Upon hearing this, Ding Shi suddenly realized that Nanny Tian had indeed not come along. This wretched girl had harbored such cunning all along — she had planned from the very beginning to use the threat of reporting to the authorities as her lever against Su Hongmeng.

At that very moment, Su Hongmeng, having weighed the costs and benefits, also slammed his hand down on the table: “Enough! It is only a shop she wants — must you kick up such an unreasonable fuss! Dragging your mother into it at every turn — at this rate you will have the coffin lid rattled to splinters… I will have the accounts office bring you the deed afterward. But from that point on, do not come back to the household every few days asking for your monthly allowance. You have earned your own money — go and keep yourself on it.”

Ding Pei had not expected Su Hongmeng to concede so easily without consulting her first, and in her agitation she shot him a frantic look.

But Su Hongmeng raised his teacup and refused to glance her way.

In his heart, what vexed him most was Ding Shi herself. Did she truly think he did not know whose instructions that manservant had been acting on?

His muddling through all of this was for her sake — to preserve her dignity.

The Su family was no small household. Was there any need to scheme so elaborately against a blind daughter? When all was said and done, Su Luoyun was his daughter too. Having already promised her a share of the profits, what need was there to resort to such sordid means to go back on his word?

Instead, Ding Shi, without consulting him, had gone and provoked the little tyrant, stirring up trouble for him out of nothing. If it truly came to a public hearing… he would be the laughingstock of the entire capital.

All of this because someone had nothing better to do on a full stomach.

Did she not know Su Luoyun’s nature? Once that stubborn girl made up her mind, she would run down a single road all the way to the bitter end. When she said she would go to the authorities, it was no empty threat. Su Hongmeng was a man who valued his reputation — he absolutely could not let household disgrace be dragged beyond the front gate.

Moreover, Su Luoyun’s invocation of Hu Shi’s curse had truly made Su Hongmeng’s heart shudder. Before his eyes, unbidden, rose the image of Hu Shi in her final illness — barely clinging to life, spitting blood, her eyes fixed unblinking upon him, forbidding him to mistreat her two children.

Weighing one thing against the other, Su Hongmeng decided that paying the price of a shop to be rid of this little troublemaker was the most advantageous course.

Su Luoyun knew that once she was gone, Ding Shi would blow her pillow-side winds into her father’s ear and he might well change his mind. So she struck while the iron was hot, refusing to leave at once, and instead had her father summon someone on the spot to alter the deed, then had it sent to the government office to be stamped and thumbprinted.

Additionally, her father sent the shop’s original guild placard to the head of the Fragrance Guild, asking him to have it changed into Su Luoyun’s name and registered in the records. From this point on, Su Luoyun would be free to open her own fragrance shop in the capital.

Xiangcao had been poisoned — though not gravely — and deserved a sum of compensation to supplement her recovery with nourishing remedies.

This too was entirely reasonable. Su Hongmeng, his expression dark, turned the five taels of stolen silver directly over to Xiangcao as restitution.

Su Luoyun appeared to have won a complete victory, yet in her heart she was still disappointed. She had thought that with her father present, she might strip away Ding Shi’s hypocritical facade entirely.

But now she understood: her father was one who wore bewilderment on the surface while being perfectly clear within. It was plain to see that when a person’s heart is already tilted to one side, he will not look at right and wrong for what they are.

In truth, Su Luoyun had never genuinely intended to go before the magistrate. The head of the Su household was Su Hongmeng. She was an unmarried daughter who had not yet separated from the family — if Su Hongmeng chose to invoke his authority as owner of Shouwei Pavilion and request that the case be withdrawn and settled privately, she would have no recourse. Even if she truly went to court to seek justice for herself and Xiangcao, a father stripped of all dignity and face would likely have no further restraint. At that point, having lost his leverage, her father would only turn all his resentment upon her for exposing the family’s disgrace to the outside world.

So despite the disappointment in her heart, Su Luoyun could only take the measure of her father’s character and do her best to reclaim some measure of justice for herself and Xiangcao.

That said, Su Hongmeng was an old fox who had spent years in commerce, and faced with his own young fox of a daughter, he too kept something in reserve.

