Hua Zhi had commissioned several steamers and similar equipment. Since these were items that had never existed before, their production had taken some time. Her method of testing them was blunt and straightforward — she had a fish killed, set in the steamer, and timed the process. When it was brought out, she drizzled it with a dipping sauce Fu Dong had prepared, then picked up a pair of chopsticks and took a bite. Hmm. Left in a touch too long — the flesh wasn’t tender enough.

She set down the bones and her chopsticks. “Have a taste, all of you.”

Fu Dong tried first and said exactly what her mistress had been thinking: “The meat’s gone tough.”

“Start over. Light the incense stick.”

Burning an incense stick allowed the timing to be measured with greater precision. Once established, this would become the standard for steaming fish going forward — it would also spare the newly appointed cooks from having to repeatedly lift the lid to check whether the fish was done.

When it came to cooking, Hua Zhi had a clear sense of her own abilities — she could cook, but compared to actually doing it, she was far better at directing and tasting. Simple dishes were manageable enough, but getting fish right took real skill. She put herself through three rounds of attempts before the result finally met the standard.

“Seafood from the ocean is different from the freshwater fish we’re used to. The old ways of judging don’t apply here.” She turned to Fu Dong. “Can you step back from the Food Studio now?”

“I’ve taught the kitchen staff everything that needed teaching — it should be fine. I’ll keep Liu Juan stationed there.”

Hua Zhi remembered Liu Juan — the young girl at the estate who had nearly been violated. “You think highly of her?”

Fu Dong nodded, making no effort to hide her fondness. “She has a naturally keen sense of smell, and she puts in the effort to think things through on her own. She still has some way to go before she can hold her own independently, though.”

“Then let her be properly tested. It’ll do her good — and you’ll have someone to lean on.”

Fu Dong bit her lip. If Liu Juan could one day stand on her own — would that mean she would be able to return to her mistress’s side?

For several days running, Hua Zhi devoted herself to Hai Wei — teaching the staff how to handle each type of seafood, walking them through each dish on the hand-written recipes she had prepared, explaining how to make them, with Fu Dong stepping in alongside to offer guidance. Once the knack was found, understanding spread from one thing to many — the staff took to it quickly. What actually took longer for them to come to terms with was the revelation that the First Young Miss herself knew how to cook.

Gu Yanxi continued to come to the Hua household for dinner each evening, sharing news from the court without any attempt at concealment. Through him, Hua Zhi learned that the matter of the grain stores — whose cover she had helped strip away — had been fully exposed, and the situation was far more severe than she had estimated. The Emperor, in a fury, dispatched an Imperial Envoy to take charge of the investigation. This crisis also provided the opening needed to resolve a long-contested debate: the purchase of grain from the Yan Kingdom was approved, and the Left Vice Minister of Finance was sent to negotiate the matter.

“Xie Jin had his eye on the merit to be gained from this mission and lobbied extensively for a place in the delegation — only to have your grandfather strike his name from the list with a single stroke of his brush.”

Hua Zhi’s opinion of Xie Jin was thoroughly poor, and this prompted her mind to run ahead: “Will he try to pull some kind of move in retaliation?”

Gu Yanxi smiled. “Zhu Daren has held his position at court for many years — do you think a man like that is easily trifled with? He’s probably hoping Xie Jin will do exactly that, so he has proper grounds to deal with him. As for the marriage proposal — I’ve looked into it. Xie Jin deliberately let the suggestion slip to Qin Li.”

“Qin Li is the elder brother of Concubine Qin in your household.”

“He has someone backing him?”

“Nothing escapes you.” Gu Yanxi pinched Hua Zhi’s cheek, then continued in his most forthright tone, “It’s the Feng Family. His first wife was from a branch of the Feng clan — without that kind of backing, how could he have risen to the fifth rank in just a few years?”

Hua Zhi rubbed her cheek. Apart from ears that had gone faintly red, she seemed entirely unbothered. “His first wife’s family had him seek a remarriage into the Hua Family as his second wife?”

“That’s roughly the shape of it.”

What an absurd piece of insolence — a new way to humiliate and trample someone while they were already down. One had to wonder at the sheer fixation behind repeatedly targeting the Hua Family’s daughters. Hua Zhi pressed down her temper and asked, “What does the Feng Family actually want? Is it purely to humiliate the Hua Family?”

