Night had not yet fully deepened, but a faint sense of commotion and unease could already be felt throughout the Su residence, inside and out. Lamplight flickered in the main hall, a dim glow spilling from the windows. In Su Tan’er’s bedroom, Xiao Chan and Juan’er kept watch by the bed, pressing a warm cloth to the forehead of a restless-seeming Su Tan’er. A white-haired, white-bearded old physician sat at the bedside, taking her pulse. Ning Yi stood in the doorway, arms crossed, deep in thought. Outside in the courtyard, besides the young apprentice who’d come with Physician Sun, no one else had entered.

The examination didn’t take long. The old physician released Su Tan’er’s wrist and rose to head out; Juan’er hurried after him, and at the outer gate, Xing’er, her eyes rimmed red, came over as well.

“The young mistress has caught a chill from the wind — judging by the symptoms, it’s probably been several days now. On top of that, there’s been another factor at play. Hm, in the days since catching this cold, it seems… her monthly courses have also arrived. Together, these have aggravated the chill. If that were all, it wouldn’t be serious — a few doses of medicine, the fever breaks, and she’d largely recover. But beyond that… the young mistress has clearly overexerted herself as well. It seems the shock and trauma from what happened to the master struck hard, and combined with mental and physical exhaustion… altogether, this isn’t something that will heal within a matter of days.”

“Exhaustion?” Ning Yi asked, frowning.

The old physician nodded. “Yes. This is less a common cold than the result of prolonged fatigue and strain, body and mind both worn thin — and the heart of it, really, lies in her spirit. The chill has simply brought it all to a head at once. This shouldn’t be taken lightly. I’ll prescribe medicine now to bring down the young mistress’s fever, but the real cure, in the end, will require… the young mistress finding a way to set her mind at ease. Ay…”

The old physician, surnamed Sun, sighed. He served the Su family as their retained physician and had also been leading Su Boyong’s treatment, so he naturally understood the situation the family now faced — getting Su Tan’er’s mind to ease would be no simple matter. Shaking his head, he wrote out the prescription in the parlor, offered a few more words of caution, and took his leave. Xiao Chan went along to fetch the medicine. Juan’er and Xing’er rushed to the bedside to look at the unconscious Su Tan’er, then turned to Ning Yi, voices tinged with tears. “What do we do?” The question sounded as much like an appeal to Ning Yi as it did like talking to themselves. Normally, the three maids managed a great many of the Eldest Branch’s affairs and had no shortage of their own judgment, but now, with Su Boyong fallen and Su Tan’er collapsed as well, they finally found themselves utterly at a loss.

Ning Yi held the prescription, thinking for a moment, then finally asked, “These past few days — what exactly has been going on?”

Su Tan’er’s cold had likely started from falling into the bathtub that afternoon; symptoms had seemed to appear in the first few days, though not seriously. After Su Boyong’s assassination attempt, the challenges facing Su Tan’er had certainly been immense, but there’d been no sign of her wavering or breaking under the pressure — just a few days earlier, in the small hours of the morning, she’d spoken with confidence about securing the imperial merchant appointment, her spirit and self-assurance at their peak, her handling of things flawless.

Like a large company facing repeated blows and schemes, some minor, some severe — and responding to each one — this was simply how things went. Su Boyong’s stabbing could be seen as one sudden, unexpected blow; if Su Tan’er were the type to simply collapse without a fight after a single setback, she never would have made it this far to begin with. Someone who could only handle smooth sailing would find herself utterly helpless running the Su family even if given the chance.

