Just not long ago this very person had said to her with all the gravity of maturity: “Getting jealous is something children do. I am already twenty years of age — I would never be so childish.”

And yet, not even a few days later, Zhang Fengqing had turned his face away to avoid looking at her, and said with great dignity: “What do you mean, ‘doing it again’? I felt my attitude was perfectly ‘not bad~.'”

“Ha ha ha.” She doubled over laughing.

“Commissioner Chen seems to have changed considerably as well. She used to at least cover her mouth. Now she sprays directly into my face.” He said with great displeasure. “Truly, time flies like a white steed passing a crack in the wall.”

“Zhang-daren, please calm yourself.” She laughed as she spoke. “Look through every one of those words — was a single one of them directed at him?”

“Of course not.” He narrowed his eyes. “If they had been, he’d have been tossed out in the middle of his meal by Ningsu.”

Chen Baoxiang was thoroughly delighted.

She found Zhang Zhixu’s childlike side genuinely hilarious — he was nothing like the Minister who spoke forthrightly in the morning court, those two people might as well have been strangers.

She poked the little tiger sachet at his waist and said with amusement: “I really wasn’t paying attention to him. I was watching Cheng Huaili, keeping an eye out for trouble.”

“Of course he wasn’t here to bring anything good.” He sulked. “He had Pei Ruheng come stir things up with me before you even arrived.”

She blinked: “Stir up what?”

“What else — essentially that you have no genuine feelings for me. I didn’t believe it, but you still owe me some consolation.”

Listen to him. How was this any different from asking to be coaxed?

Chen Baoxiang’s eyes were full of laughter, watching him sit there muttering on, giving every indication that he intended to instruct her in the proper way to coax him.

Did that really need teaching?

She simply reached out, took hold of the back of his head, pulled him toward her, and kissed him.

Zhang Zhixu went rigid.

What met his eyes was Chen Baoxiang, her head tilted toward his, lips meeting his, eyes closed — eyelids thin and delicate, with the restless flicker of movement just visible beneath them.

Soft, warm sensation and her scent enveloped him together, pulling at him, playful and insistent.

Zhang Zhixu very much wanted to say she had no sincerity — not a single new trick, the same old approach every time, did she really think it would always work on him?

— It would.

The autumn moon hung high, its light brilliant.

When the two finally drew apart, Chen Baoxiang tilted her head and asked him: “Not bad?”

Zhang Zhixu pressed his lips together, his entire face flushed scarlet.

“Very good.” He answered in a muffled voice, and at last let the “not bad” matter go.

Chen Baoxiang laughed even louder.

When the two of them went back to join the festivities, there were still traces of red on their faces.

Yin Fengshi couldn’t resist teasing: “Commissioner Chen, when are you going to give Fengqing a proper status?”

Zhang Zhixu promptly stepped on Yin Fengshi’s foot.

“Hiss, you — “

“Go find Yinyue.” Zhang Zhixu said to Chen Baoxiang. “She must be bored sitting in her room.”

“All right.” Chen Baoxiang smiled and waved to his gathered friends, then walked off toward the side rooms.

Yin Fengshi watched her retreating figure and muttered: “She really never responds, not once. Fengqing, how do you stand it?”

Zhang Zhixu turned to look at him, and said with considerable seriousness: “Don’t bring this up again.”

“Why? Is it you who can’t be seen, or is it her?” Yin Fengshi didn’t understand. “The two of you are already like this — what are you waiting for to get married?”

“Not everyone has the same view of marriage.” He frowned. “If you think marriage is a good thing, then you get married. She doesn’t think it’s a good thing — what business is it of yours?”

Yin Fengshi: “……” What a peculiar way of putting it.

“She doesn’t think it’s a good thing — does that mean you’ll go your whole life without getting married?”

“It’s just one more document with a red seal. What difference does it make compared to now?”

“It makes an enormous difference. Marriage is such a major — “

“What major thing? It’s just an ordinary red box. As long as the treasure inside is good, the box it comes in doesn’t matter.”

“What box?! Marriage is not the box — marriage is supposed to be the treasure!”

“She herself is the treasure.” Zhang Zhixu looked at his friend with displeasure. “Don’t put things the wrong way around.”

Yin Fengshi: “……”

When they were small they could play together perfectly well. How had they grown up to find they could no longer speak the same language?

Zhang Zhixu had not always understood it himself — Chen Baoxiang clearly seemed to like him very much, so why would she not want to marry him?

