Fearing Chu Huaisheng might not grasp the situation, the county assistant patiently elaborated: “The female students at this academy are daughters of dukes and granddaughters of princes! Today I was accompanying the prefect to handle the reception, and I personally saw your third daughter moving with great social grace, on excellent terms with those noble young ladies. The daughter of Duke Yongnin was holding her hand and chatting and laughing with her, eating and drinking together.”

There was one thing the county assistant held back from saying: just what connections did this Chu Linlang have, exactly?

Before long, a document had come down from the Ministry of Finance instructing him to properly assist Chu Niangzi with the transfer of shop deeds, free from interference by outside parties. The county assistant had originally puzzled over what the document meant — but after the Chu Family made this scene, he finally understood: Chu Huaisheng was the very “outside party” in question.

So any person with a lick of sense knew which way to lean.

Having said all this, the county assistant offered a word of earnest counsel: “Master Chu, we are on good personal terms, so let me advise you: in your household, it is this concubine-born daughter of yours who has connections reaching all the way to the heavens. Given Chu Niangzi’s shrewdness and skill, any thought of taking advantage of her for nothing will burn your mouth before you can swallow it. A harmonious household prospers in all things. If you do not conduct yourself as a father should, how can you expect your daughter to practice filial piety?”

Having said his piece, the county assistant had no desire to linger. After all, so many distinguished guests had arrived in the area, and he had no time to waste arguing with a merchant who exploited his own daughter.

Chu Huaisheng stood there in a daze, then turned to his second daughter Chu Jinyu: “What — what is going on here? How did Chu Linlang end up attending school alongside noble ladies?”

Chu Jinyu was equally stunned. The news she had heard originally was simply that Chu Linlang, being unable to bear children, had been cast off by Zhou Sui’an and sent away with nothing. Third sister had then brazenly gone to make a scene at the Zhou household and barely managed to recover two shops out of it.

Chu Linlang, a woman with no standing, had found it difficult to get by in the capital, and had apparently gone to work as a household manager and cook for some fifth-rank vice president of the Court of Judicial Review.

In short, a woman who had once been a proper official’s wife had been reduced to such a state — utterly humiliating.

So how was it that in just a matter of months, she had boarded the imperial ark under military escort alongside a group of noble ladies and returned home in such radiant glory?

This question was quickly answered for them. Just then, came a series of knocks at the door.

The gatekeeper opened the door to find the second son-in-law — Master Zheng — who had gone to the capital on official business with the side errand of fetching Chu Linlang back, now returned.

Zheng Biao arrived in his naval military uniform, and his expression was distinctly sour.

Chu Jinyu saw him arrive and seized the moment, hurrying over: “Husband, you’re back! Did you see third sister?”

Chu Jinyu meant to ask whether he had seen Chu Linlang — who had just walked out the door — on his way in.

But Master Zheng assumed his wife was asking whether he had managed to track the woman down in the capital.

The mere thought of that business made him want to spit fire.

The story was this: Zheng Biao had received orders from his superiors to go to the capital and escort the female students of the capital’s women’s academy on their boat excursion. Alongside that, he had taken his father-in-law’s commission to go and haul his estranged concubine-born sister-in-law back home.

The errand had seemed simple enough, and his father-in-law had promised him some compensation for his trouble, so Zheng Biao had been happy enough to go along with it.

But as it turned out, once he arrived in the capital, he spent his time following every lead on Chu Linlang’s whereabouts, going door to door at every residence she had stayed at, until he finally traced her to the deputy minister’s residence.

Standing before the stone lion gateposts of a deputy minister’s mansion, Zheng Biao had felt a chill — barging into the compound of an official of that rank to drag someone away seemed like the sort of thing that would bring nothing but trouble on himself.

He breathed a sigh of relief when he found out Chu Niangzi had already resigned and left the position.

But then his official duties pressed in on him, and he had no time to pursue the matter further. He could only head back to the docks to report for duty and wait for the order to escort the distinguished guests’ departure.

It was not until Zheng Biao caught a distant glimpse of Chu Linlang standing at the bow of the ship among the noble ladies, chatting and laughing with them, that he received another shock.

When he made inquiries, he learned that the noble ladies on this very ship were the ones his naval unit had been dispatched to escort — and that Chu Niangzi was herself a student at Ronlin Women’s Academy.

Only then did he understand that his sister-in-law had connections and abilities that reached far beyond what he had imagined.

This daughter of a merchant family’s concubine had somehow managed to stand alongside the future empress — a daughter of the distinguished Tao Family — chatting and laughing as equals.

