“Actually, word of your prowess had already reached us before we even got to Jiangning — they were saying, Tan’er, that you’d swept in these past few days and won over the He family just like that, turning your hand this way and that with almost supernatural skill. Father says the He family’s supply lines were never really the crucial thing, but they’d been locked into the Xue family for the past two years now, in a situation nobody thought could be changed — and here you’ve gone and taken it, doubling and more the flexibility in sourcing supplies across the nearby regions for next spring.”
Walking along, the cousin discussed all this with Su Tan’er as they went — herself the daughter of a merchant family, married now to a man who was also a manager at the Su household, she was well versed in such matters; if anything urgent came up, she could probably hold her own as half a manager herself. Hearing her bring this up, Su Tan’er laughed.
“Sister Hong, don’t even start — we still don’t really understand why the He family changed their minds in the first place. And the He family business is still being finalized these past few days too, we don’t even know if it’s fully settled.”
“It’s settled already. Just now when we ran into Xi Junyu and Manager Luo, they’d come to bring the good news.”
Chatting and laughing, the two women entered the courtyard ahead. This wasn’t the courtyard where Su Tan’er and Ning Yi normally lived, though it was separated from it by only a single wall; it was ordinarily used to receive outside guests connected to Su Tan’er’s affairs, and on occasion, when something more urgent came up, a few managers would be gathered here to discuss strategy. As Su Tan’er and Su Danhong walked in, Chan’er was in the sitting room of the courtyard, holding a tea tray while chatting and laughing with two managers. Seeing Su Tan’er arrive, she hurried out to greet her.
The two managers who’d come were one old, one young. The elder, surnamed Luo, was something of an old hand at the Su family — he’d been an apprentice there back when Old Master Su was young, later served under Su Boyong, and had since been assigned to assist Su Tan’er. Seasoned and steady in his dealings with people, he was one of the most reliable hands at Su Tan’er’s side. The younger man beside him, not much older than Su Tan’er herself, had a refined, handsome look about him, an air of quiet confidence running through it. His name was Xi Junyu, extremely capable in business — since becoming a manager at the Su household, he’d helped Su Tan’er close a number of major deals. Word had it the Wu family had once tried to recruit him away, but he’d turned them down. He was easily the most outstanding of Su Tan’er’s aides; hardly anyone doubted that once Su Tan’er had firmly established herself, this Xi Junyu would immediately become a leading manager in his own right — beyond question.
The cousin was already well acquainted with the two of them, having exchanged greetings already; the group settled into the sitting room without much ceremony. Xi Junyu produced a contract from inside his robe and, smiling, filled Su Tan’er in on the main business at hand.
“The deal with the He family is settled. Honestly, I hadn’t expected it to go so smoothly — they were quite forthcoming on their end too. The price basically follows this year’s precedent, but raw silk prices are set to rise next year, which means, when you work it out, we’ve effectively gotten half a point below market out of them. The contract’s signed — the matter’s settled.”
“Excellent. Manager Xi, Manager Luo, you’ve both worked hard on this.”
Xi Junyu shook his head with a smile, looking thoroughly at ease.
“I can’t really take credit for this one — the business was really yours to begin with, Miss… though come to think of it, if you hadn’t paid them that visit yourself, they probably would have come looking for us anyway. Turns out they’d already been suspecting some move from the Xue family these past while, and it seems whatever you said that day is what pushed them to move so readily this time.”
The young woman in the silvery-white fox fur cloak studied the contract, then shook her head with a smile. “I’d already guessed as much — it’s just strange why they suddenly made up their minds like that.”
Xi Junyu laughed with real delight, waving a hand. “Actually, we’ve spent the past few days analyzing the Xue family’s moves too, and we did reach one conclusion. This talk of the Xue family abandoning Luzhou to shift its focus to Shouzhou — heh, nine times out of ten, that’s false. They really have made some adjustments recently that look a bit like it, but since it isn’t actually the case, they never bothered informing the He family — and as it happens, He Jun of the He family is famously cautious and sensitive when it comes to business. I don’t know all the details myself, but Old Luo here would know it well.”
Manager Luo nodded. “That’s exactly right. Years back, when the He family was still finding its footing, they once turned down a deal worth nearly fifty thousand strings of cash out of fear of the risk — everyone mocked them for having no spine at the time, only for it to turn out, half a year later, that every merchant house that had taken on that deal ended up implicated in trouble. Had the He family taken it on back then, they’d likely have gone under long ago. That’s simply He Jun’s character — he’d rather earn less than take on any more risk than he has to. Which is exactly why, though the He family isn’t the wealthiest today, they are certainly among the most stable.”
The old man laughed as he went on. “Though this time he really was overly sensitive about it. Had we waited even a few more days to speak with him, he might have sorted the whole thing out himself, and this contract could well have fallen through instead.”
Xi Junyu picked up the thread. “Which is exactly why, when we were negotiating terms, I feigned ignorance and simply acted eager to close the deal — I imagine He Jun thought he’d gotten the better of us and was secretly pleased about it. Ha, give it a few days, and the Xue family’s people are going to be cursing up a storm.”
It was an amusing turn of events all around — everyone thinking they’d come out ahead in the deal — and imagining the look on the Xue family’s face once they learned the whole story had everyone in the room laughing heartily. Only the root cause of the whole affair remained a complete mystery to them.
After a bit more laughing and chatting, Manager Luo seemed to be turning something over in his mind, his smile fading faster than the others’. Su Tan’er noticed the change and asked about it with a smile; Manager Luo glanced at Xi Junyu, then at Su Tan’er, hesitating before finally speaking up with a smile. “Regarding this deal — I did hear something yesterday, as it happens.”
“Oh?”
