They played a while longer before Hua Zhi took her leave first. Yu Weiwi took over her seat and continued playing, chatting with Wang Yu all the while, easing her doubts with a mixture of jest and sincerity. Some things were not more useful simply because more people knew of them.

In the carriage, Hua Zhi lifted a corner of the curtain. “Are we being followed?”

“No, miss. I have been watching the entire time.”

Hua Zhi let out a quiet breath. No tail meant the other side had not grown suspicious of her and Yu Weiwi. She herself had armed guards around her — but Yu Weiwi did not.

She drew the tightly folded slip of paper from inside her robe. Shao Yao asked in surprise, “Yu Weiwi gave you that?”

“Yes. She didn’t trust the owner of that house, so she said nothing of substance.” As she spoke, Hua Zhi unfolded the note. The characters were hasty and irregular, written in charcoal — clearly not composed under normal circumstances.

Shao Yao had no fondness for reading; the sight of characters made her head swim. She did not lean in to look, and only asked, “What does it say?”

“Six unfamiliar faces have appeared in the Yu household. Qi Qiu could not produce their bond contracts, so she used that as grounds to make a scene and lock him up. She also went to the Zeng family to cause a commotion — to keep Zeng Xiangling from growing suspicious, and to give him no grounds to interfere in the Yu household’s affairs.”

Hua Zhi closed the note, one finger idly tracing her chin in thought. Shao Yao could see she was working something through, so she left her to it.

When they returned home, Hua Zhi found Yanxi absent. She looked up in mild puzzlement. “Where has your master gone?”

The guard Wang Hai, who had been left behind to relay messages, answered: “Some men below turned up a lead. The master went to investigate.”

“Did he say when he would be back?”

“He may need until tomorrow. The place he has gone to is a county town under Jinyang’s jurisdiction, some hundred and forty li from here.”

Yet that very same evening, Gu Yanxi returned. Still covered in the dust of the road, paying no mind to the late hour, he went directly to A’Zhi’s room.

Hua Zhi was dressed in loose house clothes. When she saw him she quickly stood. “Weren’t you supposed to be back tomorrow? You haven’t eaten yet, have you? Bao Xia — isn’t there a soup on the brazier? Bring some over first, and warm up some food and dishes.”

Gu Yanxi drained two full cups of water before his thirst began to ease. “The men below found people spending silver coins of poor quality. At first they only thought someone had been tampered with — filing the silver, shaving the edges. But after tracing it further, they found the silver had come from a commoner, utterly destitute, and that several other people in the area were spending similar coins. Their one thing in common: they all worked at the same quarry.”

“Don’t rush.” Hua Zhi moved quickly, took the soup from Bao Xia’s hands, blew on it, and handed it to him. “Have this first.”

Several hundred li there and back, not a drop of water, not a grain of food — Gu Yanxi was truly famished. He drank the soup down in one go, and warmth finally began to spread through him.

Hua Zhi was not idle either. She poured some hot water into a basin and laid her own face cloth inside it. “If you don’t mind, use my cloth to wash your face. Why didn’t you rest there and come back tomorrow? It wouldn’t have made any difference to anything.”

Gu Yanxi wrung out the cloth and pressed it against his face. A faint fragrance drifted from it, subtle and elusive. He could not help but let the corners of his mouth curve upward. If he had not come back, he would never have had the chance to wash his face with A’Zhi’s cloth. Spoken aloud that would sound absurdly sentimental — yet the truth was he had ridden through the night simply because he had wanted to see A’Zhi.

Hua Zhi poured out two more cups of hot tea and cradled hers, turning the matter over in her mind.

“The quarry is real enough. If the men below had not been thorough and slipped inside to investigate, the whole thing might have been successfully concealed.” Gu Yanxi picked up his tea cup and took a sip. He looked up. “The quarry is only a front. Inside is a silver mine.”

“A silver mine?” Hua Zhi immediately seized on the key point. “Zeng Xiangling’s?”