Had he listened to his wife and his foolish father-in-law and blundered forward to drag someone off, he would have stirred up a catastrophe beyond imagining.

Throughout the journey, Zheng Biao had been eager to exchange a few words with his sister-in-law and greet her, but there had been no opportunity.

The escort guards were not permitted to approach the ladies’ ark without proper authorization tokens, and had to remain on the military vessels.

When they finally reached their destination, Chu Linlang had already disappeared somewhere.

Master Zheng figured she must have gone back to the Chu household and, taking advantage of the change of watch, rushed back — not wanting his foolish wife and father-in-law to do something stupid and gratuitously offend her concubine-born sister.

Only to walk in and find Chu Jinyu asking whether he had managed to catch anyone.

Thinking back on how he had run his legs raw across the capital searching for her, all for nothing, and how he had nearly gotten himself into serious trouble and jeopardized his own career prospects — Zheng Biao erupted in wordless fury.

He was a man accustomed to using his fists at home. In such a foul mood, he raised a hand and slapped Chu Jinyu across the face without a second thought, cursing at the same time: “What are you gawking at? That blasted errand nearly killed me!”

Chu Jinyu had not expected that this man would strike her without rhyme or reason even on her own family’s turf.

All the accumulated grievances she had stored up surged to the surface at once. Emboldened by being in her maternal home, she fought back without yielding, leaping up to claw at Zheng Biao’s face while wailing: “Why do you come in the door hitting people? I’d rather die than put up with this!”

Zheng Biao, who had never expected his well-beaten wife to suddenly turn and fight back, was immediately raked across the face, and the pain made him lash out with his leg to kick her.

The main wife came running to protect her daughter, but was herself kicked square in the stomach by her own son-in-law, and doubled over in pain on the floor.

Just at that moment, Chu Renfeng came staggering home reeking of alcohol with two drinking companions in tow. One look at his mother being kicked, and he broke into a string of curses, grabbed the carrying pole from the entryway and went for his second brother-in-law.

In an instant, the main hall of the Chu household descended into complete chaos — chickens scattering, dogs howling, cries of wanting a divorce ringing out without end.

Chu Huaisheng had not anticipated that the household could turn upside down so swiftly. In the space of a moment his dinner table was overturned by his son-in-law before he had eaten more than a few bites.

He too was so furious he was jumping and cursing, his head pounding.

Meanwhile, Chu Linlang had taken her mother to the physician’s clinic, applied medicine to her burns, and had the physician examine her pulse as well.

The physician said Sun Shi appeared to be suffering from a poor diet, depleted blood and energy, and that she had recently caught a chill, causing lingering stagnation and a persistent mild cough, all of which required proper medication and rest to recover from.

After the physician prepared her prescriptions, Chu Linlang could not bring her mother to the travelers’ lodge where the noble ladies of the women’s academy were staying, so instead she rented a room at an inn in town.

Sun Shi’s heart was consumed with worry over her daughter’s falling out with Chu Huaisheng, and she was deeply distressed.

Between soft coughs, she asked Linlang whether she ought to go back and make peace with Chu Huaisheng.

Chu Linlang was in the middle of applying medicine to her mother’s neck. Hearing this, she replied carelessly: “I don’t rely on him to live. What does it matter whether he forgives me or not?”

Linlang’s fair skin was something she had inherited from Sun Shi — but now Sun Fu’s snow-white neck had been scalded a vivid, painful red.

Linlang was heartbroken with concern, and she felt a surge of regret: why had she thrown only one shoe back at the Chu household?

She should have taken the remaining half-basin of soup and upended it over Chu Huaisheng’s head.

Besides the fresh burn, there was also a coarse brand mark on Sun Shi’s right shoulder.

Her mother had told her that this was a mark left by kidnappers when she was a child. When abducted children were to be divided among several traffickers, the buyers would select their choices and brand the children on the shoulder with a small iron to tell them apart before loading them onto boats to be transported and sold — like stamping livestock in a pen. Some children received one mark, some two.

Her mother had been beautiful, so she had been selected by the madam of a pleasure boat. The brand she received was lighter than some others, but it was a mark of shame nonetheless, and it had never faded from her shoulder.

Now, old scars unreleased, new wounds were added — her mother’s shoulders and neck were covered in fresh burn blisters.

In the past, whenever Linlang received letters from her mother, they were always full of good news and never bad. But now, no matter what her mother said about life in the Chu household being fine, Linlang would never believe it again.

That family — the main wife jealous and calculating to the bone, Chu Huaisheng mercenary and cold-hearted. And now her scheming second sister had come back to the family home. If her mother returned there, what good could possibly come of it?

