In the bean-sized glow of lamplight, row after row of tiny characters covered the rice paper. It was early morning; outside came the sound of a rooster’s crow. Ning Yi set his brush down beside the inkstone and rotated his wrist, sore from the long hours of writing.

“Should make time to invent the fountain pen when I get a chance…”

With that thought in mind, he lifted the still-wet sheet of paper and gave it a gentle shake in the air before setting it aside. Though the few pages there already held a great many characters, there was still a mountain of material left to write out. Though he had by now grown fluent with the writing brush, its efficiency simply couldn’t compare. For Ning Yi, already deep in work mode and drafting an overall plan, it was still something of a drag on his progress.

In an age like this, building up an entire enterprise framework from scratch — one with internal oversight, checks and balances, and self-sustaining cycles — meant there was no existing structure or set of rules to build upon. Much of what seemed perfectly ordinary in the later world, if not written down clearly, might well never get done at all, leaving some link in the chain fatally weak. In this regard, Ning Yi still believed that even the best memory was no match for the dullest pen — writing many of the basic concepts down made a great many things far clearer.

Time was limited, yet there was nearly no end to what needed to be weighed and considered. These few sheets of paper laid out a rough sketch of the kind of internal auditing and oversight system a large corporation might use in the later world. Right now, the Bamboo Records had no use for such a thing — it was still far too small — but if all went well, it would eventually grow to that scale, and by then it would need a solid enough developmental blueprint in place to avoid unnecessary detours. Much of this system would also need to be adapted and localized, drawing on the management methods and models used by the family-run workshops of this era. There was also the matter of the sheer size of the Wu Dynasty’s territory, and the difficulty of communication, making it hard to keep accounts and information unified and up to date in time — issues that had to be taken seriously as well. But what mattered most to adopt was the spirit behind the mutual oversight, checks and balances, and fraud prevention built into the auditing process — the kind of triangular balance of power present everywhere in such systems.

There was still a great deal of preparation needed on all this. Of course, any project’s development had to proceed step by step, and the Bamboo Records would run into no end of problems along the way — its final shape, in all likelihood, impossible to predict from here. But laying good groundwork and preparation from the start would always mean far fewer detours down the road.

As he turned his mind to whether there was anything missing from what he’d written, he glanced over and saw Xiao Chan lying on the bed nearby, looking his way — she must have woken sometime after he got up. Ning Yi turned his head to look at her for a moment, then smiled. “Come here.”

Xiao Chan smiled too, sitting up from the bed. She pushed aside the thin blanket covering her, swung her slender bare feet down, slipped into her embroidered slippers, and walked over to him, settling onto his lap. “You’re not sleeping anymore, husband?”

It was still summer; even at night, it never got particularly cool. Xiao Chan wore only a stomach-wrap, her body nearly bare. Her skin was fair, her figure soft and well-proportioned, her usual cuteness now blending perfectly with a touch of womanly allure — if one had to put it into words, it was something like the feeling of “belonging to someone.” As Ning Yi held her, she wrapped her arms gently around his neck, pressing her small face against his cheek, letting him take in the feel of her body. The two of them sat like that for a while in the lamplight.

“There’s a fair amount of work to get through, might have to push hard the next few days, but I’ve had enough sleep, it’s fine…” Ever since practicing the techniques Lu Hongti had left behind, Ning Yi’s physical condition had improved a great deal — sleeping in longer usually felt more restful, but rising an hour or so earlier these past two days hadn’t left him feeling tired either. Then again, it might also have something to do with how the matter with Yuan Jin’er the day before had left him a bit rattled. “Once it’s light out, let’s go for a walk.”

“Mm.”

Xiao Chan nuzzled against his cheek like a little cat, snuggling quietly against him. Ning Yi turned back to look over the pages he’d written, then pulled out some of the simple bookkeeping tricks used by the Su family’s accountants to compare against them. After a while, Xiao Chan climbed down from his lap, rustling as she dressed in her silk trousers, blouse, and skirt, then went out to fetch washing water. After tending to him as he washed up, she pushed open the window; outside, a bit of light had begun to show, morning mist drifting hazily.

