Compared to the various major events that had recently unfolded within Hangzhou — Qi Yuankang’s death, Li Tianrun’s return, the clash at Pingchang Street — the Lou family, as merchants, could be counted as belonging to another system altogether, one not directly caught up in any of it.

Although they were already one of the largest merchant powers in the entire city, when it came to the true stage of power, the Lou family still remained off to one side, not drawing much attention. But to the mid-level powers within Hangzhou, they had by now become a sprawling presence whose reach extended into every corner. Of course, since they’d only recently worked their way into the wider system, there was no need to give them much weight in the various power struggles — this seemingly vast force remained, in the eyes of Fang La’s court, still somewhat distant and aloof.

This was hardly surprising — throughout history, this had always been the condition of the merchant class, true in the Wu Dynasty just as it was in the Eternal Joy court. Compared to before, the Lou family had, at the very least, become one of the largest purveyors to the crown within the Eternal Joy court — though of course, the prospects of the Eternal Joy court itself were now the most worrying question of all, and in the end, whether the Lou family came out ahead or behind would hinge on that very issue.

As for the Lou family, more than half the reason they had stayed in Hangzhou and thrown in with Fang La in the first place had been sheer necessity. But part of it had also come from Lou Jinlin’s own rational calculation. At the time, the Lou family had already developed some friction with men like Qian Xiwen and others; a merchant household was, by nature, a sensitive thing. If they’d left Hangzhou, Qian Xiwen and his kind, with their connections in officialdom, could always make a comeback later, whether elsewhere or back in Hangzhou itself. But the Lou family’s entire fortune was rooted in Hangzhou — leave this place, and everything he had built up over the years would simply vanish.

However one looked at it, Lou Jinlin had not been willing to accept such an outcome — half a lifetime’s worth of enterprise, destroyed in an instant. What’s more, by that time the Lou family had already caught Fang Qifo’s attention, so leaving was no longer even realistic. After Hangzhou fell, Lou Jinlin had gone through a period of confusion, but before long, he’d drawn once more on the ruthless instincts that had carried him this far, trying to carve out a broader, more secure path forward for the Lou family in the days to come.

Simply keeping his head down and staying out of trouble, or simply sitting back and waiting to see what happened, was not in his nature. Letting the Lou family become nothing more than the Eternal Joy court’s foremost merchant house, or waiting around to be captured once the imperial forces marched south and broke Hangzhou — neither of these was the future Lou Jinlin intended to choose. For a man in his fifties, there still burned within him the shrewdness and capability to seize every opportunity and keep expanding his real, tangible gains — the fire of ambition still burned inside him.

Simply being a merchant, dependent on others — that would not do. Even if the Eternal Joy court could withstand the court’s assault and carve out a great domain for itself, he was no longer satisfied with the mere goal of being the foremost merchant house. With the times in such chaos and flux, the Lou family had money, and with Fang Qifo’s backing, they also had power unconstrained by most other factions. At this moment, in this Hangzhou, the most practical path forward had presented itself before them.

Over the past month or so, the Lou family had begun trying to recruit soldiers and expand their strength.

Fang La’s uprising was, by nature, a rebellion — though Hangzhou had already been established as the capital, it remained a mixed bag of every sort of element, with troops massed everywhere and weapons hardly restricted. In principle, trying to raise one’s own force here was broadly permitted. But by this point, the various factions within the city had already reached something close to saturation; anyone genuinely hoping to carve out a share of the benefits, competing with others for scraps, would ultimately never outcompete those who’d been feeding off Fang La from the very start.

The Lou family didn’t fall into that category. They had money, grain, and countless business dealings that justified hiring guards for the household and enforcers for their business — expenses well within their means — and by now there were no restrictions on numbers. If this war had taught the Lou family anything, it was that weapons absolutely had to be kept in one’s own hands. Of course, even with this realization and the freedom to act on it, there were limits — showing outright ambition to seize military power from the very start would have gotten him killed halfway through, without question.

Lou Jinlin was a steady, deliberate man; whatever difficulties lay along this path were, to him, not really so great. A mob of rebels who’d risen up with pitchforks might not be fools, but when it came to fine maneuvering and operations, none of them could match an old fox like him. Once he’d resolved to act, he purchased large quantities of quality weapons, a modest number of warhorses, recruited household retainers, brought in guards, and at the same time drew in a number of genuinely skilled martial artists who had otherwise slipped through the cracks. Over the course of a month or so, while keeping the city’s various supply chains running smoothly, he also extended his own reach outward.