She said to her mother: “I have a house of my own in the capital now. Once I sell the two shops here in Jiangkou, I’ll have no more business here. I came back this time specifically to take you with me. We won’t be coming back here anymore.”

Sun Fu had been weeping every day since she learned that Zhou Sui’an had cast her daughter aside. Now hearing that her daughter wanted to take her away, she was startled: “You want to take me? Won’t I just be a burden dragging you down? How will you ever remarry with me in tow? No — your mother is useless already. How can I hold you back? And if I don’t go back, your father will just make more trouble for you.”

She rose to leave as she spoke, reasoning that it was better to go back and endure one of Chu Huaisheng’s rages than to be an anchor on her daughter’s future.

Chu Linlang held her mother back, stroking her hands — which had grown rough with thin calluses, for since Sun Shi had grown older and her looks had faded, she had been set to doing all manner of coarse household work, more like a servant woman than anything else.

Her mother was fragile and helpless, yet she had always been trying, in her own small way, to protect her. The thought of it made Linlang’s eyes grow faintly wet.

“Mother, listen carefully. From the day I married, I have never depended on a man to keep me, so even as a cast-aside woman, I have no need to live on any man’s charity. Whether you come to live with me has absolutely nothing to do with whether I marry again. And even if someday I lost my mind and decided I wanted to remarry — what use would I have for a man who couldn’t make room for my own mother?”

Sun Shi stared at her daughter in a daze. She did not know how Linlang had made it through those difficult days after the separation, but she could see for herself now that her daughter, radiant and composed, truly did seem to manage very well on her own.

Chu Linlang knew her mother’s nature was timid, so she would not need her mother to face Chu Huaisheng directly — she would handle the negotiation herself.

As for the pretext, she had already thought of one while at the physician’s.

She would simply have the physician inform the Chu household that Sun Shi had contracted a serious illness. Treatment and medicine would be costly and prolonged.

Knowing Chu Huaisheng as she did, the mere phrase “costly and prolonged” would be enough to make him release his grip and practically push her mother out the door, eager to save himself the expense of feeding another mouth.

However, her mother’s bond document was in Chu Huaisheng’s hands. If it was not retrieved, he could use it to resurface at any time — wielding her mother as a means of controlling and tormenting her.

Taking her mother away was not difficult. The real problem was how to get hold of that bond document.

The following day, the other noble ladies of the women’s academy went sightseeing through the mountains and countryside under arrangements made by the local officials. Chu Linlang did not join them — she had not come back to Jiangkou for leisure.

Inquiries about purchasing the shops had come in early that morning.

Over the next few days, guided by her managers, she met with several prospective buyers, compared their offers, and signed the deed with the one who offered the highest price, transferring the bank notes accordingly.

Afterward, the managers and shop assistants were given a choice: those willing to follow her to the capital were welcome to do so; those who were not would each receive a generous settlement to start afresh.

Both managers declared at once that they wanted to follow her to the capital.

Over these years, they had watched Chu Niangzi’s capabilities with their own eyes. In terms of business acumen, even compared to men, Chu Niangzi stood out as exceptional.

Doing business in the capital would surely be more profitable than staying in Jiangkou — and since their wages were tied to a share of the shops’ profits, why would they let such an opportunity pass?

As for the Chu household, apart from two occasions when manservants came around urging Sun Shi to return, there was no other interference. Chu Linlang suspected the county assistant must have quietly warned her father off, keeping him quiet for a few days.

She knew the Chu Family’s business rhythms — by customary practice, Chu Huaisheng would go in person to the neighboring town to audit his accounts at the start of this month.

Seizing the window of his absence, she sent word inviting the Chu main wife and her second sister to come out for tea.

The main wife came, bringing the second daughter with her.

Though both women had dressed up carefully, Chu Jinyu had visible bruising on her face, and the main wife moved with a slight stiffness — clearly the lingering effects of the household brawl a few days earlier.

To the soft strains of a singer’s melody drifting through the teahouse, the main wife cautiously asked Linlang how she had managed to gain entry into Ronlin Women’s Academy, where noble ladies of every description congregated.

When it came to hoisting a grand banner when needed, Chu Linlang was entirely without hesitation. With a smile, she spun a plausible tale on the spot.

She recounted in vivid, animated detail how, while working as a household manager for a family of capital officials, she had gone to present birthday gifts to Chancellor Qi Gong of the Imperial Academy. Quite unexpectedly, he had noticed some calligraphy she had casually written down and, impressed by it, said it was a shame that someone with her talent should not be studying. As it happened, the women’s academy was just opening its doors, and the Chancellor had approved her to sit for the entrance examination — and, trying her hand, she had unexpectedly passed.