That wasn’t Su Tan’er’s character — Ning Yi had understood this clearly for a long time. For her to be struck this hard on a psychological level, it couldn’t simply be what had already happened. And she should have already braced herself for whatever further schemes and blows the enemy might bring. Something more significant must have happened within these short four days…

At his question, Juan’er looked faintly puzzled and turned to look at Xing’er, who had spent most of the past few days at her mistress’s side. Xing’er was still crying; she glanced at Juan’er and Ning Yi for a moment, then, wiping her tears, choked out, “I… the young mistress told me not to say…”

Ning Yi thought for a moment, then sat down in a nearby chair, sighed, and rubbed his forehead, murmuring, “Mental and physical exhaustion… the imperial merchant business, something’s gone wrong with the imperial merchant business, some problem that can’t be solved… internal or external. If it’s external, then she must have deeply offended some senior official at the textile bureau — but the visits to those officials these past few days have all been handled by the shopkeepers, it wouldn’t have escalated to that kind of open hostility. So it must be internal — some problem has come up that can’t be solved. I don’t have much interest in the technical details, so let’s set that aside for now…”

The two maids listened to him murmur through all this; Xing’er then began crying even harder. “Actually, actually… a few days ago…”

Before she could finish, footsteps sounded outside. Juan’er and Xing’er hurried out — it was Shopkeeper Liao, the most senior of the Eldest Branch’s shopkeepers, who had already learned the situation from Physician Sun and come to ask about it. With Old Master Su not yet back at the residence, Juan’er and Xing’er certainly couldn’t make any decisions on their own, so they conferred quietly with Shopkeeper Liao. Ning Yi sat in the room, working through the possibilities, then stood and paced a few steps, looking at Su Tan’er asleep in the bed.

This bedroom was normally kept tidy, but these past few days, probably from the sheer busyness, it looked slightly disordered. As Ning Yi walked toward the notebooks on the desk, he happened to notice something that had fallen at the foot of the bed. He picked it up — a small scrap of cloth, triangular, pale yellow, with a simple pattern woven into it.

The scrap looked as though it had only fallen to the floor within the past day or two — no dust on it. Ning Yi brought it closer to the oil lamp, and something came back to him. There had been a day, up on the second floor of the little building across the way, when Su Tan’er had shown him a piece of cloth, beaming, delighted: “Husband, look — isn’t this color lovely?”

“Oh… lovely, it is, though ordinary households certainly couldn’t use this color…”

A piece of bright imperial-yellow cloth…

Su Tan’er hadn’t dwelt on the topic much at the time, but the cloth had been so vivid Ning Yi still remembered it clearly — and now, this scrap here seemed to have faded, turned pale yellow…

Outside, Shopkeeper Liao mentioned Ning Yi’s name. Ning Yi sighed and tucked the cloth scrap into his sleeve. With both Su Boyong and Su Tan’er now down, there was no calling on the Second or Third Branch for help. Ning Yi normally stayed out of such matters, but he still held the position of master of the household within the Su family. Shopkeeper Liao spoke with him for a bit, evidently hoping he’d offer some kind of stance. Ning Yi nodded.

“Nothing major. Carry on as usual — meet whatever comes as it comes. Just don’t let word of Tan’er’s condition spread around. For now, don’t let too many people know she’s ill. That’s all.”

“I understand the young mistress’s illness requires rest, and she shouldn’t be troubled with worries. But… if some real development comes up and a decision needs to be made, I wonder…”

“Then bring it to me. We’ll figure something out on this end. As for the rest… I’ll have to trouble Shopkeeper Liao and the others to take care of it.”

“Understood. Truly, even if something changes, everyone here has experience handling such things — we’re all old hands in the cloth trade after so many years. I’ll just ask, young master, that you help put the young mistress’s mind at ease…”

What Shopkeeper Liao said was, in truth, mostly meant to be reassuring words. If it were just Jiangning alone, any single competent shopkeeper could hold things steady without trouble — but if it came to shifts and shocks affecting business across the whole country, there needed to be a guiding hand at the center. For now, though, there was no other option to consider.

After Shopkeeper Liao left, Xiao Chan returned with the medicine. Not long after, the old patriarch, having rushed back to the residence, hurried over, looked at the still-unconscious Su Tan’er, and this too struck the old man as a tremendous blow. But there was nothing to be said for it now; he offered a few words of comfort to Ning Yi and the three maids, then made his way back with heavy steps.

