And so, with both the head of the Su family’s eldest branch and the second daughter meant to inherit its business laid low, the son-in-law who’d married in began taking charge of the family’s affairs.

—This, at the moment, counted as major news within the Su household’s circles.

Given Su Boyong’s assassination attempt and Su Tan’er’s collapse, it would be hard to imagine that no one from the other two branches felt some measure of quiet satisfaction. News of Su Tan’er’s illness hadn’t spread beyond the household yet, but the family members themselves were, by and large, already aware. The talk mostly speculated on how the already thin eldest branch would manage to weather the current crisis, or made remarks along the lines of how, however impressive Su Tan’er had seemed before, she was still just a woman and couldn’t be expected to carry such a heavy burden. In any case, with everyone else adopting a wait-and-see attitude, having Ning Yi pushed forward to take temporary charge of matters immediately stirred up plenty of discussion.

Given that he’d married into the family, in most other households mockery and scorn would have followed almost instantly. But at least this particular son-in-law had proven a bit different—ever since joining the household, he’d repeatedly upended people’s assumptions about him. Everyone had originally taken him for a simple bookworm, only to discover he was genuinely brilliant, whether in poetry or teaching, his abilities well proven over the past year. The family members, whenever the subject came up, could only marvel at the old patriarch’s foresight, assuming this whole arrangement must have been the old man’s own doing, and that the old patriarch had surely seen from the start that this scholar was no ordinary bookworm.

Now, with him finally pushed forward by the eldest branch, the household adopted a wait-and-see attitude—whether it was Wenxing, Wenji and the others from the second and third branches, or relatives and friends who’d always been close to the eldest branch, everyone was quietly watching to see whether he’d once again prove himself as capable in this arena, hidden depths and all. Whether the old patriarch really was that shrewd and that partial toward Su Tan’er, having found her a husband gifted in both literature and business—even in the unconventional form of a matrilocal marriage.

This quiet observation lasted roughly three days before dissolving into a wave of laughter.

Astonishing poetic talent aside, when it came to running a business, this Ning Yi turned out to be, in the end, a complete outsider—and, worse, an outsider with the distinctly impractical air of a scholar about him.

It was clear enough he genuinely wanted to do a good job of things, but his methods were, frankly, more than a little clumsy. Day after day, every morning, he rode out by carriage with an earnest air to inspect several of the shops and warehouses around the city—apparently having asked around beforehand about what Su Tan’er used to do each day, and simply copying her routine, gourd for ladle.

In truth, given the Su family’s solid foundation, each shop already had reliable people managing things on-site, and the owner had never really needed to make daily rounds. Su Tan’er had done it as preparation for eventually taking over the whole family business, holding herself to an exceptionally high standard. Whatever problems came up at a shop, Su Tan’er could handle them on the spot with her presence alone. But after Ning Yi kept up this routine for several days—even though he was mostly just observing, trying his best not to say much—a handful of deliberately casual questions he asked eventually made his act plain enough to everyone around him.

The gap between an expert and an amateur was, in the end, simply too wide. Even when Ning Yi’s questions were reasonably simple, to those who actually knew the trade they came across as laughable. People like Wenxing and Wenji might not have been great at running individual shops, but they knew the textile trade inside and out. These past two days they’d nearly split their sides laughing over one particular incident at the fabric shop, where Ning Yi had mistaken some incense herbs used to scent stored cloth for dyeing materials, and had very cordially instructed a clerk during his inspection to sweep up the scattered “dye” into bags so it wouldn’t go to waste. The poor clerk had been mortified, and within less than a day, the story had spread through the entire Su estate.

Soon after, word also got out about what Ning Yi had told the managers that morning. Focusing efforts on the imperial merchant position had, presumably, been Su Tan’er’s idea, and there was nothing wrong with that in itself. But the words that came out of Ning Yi’s mouth, while impassioned and rousing enough on the surface, were in fact thick with the kind of idealistic, impractical thinking typical of a scholar—even the managers of the eldest branch, repeating his words afterward, tended to shake their heads. It wasn’t that what he’d said was entirely wrong, but the notion that having a good product alone would guarantee everything else—well, that really could only be described as scholar’s naivety.

That this newly-married-in son-in-law knew nothing about business was, by now, beyond dispute—not that many people had genuinely believed he “might know” to begin with, and these past few days had simply confirmed as much.

Still, despite the small blunders Ning Yi had made in his first few days managing the Su family’s eldest branch, which had become fodder for everyone’s idle gossip, there was one thing that had, in fact, gotten done. The managers of the eldest branch had already begun working hard to publicize the years of preparation they’d put into pursuing the imperial merchant position. Whatever Ning Yi’s own shortcomings, these managers were, after all, genuinely skilled professionals—in just three or four days, word that the Su family had developed a new cloth and had been preparing for years for the imperial merchant business had already swept through Jiangning’s entire textile trade. Combined with the earlier high-profile announcements, by now most people in the various textile houses knew that, following Su Boyong’s assassination attempt, the Su family—or at least the woman Su Tan’er—was preparing to stake everything on this matter, going all in with everything she had.