The shop he gave to Su Luoyun was indeed in a prime location in the southern part of the city — but the shop had once suffered a fire and had not yet been repaired, having sat abandoned for half a year.

Su Hongmeng set great store by geomancy; after having a feng shui master assess the property and determining that it held no fortune for him, he had shuttered it and put it up for sale. But because the asking price was inflated and the renovation after the fire had been perfunctory and neglected, the place had fallen into some disrepair and attracted no buyers all this while.

Even in handing this shop over as payment in lieu of profits, Su Hongmeng could not be said to be taking a loss.

After all, the new balm was already sweeping through the capital, with sales flowing steadily upward. If one calculated carefully, it was still Su Luoyun who had come away short.

Yet even knowing afterward the petty tricks her father had played, Su Luoyun did not trouble herself over this momentary gain or loss. The theft of the recipe had served as a warning — Shouwei Pavilion was now under the management of Ding Pei.

Even if she could guard against the first of the month, she could not watch over the fifteenth.

Since that was the case, it was better to seize this opportunity, make a grand scene, and start fresh — open a shop of her own. It did not matter that the shop was run-down. What truly mattered was having her name entered into the Guild Registry.

She had only the modest fields her mother had left behind, which were not enough to live on in comfort and independence. She had no choice but to learn to find new sources of income and build a business from scratch.

As for the stolen recipe — that was of no consequence. If she had been able to blend the Pale Pear Balm, she could blend something even better.

Only, this undertaking required her father’s consent, to spare her from bearing the name of an ingrate who had bitten the hand that fed her by setting up a rival enterprise. Now that the shop had been transferred into her hands, it meant Su Hongmeng had given his blessing. She felt as though even the wind that met her as she walked was clean and unobstructed.

Just as the Abbess Yongjing had once told her: when a person has a goal before them, every day holds something to strive toward, and there is no time left for self-pity.

As for Ding Pei — after Su Luoyun’s departure, she naturally faced Su Hongmeng’s questioning.

Su Hongmeng made himself plain: there was no one else present, so she need not try to deceive him with claims of ignorance. He had walked the world for many years and was no simpleton — he would not be made a fool of.

Ding Pei threw herself at Su Hongmeng’s feet and wept, saying only that she had been incompetent — she had not seen through Wang San’s treacherous intentions.

The truth was that after stealing the recipe, Wang San had first brought it to her. She had had the shop’s assistants prepare it, and found it to be indeed a fine fragrance, so she had rewarded Wang San with five taels of silver. She had known afterward that the recipe had not come by honest means — she had assumed the boy had simply copied it down on the sly. But as for his drugging Xiangcao — of that she had been utterly unaware.

Moreover, everything she had done, she had done with the Su family’s interests at heart. When she had first given herself to him, she had asked for nothing in return — she had only ever felt that he treated her better than her own parents ever had. In all these years, had she ever done a single thing that wronged the master? Even buying the recipe had been for the sake of Shouwei Pavilion’s business — there had been not a trace of self-interest in it.

She was a woman — how could she have thought up schemes like that? Simply hearing of such things made her frightened. If the master felt she was incompetent, she was willing to hand over all her responsibilities and never concern herself with these matters again.

With these reminiscences of the past, Su Hongmeng’s heart softened. He told himself he knew this woman who shared his bed — these schemes of drugging and deceiving people were indeed not something that the fragile Ding Shi would have been capable of.

Besides, the recipe had ultimately not leaked outside the family. Ding Shi’s account books were presentable — profits were three times what they had been before — and her heart had always been turned toward him.

It was rather that she had harbored a treacherous person in her service, and had been led astray by Wang San into this foolish affair.

When all was said and done, this commotion had actually done Shouwei Pavilion no small amount of good. Su Hongmeng’s anger subsided, and he said coolly that she must not be so self-willed again in future — as a woman with limited experience, she was bound to be taken advantage of by others; it was far safer to discuss such matters with her husband first.

Seeing Su Hongmeng’s tone soften, Ding Pei was in no position to press him further about recovering Su Luoyun’s shop. She coaxed him tenderly for a while, and the two of them retired together beneath the bedcovers.

