“Do you even need to ask? Poor people, of course.” Zhang Zhixu’s feelings were complicated.

But Chen Baoxiang shook her head. “To be precise — impoverished women and the elderly.”

She handed the wooden bucket and bowls to the delivery boy, then turned back and, taking Zhang Zhixu with her, jumped down inside.

Zhang Zhixu hadn’t even had time to stop her. His vision went dark, and then he felt her land, bent at the waist and pressing forward.

“Did you used to be a rat in a past life?” He was somewhat irritated. “Talking about it out here is one thing — why did you actually go in?”

“What you say with your mouth and what you see with your own eyes are two different things.”

Indeed — a moment ago, standing at the entrance, he had only felt a vague sorrow. But now that he’d entered himself, he felt truly shaken.

In the dim passage, people were crammed together in every direction — mostly the elderly, the weak, women, and children, ragged and huddled in clusters of three and five. When they noticed strangers approaching, they tensed with wariness, but upon seeing it was a woman, they relaxed and settled back into their places.

“Earlier, you said that in the Great Sheng dynasty, men and women alike can hold office, that there’s no difference.” Chen Baoxiang murmured softly. “So let me ask you this — why do you think most of the people here are women?”

Zhang Zhixu felt a jolt in his chest. “Because of childbearing… is it?”

“Yes. Women can carry and give birth to children. If they can find work in Shangjing, that’s naturally a blessing — but if they can’t, they’re far too easily deceived or abducted, trapped in someone else’s courtyard, bearing children with their very lives.”

“When the Empress was on the throne, many female officials held power at court, and there were far more places throughout Shangjing where women could find work. But since the new Emperor ascended, female officials have largely been dismissed — even someone like Cen Xuanyue, a top-rank examination graduate, went for a long time without receiving any appointment. Let alone the ordinary women among the common people.”

She said it calmly. “You can call me unambitious. I was never cut out for scholarly pursuits. But the Great Sheng of today is unjust, and that injustice is real. Women suffer, and that suffering is real. You cannot pretend something doesn’t exist simply because you haven’t seen it.”

Light trickled down through the cracked stone fissures overhead. Zhang Zhixu could now make out the faces in the passage — some filled with utter despair, some settled into a kind of resigned acceptance, some bundled in blankets and sleeping, some weaving bamboo baskets by the faint light filtering in.

Two steps further, he spotted a worn, battered book.

It was an old edition of the Great Sheng Legal Code, lying open to the twentieth page. The light fell across it, rendering the characters faintly yellowed —

Whenever a woman passes the imperial examinations, she shall, in accordance with the law, be duly appointed to official office, with stipend and ceremonial rank following the precedent set for male officials. Should a superior deliberately obstruct, delay, or suppress such an appointment, leaving her position unfilled, this shall be treated as dereliction of duty.

Zhang Zhixu felt a tremendous shock reverberate through his chest — as if a great drumstick had come crashing down before him, shattering the gilded veneer the new dynasty had plastered over its face to reveal the raw, bleeding wound beneath.

Yes. If even someone with Cen Xuanyue’s background and ability could not receive what she was owed, then how could he ever have claimed there was no difference between men and women in today’s Great Sheng.

Those who do not feel these things firsthand cannot possibly render just judgment. He was one such person — and so were the gentlemen who sat in the halls of power drafting the new laws.

Zhang Zhixu suddenly felt a shame so overwhelming it far surpassed anything he’d felt when Chen Baoxiang had been hawking her meat broth on the street. The shame was far thicker, far heavier.

He had held himself high and proclaimed he would “observe the people’s suffering” — and what had he actually done? He had spent a month in his master’s retreat, with food, drink, and servants attending him, no labor required, no livelihood to worry over. That conduct wasn’t merely laughable — it was revolting.

And he had actually felt proud of it. Had thought himself two notches above the other sons of noble houses because of it.

An involuntary dry retch rose in his throat, beyond his control.

Chen Baoxiang, thinking the stench ahead was to blame, pressed her hand over her own chest and went no further, selecting a gap in the passage and climbing back up.

