Guan Si’er came out of his mother’s quarters, his expression the usual one — same as always, listening to a crowd of unfamiliar relatives flatter him in that old, familiar way. That kind of unimaginable, superficial praise so characteristic of the Gong family.

Telling him how handsome he was, how promising, how well his parents had raised him.

The old Gong family’s ancestors had come from a shop’s second-in-charge position, and later, having made their fortune, returned to their old hometown to bring their poor relatives out to do business and get rich together.

Back then, their hometown had been full of rattan craftsmen everywhere. The whole Gong clan worked together and sold the hometown’s rattan wares across the entire realm, even to foreign lands.

After Guan Si’er returned home, the clan immediately sent no shortage of gifts. Every household sent congratulatory presents — which told you that if you’d truly been a bonded servant, they’d never have let you through the door, they’d have pretended not to know you at all. Yet you couldn’t even get angry about it.

“If only” was a frightening phrase in this world — better not to dwell on it, better not to argue over it. Arguing over it would just be looking for trouble.

At first Guan Si’er had been quite irritated by all this, even reluctant to go home. But his grandmother had told him: if you don’t go back, then they’re not your relatives anymore — but if you do go, and something happens to make you cut ties, they’re still your relatives after all.

Better to not have any incidents at all — if something happened, people wouldn’t curse you as relatives, they’d curse them as “Official Guan’s relatives.” Who told you to stand at the very top?

Well then, just endure it — at least his mother was happy.

His young sister-in-law had put it well: don’t be bothered by it. His parents raised him for what it was worth, and honestly, he wasn’t much use to them otherwise — at most he could bring them some praise. Was he really unwilling to give them even that much?

The Gong family had long grown used to the clan’s flattery, to the point where they no longer noticed anything odd about it.

Their branch of the family was the most accomplished in the entire clan. In the past, when Gong Zhiyi taught, the family could rely on his reputation to pass as a scholarly merchant household. Now that the entire Gong family held official positions, it was an even bigger deal.

No one dared look down on a household with an official post in the capital. In the capital itself, minor officials were a dime a dozen and nothing special, but beyond the small southern mountains, in any prefecture, county, or village, a family with a relative serving as a capital official became the talk of the entire region, season after season.

The old Gong family were merchants. Before Gong Zhiyi’s students filled the realm, even the office of the prefect — no, even ordinary yamen clerks — were not people they could afford to offend. If anything happened in the household, such people would send formal invitations to the whole family, not caring how many branches the clan had split into, but only how many shops the family owned, and who ran them.

People wouldn’t openly mistreat you, but when a child turned one month or one year old, when someone married a wife or took a concubine, would you really dare show up with just a basket of eggs? If your business was large enough that wherever there was a prefecture in Great Liang, there was a Gong family shop, then being squeezed for money was simply the natural order of things. The Gong family actually feared people not coming to extort them — if they didn’t, it meant someone was surely looking for an excuse to deal with them instead.

Nobody has an easy life. Once accustomed to a life of wealth, people naturally start wanting a life of respect — and it was only after Gong Zhiyi achieved something that the Gong family truly experienced what that respect felt like.

In the past, when the Gong family sought patrons, they had to wait in the gatehouse. In the previous dynasty, merchants had been treated with particular contempt — some people would even have the ground where merchants had walked washed with clean water three times over.

Later, with Gong Zhiyi’s rise, whenever a new prefect arrived to take up his post locally and heard that the local area had the great scholar of the Gong family, he would treat them with courtesy, and be careful not to overstep — for fear of damaging his own reputation as an official.

Gong Zhiyi himself wasn’t the intimidating one — it was the combined strength of all his students together that carried weight.

And so, as the Gong family traveled and traded, they paid special attention to matters of local culture and refinement wherever they went — sponsoring students, funding academies, and so on.

Having supported many scholars, their good reputation grew, and with it, the respect they received. Ordinary people no longer regarded the Gong family as an ordinary merchant household — their children could enter any academy in Great Liang without even having to sit for an examination.