“Yesterday I ran into Manager Liu of the Jisu Workshop over at the wine house in the East Market, and we got to chatting a bit — the subject of the He household came up.”
Hearing him mention Manager Liu of the Jisu Workshop, Su Tan’er nodded. “Right, he was there that day too — though he left just a step ahead of the manager from Xingqing Workshop. Does he happen to know something about this?”
“It’s a strange thing to tell, and I’m honestly not sure myself whether it’s really so. This Manager Liu mentioned yesterday that on the day in question, Miss, you’d gone there together with your husband — and after you went out to the garden to admire the snow, He Tingguang apparently showed your husband some disrespect, quite a bit of provocation in his words…”
At this point, Su Tan’er’s brow furrowed. “I hadn’t noticed anything like that…”
“Heh, He Tingguang wouldn’t dare act up in front of you, Miss. But your husband’s temper held up well enough — his words were measured, his manner composed; though only a few brief remarks were exchanged, He Tingguang never found an opening. Only afterward did He Tingguang keep on chattering away, and your husband apparently let slip a remark, asking, in passing, whether the He family’s business was based in Shouzhou…”
“Ah…” Su Tan’er blinked, exchanging a puzzled glance with her cousin. Xi Junyu, who’d been listening with a smile off to the side, felt his gaze sharpen, then quietly adjusted his seat without showing it.
“As for the exact words, apparently your husband simply mentioned the Xue family in passing and asked about Shouzhou. He Tingguang mocked him at the time for not understanding the silk and textile trade at all, saying their family’s business wasn’t in Shouzhou but in Luzhou. Your husband then seemed to realize his mistake and admitted candidly that he didn’t understand these matters, that he’d simply gotten it wrong. According to Manager Liu, the tone and manner genuinely didn’t seem put on — it truly did seem like an offhand remark. But once he’d finished mentioning Shouzhou and the Xue family, He Jun’s expression turned quite complicated, and he went and said something to a steward afterward… If this account is accurate, I suspect your husband’s unintentional slip is what actually made this deal happen.”
Silence fell over the room, save for Xiao Chan, standing to the side holding the tray, looking entirely unbothered. After a moment, Xi Junyu spoke slowly. “Could it be that… your husband saw through all this… and did it deliberately?” As he spoke, he watched everyone’s expressions carefully.
Su Tan’er’s brow furrowed deeper still; she looked to Manager Luo — after all, she, her cousin, and Xi Junyu were all young people in their twenties, and however capable they might be, none of them could match Old Luo’s decades of insight. But Manager Luo shook his head.
“I don’t think… that’s likely the case. As Junyu just said, the story about the Xue family shifting from Luzhou to Shouzhou is itself false to begin with — which already rules out the possibility of anyone learning it from an outside source. And even if it were true, the whole matter was thoroughly obscure; we ourselves never noticed anything amiss, and it was only because the He family itself was so closely involved, more sensitive to the matter, and because He Jun himself is so cautious, that they took it as confirmation. I’ve heard your husband has no real interest in business, and that these days accompanying you out has only meant catching bits and pieces of others’ idle talk. If there really were someone who, as an outsider, could grasp something like this purely from scattered gossip, and moreover sense He Jun’s thinking well enough within the He household itself to say precisely that one line at precisely the right moment — such a person would be…”
He paused, shaking his head. “Truly, it’s hard to credit.”
The group, all well versed in the ways of business, understood perfectly well just how far-fetched a possibility that was — if the whole thing had really been deliberate from the start, the person behind it would be something well beyond ordinary human capability. They had, of course, no way of knowing that at the time, in that setting, Ning Yi’s remark had simply been an irresponsible, offhand comment. After thinking it over a little longer, Su Tan’er finally laughed. “Well, if coincidences like that could happen more often, that would be lovely.”
The others chuckled along in agreement, and after a moment’s more thought, this seemed like the most sensible way to understand it after all. They chatted on a while longer, moving on to other matters of detail — the year-end account reconciliation and so on — and Old Luo asked after news of Su Yunsong before they made to take their leave. Just then, Juan’er came dashing into the courtyard through the snow, breathless, nearly stumbling as she drew close.
Something urgent, clearly — she’d run so fast she had to grip the doorpost to catch her breath, too winded even to offer a proper bow, though there was a smile on her face; she glanced around at everyone inside, then looked somehow faintly disappointed. “M-miss… Chan’er, where’s… where’s the young master…”
Already dressed in silvery white, Su Tan’er had come out through the doorway with a smile; seeing how hard Juan’er had run, she even reached out to pat her on the back to help settle her breathing. Hearing the question, she said with a smile, “Your young master? He should be over at the library right now — didn’t I say Prefect Song and the others are examining the students? He ought to be there.”
“N-no, that’s not it…” Juan’er shook her head. “Juan’er just came from over there. Master — the First Master wants the young master to come over…”
“Er…” Su Tan’er’s expression tightened. “What’s happened?”
“I doubt it’s really someone about to get an earful, is it…”
The cousin, trailing along behind, laughed softly — she’d already heard on the way over about Ning Yi’s teaching methods, spending half the time telling stories instead of anything serious; a stern teacher makes for accomplished students, after all, spare the rod and spoil the child, and teaching like that could hardly be expected to produce much in the way of results.
Beside them, Juan’er shook her head vigorously, her chest heaving beneath her lake-green jacket. “No, that’s not it… that’s not it… the Prefect said — said Xiao Heizi and the others showed real insight, Miss, Miss, it’s not that…”
Some things Su Tan’er had already turned over in her mind many times before even hearing the girl out properly; she stood there frowning, wondering whether she ought to do something, or simply claim he wasn’t around. It took a good while before the actual message finally got through, the little maid tugging at her in front, shaking her head insistently.
“Er… huh?”