After that scene, Hua Zhi understood why her eldest male cousin had been more attentive than usual these past two days. Looking back now, he must have already known then that her eldest uncle intended to dissolve the engagement, and had felt a guilty conscience about it.

He saw it plainly — it was her eldest uncle who wanted to withdraw, not otherwise. Without his approval, his wife could stir up no trouble at all, to say nothing of the boldness she had shown today in openly defying her mother-in-law. Her eldest uncle had given her the courage to do it.

Though even if the other party had not raised the matter, she would have eventually found a way to dissolve the engagement herself — still, there was a difference between the other party doing the withdrawing and her eldest uncle holding this attitude. It did genuinely sting, and she could not pretend to feel no estrangement from it.

But then, she had always been closer to her younger uncle. As a merchant’s daughter, it was only natural to deal with merchants. Her eldest uncle was a man of official rank — let him keep company with other officials.

As these thoughts crossed her mind, the doorway darkened and her younger uncle walked in with a face full of smiles. “I must say — from the moment I came through the gate to reaching this room, I lost count of how many people told me the eldest young lady had arrived. Anyone who didn’t know better would think some honored guest had come. Quite the reputation you’ve built, hm.”

“Surely I can’t have come so many times that I’m no longer treated as a guest.” Hua Zhi rose with a bright smile to pay her respects, her tone and manner perfectly at ease.

The Matriarch visibly relaxed at the sight of her. She stood up and said, “Zhi’er, you are not to leave today. Stay and dine with your grandmother — I’ll go tell the kitchen to prepare the vegetarian dishes you like.”

“Yes, as you wish.”

The Matriarch was satisfied and went off, and out of Hua Zhi’s sight she signaled to her second son with a look.

Zhu Hao Dong had no idea what had transpired, but after observing Zhi’er and finding nothing amiss in her manner, he simply kept his wits about him. “Have you been here long?”

“A little while.”

“I thought you were so busy you didn’t even have time to rest — your color does look a little poor.”

Hua Zhi could hardly say that her color was poor because her monthly cycle had come. She took a small neatly bound booklet from Liu Xiang’s hands and passed it to him. “I’ve had some new ideas about the soap business. Have a look first.”

Zhu Hao Dong had already heard her outline it once before, so he made no ceremony of it, opened the booklet and began to read carefully — going very slowly, scrutinizing certain passages almost word by word.

“Better than I expected.”

Hua Zhi raised her eyebrows.

Zhu Hao Dong smiled. “I thought that after you took the business back, you’d give us a little broth at most. But from the looks of this, we’ll still be getting a proper bite of meat.”

“Of course — if what I’m proposing now weren’t going to bring you greater profits than before, I wouldn’t have taken it back in the first place. And you haven’t forgotten, Uncle, that I still hold a share in this business. Besides, there’s still the matter of General Zhou’s side — that will need you to go and smooth things over.”

“Don’t worry — Zhou’s family won’t object to a good thing like this.” Zhu Hao Dong was confident. They had already tasted the profits and knew how substantial they were. As it stood, with just the capital alone they could barely keep up with demand — and they still imagined swallowing all of the nine provinces? This was a consumable product: once used, it needed to be purchased again. They had already expanded their workshop once, and even so it still seemed far too small. If they truly scaled up as Zhi’er described, even a single tenth share among each of the three families would not be insignificant.

Still — “If other regions are divided up the same way, the interests being distributed would not be a small portion. Will the Emperor agree?”

“Other regions won’t have three families — at most two, to keep each other in check. Distributing two tenths of the profits still leaves the Emperor with eight tenths to himself — what more could he want? And once the business spreads, I intend to sell beyond our borders. The silver that comes back will be real and hard. There’s no need to confine ourselves to what we can see now.”

Zhu Hao Dong was startled. “Sell to other nations? Will the Emperor agree to that?”

“This is hardly a strategic resource — why wouldn’t he?”

