Su Luoyun did not wish to accept the gifts, but the manservant said that if Young Master Su did not want them, he was welcome to sell them — the Shizi’s household had no custom of taking back gifts once they had been sent out.

With that, the manservant turned and left.

Nanny Tian was somewhat uneasy. Her young mistress’s appearance was far too striking, and she was living apart from her father’s household without protection — it would not be surprising if that dissolute young lord had taken notice and was using this as a pretext to entangle himself with her.

But over the following days, not another word came from the Beizhen Shizi’s estate, and no one came to disturb them.

It seemed the young lord had truly meant only to offer his condolences to the injured party. From this, it appeared that for all his rakish ways, he was at least a reasonable man — not the overbearing sort.

Su Luoyun subsequently sent someone to return the medicines. But the manservant she dispatched was brushed off in a few words by the estate’s steward and sent back empty-handed.

And on the several occasions she went out, she did not encounter the Shizi’s carriage. She let the matter rest from that point on.

If she returned the gifts and provoked the Shizi’s displeasure, she would only create more entanglement. Better to sell them all and count it as compensation from the young lord for her medicine and suffering.

Besides, she was genuinely short of money now. Repairing that shop was going to be costly.

So the entire sets of tonics were taken to the pawnshop without exception and exchanged for silver notes — and yet, even so, it was not enough.

Su Luoyun worked the abacus herself, with Xiangcao helping to keep the accounts. She knew that to put the shop to use, including the initial cost of materials, equipment, and hiring artisans and assistants, would require at minimum fifty taels of silver.

Her ready cash on hand was thin. Though Xiangcao offered to give every last copper of her compensation — five taels — to her young mistress first without spending a cent, Su Luoyun smiled bitterly and gently refused.

If an employer had to use her maid’s money to run a business, she might as well learn from the Beizhen Shizi next door and take a copper basin out to the street to beg.

Su Luoyun’s dowry consisted of the modest fields her mother had left behind; the tenant rent was only collected at the year’s end. At this lean time between harvests, nearly all the money she had been able to draw upon had been spent, and her father had made it plain that he would no longer provide her monthly allowance. Not only had her own allowance been cut off — her younger brother’s had been stopped as well.

Su Luoyun understood: her father intended to make her bow her head, admit fault, and then, like her mother before her, quietly return to blending recipes for Shouwei Pavilion.

But having made such a scene, she would never bow her head.

With this in mind, and with Xiangcao’s help, Su Luoyun carved a small piece from the ambergris that Princess Yuyang had left in her keeping, placed it in a small bronze roasting pan, and began blending in various fragrances.

The Prince Consort’s birthday was drawing near, and the Princess had told her earlier that she hoped Su Luoyun could blend a fragrance suited to the Prince Consort.

Su Luoyun understood clearly: only if this fragrance turned out well would her strained purse have any hope of recovery. Whether her younger brother ate meat at every meal or grazed on grass depended entirely on this one effort.

This time, what she was blending was no longer a sweet fragrance.

According to what Lu Lingxiu had told her, Princess Yuyang’s Prince Consort, Zhao Dong, was of a military background. In his youth, his striking bearing had caught the Princess’s eye at a single glance.

At that time he had already had a wife, yet the Princess was adamant in her wish to marry down to him. Prince Consort Zhao Dong was a man of iron backbone — he had withstood the Empress’s pressure and refused to divorce his wife to the last. But Princess Yuyang too was the kind to run down one road all the way to the bitter end. If he would not marry her, then she would simply wait.

In the end she waited long enough to see Zhao Dong’s wife die in childbirth. Three years after becoming a widower, Zhao Dong finally relented and married the Princess, who by then was nearing thirty.

But the warmth or coldness of their married life was known only to themselves. Everyone in the capital knew that the Princess, ordinarily so proud and imperious, was as gentle and yielding as a little cat before the Prince Consort. Even after twenty years of marriage, she still tread carefully at every turn to please him, deferring to him with a humility that was scarcely befitting a princess of the realm.

When Su Luoyun had been at the Princess’s residence, the steward had confided in her privately: the Prince Consort suffered from a condition of excessive sweating — even seated perfectly still, he perspired heavily, carrying with him a distinct masculine odor. The Princess feared this might embarrass him in the Emperor’s presence, and so wished to have a fragrance blended for him to mask the smell.

