When even human lives were of so little consequence, the matter of extracting wealth was naturally even less so.

Chen Baoxiang pictured the vision of silver raining from the sky and burying her alive in riches, and grinned so wide her mouth could barely stay on her face. “Thirty tables for a flowing banquet, an invitation sent to every low-ranking official in the city — wouldn’t that be a fortune made?”

“Great Immortal, we’re finally going to be rich~”

She reached over gleefully to tug at his sleeve, then looked up — and found not a trace of amusement on the immortal’s face.

His eyes were lowered, his lips pressed thin, and he said to her with careful restraint: “Chen Baoxiang. Do not become the same sort of person as them.”

“Why not?” She tilted her head at him. “The consequences won’t be particularly severe, will they?”

“The laws of Great Sheng are imperfect. Those who serve at court ought to counsel its reform. Those who govern the people ought to govern them justly.” He spoke each word deliberately. “Even if there are loopholes to exploit — even if everyone around you is exploiting them — do not let yourself sink to that.”

Something stirred in Chen Baoxiang’s chest. She felt her eyelashes tremble as she listened.

She often felt that the immortal was untouched by the mortal world — that he knew nothing of hardship or the suffering of common people, that he had been coddled like a flower blooming high above the clouds. But other times, she thought that compared to a flower, the immortal was more like a length of green bamboo — unafraid of life’s cold, unbowed by the world’s contempt, growing straight and beautifully upright all on its own.

She swallowed down the welling emotion in her throat and looked at him with a teasing gleam. “By that logic, all the good times go to the wicked — so what are good people supposed to do?”

Zhang Zhixu was silent. This was clearly not a question that could be answered in a moment.

She laughed again. “I’ve always been far more willing to be a comfortable scoundrel than a miserable saint — it’s not as if you don’t know that about me, Great Immortal.”

He furrowed his brow deeply, seeming very much as though he wanted to argue the point, but given her difficult past, he couldn’t quite find the words to begin.

Right before his eyes, Chen Baoxiang called Han Xiao inside and instructed her to begin preparing the feast. “Hire more cooks, and get plenty of meat dishes ready — we’re going to make this a grand affair!”

The immortal’s expression darkened beside her, but she pretended not to notice.

As spring arrived, the banquets of Shangjing’s noble households opened one after another, and every prominent family of means had something in preparation. Chen Baoxiang’s birthday banquet, tucked among all the rest, was not particularly grand in scale — but the number of guests who came was extraordinary.

She had sent out only fifty invitations, and yet over a hundred households showed up.

“A humble gift to congratulate Commissioner Chen — please accept it as a token of my regard.”

“Commissioner Chen, it is an honor — I serve under the Bureau of Prisons at the Ministry of War.”

“Commissioner Chen, how do you do — I have come to enjoy a cup of wine, on the kind indulgence of Commissioner Zhao.”

After seven or eight days of recuperation, Chen Baoxiang had recovered enough strength to stand at the door and receive guests. She greeted everyone with a radiant smile, trading pleasantries warmly and cheerfully no matter who came before her.

Jiuquan stood beside her and watched for a while before he could contain his curiosity. “Does the young miss know so many people?”

“Hardly.” She kept her smile fixed and spoke in a low voice through her teeth. “Most of them, I’m meeting for the first time.”

“Then how are you so…”

“So familiar with all of them, you were going to say.” She glanced sideways at the growing mountain of gifts stacking up at the reception table, and her smile grew even more brilliant. “Well, it’s only proper — they’ve given money, after all.”

Jiuquan: “…”

He truly felt that Miss Baoxiang and his own master were two entirely different sorts of people.

By ordinary reasoning, his master ought to thoroughly dislike her.

And yet right now, Zhang Zhixu was seated on the upper floor of Chen Baoxiang’s humble little building, looking down at the teeming crowd below with an expression of profound displeasure — and yet he had not moved to leave.

Across from him, Xu Buran was genuinely bewildered. “Fengqing, how did you end up here?”

“You managed to come, so why shouldn’t I?” he replied sourly. “This spot was originally reserved for just me.”

Zhang Zhixu was not the sort of guest one could easily invite anywhere. Wherever he went, he expected the seat of honor to himself — and if anyone showed him the slightest discourtesy, this one was perfectly capable of turning on his heel and walking out.