Once the old patriarch had left too, the courtyard finally fell quiet — flickering lamplight, the smell of medicine being brewed. Quiet evenings like this had happened many times before for the people in this courtyard, times when everyone sat together talking, playing gomoku, laughing now and then — that was what it meant to be a family. Before Ning Yi had come, the four young women of this courtyard had probably counted as a family too, but right now the mood was simply too quiet. Xiao Chan carried in the bowl of medicine; amid the silent vigil, Juan’er finally choked out, “What are we supposed to do? Young master…”

Su Boyong had already fallen, and now Su Tan’er lay unconscious too — even if she woke, her body wouldn’t recover anytime soon. The old patriarch might have no choice but to have someone else temporarily take over the Eldest Branch’s affairs. The future had suddenly turned hollow and unpredictable, frighteningly uncertain — no one knew why things had suddenly turned out this way. The only people to rely on, really, were the few close at hand. If Ning Yi truly were still that bookworm from before, he might well have been excluded from all this too — but after more than a year together, at least in matters like this, he’d been accepted as part of the family… Of course, Juan’er’s question just now was really only born of helplessness. Ning Yi was a man, different from them, but if there truly were some solution to be found, it certainly couldn’t come from him.

Ning Yi stood by the window, tidying a few things on the desk. The room was somewhat cluttered, so he put a few things back in place, tossing others onto the cabinet out of sight. His movements weren’t fast, but he’d more or less finished tidying by now. Without turning around, he folded a still-uncut sheet of rice paper on the desk a few times, then unfolded it, poured some water into the inkstone, and began slowly grinding ink.

“Did no one ever teach you all how to handle situations like this?” Ning Yi asked quietly.

The three young women shook their heads.

Ning Yi picked up the brush and, after a moment of silence, said, “From here on… I need the Su family’s account books from these past years — roughly seven to ten years back. I need records of the Su family’s development across every area, correspondence with shopkeepers in every region. I need to know every single thing that’s happened in the Su family’s business, how each situation was handled, the outcomes, and why those outcomes came about. Also — more rice paper, more ink, some fine thread. Prepare some pastries too, filling ones, not too sweet. And a large pot of tea… that should be about it for now…”

Behind him, silence fell. All three maids were at a loss, unsure what he was planning. Ning Yi turned around.

“There’s no help to be had from your master. As for the old patriarch — he might send someone over to help, but it won’t do any good.” Ning Yi gestured lightly toward Su Tan’er on the bed. “Your young mistress won’t let go of this. The first thing she does when she wakes up won’t be to take her medicine — it’ll be to get out of bed. No one can take her place… so, the outcome is really quite simple.”

He smiled at them, a little helpless, a little wry — not so different from how he looked over a game of chess or telling a story on an ordinary day. “I’ll give it a try…”

Juan’er and Xing’er still hesitated, but Xiao Chan, over by the side, took a breath — her eyes had been misty with tears too, but now a faint smile broke through. She wiped at the corners of her eyes, turned, and headed for the door. “I’ll go get the account books and records…” The Su family kept a central accounting office, but the Eldest Branch had its own separate records, kept right next door in fact — and the three maids, who normally managed these matters, had every right to fetch them.

After Xiao Chan left, Juan’er thought it over and followed after her, and then Xing’er too, wiping the tears from her face. As she left, she asked quietly, “Young master… will you stay right here?”

“What if your mistress wakes up otherwise?”

The young master wanted to help solve some of the young mistress’s problems — Xing’er and Juan’er found it hard to say whether that was a good thing or not, or what the outcome might be. But they both knew perfectly well that the moment the young mistress woke, in any other circumstance, she’d immediately try to get out of bed and start handling matters. Somehow, someone had to keep her in that bed — and perhaps only the young master could manage that.

She gave an awkward little smile, then left the room. Once it was just him and the unconscious Su Tan’er, Ning Yi finally sat down, sighed at the rice paper and brush before him.

“All of you people — this is too much… even the man who married in doesn’t get any peace…”

Faintly, it sounded like a grumble aimed at whoever was behind all this…

…

In the small hours of the morning, after the hour of Chou had passed, Su Tan’er woke up…