If she won, she’d have used years of preparation to perfectly resolve the imperial merchant question, secure control of the eldest branch, and even formally establish her position as the next head of the family, despite being a woman. If she lost, well, she’d truly have lost—because with Su Boyong already having been attacked, there wasn’t really much more left to lose anyway.

“That kind of nerve, even while she’s laid up sick—truly a woman who doesn’t yield to any man. Going forward, if we ever have to go up against this Tan’er girl, the pressure’s going to be considerable.” At a teahouse, Xue Yan set down his cup, shaking his head with a laugh. “Ajin, if I’d known this back then, letting you marry into the Su family might have been quite the match after all.”

Today Xue Yan was having tea with Xue Jin and a few cousins from the family, and being in the same textile trade, talk naturally turned to the Su family’s recent upheaval. Xue Jin shook his head with a helpless laugh. “I’ve come to see it clearly enough by now—there’s no way I could keep her in check. If she’d married into our Xue family, of course I’d treat her well. But if I’d married into hers, I’d never have been able to hold my head up for the rest of my life.”

Xue Jin had once been quite proud himself, and it was rather surprising to see him so modest about it now. The cousins couldn’t help laughing along, teasing him a bit before naturally turning the conversation back to Su Tan’er’s current husband.

“Pity, though—astonishing poetic talent or not, it’s like an embroidered pillow, all show and no substance. With this kind of trouble hitting the family, what good is poetic talent without an official title to back it up?”

“Speaking of running a business, judging by this Ning Liheng’s performance these past few days, it’s got to be Su Tan’er behind the scenes propping him up, feeding him ideas.”

“I’ve started wondering if his earlier reputation was the same story all along—Su Tan’er scheming behind the scenes. We’ve all seen plenty of talented bookworms before, but it probably took her cleverness to actually build that reputation up. That’s how I see it, at least—Su Tan’er’s just been building up her husband’s name for him…”

Listening to them go on like this, Xue Jin seemed on the verge of saying something several times, before finally shaking his head. “Don’t go assuming things here. That Ning Liheng isn’t so simple—the man’s no fool.”

Back when Ning Yi had first made his name, Xue Jin had practically served as his stepping stone; he’d clearly grown more humble about it since, which was, if nothing else, some kind of progress. Still, Xue Yan nodded and patted him on the shoulder. “Humility’s a good thing, but little brother, you’re being overly cautious here. That Ning Liheng may not be a fool, but he’s only ever really excelled at poetry—men of letters tend to be a bit eccentric, that’s understandable enough. But if he were genuinely brilliant in business too, heh, then why would he have married into the Su family at all? Might as well be some far-fetched twist straight out of a legend.”

He paused briefly. “As I see it, this Ning Yi probably has average, maybe even above-average, aptitude for business—he’s clearly a clever man—but regardless, he’s still a total newcomer to the trade, and it’s only natural he’d make some blunders along the way. Still, jokes aside, there’s one thing everyone here needs to keep in mind… whatever fumbling Ning Yi does, Su Tan’er is still the one steering things from behind him, and that woman is nothing to underestimate. However many mistakes Ning Yi makes, if they end up securing the imperial merchant position, all of it will get blown away like nothing. Su Tan’er making a big public push for the position while letting her husband go out and make a fool of himself might well be part of the calculation. We want a share of that imperial merchant business too—let’s not laugh so hard that we end up watching them walk off with all the spoils.”

Once Xue Yan said this, the mood among the group turned serious. The imperial merchant matter had already drawn open interest from the Xue, Su, and Wu families alike; each side had its own connections and advantages, but on the whole, the Su family’s preparations were clearly the most extensive. Xue Jin shook his head, glancing at the cousins around him. “I told you so from the start…” Before he could finish, his gaze drifted toward the street below. “Huh?”

Xue Yan followed his gaze down as well, spotting Ning Yi’s figure making his way through the crowd below, a box tucked under one arm. He’d brought no attendant or maid, entirely alone—whether out wandering by chance or here on some deliberate errand wasn’t clear. They watched as he stopped to ask a few street vendors something, then headed toward a gate not far off.

“Isn’t that…”

“The residence of Master He Fang, from the Weaving Bureau.”

“You’re joking—he’s going there all by himself?”

