Six years. Seven million taels of silver. And yet the Xu household’s outer accounts were still short of funds — Second Madam had even sold off her own reserve assets. Only one did not know whether Second Madam had sold those assets before or after the business dealings.

Eleven turned this over in her mind, then said slowly: “From what you say, after His Majesty ascended the throne, the Marquis took the initiative to dissolve the business arrangement. Did your father say nothing about that?”

A glimmer of confusion flickered through Wen Yiniang’s eyes. She recalled: “My father still wanted to do business with the Marquis for another couple of years, but the Marquis had made up his mind. He also went off to campaign in Miao Territory. My father gave up pressing the matter.”

One hundred thousand taels per year, simply relinquished…

Some old conjectures began slowly to surface.

“Was it not from around that time onwards that the Wen family came to hold the Jiangnan textile provisioning contracts?” Eleven looked at Wen Yiniang.

Wen Yiniang did not answer immediately. Her complexion shifted. After a long silence, she said in a low voice: “Yes.”

Eleven helped her untangle the threads: “Previously the Wen family was merely an ordinary merchant household, yet the Marquis could profit a hundred thousand taels per year. But after the Marquis dissolved his partnership with the Wen family, the Wen family actually managed to obtain the Jiangnan textile provisioning contracts. I find myself wondering — was it the Marquis’s bad luck? Or was the Wen family simply too fortunate? If the Marquis had continued in business with the Wen family, the annual profit might well have been more than a hundred thousand taels.”

Wen Yiniang’s mind was in turmoil.

All along she had believed that her father, having already secured the Jiangnan textile provisioning contracts and with the Marquis also wishing to dissolve the partnership, was making the most of the situation — taking the opportunity to withdraw and protect the family’s larger interests. Otherwise, how else could…

At this thought, a look of terror crossed Wen Yiniang’s face!

Or perhaps she had been entirely wrong in her thinking.

She raised her gaze toward Eleven.

Eleven’s expression was calm and unruffled — possessed of a powerful steadiness, as of one who would not alter her countenance before a mountain’s collapse. Wen Yiniang could not help but seize Eleven’s hand. “When I was still at home, my father spoke of the Jiangnan textile provisioning contracts without cease. My father and the Marquis dissolved their partnership in the eleventh month, and by the second month of the following year he had secured the Jiangnan textile provisioning contracts. Others might not know, but I do — in a year of good production, never mind a hundred thousand taels: even earning two or three hundred thousand taels would not be difficult. My father was a shrewd man. After the dissolution, he once sent someone to speak with the Marquis. The Marquis at the time only said the words ‘I am no longer suited to business’ — and my father gave up the matter. That was so unlike his usual way of acting. Later, when I learned that father had secured the Jiangnan textile provisioning contracts, I thought father was doing it to monopolize that business. I felt father was taking too great a risk — men like us, a single county magistrate could ruin us utterly. Father had this great tree of the Marquis to lean on and yet would not rely on it. For this I once warned father. Father laughed and said he would not let the Marquis go without benefit. By the sixth month of that year, he sent someone with twenty thousand taels in bank drafts…”

At these words, Eleven’s expression changed. She clasped Wen Yiniang’s hand in turn: “Did the Marquis accept it?”

Wen Yiniang looked up at Eleven with frightened eyes and said haltingly: “No… not accepted. I… I accepted it.”

Eleven fell silent.

After a long moment she said quietly: “How could you be so foolish?”

“I was also standing up for the Marquis,” Wen Yiniang said in a low voice by way of defense. She was embarrassed, and murmured on: “And I didn’t accept all that much — just twenty thousand taels per year. Compared to those earlier days, it was but a drop in the bucket…”

What was done was done. Eleven turned her mind to other concerns.

“Did the Marquis know about your accepting the money?”

“The first few years when he was away from home he did not know,” Wen Yiniang said in a small voice. “Later he found out. He said that if I truly enjoyed commerce, I might as well open my own shop. Taking this kind of dry dividend was risky — if the Wen family ever got into trouble and came to him needing favors, he might not be able to deliver in every instance. I… I opened the shop…”

Eleven’s mind spun rapidly.

Not long before, Xu Lingyi had said that the Emperor was going to deal with the Yang Family. Then came the audience at the palace with no joyful outcome, followed by Second Madam’s private visit to the Marquis of Yongchang on the Grand Dowager’s behalf, followed by Xu Lingyi’s private summons of Wen Yiniang demanding she close all her businesses… After so many years in trade, Wen Yiniang would surely have a clear picture of how the great aristocratic households of Yanjing privately made their money.

She asked Wen Yiniang: “The Huang household of Yongchang Marquis — what business are they in?”

Not knowing what purpose this question served Eleven at this moment, Wen Yiniang answered, puzzled: “Their family has a stone quarry, and they do business with the Ministry of Works. They earn around five hundred thousand taels a year or so.”

Eleven was somewhat surprised. She had assumed the Huang family did military supply business.

“Didn’t you say the Ministry of Works business was largely monopolized by the Yang Family — then how does the Huang family manage to—”

Speaking of what she knew best, Wen Yiniang’s face brightened somewhat: “The Yang Family are merely middlemen — with nothing but their name to trade on, they accept goods on credit from various suppliers on one side, take in Ministry of Works contracts on the other, and in practice invest not a single coin of their own. Moreover they can withhold the Ministry of Works payments and not settle accounts with the supplying merchants right away, keeping the funds in hand to use for a while. They also run a moneylending operation — and it is the most reputable and the largest moneylending business in Yanjing. Not only are the interest rates low, but no matter how much you wish to borrow, they can produce it. The old Marquis of Yongchang had these past years handed all family affairs over to the young lord, but the Huang family’s name is hollow now. The young lord had a very difficult time in the early years of managing the estate; he even borrowed silver from the Marquis to tide himself over. Yet somehow, he suddenly got himself connected to the Yang Family and began supplying them with stone materials. It is only in the last few years that things have been comfortable for them.”