As for Wang San, Su Hongmeng had no intention of keeping him in the Su household. He instructed Ding Pei to find a broker and have him sold far away to the northwest to tend sheep. Out there, people could barely afford food — his knowledge of a fragrance recipe would not even be worth three steamed buns. Let him leak it all he wished — it would come to nothing.

Ding Shi agreed readily. As to how Wang San was actually handled thereafter, nothing further was known.

Although Ding Pei had been given quite a fright by Su Luoyun’s uproar, she had come through it without real damage. Now that she managed the shop, a little adjustment to the accounts allowed her to quietly set aside a considerable sum for herself.

With the recipe selling briskly, she naturally felt these days of flowing fat to be most comfortable indeed.

But before many days had passed, the Moistening Snow Fragrance Balm began to lose its momentum and gradually stopped selling. She sent someone to investigate, and learned that several rival fragrance shops in the capital had begun selling similar balms of their own.

Their names were all different — some called it Bone-Penetrating Fragrance, others called it Pear-Blossom Intoxication. But whatever the name, when compared side by side, they were all identical.

It was plain that Shouwei Pavilion’s fragrance recipe had leaked to the outside. Su Hongmeng was so furious he snapped his water-pipe, and demanded of Ding Pei to know where exactly Wang San was now.

Ding Pei insisted stubbornly that Wang San had been sold to a far-off place and could absolutely not have leaked the recipe. So Su Hongmeng summoned Su Luoyun next.

Su Luoyun returned the question with perfect innocence: “Surely Father does not think I could have given away a recipe I worked so hard to develop to some outside household? Perhaps it is the shop’s own assistants who are unreliable. If you wish, Father, you could interrogate them one by one.”

Su Hongmeng was left thoroughly at a loss for words by this. He vented his irritation with a few sharp rebukes, reiterated that he would not be providing the siblings with any monthly allowance, then waved Su Luoyun away.

As Su Luoyun walked out of the Su family’s great residence, she exhaled a long, contented breath — for the recipe had indeed been leaked deliberately by her own hand.

Ding Pei wanted to use her recipe to line her pockets? What a pleasant dream that had been.

The Su Luoyun of former days would never have done such a thing. But as people grow older, they inevitably learn a few unsavory tricks along the way. Burning bridges after crossing them was the Su family’s supreme art — she had studied it on the spot and applied it fresh, and managed to learn at least a third of its craft.

Now the scent of pears drifted through the entire capital, and at last no one needed to covet anyone else’s secrets anymore.

As for the matter of their elder sister opening a shop of her own, even Su Guiyan had her misgivings.

She felt that her elder sister had just spent her own silver to repair a rundown courtyard, and had now taken on a shop that had sat abandoned for many days with unfortunate feng shui to boot. With money going out in this unbroken stream, she feared the days ahead would be hard.

Su Luoyun only smiled: “Do not worry. Even if your elder sister were reduced to begging, she would still make sure Yan’er had meat at every meal.”

Su Guiyan lifted her head and said: “Elder Sister, it is I who am useless. When I have finished my studies one day, whatever Elder Sister wants, I will be able to buy it…”

Just as she was speaking, there came a knock at the courtyard gate. It was a servant from the neighboring estate — the household of the Beizhen Shizi — come to deliver several boxes of tonics.

It seemed the young lord felt considerable remorse over injuring his neighbor in the collision, and had once again sent people with nourishing remedies.

Perhaps aware of his own unsavory reputation and wishing to avoid casting any shadow over a young lady’s virtue, the manservant delivering the gifts repeatedly insisted that the Shizi had taken an immediate liking to Young Master Su at their first meeting, and knowing that the young master was in the midst of his studies preparing for examinations, had sent these tonics to strengthen his constitution — he hoped the young master would not find them too modest a gift.

But the tonics that had been sent were all gastrodia root, black bear bile powder, and cassia seeds.

Anyone with even a passing knowledge of medicine would know that these were remedies for headaches and for clearing the liver and brightening the eyes. Even without a word being said, one could guess well enough as to whom these things were truly meant for.