On a morning like this, the city was full of all sorts of faint, scattered sounds — occasionally one would grow clear for a moment, as though carried from somewhere far away. Yun Zhu and Jin’er would probably already be awake as well, but the two sisters tended to take their time getting ready in their room, so Ning Yi didn’t think it wise to go over there, and instead went out for a walk with Xiao Chan. In the misty morning streets, they looked like a newlywed couple none too concerned with propriety. Ning Yi carried himself with a gentle, easygoing air, no stiffness to him; sweet-looking Xiao Chan, dressed as a young wife, held her husband’s hand as she walked alongside him — occasionally lowering her head in a bit of shy embarrassment, but soon swept up again in sweetness.

They bought some breakfast items and porridge from stalls along the street, wrapping some up in lotus leaves to bring back, and tried a bit of whatever looked interesting on the spot — if it wasn’t good, they’d move on to the next stall in search of something better.

Back at the inn, they brought the food to the pavilion in the middle of the courtyard and called over everyone traveling with them to share. The whole household ate together there, chatting and laughing — some sitting in the pavilion, others beneath the eaves. Yun Zhu and Jin’er naturally had their share too, but since Su Wenyu and the other men were nearby, the two of them took what they wanted and went off to one side with Xiao Chan, chatting quietly while they ate. They were, by now, perfectly capable of conversing with Su Wenyu, Su Yanping, and the other accompanying stewards and servants, though of course never with the same warmth as when they were with Ning Yi.

In truth, over these past two days, Ning Yi and Jin’er could hardly be called warm with each other either. The two of them barely spoke, though they’d also stopped their usual sharp-tongued bickering — it felt… a bit strange.

Ever since Jin’er had shouted at Ning Yi that night before last, he had, at the time, felt rather embarrassed about it, and had naturally given the matter serious thought afterward, though his feelings on it were far from simple. On top of that, he found it hard to face Yun Zhu and Xiao Chan over the whole business, which left him with a certain guilty conscience.

Looking at it purely as an outside observer, a man in this era taking multiple wives and concubines was hardly worth remarking on — Ning Yi hadn’t gone out of his way scheming to win Jin’er over either, so there was nothing to feel too guilty about, strictly speaking. But saying so was one thing; the reality of it was another. That night, Yun Zhu and Xiao Chan had both been eavesdropping outside, and Su Wenyu and Su Yanping too. Though afterward they’d all put on the appearance of simply enjoying watching him make a fool of himself, Ning Yi preferred, in his heart, to believe this was the goodwill of family.

With something like this happening, how could Yun Zhu or Xiao Chan possibly see it as some harmless joke, free of any lingering unease? Toward Yun Zhu, he already felt he owed her a debt of sorts — having gotten together with her and then also winning over her sister — and to say she felt entirely happy about it, Ning Yi doubted that was true. As for Xiao Chan, after all this had happened, she had, quite thoughtfully, avoided bringing up anything about him and Jin’er at all — a mark of her own consideration.

But that others could be forgiving didn’t mean he himself could be without self-awareness. Honestly speaking, with the women already around him now, plus Liu Xigua — whose relationship with him remained rather undefined — Ning Yi felt he already had more than enough to be content with. As for Jin’er, he certainly had genuine affection for her, and considered her one of his most important friends — but whether that affection extended to something between a man and a woman, that was harder to say. Hypothetically, if he didn’t already have Yun Zhu and the others around him, he would certainly be drawn to a personality like Jin’er’s, and there’d be nothing wrong with the idea of spending a lifetime together as husband and wife — that would certainly have been interesting. But now, with so many people already around him, there was more to consider than just that one thing.

