Wealth and Honor
When Bai Jingyan and Bai Jindong went to see Qi Zhengyu, he was asleep. Physician Hong told them he had woken from the pain, taken his medicine, and drifted off again.
"Being able to sleep is a good thing," the physician said, stroking his beard from the seat by the table where he had kept watch over Qi Zhengyu without pause. "It doesn't hurt nearly so much when one is asleep."
Gazing at Qi Zhengyu's face, pale as a fresh sheet of paper, Bai Jingyan left the room with reddened eyes and asked Nuo Ping, "Do his family know?"
"The moment Qi Zhengyu arrived, Crane Manor sent someone to inform his sister." Nuo Ping nodded, then raised a folding screen for Bai Jingyan and Bai Jindong.
"Shouldn't his parents and his wife be told as well?" Bai Jindong asked.
Standing beneath the eaves, Nuo Ping answered slowly. "Qi Zhengyu's father died back when bandits ran rampant through Zhangzhou, and his mother passed away five years ago. He took a wife only this past twelfth month, and she is still very young. According to the word sent back from Crane Manor, with no elders left in the household and the bride alone, they feared she could not bear the shock — so they went straight to his elder sister's husband's home and told his sister there."
Bai Jingyan nodded. After a brief silence, she turned back to Nuo Ping. "Nuo Ping, there is something you must handle quietly."
"Eldest Young Lady, you have only to give the order!" Nuo Ping saluted with a cupped fist.
"Early tomorrow morning, Uncle Bai Qiyun of the clan will most likely gather his silver notes and set out for Suyang." Bai Jingyan lowered her head, fingering her hand warmer as she continued unhurriedly. "Choose a few men — loyal, trustworthy, and superb in the martial arts. Keep them tightly in line. Then have them follow in secret, and before they set foot in Suyang, have them disguise themselves as bandits and take back Bai Qiyun's silver notes."
Bai Jindong flinched in astonishment. "Eldest Sister!"
"Yes!" Nuo Ping answered.
"Nuo Ping, you had best choose the men right away. Once you've finished, come to Yifeng Pavilion and report to me."
Nuo Ping saluted and hurried out.
"When you told me and Jinchi to put on that act, I thought it was purely for show — that we would merely save the family's face and hand the silver over to the clan all the same. Jinchi is still sulking about it, you know."
Bai Jindong could barely hold back her laughter. Pillage was precisely to Jinchi's taste. Just imagining Bai Qiyun weeping and wailing after being robbed made her fury melt away like snow.
"One must secure honor, save face, and claim the profit all at once. Otherwise, you and Jinchi would have performed for nothing," Bai Jingyan said, watching Nuo Ping's retreating figure. "You know the old saying — live frugally at home, but carry ample travel money when you take to the road. With another four hundred and fifty thousand taels of silver gained, you really ought to thank Uncle Bai."
"You're quite right, Eldest Sister."
Bai Jingyan, who had been gazing down at the snow heaped on the ground, turned to Bai Jindong and asked, grave and deliberate, "You... are you truly going to cross the sea?"
Bai Jindong had thought of nothing else since returning from the palace banquet on the festival evening. If the Emperor had not posed such a question to Eldest Sister there in the great hall — if the men of the Bai family had not perished in the Southern Border and come home as corpses — she would have quietly and patiently built up wealth for the Bai family along the route Grandmother had prepared for her.
But that day, watching Xiao Rongyan — Great Yan's foremost minister — seated just behind the sovereign, she had arrived at a great revelation: money was the very means by which one could ascend to the heavens themselves.
Bai Jindong did not truly know how Eldest Sister planned the Bai family's future. Yet listen closely to her words, and they dripped with the intent of making the imperial house feel threatened. Eldest Sister stirred up storm after storm in Dadu, holding the Emperor hostage with the hearts of the people and their fury. And at every opportunity, she demonstrated that the Duke's estate served the people with its whole loyalty, stressing again and again that the Bai family thought of nothing but protecting the nation and its people.
Eldest Sister — not once, from beginning to end, had she ever said she would be loyal to the imperial power of the Li clan!
It was still only conjecture. But Eldest Sister showed no intention whatsoever of meekly placing the Bai Family Army into anyone's hands with both palms open.
If they held military power in their grip and wealth that rivaled the state's, how would the Bai family survive — in this Great Jin, and beyond it, in all the world?
Bai Jindong looked forward to that day.
That day in Qinghui Courtyard, Eldest Sister had told her this: how far she could go on her wits was her fate — and the Bai family's fate with it. And so Bai Jindong had to fight for the finest wealth and honor with all her strength, laying a foundation solid enough for the long road ahead.
Not once had Bai Jingyan ever laid her heart bare before Bai Jindong. Yet the clever, sharp-eyed girl knew very well what road the Bai family must walk from here on.
"They say one must risk danger to win wealth and rank. I know perfectly well there's nothing free in this world."
Keen intelligence gleamed in the features of Bai Jindong, standing with her hands clasped behind her back. "Sailing out to sea is terribly dangerous — but the profits are far too tempting to resist! Eldest Sister, the truth is, Grandmother has already sent most of the residences she gave me to the harbor, with orders to buy ships and hire crews. Once the fifteenth passes, I'll lead the people there myself and lay in goods. Both going and coming, the cargo ships will be filled to the brim. If heaven lends us a hand, then in five years at the longest... I may not dare call myself the greatest merchant under heaven, but I am confident I can become the foremost merchant of Great Jin."
As Bai Jingyan looked at her third sister, a thousand thoughts rose within her.