This became a virtuous cycle, and so the Gong family made even greater efforts to preserve this scholarly lineage. As long as this one branch focused on studying well, everything else, they said, was taken care of by the rest of them.

Because of this, even though Gong Zhiyi was already well into his years, he remained something of an old innocent, and the second generation wasn’t much better versed in worldly matters either.

To preserve the bloodline of scholarship, he had even married Madam Li, a woman who had no head for managing a household and who, even in her later years, still carried herself like a young girl in temperament. The clan tolerated this without complaint, and even indulged her.

Every family had its own way of living — Guan Si’er, as an outsider to this family, found something uncomfortable about it wherever he looked. Yet the Gong family lived quite contentedly, seeing nothing wrong with any of it at all.

Though Master She had once said that people needed to go through hardship in order to grow.

But if life was already going well, there was no need to go looking for hardship just for the sake of growth — wouldn’t that be foolish?

And so, when the Gong family finally, as everyone had hoped, produced an official serving the Emperor himself — with a house even bestowed by His Majesty — after ten-some generations of cultivating a bloodline capable of producing such a figure, it was no wonder the clan came flocking to curry favor.

And those who came weren’t there merely to take advantage. Though merchant families rarely dared flaunt their wealth openly, the old Gong family knew its own standing well enough — of the whole clan, Guan Si’er’s own household was the poorest. Their biggest business was collecting rent on a few shops; as for other paths to income, this branch simply couldn’t manage them, and the clan wouldn’t let them try either — they were the ones who received “relief” support from the clan every year.

Well, someone had to be the poor branch.

Coming back from his round at his mother’s quarters, Guan Si’er entered his room to find Hongcao directing servants in storing items in the storehouse.

He glanced at it without bothering to ask what it all was. In the whole family, he was the only one who didn’t study, yet every time relatives came from the hometown, they sent him cartloads of brushes, ink, paper, and inkstones, as if he were some great scholar himself.

Every time, he wanted to shout — he was from the Ministry of War, damn it, did they understand what that meant?

A tung-oil-lacquered rattan trunk was opened, and Hongcao glanced inside, then bent down and pulled out a fan frame, holding it up for Guan Si’er to see: “Third Master, look — they’ve gifted you so many fine fan frames.”

Clearly, she didn’t understand at all.

Guan Si’er took a breath, pursed his lips, and said: “Didn’t they already give us several boxes last time? Why more?”

But Hongcao, stroking the fan frame, said with delight: “We already have ivory, tortoiseshell, and old sandalwood ones — the only thing missing was old mottled bamboo, and this is truly fine material.”

The little maid’s eyes shone with genuine joy. She carefully counted every single fan frame, even measured them with a ruler, and used a fine rabbit-hair brush to record each one in delicate, elegant handwriting.

As she wrote, she said happily: “Now the set is complete. Tomorrow I’ll have some paper cut and mount some fine fan surfaces for you, Third Master. The pomegranate tree in our courtyard is lovely — when it blooms next May, you’ll have enough material to paint through the whole month.”

Looking at the little maid like this, Guan Si’er felt a pang of guilt. In this lifetime, he would never be able to paint a fan surface. To avoid showing his ignorance, he coughed and said: “Ah, that — just pack up all these fan frames. I have a use for them.”

Hongcao paused in surprise, but reluctantly had all the fan frames packed up regardless. Guan Si’er found there were four or five boxes of them, and early the next morning, he had them all sent off to the Prince’s mansion.

So much for painting fan surfaces — he wasn’t leaving even a single one for them.

At the Prince’s mansion, the tutor wasn’t home, but Hu Yougui came out to meet him.

Judging by this brother’s expression, it seemed Shangguan Xiaoqiao had been causing trouble again.

Helping one’s own brother in need was only natural, and so, Guan Si’er happily invited his brother to come stay at his place for a few days.

His house was quite fun, he said — there was a whole storeroom of fine paper, and plenty of famous brushes, so his fifth brother could write and paint to his heart’s content.