Naturally, there were some complications along the way — for instance, the Lou family could afford to support men, but raising an actual army was simply not feasible. Hangzhou currently had no shortage of refugees, and he could recruit one or two thousand people who couldn’t afford to eat, but without barracks, without training grounds, what good would that do? Under these circumstances, Lou Jinlin focused his attention more on cultivating small street-level factions — groups of ten or twenty, gangs of twenty or thirty, all the various loiterers scraping by on the streets around the Lou estate. Over the course of a month, the Lou family recruited close to two hundred household guards, while the force they controlled indirectly amounted to several times that number. If one were to actually flaunt these numbers, they’d already rival the personal followings of some mid-level commanders within Fang La’s own army.

Of course, none of these men amounted to much in terms of real combat strength — in the past, one might have called this a sizable gang, but calling it an army was still a long way off. Even so, by this point, some rebel leaders who had never taken the Lou family seriously before no longer dared provoke them so carelessly.

In the past, as one of the merchants specifically designated by Fang Qifo, the Lou family, while not harassed too badly within Hangzhou, had still had plenty of people leeching off them like parasites. Any commander with even a hundred or so men under him would dare come to the Lou estate demanding food and drink, collecting protection money — even after the Lou family sought Bao Daoyi’s protection, this behavior had never really let up, because everyone knew Bao Daoyi wasn’t about to step in for the Lou family’s sake over something like this. Everyone was “brothers,” after all — your family’s rich and powerful, so what’s the harm if others come to take a share, so long as they don’t smash the place up? What’s there to complain about — you’re just a merchant.

In the past, the Lou family had always received these people politely, never lacking in courtesy, and they still did so now. But as time passed, even though the Lou family had done nothing overt to assert dominance, visits from this sort of person had grown steadily rarer. To those at the top — men like Bao Daoyi — nothing about the Lou family seemed to have changed; it merely looked like ordinary growth. But to the mid- and lower-level commanders, they could sense keenly the steadily expanding strength and presence the Lou family now carried.

“That Lou family isn’t so easy to trifle with anymore…”

Over tea and idle chatter, commanders who’d once given no thought to the Lou family’s merchant status would find themselves making remarks like this. It was proof enough that the Lou family’s power had quietly swollen to the point of rivaling these very men.

But their merchant status still led people to underestimate them somewhat, in this kind of assessment. Others assumed the Lou family’s influence was only just now reaching into the mid- and lower ranks, when in fact the Lou family had already been quietly splitting off and drawing over a number of leaders commanding a hundred or several dozen men each.

Setting everything else aside, the Lou family’s material resources and financial strength alone were enough, once they had built up power of their own, to let them absorb some of the weaker factions. Under Lou Jinlin’s coordinated efforts, there were now two such factions whose leaders, having lost out in some power struggle with rivals, had chosen to submit to the Lou family in exchange for protection. To Lou Jinlin, this meant that the first crucial steps in the early stages of building up power had already been solidly taken.

“It’ll take a while yet before we carry real weight among this crowd. Next, let’s test the waters with that Tang Bingzhang — he used to work under Qi Yuankang, and though he wasn’t directly caught up in what just happened, he must have been affected quite a bit regardless…”

That morning, in the study of the Lou family’s main residence, Lou Jinlin was discussing matters of expansion with his eldest son, Lou Shuwang. There was no more need to recruit household guards — his side lacked experienced veteran officers, and drawing in factions like this one was, comparatively, the most cost-effective option. With a couple more such factions won over, the Lou family would truly be able to sit at the table as one of the mid-tier powers within Hangzhou. And thanks to Fang Qifo’s earlier patronage, Lou Jinlin was confident the Lou family’s rise wouldn’t provoke too much backlash — at worst, people would think they were being opportunistic, riding the momentum of the times. But once real strength was in hand, who could truly hold a grudge against them?

“…Here in Hangzhou, we’ll continue as we’ve been going for now, steady as she goes. But we do need to start preparing early for a fallback route to the west and south — in a few months…” Lou Jinlin turned the ring on his thumb and fell briefly silent. His hair had gone white and thin but was neatly combed, his eyes still sharp, his energy still full, still carrying that lion-like presence. Though what Hangzhou might look like in a few months’ time gave him some anxiety, a fallback route could still be arranged. But it was another matter that soon came to mind that left him feeling somewhat gloomy.

“Oh, right. How’s your brother been lately?”

