This time Zhao Hanzhang waited directly on the street outside the county office, and called over a young boy, giving him two coins to deliver a small note to Changning inside the county office.
Changning was reading in his office when he received the note, and inwardly he was thrown into turmoil.
She’d said she would think it over carefully—it had only been two hours since they parted, so why was she here again?
He was still Magistrate Chai’s man, after all. Wasn’t she afraid of being discovered?
Changning thought Zhao Hanzhang was a rather clever person—so why was she being so unreasonable about this matter? This was far too clingy!
Though he thought this, Changning still took the note and went outside.
The moment he stepped out of the county office, he saw Zhao Hanzhang sitting at a stall across the street. She’d brought Qiu Wu with her and was eating wontons. When she saw him, she immediately stood up eagerly and waved.
Changning walked over without a word. “Why has the young lady come again?”
Zhao Hanzhang smiled sweetly. “At noon I was so absorbed in the drinking that I forgot to treat you to a meal, so I’ve come specially to make up for it. This wonton shop is right across from the county office, and the flavor should be quite good—if you don’t mind, please sit and have a bowl.”
It was nearly evening by now. With autumn’s end, the sun set a little earlier, and at this hour people were leaving the county office. Changning glanced backward like a wife of a **, and asked Zhao Hanzhang in a guilty, hushed voice, “Isn’t the young lady afraid the magistrate will see?”
Of course Zhao Hanzhang wasn’t afraid. If Magistrate Chai happened to see, she would simply use the moment to press her request for him outright.
Of course, she couldn’t say that in front of Changning. She first ordered him a bowl of wontons, then said, “I went back and thought it over again and again—I was truly anxious. Without your answer, I couldn’t sit still for even a moment.”
Changning lifted his eyelids to glance at her and asked, “Is the young lady trying to force my decision?”
“Of course not,” Zhao Hanzhang said at once. “How could I bear to pressure you? But there’s something I wanted to tell you—if you’re willing to come to my side, I’d like you to take charge of the Household Office of Xiping County.”
Changning frowned. “Isn’t the registrar of Xiping County Ji Yuan? Does the young lady want me to work under Ji Yuan?”
“No. You would be the registrar of Xiping County.”
Changning looked at her in astonishment. The two of them stared at each other silently for a moment—some things didn’t need to be spelled out; each already understood the other. Zhao Hanzhang was giving him the position of registrar.
Which meant Ji Yuan was to remain in Shangcai.
What was he going to do there?
Changning could have guessed it blindfolded. Thinking of how Magistrate Chai trusted Ji Yuan more with each passing day, he sighed softly.
Zhao Hanzhang didn’t press him either, quietly waiting for him to reach a decision.
Changning thought for a long while before finally coming back to himself, and asked the question he’d been wanting to ask all along. “Sanniang is a woman. If you simply married into the Fu family, you could live in comfort and ease, passing your life in safety and peace. Why would you want to fight on the battlefield like a man, and contend with men in the arena of office?”
“You first took charge of Xiping County, and now you have your sights set on Shangcai—where does it end for you?” Changning asked. “Is this something Sanniang wants for herself, or is the Zhao clan directing you?”
He needed to understand her purpose clearly before deciding whether to commit himself to her.
Zhao Hanzhang was silent for a moment before saying, “Master Chang, in times like these, even an imperial princess cannot find safety. I am merely an ordinary woman—how could I calmly believe that marrying alone would secure me a peaceful life?”
“A woman who depends on her husband’s family—if even that family isn’t secure, can the woman be secure?” Zhao Hanzhang said. “That’s why I don’t want to place my safety in anyone else’s hands. I want to hold it in my own. Whether I’m secure or not should be for me to decide.”
She answered his second question. “The Zhao clan is the Zhao clan. I am Zhao Hanzhang!”
Hearing this, Changning suddenly looked up into her eyes, his spine straightening involuntarily, and asked, “Then what does the young lady intend to do?”