This explanation caused her second sister Chu Jinyu, who knew Linlang’s limits well enough, to accidentally let out a laugh.

Impressed by her calligraphy? Perhaps the Chancellor’s residence was haunted and needed a few strokes of third sister’s brush to exorcise the spirits?

Yet Chu Linlang told it all with complete gravity, her words utterly convincing — and it could hardly be denied that she was genuinely enrolled at the top women’s academy and on close terms with daughters of dukes, all of which the county assistant himself had confirmed as fact.

So after Chu Jinyu laughed, no one joined in, and under Chu Linlang’s calm, steady gaze, she could only close her mouth in awkward embarrassment.

The main wife, after being thoroughly lectured by the county assistant that day, had come to appreciate Chu Linlang’s social connections. On top of that, after the household erupted into chaos, the second son-in-law had made his own feelings plain — glaring and ordering both mother and daughter not to be as reckless as his father-in-law and risk offending Chu Linlang, who moved in circles of powerful people, lest they damage his own career prospects.

So the main wife carefully asked: “Third girl, what is it you wanted to see me about today?”

Chu Linlang dabbed at the corners of her eyes with a handkerchief she had touched to a bit of spicy oil. The tears came on cue.

“Main wife, I won’t hide it from you — I noticed that Sun little-mother has been coughing badly these days, so I took her to see a physician. The physician told me that little-mother, she… she has consumption!”

The main wife started in alarm: “Surely not — she seemed perfectly healthy to me just recently!”

But Chu Jinyu recalled that Sun Shi had indeed been coughing from time to time over the past few days, and her expression shifted at once.

Everyone knew consumption was contagious. She had brought her children with her to her maternal home — if they caught the infection from this consumptive wretch, what would she do?

Chu Linlang looked at the main wife and said quietly: “Oh? Healthy? Little-mother told me she had been coughing for many days. Did you have a physician called in to examine her?”

The main wife was stumped. A trifling cough — why would she waste money calling in a physician? But now she could hardly claim Sun little-mother had been perfectly healthy.

After all, only a short while ago, the woman had been made to kneel in the courtyard as punishment and had fainted from hunger.

Seeing the main wife’s guilty expression, Chu Linlang continued describing her mother’s condition, and as she spoke, her eyes reddened once more.

Thinking of the years of suffering her mother had endured in the Chu household, Linlang had no need to perform — the tears simply came tumbling down of their own accord: “Sun little-mother has never known a day’s ease in her life. She’s had the hardest of fates. And now to fall ill with something like this — the physician says the medicine cannot be interrupted, it must be decocted three times a day. I was thinking, with only a handful of servants in the household, it would be hard to spare someone to boil medicine for her every day. So I thought I would take her back with me and let her receive treatment in the capital.”

Hearing this, Chu Jinyu immediately chimed in: “That would be ideal — with her own daughter to look after her, mother could rest easy about her too…”

The main wife shot her second daughter a sharp look. The master had given instructions before he left: no matter what schemes this Chu Linlang came up with, Sun Shi must not be allowed to go with her.

Yes, it was a good thing that Chu Linlang had connections reaching all the way to the heavens — but those connections needed to serve the Chu Family’s interests. Otherwise, just like when she had been married to Zhou Sui’an and kept her distance from family affairs, no one could benefit from her ties, and what was the point of that?

As long as Sun Shi remained in the Chu household, they need never worry about the third daughter stepping out of line.

Besides — was Sun Shi really ill? Could it be true?

The main wife gave a cold laugh, reprimanded her second daughter, and stated firmly that a concubine of the Chu household had no business leaving home to convalesce elsewhere.

Chu Linlang could see the main wife did not believe her, and had even proposed coming to see Sun Shi in person and taking her back to the Chu household. So Chu Linlang simply smiled and led the two women to the inn where they were temporarily staying.

The moment the main wife stepped through the door, she was met with a thick smell of medicinal herbs. As she approached the bedside, she found that Sun Shi — whom she had not seen for only a matter of days — was looking considerably more sallow and waxen than before.

She lay with her eyes tightly shut, but her eyelids were flickering rapidly in a way that did not quite look like deep sleep.

The main wife, certain she was feigning illness, sat down at the bedside and called to her in a soft, solicitous voice.

But what she did not expect was this: Sun Fu’s eyes snapped open, and in the same instant she broke into a fit of coughing she could not suppress. After two smothered coughs into her closed mouth, her lips suddenly parted — and a spray of blood droplets burst out like scattered flowers, spattering the main wife full across the face.