Gu Yanxi shook his head. “Not on the surface. Whether it truly belongs to Zeng Xiangling is still being investigated.”

Hua Zhi suddenly thought of the note Yu Weiwi had given her. Something stirred in her, and she rose, retrieved the note, and handed it to Yanxi.

Gu Yanxi’s brow furrowed. “She was looking at a map?”

“Yes. Why would Qi Qiu be looking at a map of Jinyang? I’ve been thinking it over and could make nothing of it. But if this silver mine has any connection to their operation, could his reason for studying the map have something to do with this?”

“Moving the silver?”

“Or mapping out the route to transport it away.” Hua Zhi turned her tea cup slowly between her palms. “How long has the silver mine been operating?”

“From what was gathered locally, it seems to have started in the early part of last year.”

“Yu Weiwi said her father fell ill in the fourth month. Before that, he had gone out with Zeng Xiangling for several days.” The more Hua Zhi followed this line of thought, the more it seemed plausible. This would explain why Zeng Xiangling would move against his own maternal uncle — the stakes were high enough to corrupt a person’s conscience.

Gu Yanxi had evidently reached the same conclusion. “Once we confirm who is behind this silver mine, we will know whether that is the case. Don’t make contact with Yu Weiwi too frequently. If a silver mine truly is involved — especially now that Qi Qiu has been locked up by Yu Weiwi — they will likely have people watching the Yu household.”

“Understood.”

Bao Xia came in carrying a tray of food. Hua Zhi immediately set down her thoughts and helped set out the dishes. Gu Yanxi had barely lifted his chopsticks when a head poked in at the door.

“I was almost asleep, and the smell woke me right up.”

Bao Xia couldn’t help it — a laugh escaped her. She quickly covered her mouth and turned away. Shao Yao and her devotion to food was really something — she had eaten so much at dinner, and now here she was, eyes fixed on the table and unable to look away.

“Either come in and sit down, or go back to your room. Don’t stand there in the night air without even a cloak on.” Hua Zhi shot her a look. “And don’t even think about the food — you’ll end up with indigestion.”

“Yanxi-ge eats it and he won’t get indigestion,” Shao Yao muttered under her breath. Seeing there was no food coming her way, she turned and went back to her room. The smell without the eating — Huahua was too cruel.

Hua Zhi pretended she hadn’t heard a word. If she indulged her, she’d end up sneaking off to take digestive medicine before long.

“Eat while it’s warm.” Hua Zhi picked up her chopsticks and served Yanxi some dishes. “When we’re back, I’ll have them prepare some dried meat to bring along for you. Carry it with you when you go out — stop letting yourself go hungry. Your stomach will give out.”

“All right.”

“That was quick to agree.” Hua Zhi gave him a look of mild reproach, yet there was no real way to fault him for not taking care of himself. With an upbringing like his, he likely had never been taught what it meant to look after oneself.

One person serving quietly, the other eating without lifting his head — the atmosphere between them was so comfortable it felt as though they had been living this way for years. Even Bao Xia could not find it in herself to remind her mistress that men and women ought to keep proper distance. These moments happened so often she had almost grown used to them.

“I’m afraid my savings are going to be spent bare.” After dinner, Hua Zhi made no move to send him away, and they sat talking of ordinary things. “But if it means the Emperor thinks a little less harshly of me, it’s worth it.”

“Xiao Liu remembering matters more.”

Who would disagree? One was a setting sun, the other a sunrise still climbing. As long as Xiao Liu remembered what she had sacrificed, the silver would not have been thrown away for nothing.

“By the way — did Chen Qing mention to you that I asked him for some men to put together a merchant convoy and go to the Yan Kingdom to buy grain?”

“I’ve spoken to him. Your instructions are his to carry out. He doesn’t need to report everything to me.”

Hua Zhi tilted her head, eyes dancing with a kind of gentle mischief. “You trust me that much?”

“If not you, then who?”

Remarkable — her man seemed to have unlocked a talent for tender words. Hua Zhi smiled. No wonder women loved to hear sweet things said to them. They really were wonderful to hear.