Hu Yougui had no idea his younger brother’s heart was black as pitch, and gladly agreed to go, not being unfamiliar with staying there before.

Guan Si’er and Hu Yougui shared deep brotherly affection, and arranged to stay together at home for a few days. The Gong family, with so many relatives visiting, didn’t even notice this side of things.

As for the aunts who had come from the old hometown — well, they had ambitions of their own.

Such was the way of the world — for merchant families especially, sending gifts, including sending concubines, was a well-practiced method of currying favor.

And this wasn’t the first time either — every branch’s mistress, when they visited, would bring along an eligible girl from their own maiden family. They came again and again, each time bringing someone new.

One shouldn’t mock them for currying favor or looking down on their character — did you understand what it meant to be a merchant family? Heaven was vast, the earth was wide, and trading routes stretched across ten thousand li. Officials didn’t protect you, bandits lurked on the roads — other families managed for over a decade out there. What did they rely on, being so far from home?

Blood ties through marriage.

Even among trading partners, no matter how loyal a chief manager might be, he was still an outsider in the end. So what did they rely on?

Blood ties, family.

The Gong family, across its dozen-plus branches and generations, had always lived this way. Boys, from a young age, learned the trade in the family shops back home; once grown, they married a proper wife of matching status back home, had two or three legitimate sons, and then their fathers would send them out to establish a new branch of the trade far away.

Setting up such a branch meant a life of solitude — taking a sum of family silver, a few trusted servants, and heading off to foreign lands and distant deserts, a journey of thousands or even tens of thousands of li that could last over a decade, sometimes never to return.

They had to open new territory within the world of commerce, put down roots in new places — and marrying local girls as secondary wives or concubines was one of the tools of the trade.

Throughout the old Gong family’s many branches, there wasn’t one that didn’t have a dozen or so brothers supporting each other this way. Because of this, the distinction between legitimate and illegitimate children was never very pronounced — with each branch running its own trading post, separated by thousands of li, there simply wasn’t time to squabble over status. Some branches even complained they didn’t have enough brothers.

By Gong Zhiyi’s generation, though, his particular branch had the fewest descendants of all — how could the clan not worry about that? And yet, worried as they were, they didn’t dare come meddle in his household — mainly because they couldn’t afford to offend him.

And so it became customary for the mistresses of each branch to periodically come to the capital and bring young women along. Those brought weren’t forced upon anyone — if you took a liking to one, she stayed; if not, they’d take her back.

In business, the basic principle was always mutual willingness — they never held grudges over such things.

Fortunately, Gong Zhiyi and his son were both bookish, faithful men at heart. They kept their own measure of things, and had never once taken advantage of such offers.

A young maid on the veranda was cracking walnuts with a small hammer, the crisp cracking sound drifting steadily into the room.

In the courtyard right next to Guan Si’er’s, a woman in her thirties, dressed in a gold-flowered jacket, adorned head to toe in pearls and jade, with a face full of good fortune, asked her own maiden-family niece: “A’Qiao, did the Third Master really smile at you?”

This time, all the visitors to the Gong household were from the ninth branch.

The one speaking was Madam Xie. She had brought three eligible young women, all from her own maiden family, and among them, the one with the closest blood tie and the finest looks and manners was this girl, Xie Qiao. Naturally, Madam Xie hoped to arrange this good match herself.

When relatives clustered together too closely, the bond grew thin — the sixth branch taking in a girl from the ninth branch’s relatives was exactly the kind of good match she and her husband had been hoping for.

Miss Xie Qiao was lovely — fair, milky skin, a well-proportioned figure, large eyes, a high nose bridge, and an auspicious birth chart said to bring good fortune to her husband’s family.

Hearing her aunt’s question, Xie Qiao set down the book scroll in her hands, her face flushing red as she looked at her aunt and nodded.

Whether he had smiled or not, she wasn’t entirely certain — but if it weren’t for that, her aunt wouldn’t have fought to secure her this particular courtyard right next to the Third Master’s, separated only by a single wall.

