—they won’t stay long. They’ll leave in a few days, no problem!”

Su Minguan: “So even if they kill you, they’ll leave in a few days without taking responsibility.”

Aunt Hong: “…Bah.”

She nimbly got up to pack.

Su Minguan turned to Lin Yuchan: “As for you…”

Lin Yuchan knew what he meant and quickly patted her chest: “Don’t worry, I’m very tight-lipped. None of them knows where I popped up from.”

While Aunt Hong got up to wash dishes, her curiosity exploded as she hesitantly spoke.

“When driving off the foreigners just now, why didn’t you clearly state you work for Jardine Matheson & Co.? That way, perhaps they would have given you face…”

Su Minguan was silent for a while, his mouth curving in a cold arc, as if laughing at her naivety.

“Chinese people might fear my status, but in foreigners’ eyes, respectable Chinese like me should be even more submissive to them.”

He wore a light-colored long robe, starched crisp. Even after the commotion of seizing guns and weapons, he still looked neat, truly respectable.

Lin Yuchan pondered his words.

She had also seen Chinese people dealing with foreigners: Wang Quan, Reverend Morrison’s servant, officials greeting foreigners at the wharf…

These people either exuded servility, viewing serving foreign masters as supreme honor, or were like Wang Quan—one way to their faces, another behind their backs. Though fundamentally despising foreigners, they still endured humiliation and disassembled, thinking that earning foreigners’ silver brought honor to the Chinese people.

In short, either looking up or looking down. Either genuinely enslaved or using the spiritual victory method, thinking themselves dignified citizens forced to grovel before barbarians, like sons beating fathers, showing worldly injustice.

Su Minguan was neither. He treated his boss, Jardine, as coldly as government runners. He disciplined misbehaving British sailors as mercilessly as Chinese thugs.

Unfortunately, his simple “equality” thinking wasn’t popular in current society.

She could even imagine Wang Quan pursing his lips, using extremely exaggerated disgust to say: “How can masters and slaves be the same, how can men and women be the same, how can officials and commoners be the same? Eh? Wouldn’t that be chaos?”

So in others’ eyes, this kind of foreign firm employee was equivalent to a “slave.” That’s why he didn’t want to mention this identity.

Lin Yuchan thought bitterly: “Pretentious like me.”

But you couldn’t blame him. The Thirteen Factories had fallen, and the era of red-capped merchants dominating international commerce was gone forever. As one of this era’s outcasts, besides mixing meals at former competitors’ homes, what other livelihood could he pursue?

Thinking she had seen through his difficulties, she sincerely comforted: “You don’t need to care about others’ opinions. As long as you respect yourself…”

“A’Mei,” Su Minguan suddenly became agitated, put on his hat to cover his face, and said dully: “I don’t need your advice, thank you.”

Lin Yuchan: “…”

It was just polite conversation—why did he explode?

Such a middle school warning, too?

She had a strong feeling that Su Minguan was very indifferent to human relationships and didn’t want deep friendships with anyone. The only time he let down his guard was that day at the mass grave when he thought he was chatting with a dead person.

After discovering this “corpse” was alive, he probably regretted it quite a bit. Since then, he deliberately kept a distance from her, avoiding any sentimentality or heart-to-heart talks.

When she paid to redeem him initially, instead of honoring a life-saving debt, his first reaction was to record it for repayment. Same with Aunt Hong—seemingly harmonious but with clear boundaries in his heart, unwilling to owe her any favors.

There was also that inexplicable life principle of “one good deed per year”—seemingly absurd but probably helping him avoid many life traps.

She thought this was a personality suited for business…

She suddenly remembered what she’d come for today and said hurriedly: “Don’t leave! The tea is ready—the shopkeeper had me bring it for you to see!”

Reaching into her chest, oh no—empty.

It had long been kicked somewhere by the foreign sailors.

Su Minguan turned back and mockingly concluded: “You just came to mooch meals from Aunt Hong.”

Lin Yuchan frantically searched the ground. After a long time, she scraped up a few burned tea leaves from the dust, still reeking of gunpowder sulfur.

Holding up two charred tea stalks, she smiled apologetically: “Young Master Minguan, could you assess the quality?”

Su Minguan was helpless: “You’re too perfunctory. Tell your shopkeeper to send another canister.”

Lin Yuchan pursed her lips silently. When other liaison clerks botched things, at most, they’d have their wages docked or get slapped. But for her, one small mistake could make Wang Quan regenerate thoughts of human trafficking.

She said matter-of-factly: “Defeng Trading’s reputation guarantees this tea absolutely won’t be inferior. If you’re truly interested in buying, I can work with you to help negotiate the price down.”

Su Minguan had probably never seen such a treacherous clerk and looked her over with some confusion: “What if I don’t agree? What can you do?”

Lin Yuchan smiled bitterly: “Then you’re deliberately making me suffer. I have no recourse but to endure it.”

Guangzhou trading house merchants, from greenhorn clerks to cunning old shopkeepers, all valued one thing: “profit.” If someone else stood before her, Lin Yuchan would never dare be so direct in selling misery and showing her cards.

But she vaguely always felt Su Minguan wasn’t an ordinary merchant.

What merchant could handle guns so skillfully?

He had a chivalrous spirit.

But Su Minguan’s next words shattered the heroic filter in Lin Yuchan’s eyes. He smiled, his eyelashes flickering, as if putting aside past grievances to ask gently: “How low can the price go?”

Lin Yuchan immediately returned to bargaining mode, saying efficiently, “I can’t guarantee, but I’ll do my best.”