But the Prince Consort thoroughly disliked the sort of powdery, cosmetic scent associated with women’s rouge and toiletries. The Princess had been unable to find anything suitable, which was why she had thought to ask the blind daughter of the Su family to blend something more distinctive.

Hearing the steward say all this, Su Luoyun finally understood what a thorny problem she had taken on.

While the noble young men of the Great Wei had a custom of wearing powder and cosmetics, there were also plenty of men who detested fragrance entirely. Among the capital’s sea of soft, powdered, effeminate young men, Prince Consort Zhao Dong was a singular figure — a tall and vigorous man who had never once applied cosmetics or powder.

What sort of fragrance would suit a man like this?

And if the goal was to mask the scent of perspiration, the fragrance would need to be fairly strong — but the Prince Consort disliked that, which meant anything she blended would be useless.

Given all this, Su Luoyun had tried blending several varieties, and none had been satisfactory. She knew well that this opportunity with the Princess came only once; if she could not seize it, she would truly have no choice but to go cut grass from the hillside to feed her younger brother.

On this day as she worked on the fragrance, Su Luoyun discovered she was short of one ingredient: musk.

Since her quarrel with her father, she had to purchase fragrance ingredients out of her own pocket, and it was awkward to buy from Shouwei Pavilion. She had no choice but to go to another shop on the main street.

Unfortunately, in the capital, all the finest fragrances outside of those supplied to the imperial palace were essentially monopolized by the Su family. And the wholesale fragrance market was still a month away from its next market day.

Su Luoyun searched throughout the capital without finding anything satisfactory.

Later, a shop assistant told her: there was a hunter in the outskirts of the capital who had spent years hunting in the northern mountains, and had brought in some sun-dried musk just the day before — all of the finest quality. But his asking price was high and the shop would lose money buying it at that rate, so they had passed. If she wanted quality musk, she could go directly to the old hunter to purchase some.

The Princess’s deadline was pressing, and Su Luoyun did not want to waste any more time. So she had the coachman take her, Xiangcao, and a young manservant to accompany the carriage, and they set out for the village on the outskirts of the capital.

Upon arriving, they finally found the hunter — and discovered a treasure besides. In addition to several fine pieces of musk, the old hunter also had a large freshly harvested wild honeycomb. This sort of wild honeycomb honey often worked wonders in fragrance-making.

So Su Luoyun bought everything outright. By the time she had settled the payment, the sky was still early, but a cool wind carrying moisture had begun to blow, and it felt as though rain was coming. She hurried to start back.

They had covered half the journey, and the city gate was not yet in sight, when the sky opened into a torrential downpour.

Since the beginning of spring, the rains had been unrelenting. Though the carriage had long since been fitted with waterproofed oilcloth, in such a deluge, the muddy country road caked thick with mud around the wheels and the carriage ground to a halt.

The coachman donned his rain cape and went to survey the surroundings, and found a roadside rest shelter for travelers not far ahead. He came back to ask the young mistress whether she wished to go there to shelter from the rain and warm herself by a fire.

Su Luoyun listened to the thunder and lightning and the rain pouring down in sheets, and knew it would not let up any time soon. She took Xiangcao’s arm and stepped down from the carriage with an umbrella.

Fortunately, a few travelers before them had left behind some firewood, along with a flint striker. The coachman lit a fire, brought out a small wooden stool from the carriage for the young mistress to sit on in comfort, then settled with the young manservant under the eaves at the doorway, puffing quietly on a water pipe.

Su Luoyun, with nothing to occupy her, took the two walnuts Xiangcao handed her and began rolling them in her palms. Her head had been injured, and after she first regained consciousness she had often experienced numbness in her hands. A physician had suggested this remedy — regularly rolling walnuts to massage the pressure points in the hands.

She was on her eighty-first rotation when a commotion of carriages and horses suddenly rose outside the shelter.

Beyond the sounds of several men talking, there came the high-pitched laughter of a woman — as startling as a flock of birds taking flight, utterly unbridled.

Before long, several attendants walked inside. Seeing that the shelter was already occupied, they frowned and said: “Some distinguished persons from the capital wish to rest here. We ask that you make way.”