Seeing her niece’s confident nod, the Eleventh Madam felt naturally delighted. This sixth branch had been blessed with a purple-star destiny bringing great fortune — who would have thought the young master everyone had assumed dead would turn out to be even more accomplished than before?

What kind of fortune was this — excelling in both scholarship and military affairs at once?

The clan had been overjoyed discussing this matter these past while. In the past, within literary circles, supporting scholars had been a money-losing endeavor, funding here and there just to build up a good reputation. But now, with a connection to this Third Master, everything was different — completely, dramatically different.

Not to mention anything else — just take the matter of transporting goods. In the past, the Gong family’s men, traveling with escort agencies, had endured all manner of hardship through wind and rain, having to guard against bandits, with corrupt officials squeezing them even harder.

Now things were different. No matter where in the realm they went, if they found the relay station and located the official in charge of Ministry of War reception, and mentioned they were relatives of the clan under General Cheng’s protection — not just the people, but the goods too could pass through freely.

In the past, it depended on luck whether they’d make it through a given year without incident, without losing a few lives. But ever since this Third Master’s rise, such incidents still happened, but noticeably less often.

Whenever they hit checkpoints and roadblocks, flashing their connection to the Third Master’s name made even those greedy military officers show them some courtesy.

The Gong family, having traded for over a dozen generations, could now finally travel through cities and past defenses like proper people, their goods entering cities fairly and openly, paying exactly what they owed and no more.

This was a child capable of blessing the entire clan, a true unicorn son. Because of this, the clan patriarch had led every elder in the clan over sixty years old to give up meat entirely, and to stop wearing fine cotton, vowing to devote all their remaining fortune to this child, wishing him a lifetime of health and countless sons and grandsons.

Delighted, the Eleventh Madam removed a smooth white jade bracelet from her own wrist and put it on her niece, then, stroking her niece’s soft, delicate skin and pinching her slender fingers, said with a soft laugh: “Who would have thought my child would have such fortune.”

Xie Qiao said shyly: “But Grandfather says it’s Auntie in our family who has the most fortune of all.”

The Eleventh Madam laughed softly: “Silly child, what do you know? My whole life I’ve envied small, humble households where husband and wife live in harmony — who wouldn’t want to wake up every morning and see the person they’ll share a grave with someday, someone who shoulders the weight of the world for you, even if it means being a little poor? We’re all married off one way or another — I spent less than two years total with your uncle in my whole life. It’s been so long I’ve even forgotten what he looks like.”

She reached out and brushed aside her niece’s bangs, smiling: “Our A’Qiao was born so well, and you actually get to wake up every day and see your husband! You must remember — if things go well for you, you must be filial and obedient afterward. Don’t quarrel with your mistress-in-law, don’t rely on your maiden family’s connections to stir up gossip in front of the mistress. When trouble comes, you must stand united with the master and mistress — that’s what makes you truly family.”

Xie Qiao nodded, then lifted her face to look out the window at the high wall, and the rockery beside it.

The Eleventh Madam, having held it in long enough, kept rambling on.

“Our Third Master is still so young now — in the future he’s bound to become a nobleman, perhaps even a chancellor. Their branch carries divine blood, truly. If you bear him even one child, son or daughter, you’ll never have to sit under the eaves again.”

Hearing her aunt say this, Xie Qiao lowered her head, gripping her handkerchief, her fingers pressed so hard into her palm they nearly broke the skin.

She had lied. The truth was, the Third Master hadn’t looked at anyone at all.

The Xie family and the Gong family were both merchant houses, and had intermarried for generations, which was how they’d built up mutual trust to do business together.

Though the Xie family’s business wasn’t as large as the Gong family’s, they too ran a large dye workshop — there was a time when everyone in the surrounding prefecture wore clothes, inside and out, dyed by the Xie family.

The Xie family had money, so their daughters too were raised in pampered comfort. Once old enough to understand things, they were taught to read and write, to manage accounts and run a household — all in preparation for marrying into another established family.

That was how her aunt, once of age, had married into the Gong family to become the Eleventh Madam.