But what could be done — Chen Baoxiang had no money to speak of, and the courtyard she had bought was very small, with far too many people crammed into it.

He let out a long, heavy sigh.

The day before, the two of them had been watching the sunset together in the courtyard when Zhang Zhixu was suddenly struck by curiosity. “If you were picked up as a foundling, how did you ever know your own birthday?”

Chen Baoxiang smiled cheerfully. “Simple — the day Old Lady Ye picked me up is my birthday. Without her, I wouldn’t have survived at all.”

“Did you know, Great Immortal, that when I was small, I envied our neighbor’s little daughter more than anything? She had a birthday every year, and her parents and relatives would all come together — a whole crowd of people, making a wonderful fuss, all around her. They would cook her a bowl of noodles in meat sauce, and the fragrance of that soup drifted over the wall and reached me where I sat.”

Zhang Zhixu was not a man prone to overflowing sympathy.

He believed that in a world with wealthy people, there would always be poor people too. There were so many of the poor, all living hard lives in their own way — Chen Baoxiang was simply one among countless others, with nothing that particularly merited special attention.

“Fengqing.”

Xie Lanting looked with puzzlement at the food box resting beside his hand. “You came to a banquet and still brought that along?”

Zhang Zhixu snapped back to the present. “What is that to you?” he said testily. “Isn’t the Lu Qingrong business enough to occupy your thoughts?”

With so many guards and the key figure still managed to slip away — what a useless lot.

Xie Lanting’s face fell and he drooped with dejection. “Do you really have to bring up something so unpleasant on such a happy occasion?”

Zhang Zhixu was not in a particularly good mood either. There were simply too many people here, and every single one of them who caught sight of him tried to edge over and curry favor.

His good breeding kept him responding to them all with courteous composure.

But his mood was dreadful — like a sodden wad of wet straw lodged in his throat.

His gaze drifted from Xie Lanting and settled on two figures standing near the entrance.

Zhang Yinyue had been specially invited by Chen Baoxiang, and Zhang Xilai was also on the guest list. The two had arrived separately, but had run into each other at the door just the same.

Yinyue seemed to be saying something to Zhang Xilai, her expression urgent, but Zhang Xilai kept his eyes fixed straight ahead without looking at her, and his body leaned instinctively away.

Zhang Zhixu gave a quiet cough.

Zhang Xilai turned to look inside, and his expression tightened. “Younger Uncle?”

Zhang Zhixu kept his face neutral and gestured with his hand. “Come and sit.”

Yinyue followed Zhang Xilai inside and sat down obediently, casting about for something to say with a slightly guilty air. “Second Elder Brother, Commissioner Xie — what gifts did you each bring for Baoxiang Sister?”

Xie Lanting answered listlessly: “A red envelope.”

Zhang Zhixu cut him a sideways glance. “You didn’t put a moment’s thought into that.”

“I didn’t know what she’d like, and a red envelope is always a safe choice.” Xie Lanting was a little embarrassed at being called out, and rubbed the back of his head. “What did you give?”

“A fine gaited horse from the foreign tribute.”

Xie Lanting: ?

Hold on — at most he had re-gifted a borrowed flower, but this one had outright stolen the flower to re-gift. That was his gaited horse!

“Fengqing is very generous,” Xu Buran remarked. “Baoxiang is about to start training in riding and archery, so a gaited horse should make that considerably easier.”

“You flatter me.” Zhang Zhixu gave him a brief glance. “Qingzhang, what did you bring?”

Xu Buran gave an awkward little laugh. “Oh, mine is not worth mentioning.”

All that talk of courting someone, and then not even the effort to think carefully about a gift. Zhang Zhixu made a quiet sound of disapproval, fanning himself as he looked down toward the stables below.

The fine gaited horse was already standing there in full view, but Chen Baoxiang stood beside it without making any move to try riding it.

She was looking at someone across the way — a lady — and saying something with considerable emotion.

The lady patted her shoulder and handed her a red box.

Chen Baoxiang took it, opened it, then closed it again, and held it pressed tightly against her chest.

Clearly something precious.

He did not dwell on it. He looked away and settled in to wait for the feast to begin.