Zhao Hanzhang said, “My ambition lies in Yuzhou. I want to use the strength of an entire province to protect my family, my clan, and the people who live within Yuzhou.”
This was nothing less than carving out her own domain.
Changning, however, wasn’t alarmed. He had already considered this. He had thought Zhao Hanzhang and the Zhao clan’s aim was Runan Commandery, never expecting her ambition to be greater still—the whole of Yuzhou.
Well… it wasn’t impossible, either.
Changning swallowed and said in a low voice, “Sanniang, I am but a commoner of no established rank. I’m afraid I’m not well suited to hold office.”
Zhao Hanzhang waved a hand, unconcerned. “What I value is your talent. What the people of Xiping County need is your talent and character. Whether you hold rank or not doesn’t matter.”
Zhao Hanzhang continued, “If you achieve great merit, your future promotion will naturally be judged by your accomplishments, not by the opinions of one or two people.”
Changning stared blankly at Zhao Hanzhang, his heart growing hot. In a moment of impulse, he agreed at once. “Thank you, young lady.”
He raised his now nearly cold bowl of wontons as though it were wine, lifting it toward Zhao Hanzhang. “My lord will not fail Zining, and Zining will surely never fail my lord in return.”
This was the first time Zhao Hanzhang had heard this form of address. Delighted, she raised her own wonton bowl and clinked it against his, and the two of them each drank a large mouthful of the wonton broth. “It’s settled, then!”
Zhao Hanzhang asked thoughtfully, “Shall I speak with Magistrate Chai on your behalf?”
“No need,” Changning said. “The young lady should return to Xiping first. I’ll follow shortly. I’ll bid the magistrate farewell myself—since we parted on good terms, we should part well too.”
Changning understood Magistrate Chai better than anyone; he knew exactly what to say to make him let him go without trouble.
Zhao Hanzhang didn’t press the matter further, saying with a smile, “Then I’ll wait for you in Xiping.”
Changning nodded. He watched Zhao Hanzhang lower her head to eat her now-cold wontons, the setting sun right behind her, blurring her whole figure until she seemed cast in orange-red light. The person who was normally so imposing and sharp now seemed softened, gentler.
Perhaps it was the mood of the moment, but Changning found himself asking, “Few women have such ambition. The young lady is still so young—how did you come to think of… claiming dominance over a region on your own?”
“I didn’t think this far at first,” she said. “I only wanted to build an impregnable fortified manor on the estate in Shangcai, to protect myself and my family. But once I actually arrived in Shangcai, I realized how hard the times truly are. A single fortress alone can’t protect even myself, let alone everyone I care about.”
“And besides,” Zhao Hanzhang said, pointing toward the stall owner and the passersby on the street, “don’t you find them endearing, Master Chang? I live here among them. They are what I see every day. I can’t bring myself to ignore their suffering and their deaths, so I want to do more.”
Changning turned to look at those people, thinking silently: but beyond Xiping and Shangcai lies Quyang, and beyond Runan lies Yuzhou, and beyond Yuzhou lies the Central Plains. In the future, the more people she meets and the larger the lands she sees, will a single province like Yuzhou really be enough to satisfy her?
Changning sensed instinctively that such a thought was far too audacious—but still…
His gaze drifted, unfocused, toward the county office across the way. Wasn’t this exactly the kind of ambition he himself had always wanted?
An ambition for the common people, for the world itself—not like Magistrate Chai, muddling through, living day to day only to avoid being held accountable.
Even if this road didn’t lead far, even if in the end it came to no good end, at least he would be walking toward his own aspirations. And Zhao Hanzhang was a rare woman indeed—perhaps, following her, he might even leave his name in the annals of history.
If so, this life would have been worth it.
Changning smiled, raised his bowl toward Zhao Hanzhang in acknowledgment, and drank down the rest of the wonton broth.
Zhao Hanzhang found herself in a bind—her bowl was already empty. She could hardly order another bowl of wontons, could she?