Once everything had been tidied up, Hua Zhi came out of the side room. “Go and tell my mother and Bailin that we’ll have midday meal together in Mother’s room.”

Liu Xiang bowed and withdrew, thoughtfully taking everyone else in the room with her as she departed.

Only the mistress and two servants remained. Hua Zhi looked at the two, who had grown even thinner than she had despite her weeks of running about outside, and found she could not bring herself to say a single word of reproach.

Capable people were given capable burdens. Over the past year, the few senior handmaids at her side had each been doing the work of several people. They had earned both merit and suffering, and even if Qiu Shi had slipped away in the end with more than a thousand taels unrecovered, she would not truly hold it against them. Their worth was far beyond what that sum of silver could measure.

Yet as a manager, such a mistake could not be allowed to repeat itself. Those who held a position must fulfill the responsibilities of that position. If someone proved unequal to the task, the fitting response was to replace them with someone who could manage it — send the outgoing one off with a generous severance gift and arrange a good marriage for them, honoring the bond between mistress and servant.

But she knew the people she had raised herself. After years of gradual influence and a full year of managing affairs, they had developed a rudimentary sense of self-worth. To ask them now to marry like any other maidservant, spend their days revolving around a husband and children, and bicker endlessly over petty domestic trifles — they would no longer find contentment in that kind of life.

And it was precisely because of their closeness to her that she truly could not bear to consign them to such an existence. Either way, she found herself in an irresolvable contradiction.

“Rise.”

Bao Xia and Nian Qiu exchanged a glance and helped each other to their feet.

“I will say this only once. Commit it to memory, and afterward convey it to the others.”

Hua Zhi settled back against her cushion. “I have never regarded any of you as mere household managers. The Hua Family is not short of household managers — the ones who served at the masters’ sides before can be shaped into perfectly capable ones with a bit of training. I have regarded you as chief stewards. Not as your mistress’s mouthpiece, not simply errand-runners who carry out orders. A chief steward oversees the entire enterprise. When business falters, she finds a way to make it thrive again. When problems arise, she finds a way to resolve them. She must have ideas and foresight, a mind of her own. She must know how to identify gaps and fill them, how to evaluate strengths and weaknesses and make adjustments.”

Hua Zhi looked at the two whose heads were bowed so low they nearly touched their chests. “Neither of you lacks those qualities. With everything you know and understand, you ought to be performing better than any ordinary chief steward. So what made you stumble so badly this time?”

Hua Zhi let out a quiet sigh. “Things had been going too smoothly. You grew complacent.”

Nian Qiu’s tears streamed down her face. The young miss was right. They had grown complacent. The young miss’s high regard, and the deference of the other servants, had led them to believe themselves more capable than they were, their pride swelling to absurd heights.

“If you wish to be of genuine use to me, you must become more capable. You must learn to think harder and think further ahead. If a little success like this is enough to lead you astray, then I stand by what I said earlier — go and get married. You are not needed to attend me today. Go back to your rooms and reflect.”

The two of them made a deep curtsy together and withdrew with their heads lowered.

Hua Zhi sat quietly for a moment, a persistent unease settling over her heart. In name they were mistress and servants, but they had grown up together from girlhood, and they had devoted themselves to her with wholehearted sincerity. The bond between them was no shallower than that between sisters. There were times she genuinely wanted to find each of them a good family to marry into — not as a punishment, but because in this era, marrying well was the finest future a woman could hope for, far more grounded than the vague, unnameable pursuit of self-worth.

Yet their closeness made her equally reluctant to see them simply spend their lives that way. No matter which direction she turned it, the thinking led nowhere but contradiction.

Bao Xia came in carrying a wooden tray, pretending not to know what had just taken place, and called out brightly, “For as long as we were gone, Lan Qiao spent the whole time at the food hall learning from Fu Dong — she’s still there and hasn’t come back yet! Luckily she inherited Fu Dong’s good habit of keeping broth simmering over the fire. Today’s is a tofu soup with shiitake mushrooms. You can smell the fragrance from here. Come, have a little something to tide you over.”

Hua Zhi walked over to the table and sat down. “I feel like I could eat an entire vat right now. Have some yourself.”