The thick, iron smell of blood hit at close range with no possibility of escape.

The main wife, spattered with blood across her entire face and barely able to open her eyes, felt it dripping down from her face in steady rivulets.

This gory spectacle was like something from a slaughterhouse. Second sister Chu Jinyu, standing to the side, let out a screech of fright.

And Chu Linlang played her part with theatrical alarm, crying out urgently: “Main wife, don’t open your mouth! Don’t breathe in! The physician told me my mother’s illness runs in the blood — it carries poison that can infect others!”

This declaration so frightened the main wife that she waved her hands frantically, whimpering, and begged to wash her face at once.

Dongxue, stifling a laugh, brought a basin of water for the main wife to clean herself.

The main wife hurriedly washed her face, then looked down at her blood-soaked front lapel — so filthy and foul it was as though she had smeared herself in dung. Her expression looked as if she had swallowed something repulsive.

She had entirely forgotten about dragging Sun Shi back home, and could only think of returning to bathe and change her clothes as quickly as possible.

While the main wife was washing her face, Chu Linlang took the opportunity to pull her second sister aside for a little private sisterly conversation.

Linlang expressed that she herself did not particularly want to take her mother away — after all, as a cast-aside woman, she had enough difficulty getting by on her own. If the household didn’t mind the bother, she could reluctantly send her mother back.

Only — the medicine she was currently taking was meant to purge the diseased blood, and every now and then it was unavoidable that she might expel some of it, as had just happened. In that case, she would beg second sister’s forbearance, and to please keep a close eye on her children and make sure they didn’t come into contact with little-mother’s diseased blood.

Chu Jinyu immediately waved her hands and said there was no hurry to send her back — mother and daughter should have more time to talk. As for Linlang wanting to take Sun little-mother away — she would go back and discuss it with her mother before making any decision.

Hearing this, Chu Linlang leaned close to Chu Jinyu and said softly: “In that whole household, second sister, you’re the only one with a kind heart who knows how to feel for others. If you can persuade the main wife to let my mother have a peaceful place to recover, I won’t let you go unrewarded.”

With that, she pressed a bank note into Chu Jinyu’s hand.

Her second sister had not married well. Her husband kept her on an extremely tight leash, and she had no say even over her own dowry.

One look at the old hairpin on her head — the same one she had worn since the day of her wedding — and Chu Linlang understood exactly what could be used to win her over.

Chu Jinyu sneaked a glance at the amount on the bank note. It was enough to burn her eyes.

She could not help but blink, and looked up at Chu Linlang.

Chu Linlang smiled lightly: “For us women, it simply won’t do to be without silver in hand. If second sister can help me obtain Sun little-mother’s bond document and let her spend however many days she has left living free and at ease, I will be endlessly grateful — and there will be more to thank you with later.”

Chu Jinyu was inclined to refuse, but seeing the sum, she simply could not bring herself to do so.

What Chu Linlang was asking for was hardly a great matter. It was just an old concubine wanting to be let go. Even if you sold Sun Shi to a trafficker, you couldn’t get this much for her.

An old concubine who wouldn’t live much longer — if not to make a tidy profit now, when? If father came home, the silver would never fall into her hands anyway.

Thinking of this, Chu Jinyu neatly pocketed the bank note and agreed without hesitation.

Watching her second sister leave, Chu Linlang turned back inside with a cold smile, ascending the stairs to her mother’s room.

Sun Shi was there rinsing her mouth, helped along by Xia He.

This daughter of hers truly had a mind full of cunning tricks.

The previous day, Linlang had procured a fish bladder from the fishmonger, then filled it with freshly drawn rooster blood.

Just before the main wife and the others came in, Xia He had stuffed the blood-filled fish bladder into Sun Shi’s mouth and applied a yellowing agent to her face.

Sun Shi’s acting had been a little rough at the edges, but when she bit down on the fish bladder she genuinely coughed, and the force of it expelled everything from her mouth in one burst.

That single spectacular spray had perfectly covered for Sun Shi’s clumsy performance.

After rinsing her mouth, Sun Shi was still uneasy, and asked: “Can the bond document really be recovered?”

Chu Linlang thought over her second sister’s character and concluded that if she had agreed to try, it probably would not be difficult.

This second sister of hers had, as a child, regularly pilfered coins from the main wife’s cash box to buy sweets — and when the main wife discovered her, she had pinned the blame on third sister. Someone who had been greedy since childhood, once tempted with enough money, would likely find some roundabout way to produce the bond document even if she couldn’t persuade the main wife outright.