Eleven listened, sank into thought for a moment, and decided to speak frankly with Wen Yiniang: “On the first day of the New Year, after the Marquis returned from the palace audience, the Grand Dowager immediately sent Second Madam to deliver food to the Huang Grand Dowager. Then the Marquis summoned you and told you to wind up your business. Wen Yiniang is a perceptive person — help me think on this too: would these two matters have any connection? I have heard that in recent years the Wen family has been competing against the Yang Family for the Imperial Household Department’s business. I am not sure how that contest has been going… And as for those twenty thousand taels the Wen family gave each year — over the years, the Marquis must have done quite a few favors for the Wen family. I wonder whether in recent years the Wen family has kept coming to the Marquis as before, whenever they needed something…”

Wen Yiniang’s temples broke out in a cold sweat at these words.

Her voice came out barely above a breath: “I keep wondering… since father passed away, why my Third Brother keeps falling behind on payments to me — sometimes even making me go before the Marquis to ask him to do one or two things before sending the silver over… these past couple of years he hardly comes calling at all anymore. Third Sister-in-Law’s manner has grown increasingly overbearing. Sometimes she will even say outright ‘if not, just pay money’…” Suddenly she stood up. “No, this will not do — I must have Qiu Hong go and find out what business the Wen family has taken on from the Imperial Household Department…”

Eleven, meanwhile, was working through the chain of cause and effect.

Xu Lingyi had known in advance that the Emperor intended to deal with the Yang Family. It was only after the first day’s palace audience that he told Wen Yiniang to wind up her business dealings, and gave her a deadline. Was it because the Emperor had said something? Or had the Emperor warned Xu Lingyi directly? Otherwise, why the urgency? And Xu Lingyi strongly resented those around him engaging in Imperial Household Department business; if the Wen family had some kind of collusion with the Yang Family, someone of Xu Lingyi’s character could not possibly have been unaware of it. And knowing it, he could not possibly have failed to warn them. Yet Wen Yiniang — knowing the gravity of what she had just learned — was not asking whether the Wen family had taken on Imperial Household Department business, but rather sending someone to find out which piece of the Imperial Household Department’s business they had taken on. This meant the Wen family was doing Imperial Household Department business — and had been doing it against Xu Lingyi’s objections.

She pulled Wen Yiniang back by the arm. “Since your father passed, has it been your Third Brother running the household? Does he have a close relationship with the Marquis?”

Wen Yiniang paused, thought for a moment, and replied, her face growing somewhat pale: “It is not that Third Brother does not want to be close to the Marquis — it is that the Marquis… does not look kindly on the Wen family. Third Brother has come to call on the Marquis in a most self-effacing manner several times, yet the Marquis has kept Third Brother waiting in the gatehouse…”

Eleven smiled bitterly at this and said: “If the Wen family’s business were not quite so prosperous, your Third Brother — kept waiting in the gatehouse by the Marquis of Yongping — would perhaps not feel himself so debased after all.”

Wen Yiniang’s complexion went even whiter.

Eleven looked at Wen Yiniang and said softly: “What has already come to pass, even the Marquis has no power to control — much less yourself. You had best listen to the Marquis and close the shop as quickly as you can. As for the Wen family — do your duty as a daughter and send word. There are some matters you must stop forcing. As for how to arrange proper settlement for those workers — perhaps you might invite the Marquis and work it through together…”

Her words were not yet finished when large tears began rolling down Wen Yiniang’s face. “My mother… is still being cared for by my brothers… and there is also my wet nurse — I had her stay in Yanjing, but she would not, insisting on going back to attend my mother… And there is my milk brother, who also went back to Yangzhou…” At this she grew still more distressed, and finally covered her face and wept aloud.

Eleven sighed helplessly and allowed her a cup of tea’s worth of time to cry. Then she patted Wen Yiniang on the shoulder: “Time is pressing. You must make your arrangements early!”

Wen Yiniang raised her face — her careful makeup dissolved in tears.

She sobbed in bewilderment: “Then… then what should I do?” She had the look of someone utterly at a loss.

Eleven did not know how far events had developed, nor what Xu Lingyi’s own plans were, and naturally could not make decisions for her. She could only say: “Why not — shall I invite the Marquis in? Some things, spoken plainly face to face, will give you a clear picture. You will know what course of action to take and what to plan for…”

Wen Yiniang heard this and nodded like a pecking bird, clutching Eleven’s hand as though seizing hold of a plank in the water: “My Lady — I leave it entirely in your hands to decide.” And as she spoke, tears poured down like rain. “My Lady’s great kindness and virtue — I will never forget it, not for my entire life…”

Eleven was taken aback. She could not help but laugh at herself. To be remembered for a lifetime by another was not, after all, a light and easy thing…

She turned and called for Binju, asking her to instruct Fang Xi to go and invite Xu Lingyi.

Xu Lingyi arrived faster than she had expected. Seeing Wen Yiniang, he seemed briefly surprised, but recovered his composure quickly.

From his expression, he had apparently guessed the purpose of Wen Yiniang’s visit.

Eleven brewed fresh tea for Xu Lingyi. She pulled the lattice door shut and was about to withdraw when Xu Lingyi stopped her: “There are some things — you should listen too.”

—