He said lightly: “Then you’re just placating me.”

Having said this, he pushed the door to leave, calling loudly: “Aunt Hong, farewell!”

Lin Yuchan panicked and chased after him, grabbing his sleeve.

“Young Master Minguan, let’s reason this out properly. The tea canister fell because of me, true, but dropped things can be picked up. If you hadn’t fired that gun, this tea wouldn’t have burned to charcoal. A good man takes responsibility for his actions—you broke it, so there’s no reason I should pay.”

Su Minguan listened helplessly to her chatter, then suddenly stared intently at her face with very searching eyes.

Lin Yuchan couldn’t help touching her cheeks. Was there dust?

“A’Mei, you’ve gained weight.” Su Minguan said out of the blue.

Lin Yuchan’s first reaction was many question marks, then he realized he was complimenting her.

Two centuries later, any young man daring to speak to girls this way would be destined for solitude. But in the current world, the comment “you’ve gained weight” is full of praise.

Lin Yuchan turned from anger to joy. He had noticed proving her recent meal-supplementing plan was showing results.

“Your energy is stronger, too.” Su Minguan continued his assessment. “You don’t pant when speaking anymore.”

Lin Yuchan: “…Thank you for the praise, young master.”

“So has your shopkeeper taught you that heaven and earth are vast, but customers are the greatest? All customer demands must be accommodated, and you can’t bargain or reason with them—especially, your voice can’t be louder than the customer’s.”

Lin Yuchan was stunned. Wang Quan certainly wouldn’t teach her these things.

But thinking back, Defeng Trading indeed operated this way. Guangzhou had a long foreign trade history with flourishing Western learning—the concept of “customer is god” was already spreading. As the “second party,” tea house clerks, meeting their bread and butter, even just compradors, all shrank and played grandsons without exception. None reasoned with patrons.

Shopkeeper Wang Quan was a model of flexibility—that spine could turn 180 degrees smoothly.

She was stifled and feeling indignant when Aunt Hong came out with luggage, saying reluctantly: “A’Mei, if you come for meals in the future, just tell my sisters—you won’t go hungry.”

Only then did Su Minguan learn Lin Yuchan wasn’t here mooching for the first time, and couldn’t help viewing her with new respect.

He beckoned to her: “I can overlook the sample matter, but you must do me a favor.”

Seeing him relent, Lin Yuchan quickly followed: “Just say it.”

Su Minguan wasn’t polite, making his request directly.

“I want to see Defeng Trading’s tea roasting workshop.”

He lowered his head with a gentle expression, eyes slightly upturned, but his gaze held five parts provocation, as if saying: Can you help with this favor?

Lin Yuchan felt breathless and reminded him: “Didn’t the shopkeeper refuse you last time? Defeng Trading’s tea roasting techniques are all confidential…”

His smile deepened: “That’s why I need your help.”

Lin Yuchan was silent for a while, then also smiled.

She finally understood—his earlier squeezing, lecturing, and deliberately needling her… was all leading to this statement.

“You’re not any proper comprador.”

He humbly asked for instruction: “How can you tell?”

Lin Yuchan thought this needed saying? Snooping on trade secrets was industry taboo.

She smiled: “You can see I have no relationship with Shopkeeper Wang. I won’t inform on you.”

Su Minguan didn’t immediately retort, as if stumped, his gaze looking toward the street corner where an official sedan was slowly crossing.

He finally readily admitted: “Correct, I’m here to smash Defeng Trading’s reputation. I don’t specialize in tea—I fought for this business from Jardine.”

Lin Yuchan asked quietly: “Why?”

He smiled without answering.

Lin Yuchan knew further questioning would yield nothing. Anyway, she had no loyalty to Defeng Trading. She even hoped to give Shopkeeper Wang some headaches.

“Fine, listen carefully: Defeng Trading’s tea roasting workshop doesn’t operate daily. If they’ve purchased large quantities of tea leaves, people work every day. If business is slow, locking up for several days is normal. Masters get holidays on the first and fifteenth of each month. Other times work starts around the afternoon. The workshop is in the warehouse’s southeast corner, south wall adjacent to Seven-Foot Alley. There’s a ventilation window in that wall, usually latched with no one paying attention…”

Su Minguan narrowed his eyes slightly: “You’re saying one can see from that window?”

Lin Yuchan shrugged: “Just don’t let anyone spot you. If you’re unlucky enough to be caught by Defeng Trading’s guards, definitely don’t implicate me.”

Su Minguan looked at her deeply and suddenly asked: “Has your shopkeeper already become suspicious of me?”

Lin Yuchan was startled and nodded.

Last time, right after he left, Wang Quan sent people to investigate his background, fearing he was sent by Jardine Matheson & Co. to scout.

So far, no suspicious points had been discovered.

Su Minguan suddenly leaned down, almost whispering: “You’re my liaison—you’re the only one running around receiving me. If I spy on Defeng Trading’s secrets and get discovered, even if I stay silent, couldn’t your shopkeeper guess who leaked the information?”

Lin Yuchan was covered by his hat brim over half her forehead, and suddenly broke into cold sweat.

“Young Master Su, what do you mean? I’m kindly helping you…”

He laughed heartily: “Think it over yourself!—Here, this is useless to me, you can play with it.”

Lin Yuchan found something extra in her hand. It was the lead bullet he’d removed from the foreign gun earlier.

The bullet head wasn’t conical but a heavy, round shape. Rough and heavy, with small holes from screw threads, and his palm warmth.

Indeed, a useless trinket.

Su Minguan slightly cupped his hands to her and strode away.