The Xue family members exchanged glances for a moment. Securing the imperial merchant position, in the end, always came down to connections, and as far as Xue Yan and Xue Jin understood it, the Su family had already made significant inroads with the Weaving Bureau, reportedly on close terms with several officials there. But of the three officials with the most say in the imperial merchant matter—Master He Fang, Master Han Chaoying, and the department head Master Dong Decheng—the Su family had only truly secured a solid connection with Han Chaoying.

Dong Decheng, as department head, had always kept his position deliberately ambiguous, unwilling to commit himself easily. And with the situation shifting this year, He Fang hadn’t shown his hand yet either—he seemed inclined to let the previous mid-sized merchants continue handling the imperial merchant business as before, and now several families were all trying to work their way through his connections. As the situation grew increasingly sensitive, He Fang had simply stopped receiving visitors on the matter altogether—the Xue family had already been turned away at his door just a couple of days ago, and were still trying to figure out another approach. No one had expected Ning Yi to simply show up like this.

Alone, and looking almost like he’d wandered over on a whim, since he’d stood at the gate for a good while as if thinking it over before finally knocking and disappearing beneath the eaves. Up in the teahouse, the Xue family members couldn’t help but start talking amongst themselves again, some tossing out jokes.

“No way that’s happening.”

“How could he possibly get in…”

“He shows up alone with that son-in-law status of his, trying to represent the Su family for something like this—thinks he’s some kind of hero stepping up in a crisis.”

“Probably just trying to make a name for himself.”

No one believed Ning Yi would actually get to see He Fang. But when he still hadn’t come out after quite a while, the group grew puzzled, and eventually someone went down to check. When he came back up, he couldn’t help laughing.

“He’s talking with the gatekeeper. This Ning Yi’s got quite the patience—the poor gatekeeper looks about ready to lose his mind…”

Hearing this, the group finally understood what was going on.

“Ha ha, the scholar’s naivety at work—does he really think he can wear He Fang down just by grinding away at it like this?”

“It’s not unheard of.” Xue Yan frowned, then shook his head with a laugh. “Though it does sound more like something out of a story…”

More time passed, and Ning Yi still hadn’t emerged. Someone went to check again, and came back laughing—Ning Yi was still stuck at the gatehouse, going on and on, and while the whole situation was amusing, there was a certain grudging admiration for his persistence, refusing to give up. The gatekeeper had apparently run out of patience and simply stopped responding, letting him talk himself out.

Coming in for a spot of tea and stumbling onto a spectacle like this was, admittedly, entertaining. Amid all this chatter, laughter, and speculation, they ended up waiting and watching from the teahouse for about an hour, some of them beginning to wonder if he might actually wear a path through after all. But eventually, Ning Yi did come out, box still in hand, glancing back at the gate before shaking his head and walking off. Someone went down again to ask around, and came back this time with an expression somewhere between amusement and grudging respect.

“Talked with that gatekeeper for over an hour, wore the poor man out completely… said he’d be back again tomorrow…”

Xue Yan sat stunned for a long moment. “This bookworm…”

Xue Jin was quiet for a while. “Looks like he’s determined to make a show of himself in business too… this kind of foolish, stubborn approach…”

“If he really keeps grinding away like this, Master He is bound to grant him an audience eventually…”

“And what would even be the point of that?”

Though they said this, by now most of the mockery had faded from their expressions. This kind of stubborn, foolish persistence was the sort of thing most of them had heard as childhood stories from their fathers—business wasn’t just about clever tricks, it also took genuine grit and patience. Of course, few who actually tried this approach ever succeeded—but seeing Ning Yi’s determination today, the group couldn’t help but feel a flicker of uncertainty all the same.

If the man weren’t even home, waiting around for business’s sake was one thing—but here he’d been flatly refused, and this fellow, without even bothering to fully look into things first, had come and worn out the gatekeeper for a full hour. A scholar’s stubborn streak really was something to behold…

Whether it would actually succeed remained to be seen. It was already afternoon; at the very moment they were muttering about it up in the teahouse, Ning Yi had already left the affair behind him, walking through the nearby streets. Turning a corner, he found himself approaching the main location of Bamboo Note. He went in and up to the second floor—having spent his energy tormenting the gatekeeper earlier, he’d skipped lunch entirely and now came to refuel. After two small dishes arrived, the one bringing the last bowl of egg soup was a woman in jade-green attire. Ning Yi nodded at her.

Before the city gates had closed, he’d promised to accompany Nie Yunzhu to apologize to Old Master Qin sometime soon, but with everything happening around Su Boyong these past few days, this was the first time the two of them had actually met since. Ning Yi thought it over, preparing to open with an apology.

Nie Yunzhu, though, showed no sign of blame. From the moment she arrived, she’d simply been looking him up and down, worry in her eyes, before speaking first, asking softly, “Liheng, are you… all right?”

“Hm?”