“This servant will go eat in the kitchen in a moment.”

The hour was already growing late. After drinking the soup, Hua Zhi went to her mother’s courtyard. Bailin was already there. Throughout the entire meal, neither mother nor son took the initiative to ask about the smell of medicine on her, and by the time she was leaving, Hua Zhi still had not been able to determine whether they had noticed anything. She simply set the matter aside entirely.

She planned to stay home for roughly five days before heading north. There were matters to be settled within those days: the mushrooms were being well tended and were fruiting quickly, the first shipment of lychees had already arrived, she needed to make a trip to the canning workshop — and right, tomorrow was Hua Qin’s wedding day, and since she had already returned, she ought to attend. Item after item, all crowding together — she would need to move quickly, otherwise even five days might not be enough.

Good news may stay within one’s gates; bad news travels a thousand li. In no more than the span of a single meal, word had spread all across the capital that Hua Zhi had delivered the concubine from the Third Master’s branch of the Hua household directly to the authorities. All manner of commentary followed. Outsiders, curiously, were less inclined than the Hua household’s own members to view Hua Zhi’s actions as heartless — it was precisely the kind of resolute response that was needed to put a stop to such behavior. The general consensus was that this Hua Zhi was a woman of remarkable decisiveness.

In a separate villa on the south side of the city, Bai Mingxia was engaged in a game of Go with Shen Qi. The two had developed something of a friendship after traveling together to Yinshan Pass, taking on the quality of a bond between people of different generations, and had kept in touch since returning.

After dismissing the servant who had come to deliver the news, Bai Mingxia swept his stones off the board — a game already entirely in his opponent’s favor — and looked at Shen Qi, who wore a distant, distracted expression. “When one must cut, one must cut. The Shen Family has already agreed to dissolve the engagement, which means there is no longer any possibility between you and her. I’ve had dealings with that young woman on a few occasions and have come to understand her well enough — even if Hua Pingyu were to order it himself, I don’t believe she would ever willingly step through the Shen Family’s doors again.”

Shen Qi gave a bitter smile and set down his own stones as well. How could he not know this? Yet she was someone who had taken root in his heart many years ago. He had thought of her, had imagined their life together countless times over. How could anyone simply set that down on command?

Bai Mingxia gave a faint shake of his head and said no more. Shen Zhui had fancied himself a master player, yet in Bai Mingxia’s estimation, he had made a truly ruinous move. The Hua men had been sent into exile, and at that time Hua Zhi herself had not yet drawn much attention — but dissolving the engagement with such unseemly haste had made the Shen Family look, in the eyes of the Hua household’s allies, like they were kicking someone while they were down. That impression held even though it had been the Hua Family who had raised the matter of the dissolution.

If the Shen Family had waited even another half year — by which time Hua Zhi’s talents would have begun to show themselves — would they have been so willing to let go of that match? Aristocratic families seeking wives for their legitimate sons prized a woman’s quality of mind above all, even above family background. Whether a mother was sharp-witted determined the caliber of the next generation. A woman like Hua Zhi — there was no shortage of people now quietly scheming to secure her.

Though Bai Mingxia suspected that the eldest daughter of the Hua Family was unlikely to belong to any household at all. Judging by the way she conducted herself, she had every appearance of a woman who had no intention of marrying. And in truth, the Hua household genuinely could not do without her at present.

Watching the listless Shen Qi, Bai Mingxia felt a pang of sympathy for him. To have been engaged and still end up going their separate ways — their fates had simply not been meant to intertwine.

He called a servant over and handed him his own calling card. “Deliver this to the Hua Family.”

Shen Qi came to himself. “Is Elder Uncle Bai going to call on the Hua Family?”

“It’s a household full of women — if I were to show up at their door, would I not simply be causing her trouble? The food hall is already booked two months in advance. I refuse to believe that if I arrange to meet there, the eldest daughter won’t at least give me a meal. Two birds with one stone.”

Shen Qi’s eyes lit up. “I’ll come with Elder Uncle.”

Bai Mingxia looked at him with a half-smile and, all things considered, agreed.