Who would have thought that such a massive family fortune could vanish like ash in the wind the moment national calamity struck? Simply keeping one’s life intact had already been fortunate enough.

The Xie family had done a great deal of business nearby, and in the final years of the previous dynasty, their fortunes had been utterly destroyed by those who came to seize their assets. Born into a merchant family without a proper dowry, Miss Xie Qiao couldn’t find a match of suitable standing.

What was to be done? A grown daughter could only be sent to a former marriage-connected family to become a second wife or a concubine.

Fortunately, with help from various relations, the Xie family had recovered somewhat, but their ancestral foundation had been lost, and its revival now depended on Xie Qiao’s brothers.

Two young maids came in carrying shelled walnut meats, respectfully placing them before the cousin-guest.

Thinking of this happy prospect, the Eleventh Madam grew excited and stood up to rummage through her trunks, and even sent someone to have the carriage readied — she intended to spend a large sum at the finest shop in the capital to buy her niece the best jewelry, the finest clothes. She couldn’t let anyone look down on a daughter of the Xie family.

This woman, having no husband to be picky about, had simply eaten and drunk well, growing herself plump and round. She stood up, rolling a few steps forward, then turned back and grabbed her niece’s hand, whispering: “My darling, my good A’Qiao, if you truly manage to enter this household, I can’t promise you anything else, but as for your dowry — you won’t even need your uncle to provide it. Our Xie family will scrape together everything we have, even if it means selling the cooking pots, to give you at least thirty thousand strings of cash as your dowry.”

Xie Qiao twisted her handkerchief without a word, feeling a surge of reckless resolve inside her — if this didn’t work out tonight, she might as well die.

The Eleventh Madam, lost in her happy fantasy, laughed softly a few more times before saying: “Good darling, if you bear the Third Master a child in the future, that will be our Xie family’s ancestral graves smoking with good fortune — reviving the family will happen in the blink of an eye. Be good, and if the mistress later grows jealous or displeased with you, don’t presume upon his favor to act arrogant, and don’t become the source of chaos for the sixth branch’s household.

Just settle your heart firmly on this. If you bear the Third Master a hundred sons, our ninth branch will scrape together every last cent to raise them for you! As long as they’re born of my A’Qiao! I’ll give up meat too, and in my next life I’ll eat vegetarian and chant scriptures to build up good fortune for you…”

Having said this, the woman even pressed her palms together reverently and bowed in several directions.

Thinking of her niece’s confident words, the Eleventh Madam’s heart filled with joy. She hugged her niece and kissed her cheek on both sides, then waddled out of the room, round and plump.

The whole way, she kept laughing, a bright, bubbling laugh.

Once her aunt was gone, Xie Qiao slowly let out a breath, then instinctively looked again toward the high wall and rockery next door.

The last time she’d gone back to her maiden family, she had paid a sum of money to learn a certain skill.

How had such a young girl come to have such thoughts? To explain that, one had to go back further.

When she turned fourteen, her aunt, feeling lonely, had brought her to live by her side, pampering her. Within the Gong household, she too had been treated as a young lady of standing, with fine food, fine clothes, and an education — the books she read, the embroidery skills she learned, were no worse than those of any young lady from a proper household in the city.

Since the sixth branch had produced someone so accomplished, and the Gong family had reaped real benefits from it, from that generation onward, anyone in the family who loved learning received support, regardless of gender.

Xie Qiao had ridden this favorable wind — her calligraphy had even earned praise from the sixth branch’s elder master, and because of this, her uncle-in-law had thought highly of her, even granting her the same monthly allowance as the Gong family’s own young ladies.

In the past, Xie Qiao had believed her life was a hundred times better than her sisters back at her maiden family, and at that time, she had been content.

She simply waited quietly to grow up, expecting that once grown, her aunt would find her a young master of the Gong family to marry — even a son by a concubine would do, since staying in the old hometown would still mean becoming the mistress of the household, with little real difference from a proper wife.