On another note, he also couldn’t be certain just what degree of “liking” Jin’er had meant by what she’d said. In his previous life, he had been simple and blunt when it came to matters between men and women — he’d had his share of youthful, tender feelings, of course, though never any chance to act on them. Later, once he’d entered the working world, being the sort with a strong drive to control things, what he’d felt first was ambition and the thrill of achievement. Once he’d made something of himself, women were never in short supply — at first, naturally, there had been some notion of treating them sincerely, but after a few straightforward transactional encounters, he’d stopped expecting anything more. Too difficult, too much trouble, and with no real practical benefit to it — he’d simply grown too lazy to bother studying the emotional workings of women’s hearts. As far as he was concerned, it was simply: “What I want is your body — what do I need your heart for? Should I feed it to a dog?”

Precisely because of how little he’d had of it before, he now treasured these simple, sincere things all the more. To say that a man as sharp as him had never once considered the possibility that Jin’er had feelings for him — that, of course, would be impossible. But precisely because he could see the possibility, he found himself wondering whether he was simply overthinking it, since after all, entertaining such a thought about Jin’er felt disrespectful to her.

And so he hesitated over how to handle the matter going forward. Jin’er, on the other hand — after shouting at him that night before last and running off in tears — had, by the very next day, bounced back as though nothing had happened at all. Though she still wasn’t speaking to him, her relationship with Yun Zhu had returned to normal, and she carried on as though nothing had occurred. Faced with this reaction, Ning Yi could only feel a bit helpless, setting the matter aside for the time being and putting his mind back into his work, taking things one step at a time.

“Truly a case of reaping what one sows…”

Whenever he thought back to this business with Yuan Jin’er, it inevitably reminded him of what had once happened with Xi Junyu. Back then, he’d joked with the people around him that, often, the single most devastating thing you could say to someone was “I like you.” When Xi Junyu had gone charging into the Su household to kill, it was Juan’er who had used exactly this trick, leaving Xi Junyu so tangled up in his own thoughts that Juan’er had finally been able to stab him hard — probably left him unable to believe in love ever again.

Thinking back on it now, that joke had been heard by Juan’er and Xiao Chan back then, and by Yun Zhu and Jin’er here too. For Yuan Jin’er to suddenly turn that very trick back on him — as the original instigator of the joke — felt to him almost like karmic retribution. Though Yuan Jin’er surely hadn’t meant it as some deliberate jab, thinking about it this way still left him feeling more than a little put out.

What kind of joke was this — Xi Junyu, that mangy dog, had obviously been the villain, getting stabbed was only fitting for him. What right did he have to… uh… well, fine, he supposed he wasn’t exactly a paragon of virtue either, so there wasn’t much to be done about that…

In his idle moments, Ning Yi liked to muse over things like this, poking fun at himself. Not long after that morning, Qin Shaoyu came by to invite him out to some well-known taverns and teahouses around Bianliang for a bit of relaxed sightseeing. But before Qin Shaoyu arrived that day, someone delivered an invitation, saying that word had spread that the number one talented scholar of Jiangning had arrived in Bianliang, and inviting him to attend a poetry gathering that evening at Cai Mu Garden. Ning Yi had already heard about this a couple of days earlier, though he was rather surprised that someone had learned of his whereabouts and sent an invitation directly. Looking it over, he found that the person who had sent it was neither the County Mistress of Qingyang nor her husband Liu Qingzhou, but someone named Ruan Weitong. When he asked Qin Shaoyu about it, Qin Shaoyu simply said this was a talented scholar of Bianliang.

Probably someone connected to Zhou Pei or to old Qin himself, guessing that Ning Yi might attend and sending an invitation along just to spare everyone the trouble. Ning Yi hadn’t been sure whether he wanted to go to such a gathering to begin with, and these past two days, with the whole business with Yuan Jin’er weighing on him, he’d only wanted to keep his mind on work. After asking a couple of questions, he simply set the invitation aside and went out with Qin Shaoyu to tour the teahouses instead…

As for a matter as significant as marriage for a girl like Zhou Pei, currently in the thick of her adolescent rebellious phase, Ning Yi’s experience told him that no matter how an elder tried to get involved, they’d likely only end up cast as the unwelcome villain of the piece — especially given that he himself was barely older than her, making his standing as an “elder” none too solid to begin with. He had no interest in meddling in that business at all.