The rain struck the carriage in a steady patter. In the short time since she had last looked, the downpour seemed to have grown heavier.

Nian Qiu pressed the window curtain firmly shut, then reached over to tuck the blanket on her young mistress’s lap a little higher, and said softly, “You yourself said it was a matter between the two of them as husband and wife. Why trouble yourself over it.”

Hua Zhi shook her head. “It is only that I find women to have such a hard lot. Madam Cai the elder is already considered a kind-natured woman, and yet she still schemes to send someone into her son’s chambers. When you think of those households that are far more difficult to deal with — who can know how much bitterness those women swallow along with their tears.”

With marriages decided by the words of parents and the arrangement of matchmakers, the women raised in the inner quarters had neither the right to object nor the means to resist. Two words — reputation — pressed like a hand around a woman’s throat.

“If Miss Qin can find her way out of that blind alley it would be for the best. This servant thinks the young master-in-law does have her in his heart.”

He did — but how much weight she held there was another question. The foundation of their affection was too thin.

Hua Zhi let the matter rest. If she kept talking, she might end up frightening this already timid little maid even further. The girl was already reluctant to marry — any more and who knew what she would do.

Lulled by the sound of rain the whole journey home, Hua Zhi had grown drowsy by the time they arrived. A gust of wind swept in as the curtain was lifted, sending a brisk chill through her and shocking her fully awake.

She bent her head and stepped out of the carriage — then looked up and stopped.

This person… was back.

Gu Yanxi’s eyes were brimming with a smile. He held an umbrella in one hand and extended the other toward her.

Hua Zhi pressed her lips together, tucking the smile back before it could surface, and let him take her hand as she descended from the carriage. He then draped a cloak around her shoulders, drawing her close beneath its shelter, and the two walked under one umbrella into the courtyard.

Nian Qiu pressed down the smile on her own face, took an umbrella from one of the younger maids, and headed off toward the small kitchen. She would need to tell Lan Qiao to prepare a few extra dishes — and yes, some ginger soup as well.

By the time they had entered the room, the front of Hua Zhi’s skirt had caught only a few faint splashes of rain, and not a single strand of her hair was wet. Gu Yanxi, however, had half his body dampened, though most of the rain had been kept off by the cloak.

He shrugged the cloak aside. Gu Yanxi looked at A’Zhi, who seemed subtly different from her usual self. “Is that happiness at my return, or displeasure?”

Hua Zhi herself found the inexplicable bashfulness rather absurd. After only a few days apart, how was it that she was feeling shy? She gave a light cough and made a determined effort to appear exactly as she always did. “Coming straight from the palace?”

“Yes.” Gu Yanxi kept his eyes on A’Zhi, vaguely sensing he had missed something — and the feeling in his chest told him it was absolutely something he would not have wanted to miss.

Hua Zhi continued to steer the conversation calmly toward business matters. “Was there anything discovered? Were any remnants of the Chaoli clan apprehended?”

“None.”

At that, Hua Zhi’s brows drew together. “Nothing at all?”

“They had abandoned that hideout some time ago. Even so, this trip was not entirely without result.” Gu Yanxi drew a silver ingot from his inner robe and set it face-down on the table. Hua Zhi spotted the irregularity at once.

Several thoughts flashed through her mind. She looked up. “Silver smelted by the Chaoli clan themselves?”

“Look more closely.”

Hua Zhi picked up the ingot and examined it. She had once seen the official silver used during the Chaoli Kingdom’s era at home — the only difference from that of other Central Plains dynasties was a cross-shaped mark on the base. The marking on this ingot was shallower than those from the Chaoli Kingdom period; one might not notice it unless looking with intent.

And the silver would need to be newly minted — on older silver, it would be even harder to detect… Newly minted?

“Bring a lamp.” Bao Xia, who was keeping watch outside, came in at once to light the lamp. Hua Zhi held the ingot beneath it and still felt the light too dim, so she simply carried it outside and examined it under the open sky. In that light, there was no mistaking it — this was indeed newly minted silver.

She looked back at the man standing in the doorway. “Do you suspect they have taken control of a silver mine unknown to you, or do you suspect they have secured some other source of income?”

“Both.” Gu Yanxi stepped outside. “I hope it is the former, but the likelihood of the latter is no smaller.”

“Is it not possible they brought it from beyond the pass?”

“It is not. I found this silver in a corner of a hidden room — five ingots in total, lined up neatly against the wall. From the marks on the floor, a considerable amount of silver had once been stored there. These five may have been left behind by accident.”

Hua Zhi understood. “If the silver were brought from beyond the pass, it would inevitably get knocked about along the way — and there would be no reason to bring it in that form. Which means the place where they are smelting the silver could very well be right here in Yuzhou.”

“I left men there to continue investigating. The prospects are not great, though — they are not foolish enough to sit and wait for me to come dismantle their operation.”

The two returned inside. “What did His Majesty say?”

“Investigate.”

“…” Hua Zhi was fairly certain she was wearing the expression of a dead fish at that moment, which must have been what amused the man across from her. She did not even want to look at him.

Gu Yanxi held back his laughter — barely — and immediately laid out his plan. “I intend to establish the mushroom trade in Yuzhou first.”

Hua Zhi gave a dismissive sound. “You don’t need to consult me on that.”

“If it were an ordinary business venture, a steward would be more than enough. But I would like to borrow A’Zhi’s mind to help flush their fox tail out into the open.”

“You believe in me even more than I believe in myself.” With actual business to discuss, Hua Zhi could hardly continue being petulant. She thought through the possibilities. “It is not impossible. But a single trade venture may not carry enough weight. The most effective way to force someone out is to cut off their source of income — but before that, you need to have identified a general direction first. There are so many trades; I cannot possibly insert myself into all of them. I do not have enough people.”

Gu Yanxi smiled. Not that she lacked the ability — only that she lacked the people. And she still called that a lack of faith in herself? Though A’Zhi did indeed have the standing to say such a thing. Her several business ventures combined could be called a daily goldmine, and that was putting it modestly.

“I will identify a general direction. I will also provide you with people — there are indeed quite a few idle hands at the estate.”

Hua Zhi, who had long been short-staffed and was increasingly feeling the strain, ground her teeth. “Saying it like that makes me feel you are showing off.”

Gu Yanxi could not hold back his laughter this time. He laughed while explaining himself. “Those people were all left by my mother. At the time, just the household-born servants in the Lu family’s dowry numbered twenty-four families — and that is only what was declared openly. There were also a good number of people on the several estates that came with the dowry. In later years, my mother — for reasons I am not sure of, though she may have been planning to send a similarly generous dowry for Shao Yao one day — took in a fair few more. These past few years I have been stretched too thin. I shut down the shops that were not turning much profit, and I have no need for many attendants myself — so quite a few people ended up without much to do.”

This was what it meant to be a household of great wealth and standing.

The Lu family’s generosity in marrying off a daughter was truly extraordinary. Each household of servants, small families had two or three members, larger ones seven or eight, and altogether the number rose to the hundreds. Then there were the people on the estates — those that even Yanxi called numerous — and even estimated conservatively, the count was surely upward of three hundred. For the first time, Hua Zhi truly grasped just how wealthy this man she had become entangled with really was.