Fortunately, they had all been born and raised in the Bai family of the Duke of Zhenguo. Their grandfather and father had never once, on account of their being women, treated them lightly. Their learning ran no shallower than any man's. They had none of the dainty softness a woman was meant to possess, none of the world's timidity — only the fierce resolve to bend the world to their will.
"Among my father's former advisors there is a man surnamed Liu whose family has lived off the sea for generations. He is said to have inherited from his ancestors an extraordinary gift for reading the weather. I will have him assist you."
Bai Jingyan took Bai Jindong's hand and descended the steps together with her.
Chun Tao, waiting at the entrance of the courtyard, and Danzhi, Bai Jindong's maid, hurried forward at a quickened pace the moment they saw the two young ladies emerge, umbrellas snapping open in their hands.
Taking the umbrella from Danzhi and holding it over Bai Jingyan, Bai Jindong said, "You two go on ahead. I'll walk a while longer with Eldest Sister."
"Give me the lantern."
Bai Jingyan took the lantern from Chun Tao's hand.
Along the bluestone path where snow was falling, the sisters made their way toward Yifeng Pavilion, talking as they walked.
"I heard from Grandmother that she offered you several options for your new identity. Have you decided?" Bai Jingyan asked.
"I have. I'll go by the name Cui Fengyan. It sounds pleasant, and the Cui family were merchants to begin with — though they declined a dozen years ago. They say only a blind, fog-minded grandmother remains in the Cui household, so no one will ever suspect my identity is false."
Bai Jingyan nodded. "The people Nuo Ping has picked, I'll attach to you once this business is finished. Keep them with you."
"Eldest Sister, Grandmother has already given me plenty of people," Bai Jindong said.
Bai Jingyan stopped, turned, and looked her sister squarely in the eye. "Those people were a gift from Grandmother, so of course you must use them — and use them well. But you also need those who follow your orders and yours alone, who work for you and you alone. What I mean is this: there must be people in your hands who belong only to you."
Bai Jindong pressed her lips tightly together. Eldest Sister was telling her, in a roundabout way, to be wary of Grandmother.
"Don't read too deeply into it. I simply hate to see Grandmother grieve."
Taking Bai Jindong's hand again, Bai Jingyan walked on. "Grandmother is advanced in years now; she will see only what she wishes to see. She longs for a peaceful state of things — the Duke's estate and the imperial house honoring one another, each lending the other aid. If you ever do something beyond her expectations, she will unquestionably pick it apart, piece by piece. Remember this: Grandmother is our grandmother, but she is also the Grand Princess of Great Jin."
"Understood, Eldest Sister. I'll show Grandmother only what she wishes to see," Bai Jindong answered.
The men Nuo Ping could see through to the very bottom and trust without reservation numbered barely a few dozen. From among them he selected, with caution heaped upon caution, ten of the tightest-lipped, and handed the list to Bai Jingyan.
Bai Jingyan passed the list on to Bai Jindong. "These men will follow you from now on. Will you meet them first?"
"Nuo Ping chose them, so I trust them. There will be time to meet them soon enough — no hurry," Bai Jindong replied.
Bai Jingyan nodded, then turned to regard Nuo Ping with eyes grown deep and unreadable, and spoke in quick succession. "If you're disguising yourselves as robbers, leave no openings — do it properly. That means there is no need to deliberately spare Bai Qiyun's party their lives. Once the deed is done, there's no need to return and report: split into two groups. One group goes straight to Wudaopo and, in my father's name, invites Master Liu Zhengyu of Liu Family Fort. The other group, disguised as an ordinary merchant's household and servants, will enter Suyang before the incident takes place and, on behalf of their Young Master Cui Fengyan, purchase Suyang's white tea to trade across the sea. From this day forward, those men will act on the Third Young Lady's orders."
"Yes!" Nuo Ping nodded.
The Hour of the Rat — eleven o'clock to one in the morning — was nearly spent. Outside the gates of Changshou Courtyard, Nanny Zhang, umbrella in hand, listened to the report brought by the old servant from the outer court, rewarded him with a silver ingot, then gathered up her skirts and hastened into the main kitchen.
The Grand Princess, her hair streaked with white, reclined against a pillow carved with auspicious clouds of blossoms, eyes closed, a violet cotton quilt drawn over her legs, her fingers moving slowly over a strand of prayer beads. The bed curtain hung undrawn; the upper half of her figure lay buried in shadow beyond the reach of the candlelight, dim and indistinct.
"Grand Princess..." Nanny Zhang drew close to her side and lowered her voice. "Li Nuya's concubine-born child has already been escorted to the mansion. I have delivered everything you wished said. With the festival upon them, mother and child had nowhere in the world to go, and you gave your word to keep the two of them safe — and she knows she is the sole remaining blood of the Duke's estate, so it seems she judged that staying in the mansion was her best course. But once she sets foot inside, that woman will never leave it alive."
The Grand Princess let out a long sigh. "Jingyan must never find out about this."
At those words, Nanny Zhang's eyes reddened. "The truth is, the Eldest Lady never intended to take the child's life."
The corners of the Grand Princess's tightly shut eyes grew moist. "It is not that I shield the child out of fear Jingyan might end its life. I simply could not bear to see that filthy blood staining Jingyan's hands. She is still so very young, and already she has done so much for this family. Let the driving out of misfortune be the work of this old woman, who will soon be buried in the earth."
Nanny Zhang knelt down beside the Grand Princess's couch and gently took her hand. "This servant knew you would say so. You cherish the Eldest Lady above all others, Grand Princess!"