Compared to his eldest son Lou Shuwang, the one Lou Jinlin actually doted on more, in his heart, was his younger son, Lou Shuweng. When Hangzhou had first fallen, Lou Shuweng had sunk into despondency, but with his eldest son at his side to help, Lou Jinlin could understand the blow it had dealt his younger son’s spirit and had let him rest for a while. But if he stayed idle like this indefinitely, that really would be going too far. Lou Jinlin wanted his younger son to learn more about the family’s affairs — especially now, during this period of upheaval for the Lou family — so that he could put his talents to use, and so that, in time, more of the family’s holdings could be entrusted to him with greater peace of mind.

He had no particular intention of handing the entire estate over to Lou Shuweng — the two brothers actually got along well enough — but the elder son was clearly the more talented of the two, and if, one day, each got half the family fortune, with the elder son’s share growing ever larger, resentment would inevitably build in the younger son’s household too. This, naturally, was simply the anxious frustration of a father wanting more from a promising but underperforming son.

Lou Shuwang cupped his hands in response.

“Little brother’s been quite diligent lately about going out and making inquiries — it’s just that he’s been asking the wrong people, so he still hasn’t managed to find out what he’s after. But he’s meeting more and more people, and I believe he’ll finish what he’s set out to do soon enough and settle back down.”

Lou Jinlin sighed. “You know what he’s after, don’t you?”

“Yes, Father. He hasn’t let go of that Miss Su, but what he cares about most, I’d guess, is the humiliation Ning Yi dealt him back then. I already know Ning Yi’s current situation as well — as I mentioned to you before, Father, I haven’t stepped in to help little brother with this on purpose. I wanted him to accomplish it himself — it has particular meaning for him.”

Lou Jinlin waved a dismissive hand, frowned in silence for a moment, and finally said, “A real man seeking revenge, fine, no objection there — but he needs broader vision. That Ning Yi — I remember him too, your father does — but given our current situation, what is there left to dwell on? Our Lou family is right in the middle of this great upheaval; once it’s past, the whole contest between the Eternal Joy court and the Wu Dynasty over Hangzhou will have our Lou family’s fingerprints all over it. A trivial matter like that from before — squash it like a bug and be done with it… ah, forget it, keep an eye on things for now. Once it’s settled, get Shuweng to refocus on the family’s real business. And Shuwan — how’s she been lately?”

Hearing his father ask about his sister, Lou Shuwang’s expression turned somewhat complicated. “Actually… little sister has developed some connection with this Ning Yi…”

“Hm?”

Lou Jinlin’s brow furrowed, and Lou Shuwang laid out roughly how their little sister had come to develop feelings for Ning Yi. “As I see it, this Ning Yi has real ability, and he’s someone who knows exactly how to use whatever situation he’s in to his advantage. Back when he was a matrilocal son-in-law, he kept an extremely low profile; among scholars, he came across as refined and cultured; and now that he’s with the Overlord Blade Battalion, he’s putting on an act of bold, generous heroism. Given the Lou family’s current standing, him deliberately drawing close to little sister works to his advantage — but little sister truly cannot manage a man like that…”

He finished laying out his view. In truth, though Lou Shuwang had been kept busy lately and had given Ning Yi some thought, it had always been from a position of looking down on him — a man reduced to hiding out among bandits, with even Li Tianyou holding hostility toward him, scrambling and scheming just to survive. However well he managed it, in Lou Shuwang’s eyes, it was still just a better-than-average performance.

Lou Shuwang himself had no interest in Ning Yi one way or the other — it was only because his brother and sister were entangled with the man that he paid any attention at all; whether such an outsider lived, died, or suffered a fate worse than death made no difference to him. In a sense, if little sister truly could have a good life with him, or even just be as happy as she’d been before, and things ended with her simply cutting him loose, he’d have been willing to talk his younger brother into showing mercy and letting the man go, and try to reason with him. But since little sister ultimately couldn’t manage a man like this, and little brother was so bent on venting his grievance, then the man had no choice but to die.

Lou Jinlin naturally understood his meaning. He thought it over for a moment, then said, “Keep a close eye on this matter.” Lou Shuwang nodded to show he understood.

After finishing this conversation with his father, he went to the Four Seasons Restaurant that noon to dine with Bao Daoyi and the others. He was little more than a supporting presence there, not really in a position to speak much. These past few days he’d also heard that Bao Daoyi and the Overlord Blade Battalion had clashed over some matter involving a woman, with friction continuing ever since. He gave the matter little thought — the Lou family relied on Bao Daoyi’s patronage, but their true foundation lay with Fang Qifo, and the city’s various supplies still had to flow through the Lou family’s hands. No one could easily strike at the Lou family, and instead the Lou family could simply watch how things developed, standing to pick up their own gains from this political struggle before too long.

