chapter 2

After the Jing’an Earl Manor changed its ways, my mother-in-law flew into a rage and came looking for a fight.

She stormed into my courtyard leaning on her cane, jabbed a finger at my nose, and scolded me for running the household like a merchant, for shaming the family’s name, and for forcing her son’s concubines into lowly work.

I was rattling my abacus at the time and didn’t even look up.

“Mother is right. I agree that this isn’t quite respectable.”

My mother-in-law froze, thinking I’d caved. Just as she was about to put on her elder’s airs, I shoved a ledger in front of her.

“This is the Earl’s manor’s expenses last month—twelve thousand taels in all. And the household’s income? A paltry eight hundred. Every tael of that gap was filled from my dowry.”

I looked up and said earnestly, “Since Mother thinks it’s so unseemly, please go ahead and cover the shortfall.”

“As long as the silver is on the table, I wouldn’t say a word against keeping them in the back courtyard eating melon seeds—or even enshrining them as bodhisattvas.”

My mother-in-law stared at the alarming numbers, her hands trembling violently.

The Jing’an Earl Manor had long been an empty shell. The old Earl was a Daoist devotee, forever refining pills and seeking immortality, funneling every coin into his alchemy furnace.

As for my mother-in-law’s private savings, that spendthrift Li Jingzhou had coaxed most of it out of her years ago.

“Then… then you still can’t make the heir go… go…”

“Going to Prince Qi’s manor is an elegant affair. How can you call it ‘making him go’?”

I cut her off. “Prince Qi is of the imperial family and has refined tastes in music. His Lordship goes there to exchange skills and bring back a little commission—that’s the free-spirited romance of cultured gentlemen. How is that shaming the family name?”

My mother-in-law opened her mouth, looked at my utterly unruffled face, and couldn’t squeeze out a single word. She shuffled away, crestfallen.

With the old one settled, the young ones were easy.

Lü Qi cried on her way to Tianyin Pavilion that first day.

She cried on the way back too—but because she’d been drowned in money.

She could be a little finicky, but there was no denying she played the pipa beautifully.

The patrons of Tianyin Pavilion were used to syrupy tunes, so when they suddenly heard this aristocratic air—half aloof, half wistful—they were utterly entranced.

In a single night, her tips alone came to a hundred taels.

As promised, I took thirty and gave her the remaining seventy.

Lü Qi held the gleaming silver, completely stunned.

Back at the manor, she’d earned two taels a month, and even that was whittled away by deductions.

“Y… Young Madam, this is really for me?” She was stammering.

“Working for your bread isn’t shameful.”

I patted her shoulder. “Keep it up tomorrow. I’m betting on you to become the number one pipa player in the capital.”

The look in Lü Qi’s eyes changed. The next day, without me having to push, she was up before dawn practicing, and even asked for extra sets.

Hong Xiu had much the same story. Working as a fitting model at Splendid Brocade Shop, the noble ladies and young misses saw how good the clothes looked on her and placed orders left and right.

The shopkeeper was overjoyed—he paid her wages and even gifted her two fashionable outfits.

Before, they’d fought tooth and nail over a single glance from Li Jingzhou.

Now?

Li Jingzhou passed through the garden, hoping to flirt with Lü Qi.

Lü Qi hurried past clutching her pipa. “My lord, please keep your distance. This slave is off to work—if I’m late, I lose my full-attendance bonus.”

Li Jingzhou went to find Hong Xiu instead.

Hong Xiu was mulling over a new dance step. “Oh, my lord, mind out of the way—you’re blocking the light. This double-sided embroidery is precious. If you tear it, can you even afford to pay for it?”

Li Jingzhou stood in the wind, completely bewildered.

He, who could only compose flowery verse, couldn’t for the life of him understand why the women who had once been devoted to him had suddenly turned into a bunch of money-grubbing careerists.

Of course, the hardest to handle was Li Jingzhou himself.

I fitted him out in an outfit.

Not one of those flashy stage costumes, but a wide-sleeved robe that showcased his bearing, with just a touch of eyeliner to draw out the innocent look in those peach-blossom eyes.

“Remember, you’re going there to exchange skills, not to sell smiles.”

I instructed him. “Hold yourself up. Stay cool. You need that aura of one who treats money like dirt yet has no choice but to wade into the mortal world.”

Li Jingzhou resisted, but at the thought of his mountain of debt, he gritted his teeth and climbed into the sedan chair.

I sat at home drinking tea, calculating how much blood money this wave could bring back.