Xiangcao was somewhat indignant upon hearing this: “In this torrential rain, with no village before us and no inn behind us — where are we supposed to go? Besides, we were clearly here first. Why should we give way to you…”

She stopped mid-sentence, her voice dying in her throat — because behind the attendants, the tall figure who entered was none other than Han Linfeng, the Beizhen Shizi.

He was dressed in his customary fine silks and jade-adorned crown, with a rain cape worn over the top, the hem of his robe already soaked.

In all likelihood, this young lord had once again lost himself in pleasure and forgotten to return, and had led a whole party of male and female companions to shelter here from the rain.

Han Shizi also recognized the occupants of the shelter as his charming neighbor, yet he did not step forward to greet her. His brow furrowed deeply, his expression one of distinct displeasure. After a brief silence, he turned to the attendant who had been sent to clear the space and said: “Since there are already people here, let us find somewhere else to shelter from the rain.”

Upon hearing from Xiangcao that the Beizhen Shizi had arrived, Su Luoyun rose quickly to her feet, lowered her head in greeting, and said: “Since the Shizi and his companions have come, I fear we would only be an imposition. We shall give way to you at once.”

So saying, she guided herself by her memory of the door’s location and reached out to take Xiangcao’s hand, walking forward. But she had taken only a few steps when she walked into what seemed like a wall — for Han Linfeng was standing directly in her path.

Being so close, Su Luoyun caught the heavy scent of cosmetic powder on him. Recalling how Xiangcao had described his delicately handsome appearance, she imagined that his fine-featured face was likely dusted thickly with fragrant powder — or perhaps it had simply rubbed off from his female companions.

Han Linfeng looked down at this petite Miss Su. She was retreating in haste, as though from a snake or scorpion.

He said lightly: “Your maid was right — in all things, there is a matter of who arrived first. How could I in good conscience drive you out into the rain? I apologize for the disturbance. I bid you farewell.”

With that, he cast her one long, deep look, then turned to leave.

But Guo Yan, the Shizi of Yong’an Manor, had by now arrived with his newly acquired dancing girl and was pressing forward to get inside.

Seeing Han Linfeng blocking the entrance and refusing to let him through, Lord Guo grumbled in displeasure: “What? Find somewhere else? The rain out there is heavy enough to drown a man! If we’re not sheltering here, do you want us to go swimming in a pond? I mean — what kind of ferocious beast is lurking in this broken-down grass hut that you’d stand there blocking my way…”

Guo Yan grumbled as he peered over Han Linfeng’s shoulder to see inside.

And once he looked, he could not look away. Heavens above — how had a lightning storm out in the wild countryside conjured up such an ethereally lovely young woman?

Lord Guo broke into a broad grin at once: “To find such a beauty in a godforsaken place like this! Brother Linfeng, you’re blocking my way because you want to keep her all to yourself? This is rather possessive of you — not quite like you at all…”

Xiangcao’s heart clenched at the words. From the way these idle sons of privilege were talking, it hardly sounded like respectable conversation. In this remote wilderness, if these men let their baser instincts take over and set their sights on her young mistress’s beauty, intending to defile her — what on earth could they do?

Before Guo Yan had finished speaking, Han Linfeng’s tall frame had already moved to block his line of sight. Han Linfeng turned to face him and said calmly: “I have met this young lady at one of Princess Yuyang’s banquets — we are acquainted. She has a condition affecting her eyes and does not much enjoy exchanging pleasantries with people; even the Princess showed her special consideration and courtesy. You and I arriving here unexpectedly might well give Miss Su a fright, which is why I thought it better to find another shelter.”

He had made no mention of Su Luoyun’s origins as a merchant’s daughter, but stated plainly that she was a favored guest of Princess Yuyang. To anyone listening, it sounded as though this young lady had some formidable and powerful patron standing behind her.

Princess Yuyang was the Emperor’s most beloved daughter, and her husband Zhao Dong was a high minister with military power in his hands — not someone that a useless wastrel of a lord like Guo Yan would dare to provoke.

All the more so when even someone as nonchalant and worldly as Han Linfeng was giving her a wide berth — there was clearly something to this.