It was only by chance, then, that he happened to notice Ning Yi and the maid Xiao Chan seated downstairs, eating.

Amid the meal, serious topics naturally took up only a small portion of the conversation before it turned to joking around. Lou Shuwang knew Bao Daoyi had a taste for women of every kind, and steered the topic that way; Bao Daoyi, delighted, held forth eloquently on the merits of various types of women. In the midst of this pleasant exchange, Lou Shuwang pointed down at Xiao Chan and asked Bao Daoyi’s opinion. Bao Daoyi did indeed have a discerning eye — stroking his beard, he glanced down and remarked with a smile that she was clearly a maid trained to perfection in some grand household, recently taken as a concubine by the man beside her, and was at just the ripest, most alluring stage now.

With this single question, Lou Shuwang had already achieved his purpose. He knew Bao Daoyi’s tastes well, and a girl like Xiao Chan was exactly the sort he favored — with this remark now planted, someone might well come along later and carry Xiao Chan off. It was, in effect, a casual little problem he’d tossed Ning Yi’s way.

As it happened, though, Bao Daoyi had been busy fighting lately, and with plenty of girls at home to keep him entertained, after his recent clash with the Overlord Blade Battalion, he’d actually shown some restraint about grabbing women off the street. This time, in the end, he never made a move against Xiao Chan.

For Lou Shuwang, this had only been a casual gesture, given little further thought — whether or not Bao Daoyi actually ended up seizing her made no real difference to him. If something did happen, he could observe how Ning Yi responded before his younger brother made his move; and even if nothing came of it, Ning Yi’s life was as good as forfeit regardless. Lou Shuwang had plenty of pressing matters ahead of him — a small thing like this wasn’t going to take up much of his time.

The next two days passed. He heard from a servant that Lou Shuweng had recently met a woman at some poetry gathering and had become quite taken with her poise and literary talent. Lou Shuwang thought that, with this new fixation, it was probably time to let him know about the whole Ning Yi affair and have him set his mind at rest. But when he went looking for his younger brother around noon that day, Lou Shuweng’s progress gave him quite a shock.

It was at a small wine house near Pingchang Street, where Lou Shuweng sat with a few household retainers. He’d spent these past days scouring the city for traces of Ning Yi, but had been asking the wrong contacts and hadn’t managed to gather much information; by now his face had sprouted stubble, and he looked altogether unkempt. But when his elder brother arrived, he held up two fingers, wagging them excitedly.

“Do you know who I found? Brother, do you know who I found?”

“Who?”

“You’ll never guess… heh heh, you’ll never guess…”

“…”

Lou Shuwang looked down at the scene below in confusion, unable to make sense of it. Lou Shuweng laughed for a long while, pacing back and forth, pressing his hands together and rubbing them excitedly, then lowered his voice with a manic sort of urgency.

“It’s Su Tan’er… it’s Su Tan’er… I found Ning Yi the day before yesterday, and then… then I had someone find a way to keep watch on him. Yesterday I discovered he was actually heading this way — you know what I saw? Haha, it’s Su Tan’er, she’s really something — with Ning Yi trapped here, she actually snuck a shipment of cloth right back into Hangzhou herself. Isn’t that something? Incredible, haha… She came back, she actually came all the way back for that Ning Yi, incredible… this woman…”

Lou Shuweng laughed until tears nearly spilled from his eyes. Lou Shuwang frowned, watching his brother’s slightly excessive excitement. After a moment, under his brother’s gaze, Lou Shuweng stopped his animated gesturing, took a breath, and composed his expression like a student caught under a teacher’s watchful eye.

“I’m going to keep her here.” He raised his right index finger, emphasizing the point, then after a moment shook it firmly again, breaking into a grin. “She’s meant to leave tonight, but… I’m going to keep her… haha… ha—”

…

By the time Juan’er reached the Overlord Blade Battalion, it was around the second quarter of the shen hour — a little past four in the afternoon. Autumn nightfall came early, and dusk was already drawing close. The Battalion’s elite forces had all been sent out, quietly making their way from different directions toward the various strongholds belonging to Bao Daoyi that had been mapped out beforehand across the city. As one of the key figures orchestrating the operation, Ning Yi, Liu Xigua, Liu Tiannan, and the others had only just left Xiliu Street. The one who received Juan’er was Xiao Chan, who had just learned she was about to be sent away and was hiding alone in the kitchen, crying, her eyes still red-rimmed. Learning the news, she immediately grabbed Juan’er and rushed out after her…