The Lantern Festival marked the true end of the New Year. Officials returned to court, the government offices reopened their seals, and another year had begun.

The Hua Family’s clan school resumed its lessons as well.

The cold had not yet relented. Old snow still lay unmelted when new snow came down again, one fall after another. Yet the business in Green Moss Lane held steady without faltering, turning a handsome profit. Combined with the preserved goods trade, in a very short span of time Hua Zhi had already accumulated a considerable sum of silver in hand.

Before the New Year, she had asked her maternal grandmother to keep watch for a suitable shop front. Her requirements, however, were exacting, and word did not come until the end of the second month.

“Hua Hua, I want to come too.”

Hua Zhi felt a twinge of reluctance. She herself was the sort who could sit contentedly indoors and not step outside for a year without minding at all. But she knew Shao Yao was not built that way. Shao Yao had always lived freely, and the fact that she had been content to stay quietly tucked away in the Hua Family’s residence for this long was entirely because she listened to Hua Zhi. Still, one could not keep her shut in like this indefinitely.

And so Hua Zhi gave a nod. “You must not leave my side by so much as a single step.”

Shao Yao beamed. “Understood. Not a single step.”

The shop front was not on the main street, but in a lane several streets removed from it. The area was far from remote, and bore an auspicious name — Champion’s Lane. The name had been in use for several centuries. Legend held that the lane had produced three successive top examination scholars, and it had long since been regarded by those who read fortunes in landscape and geography as a place of great promise.

A location like that was naturally not given over to just anyone. Stretching the length of the lane was a large settlement of civil officials’ residences — and aside from the Hua Family and Lin Family’s shared Hua-Lin Lane, this was the most celebrated address among men of letters in the capital.

The shop front her cousin had found was right on this lane. The name alone was enough to win Hua Zhi’s heart. Before she had even set eyes on the building, she had already decided to lease it — or to pay a little more, if need be.

Stepping down from the carriage and standing on the carriage step, she tilted her head back to look up at the building — a thoroughly characteristic Great Qing Dynasty structure, its eaves and corners pointed and upswept like all its neighbors, every line of it conveying an air of ambitious sharpness.

A two-story building with a courtyard — an entire standalone property.

“Cousin.” Zhu Ziwen came forward to meet her, already waiting. He followed her gaze toward the small building. “What do you think?”

“Very fine.” Hua Zhi glanced at the unfamiliar young man standing at her cousin’s side. He did not look in the least like a middleman.

Zhu Ziwen read her look and stepped aside to introduce him. “This is the property’s owner — Young Master Wu Bi.”

Wu Bi gave a slight bow. Hua Zhi returned a curtsy.

“Come, let us look inside.”

The courtyard was spacious, well-kept and level, the trees within it trimmed into clean, tidy shapes.

Wu Bi explained: “This shop was previously a silk and fabric house. The family ran into trouble and returned to their hometown in great haste, leaving the property behind.”

“They are not coming back?”

“No. They have already dissolved their agreement with me.”

Hua Zhi gave a small nod, her gaze moving across the space. The building looked modest from outside, but once inside she found it far more expansive than it appeared. The rent would not be cheap. In truth, she would have preferred to buy it outright — ownership would give her a greater sense of security.

She made a thorough circuit of every floor and room. Inside, she was entirely satisfied — yet her expression remained exactly as it had been. “Does Young Master Wu intend to lease, or to sell?”

Wu Bi’s brow arched slightly. “If the young miss can meet the price, selling is not out of the question.”

Zhu Ziwen turned his face away. “The world goes round and round. Young Master Wu, do not try to name an outrageous figure.”

“Of course not. It is a transaction between two parties — if we can reach an agreement, why not? Shall we speak somewhere more comfortable?”

The three of them made their way to the Yun-Lai Restaurant. The third floor was full, and the manager personally escorted the group to a private room on the second floor, sending up a selection of fruits and pastries as an apology for the inconvenience.

After a few cups of tea, Wu Bi said: “The young miss strikes me as a perceptive person. I will spare us the preliminaries. If you are in earnest about purchasing, my price is this.”