That seemed… like a fair point, actually. It wasn’t iron, or grain, or tea. Selling it abroad and bringing silver home — what reason was there to refuse?

Still — “I say, Zhi’er, isn’t your thinking running a little far ahead? You haven’t even finished making money from within our own borders, and already you’re thinking about foreign nations!”

“Best to plan ahead. It’ll happen eventually.”

Zhu Hao Dong wore an expression caught between amusement and bewilderment. “I don’t know why, but when something with no certainty to it at all comes out of your mouth, it always sounds perfectly reasonable.”

“That means what I’m saying is reasonable.”

Uncle and niece exchanged a smile, the air between them utterly in accord. Zhi Niang, whom the Matriarch had deliberately kept behind, finally exhaled in relief and slipped quietly from the room — the Matriarch could rest easy now. The eldest young lady had not grown distant from the Zhu family.

Plans are only as good as their execution, and Hua Zhi was not one to procrastinate. Once word came from General Zhou’s side, a new contract was drawn up and signed by all three parties, and she set about putting things in motion.

She found her younger uncle’s workshop too small and cramped, so she went straight to the Emperor and asked for a large abandoned estate. She had the internal walls opened up where needed, removed what was superfluous, then moved the entire small workshop to the new premises and posted notices recruiting workers. The managers from the two other families remained in their posts, and she seconded one of the Hua family’s own people to join them, leaving the three to manage operations from there.

How the three of them worked out their arrangement was none of her concern. If she had to manage even something like that herself, what was the point of having managers at all.

As soon as she made her attitude clear, the three actually fell into step with each other quite quickly. Each carved out their own responsibilities and got the workshop running in a remarkably short span of time.

Meanwhile, in the court, the proposal to establish a seventh ministry landed like water hitting a pan of hot oil — the entire court burst into uproar. Salt taxation had always fallen under the Finance Ministry, and Zhu Bowen, who was effectively being stripped of authority, chose to remain silent; naturally, everyone else threw their weight behind the proposal with great enthusiasm. One new ministry meant a whole new array of official posts — from top to bottom, everyone scrambled to insert their own people, locked in a contest of strength so fierce their arms might have snapped off, yet every one of them energized to the hilt.

The Emperor held still for several days, and when they had already hammered out the broad strokes among themselves, he immediately put the matter of transport and logistics on the table as well — plainly intending to resolve both issues in one stroke. A host of military officials, who had previously stood apart from the fray, found themselves drawn in one by one — some willingly, some otherwise — once word spread that these posts would go to men of martial rank. For days on end the court was in extraordinary tumult.

The weather grew colder by the day, but the matter was still far from settled. Yet Hua Zhi had already begun turning her thoughts toward the journey to the Northern Territories.

Gu Yanxi was not entirely in favor of it. “It grows colder with every passing day — why put yourself through such hardship? Wouldn’t it be better to wait until after the new year?”

“I want to return before the anniversary of my grandmother’s death. The north stays cold for a long time — even setting out in the third month the weather is still frigid. Better to go early.” Hua Zhi took hold of his ice-cold fingertips. Those injuries she’d sustained had never quite healed, and the colder it grew, the colder her hands became.

“I’ll have a word with Grandfather — I won’t make the trip in the first half of next year. I’ll go in the second half, then again around the fourth month of the year after, and once more in the tenth month. Adjust the timing to avoid the coldest spells.” As she spoke, Hua Zhi smiled. “And by the year after next, they may all have come back — then I wouldn’t need to go at all.”

“Who can say what the future holds — anything is possible.” Gu Yanxi folded her hands together within his palms, and as had happened before, he frowned at the unnaturally low temperature of her skin. “Let me have Shao Yao come and see you again.”

“She only left a few days ago — don’t trouble her. Didn’t you say the Emperor had also caught a chill? My condition isn’t something that improves quickly. I’ll follow what she prescribed and keep to the regimen.”

Gu Yanxi still frowned, but in the end said nothing more.