Gu Yanxi unfolded her clenched fingers one by one. “Because the Hua Family, with you at its helm, has refused to crumble the way they expected. Because they can see that the Hua Family will not become the next He Family. All they can do now is stomp as hard as they can while you’re still vulnerable — it doesn’t matter how they do it, only how much damage they can inflict. With the enmity between your two families already well established, what’s a little more to them?”

Hua Zhi’s expression turned cold as frost. Because it was nothing to them — because it was so trifling to them — they had coaxed that foolish Hua Yan into throwing her entire life away.

“The capital has never lacked for people like that. The He Family in their day was said to be broadly well-connected, and those connections did shield their womenfolk in the end — yet what became of them afterward? Were they not still hounded until they had no foothold left? With you to protect the Hua Family, you will not fall to the He Family’s fate. People like that are not worth letting yourself be troubled over.”

But in that other lifetime — the one before she arrived — those same people might have pressed the Hua Family in exactly the same way, step by relentless step. Hua Zhi closed her eyes and slowly, deliberately worked the heat of her fury back down until, when she opened her eyes again, the familiar calm had returned. “Has Hao Yue been up to anything?”

“She’s found reasons to see Chen Qing a few times, but what they’ve spoken of has been of no real significance. She may not know very much at this point.”

Hua Zhi pressed her fingers to her temple. There was simply too much crowding her mind — even her head was beginning to ache from the pressure of it all.

Gu Yanxi rose and moved to stand behind her, guiding her to rest against him, his large hands settling gently over her temples. The tenderness in his voice was undisguised. “Rest for a moment. Even if someone were plotting to bring down our Great Qing, it is not something that can be accomplished in a matter of days. We still have time.”

Hua Zhi’s lips curved upward. She closed her eyes and let herself sink into this brief, quiet moment of closeness.

Two days after the Autumn Imperial Examinations concluded, Hai Wei opened its doors.

Hua Zhi had been as good as her word. She had Chen Liang post notices in Green Moss Lane and Oriole Cloud Lane. On the opening day, the signboard was hung, its red silk wrapping pulled away, a string of firecrackers set off — and that was the entirety of the ceremony.

She had never doubted for a moment that this venture would thrive. And indeed, there was no reason to doubt it.

The firecracker smoke had barely thinned before another round of crackers erupted. Hua Zhi assumed it was simply the tail end of the first string, but then Bao Xia came sprinting in. “Miss, Young Master Liu, Young Master Peng, and Young Master Qi have arrived — they were the ones who set those off!”

Hua Zhi’s brow arched. “The three young gentlemen from the docks?”

“Yes.”

To arrive this early, and to bring their own firecrackers — they had come to lend her their presence for the opening. Was this the goodwill she had cultivated with cured meat? Hua Zhi couldn’t help but laugh. With people who loved food, the truest way to build a bond was through food itself.

Xu Biao showed the three gentlemen up to the second floor and attended to them with fine tea and water. Without waiting for them to even look at the menu, a plate of fried yellow croaker was set before them — crisp and fragrant — and the trio’s half-hearted intentions of being moral support evaporated on the spot. Order. Order. Order!

Afterward came Jiang Huanran, bringing a group of friends; Cai Zhiming arrived with his fellow students. The Lu Family, the Zhu Family, and other households close to the Hua Family all sent younger members to attend. Just these guests alone had filled nearly half of the second floor.

Then came the examination candidates who had heard the news. Having weathered nine days and seven nights of the examinations, they knew all too well how much that basketful of provisions the First Young Miss had arranged had meant to them. At the time, it had not seemed like much — yet in those grueling days, they had been genuinely, deeply grateful for it.

Give a peach, and receive a plum in return. Today was the First Young Miss’s grand opening, and of course they had come to show their support.

When Hua Zhi counted it up, wave after wave of guests — and every single one of them was connected to her by some thread of personal favor. The realization left her equal parts amused and moved. They were sheltering her in their own way, even though she had no need of it. But the feeling behind it — that, she would accept with her whole heart.

“Tell Xu Biao that today everything is half price.”

“Yes.”