But later he had worked it out. Every person’s experiences were different. The word “marriage” — Yin Fengshi might picture the fragrance of a beloved’s presence and perfect domestic harmony, but what Chen Baoxiang saw was only winters that couldn’t be survived and sheets soaked in blood.

She would not want to marry. Others would find that hard to understand — he had to understand her.

He waved a hand dismissively. Zhang Zhixu asked: “Where is Xie Lanting? He was here just now.”

“Don’t even mention him.” Yin Fengshi sighed. “He’s had someone new hanging around recently — won’t come out for drinks, won’t come out for music. Yesterday I said I wanted to get a look at this woman, and good grief, he practically threw me out.”

There was actually something like that going on?

Zhang Zhixu raised an eyebrow: “Finally turned over a new leaf?”

“Who knows. I keep feeling this woman is no good, the way she’s got him completely bewitched — he’s even been sneaking her into the Court of Judicial Review.”

Xie Lanting had always been unpredictable — there was nothing he could do that would be surprising.

“He at least came and observed the ceremony, so we’ll let him off for now.” He waved with mild indifference, and pushed Yin Fengshi outward: “Go and stand in for me at that table over there.”

Too many guests had come today; too many were using it as an opportunity to work their way into conversations on every side. Zhang Zhixu was exhausted by it all, and took every free moment to hide in the side rooms and listen to Chen Baoxiang and Yinyue chatting.

When the lamps were lit and the night had deepened, the last of the guests dispersed. Zhang Yuanchu, seeing Zhang Zhixu come to see them out, still could not bring himself to say anything conciliatory, and instead fell back on the usual admonishment: “Now that you have your own official residence, you should conduct yourself with greater gravity and propriety.”

Zhang Zhixu’s brow had just barely begun to furrow, and he had not yet responded, when Chen Baoxiang stepped out from beside him and said with a pleasant smile: “The path ahead is dark — let me see Zhang-daren and Madam Gong off.”

Zhang Yuanchu blinked, wanting to say this was against propriety.

But Chen Baoxiang gave him no chance to resist — she firmly took the arms of the two of them, and steered them, along with several of the Zhang clan elders, out the door of her own accord.

Those uncles and great-uncles who had wanted to say a few more things couldn’t even turn back.

Yin Fengshi gave a wine-hiccup and threw his arm around Zhang Zhixu’s shoulder: “Your Commissioner Chen really is formidable when it comes to protecting her own. No wonder you’re so devoted to her.”

Zhang Zhixu shook his hand off with distaste: “Jealous?”

“……How do you come out with these things — you never used to talk like this.” He rubbed his arm and snorted. “One of these days I’m going to round up you and Xie Lanting and scrub out those sugar-soaked brains of yours.”

Zhang Zhixu stood with his hands clasped behind his back, laughing without restraint.

Chen Baoxiang would never let him be rounded up.

·

Late autumn turning to midwinter. The price of salt in Shangjing had been climbing without stop — even Chen Baoxiang, now a marquis of the realm, frowned at the price tags in the market.

“Is this salt made of gold? Two hundred coins for this much?”

Her attendants explained: “There was a collapse at the salt mine, and supply has been disrupted. Prices naturally rise with scarcity.”

“And what about rice, flour, and cooking oil — why have those also doubled?”

“My lady, this year’s harvest was poor. There is nothing to be done.”

Chen Baoxiang scratched her head.

Since His Majesty’s accession, there had been active trade with neighboring states, with salt and grain continuously flowing into Dasheng in large quantities — the Ministry of Revenue had even said the people’s lives were getting better year by year. So how had it come to this, where even her own salary couldn’t keep pace with these expenses?

Thinking it over, she took off her official robes, wrapped herself in a worn padded jacket, and headed into the familiar beggar’s lane.

Li Bingsheng was an Emperor who meant what she said. A few months into the reign, more than twenty new academies had opened in Shangjing, over thirty women officials had taken up posts across the Three Departments, and the Grand Shelter Quarter had been built on a large scale, giving those who had always lived in the underground waterways a place to settle.

But many things could not be entirely changed in a short span of time — private power still jostled against itself, the realm’s legal codes were still being overhauled. And so for the people at the very bottom, life had not changed much in any concrete way. The person sitting on the throne was simply different. Those who couldn’t eat their fill still couldn’t; those who couldn’t find work still couldn’t.

Chen Baoxiang, amid the unbroken complaints rising on every side, smeared ash on her face and folded herself down into the midst of the beggars.