Wu Bi dipped his finger in tea and wrote the number six on the tabletop.

Hua Zhi smiled. “You said you would spare us the preliminaries, yet this price is already quite an inflated one. The location is undeniably fine and the building is good — I have no complaints on either count. But purely from the standpoint of value, this price exceeds what the property is worth.”

“That lane is Champion’s Lane. The name itself carries worth. Whatever business the young miss sets up there will immediately be elevated several notches above the ordinary. Such intangible value should not be overlooked.”

“I acknowledge its merits. But fine as it is, it is still a shop front. Had it been a residence, I would have bought it without a second word. As a commercial property, however, its location is not an advantage in every respect.”

“…”

The two of them went back and forth. Zhu Ziwen sat in silence throughout, drinking his tea and watching his cousin assert herself.

The shop front was finally settled at four thousand eight hundred taels of silver.

Wu Bi drained a full cup of tea in one long draught, then shook his head with a rueful laugh. “With talent like this, young miss, you will find commerce comes to you twice as easily as it does to others.”

“You are too kind.” Hua Zhi sent Ying Chun back to retrieve the silver drafts. It had been a long time since she had been this fully absorbed in a business negotiation. The exhilaration had passed, but the tips of her fingers still tingled faintly.

“May I ask what sort of business the young miss intends to conduct?” He quickly added: “A passing question. If it is inconvenient to say, please disregard it.”

“There is nothing inconvenient about it. People cannot live without clothing, food, shelter, and travel. I am doing no more than finding a small corner within those necessities — borrowing from what others have already done.”

Though she had narrowed the field, she had still given nothing concrete away. Zhu Ziwen raised his cup to his lips to hide the smile tugging at his mouth. He found this cousin more and more interesting with each encounter.

Wu Bi, too, saw through the deflection. He was a man who knew when to leave well enough alone. His manner lightened with easy grace, and he shifted the conversation to pleasantries — talk of scenery, of passing seasons, of nothing in particular — until Ying Chun returned.

The middleman arrived as well. The two parties drew up the contract. In the same span of months that had seen her sell the other property, she had bought the Hua Family a grand shop front in return — at a comparable price. She had said it herself: earning money had never been the difficult part.

Outside the restaurant, the Hua Family’s carriage drew slowly to a stop.

Zhu Ziwen naturally wished to see his cousin home. Hua Zhi said her farewell to Young Master Wu and stepped up into the carriage. In the instant before she let the curtain fall, her footsteps faltered — then she quickly stepped all the way in, drew the curtain tightly shut, and lifted one corner of the window covering to beckon to Shao Yao. “Are you getting in or not?”

“Coming.”

Somewhere out of sight, Shao Yao raised a fist in Wu Bi’s direction. He had made Hua Hua pay four thousand eight hundred taels — she would make sure he gave every last bit of it back!

Wu Bi touched his nose. Had he truly given away the property for nothing, there was no way the Hua eldest young miss would ever have accepted it.

Shao Yao lifted the carriage curtain and was immediately struck by the thick smell of blood. She drew a sharp breath and held it. Hua Zhi pulled her inside in one swift motion. Shao Yao’s instinct was to shield Hua Hua behind her, eyes sharpening as she took in the sight of the battered, bloodied child who was somehow still conscious, still refusing to collapse.

Even through the veil the child sensed the coldness in her gaze. He shrank back slightly, voice stuttering out in broken fragments: “I am not… not a bad person…”

Hua Zhi let out a soft laugh. Shao Yao’s expression remained wooden — if anything, she felt she herself looked rather more like the bad person between them.

“All right. He is wounded as badly as this — what could he possibly do to me? Come and take a look at him.”

Hua Zhi stooped and moved to kneel before the child. Up close, the full extent of his injuries was even more frightening: wounds scored across him in line after line, raw and bleeding. Some of them had the skin peeled back entirely. There were lash marks, and there were knife wounds.

It brought suddenly to Hua Zhi’s mind that Shao Yao’s face, too, bore knife scars. She looked up quickly — and caught Shao Yao staring at the child, her expression distant and stunned.