Outside, the Great Sheng was still prosperous and bright, and the scent of early spring blossoms already drifted through the streets.

Yet Zhang Zhixu still found it difficult to breathe. Along with it, he began to feel a faint, dull ache low in his abdomen.

“It’s my fault — I shouldn’t have brought you to see this.” She walked and fanned herself with her hand. “Your power is too weak. You can’t even conjure silver. How could you possibly save these people?”

Spiritual power certainly couldn’t save these people — but if he could return, then he actually could do something.

Zhang Zhixu thought of the government office to which he’d been assigned: the Bureau of Works and Industry.

He had always resented it as little more than an errand runner for the imperial household — but now, turning it over in his mind, he saw differently. Manufacturing, weaving, brewing, construction — every branch under that bureau’s purview was intimately tied to the lives of ordinary people. If he managed it well, why couldn’t it be a genuine boon to the common people?

It wasn’t as though one absolutely had to enter the Three Departments to truly serve as an official.

Far away, in the Zhang family’s great residence, the body lying there quietly moved its fingers.

Chen Baoxiang knew nothing of this. She tucked her full coin pouch away and headed back to Xun Yuan.

“Something’s wrong.” Zhang Zhixu pressed his hand against his lower abdomen, his expression pained. “Did you eat something bad?”

Chen Baoxiang was also feeling quite unwell. “Everything we ate today was outrageously expensive — it shouldn’t have made anyone sick. Unless… am I a wild boar who can’t stomach fine grain after all?”

“Well said. Now kindly close your mouth.”

He stepped into the Water Heart Pavilion, making his way urgently toward the privy.

“Wait.” Chen Baoxiang suddenly reached up and counted off the days on her fingers. “I think my monthly flow is coming.”

“What flow?”

“My monthly flow — the thing every woman goes through each month. I have a cold constitution, so it comes with abdominal pain when it arrives, though it’s not too severe. Drinking hot water usually helps.”

Not too severe?

Zhang Zhixu felt as though an iron spike were boring into his stomach, twisting his intestines and dragging them downward — a sharp, searing, heavy ache, low and relentless, dull and continuous, that made his mood flare with irritation.

He tried taking a sip of hot tea and then observed the effect.

“Completely useless!”

He paced furiously around the room. “What kind of terrible remedy is that!”

Chen Baoxiang was caught between laughing and crying. “How are you in a worse mood than I am… All right, stop pacing. Come here — let me put something on you first.”

“Something for the pain?” he asked, dutifully coming to a stop.

But Chen Baoxiang went to the woodshed and came back with a large bundle of dried grass, which she burned. Then she took a strip of cloth, scooped up the ash from the burned grass, wrapped it inside, and stitched it into a long pouch, sewing ties at each of the four corners.

“What are you doing?” He caught her hand as she attempted to undo his trousers.

“Putting it on,” Chen Baoxiang said, eyes wide. “Your monthly flow is here — you don’t use something like this?”

He knew that women needed to rest quietly when their flow came — Zhang Yinyue would shut herself in and refuse all visitors during that time.

But nobody had told him that having a monthly flow meant wearing something this peculiar.

And it seemed — there was blood?

Zhang Zhixu stared in shock as Chen Baoxiang wiped the blood away with paper, startled enough to cry out: “Fetch a physician — quickly, go fetch a physician!”

“What physician?” Chen Baoxiang burst into laughter. “Isn’t that just how a monthly flow works? It’s just barely started — there’s not much yet. Tomorrow’s when it’ll really feel like the sky is falling.”

“You’re saying,” Zhang Zhixu said, going very still, “that the monthly flow is blood — and that a great deal of it comes every single month?”

“Yes.”

He was absolutely staggered. “And women still manage to survive?”

“Impressive, isn’t it?” Chen Baoxiang gave a smug little snort. “Why else do you think the Great Sheng has had four female emperors throughout its history?”

As she spoke, she fastened the ash pouch into place.

The feeling below was strange and uncomfortable, pressing against him. Zhang Zhixu closed his eyes and asked, with great difficulty, “Won’t this pouch of yours leak ash?”

“It will.”

“And you still use it?!”