But who could have foreseen it? It was that summer when her aunt brought her along to the prefect’s residence to attend a birthday feast.

She had long heard that the prefect’s family had a talented daughter, a young lady whose poetry she had read before — honestly, it was nothing special.

Harboring a competitive streak, Xie Qiao had gone hoping for a chance to outshine her.

But who could have predicted it? Eagerly following her aunt with three carriages of gifts to the prefect’s household, the aunt she so admired and looked up to turned out to be someone who sat under the veranda.

Yes — she was invited in, only to be seated under the eaves along with a group of other merchant wives, chattering away as if it were still some great honor.

And as for a young girl like Xie Qiao, her already delicate heart shattered in that instant.

In the end, even the meal at the prefect’s residence, they ate under the veranda as well. As for that young lady whose poetry and prose weren’t even as good as her own, Xie Qiao couldn’t even get inside the main hall, let alone past the second gate.

Her dignity trampled into the ground, her pride crushed, Xie Qiao became consumed by obsession. She no longer sought wealth and status — she only wanted a measure of respect.

She would never forget it — the old woman at the prefect’s household carrying dishes on a large wooden tray had kicked at her new skirt with her foot and said something dismissive, telling her to trouble herself and set a bowl of food on the table.

Xie Qiao had stood there dumbly, taking a bowl of meat served in coarse porcelain from the tray with both hands and setting it on the table.

People like them, going to an official’s household, weren’t even worthy of using their fine porcelain.

From that day on, Xie Qiao made up her mind — even if it meant becoming a concubine, she would become a concubine of the sixth branch. Not for anything else, but simply to sit in a proper room, eating from fine, unchipped porcelain.

The Eleventh Madam spent a full thousand strings of cash in the shops, buying her niece seven or eight complete outfits — truly sparing no expense.

But what she couldn’t have anticipated was that that night, Miss Xie Qiao, dressed in thin gauze underneath, perfumed from head to toe, waited until the third night watch when everyone else had fallen asleep.

This girl turned out to have real nerve — she quietly rose from bed and, following the rockery built against the wall, climbed up onto it.

But — completely unexpected — the moment she’d just climbed up, she found someone already sitting on top of the wall.

Yuwen Xiaoqiao.

Yuwen Xiaoqiao hadn’t been seen in the capital for a long while. She had listened to her elders’ advice, that a proper husband and wife should at least be in harmonious accord, shouldn’t they?

Which was to say, she needed to learn some kind of musical instrument to fit the occasion.

She’d thought about it for a long while and settled on the xiao flute — mainly because this particular version could be made of bronze, was easy to carry, and could also serve as a weapon for self-defense. When she encountered that heartbreaking nemesis of hers, she could pull it out at any time to share a moment of harmonious peace with him.

And so, she had genuinely put in the effort to practice, and having finally managed to play one complete tune, she went looking for him — only to find he wasn’t at the yamen, wasn’t at the Prince’s mansion, wasn’t at Imperial Guard Lane either.

After asking around, it turned out he’d found himself a new place to hide from her again — tsk, this little brat’s temper really was something.

And so, after the curfew, Yuwen Xiaoqiao took her waist token and made her way to the Gong residence, sitting on the courtyard wall, planning to wait until dawn to play the tune for Hu Yougui to hear.

Well — she’d only just sat down for a little while when she saw enemy movement in the courtyard behind her… Hmph! Just as she’d thought — with her own nemesis being so good-looking, how could no one try to snatch him away?

Finally, she’d caught someone in the act.

Xie Qiao, having climbed the wall, saw in the pitch-black night a pair of wide, white-rimmed eyes glaring at her.

Climbing that wall had already exhausted every ounce of courage Xie Qiao had. In her terror, the girl actually wet herself on the spot, and before she could even scream and fall off the wall, that “ghost” said with irritation: “Hey! You thieving little tramp — don’t you even check whose person you’re trying to move in on?!”

This Yuwen Xiaoqiao was truly not a nice person at all — seeing this girl with her painted brows and perfumed scent, she immediately kicked her right in the face.