chapter 3

In the middle of the night, guards from Prince Qi’s manor came knocking.

I threw on a robe and got up, thinking: could Li Jingzhou have refused to the death and beaten up Prince Qi?

If so, that medical bill had better count as a work injury.

But when the gate opened, several guards were carrying a sedan chair, with Li Jingzhou following behind.

His hair was a mess, his clothes disheveled, tear tracks still at the corners of his eyes, and in his arms he clutched a rosewood box for dear life.

“What happened?” I hurried over.

The lead guard respectfully handed me a card. “My lady, His Highness says the heir performed beautifully tonight—especially that tear at the end, which really struck a chord in His Highness’s heart.”

“This is His Highness’s gift. He also hopes… ahem, wishes to invite the heir to be a guest of honor at the manor, coming to visit on the fifth and tenth of each month.”

I took the card and opened the rosewood box.

Whoa. It was filled to the brim with eastern pearls, every one as big as a thumb.

This box alone was worth at least five thousand taels.

I immediately put on a beaming smile and pressed a silver ingot into the guard’s hand. “Thank you, brothers. Do come by often.”

After seeing the guards off, I turned to Li Jingzhou, who was still frozen in a daze.

“Well done, Li Jingzhou!”

I praised him from the bottom of my heart. “Keeping a low profile, huh? You landed a big deal on your first day. Looks like this is your calling.”

Li Jingzhou looked up sharply, his gaze complex.

“Shen Ruyi,”

he said through gritted teeth, “Prince Qi… he actually made me sit on his lap!”

“Did you?” I asked with concern.

“…Yes.”

“A sit for five thousand taels? That lap must be made of gold.”

I took the box and started counting. “After paying off the debts, we’ll still have a thousand left. That’s even better efficiency than mine.”

Li Jingzhou seemed shocked by my callousness. “Don’t you care at all?”

“I’m your husband. I went to serve another man. Don’t you feel humiliated?”

I stopped counting and looked at him seriously. “Husband, let’s be reasonable.”

“If you had the talent to pass the top examination, or to earn military merit on the battlefield, I’d fund you with everything I own, even if it bankrupted me.”

“But you can’t write or fight, and you’ve got nothing going for you but that face. This is what we call making the best use of our resources.”

“Besides,”

I leaned closer: “Prince Qi is only after song and beauty. It’s not like he actually does anything. You sit on a lap, sing a few songs, pay off our debts, and make friends with the powerful—how many people would kill for a connection like that?”

Li Jingzhou fell silent.

He looked down at his expensive clothes, then at the box of pearls in my hand, a box big enough to buy his dignity.

Something called a bottom line quietly shattered in his heart.

From that day on, the Jing’an Earl Manor completely changed how it operated.

I was the boss, Li Jingzhou was the headliner, and Lü Qi and Hong Xiu were the mid-tier influencers.

We had a clear division of labor and worked in perfect sync.

Lü Qi’s fame spread through Tianyin Pavilion—rich merchants would pay a thousand gold pieces just to hear her play.

Hong Xiu became the capital’s fashion icon. Whatever she wore became all the rage; her sales-driving ability was top notch.

And Li Jingzhou became the darling of Prince Qi’s manor.

He didn’t just sing—he played chess with Prince Qi, painted with him, and gossiped with him.

Even that brain of his, which had only ever known romance and poetry, erupted with astonishing potential under survival pressure.

He learned how to ingratiate himself without showing it, and how to tease and tantalize to keep people hooked.

He even learned how to fish commercial intelligence out of Prince Qi for me.

“Ruyi,”

he crept over one night, looking mysterious. “Today at the manor, I overheard the Minister of Revenue say that silk production in the south is going to decline this year, and the court might lift the maritime ban.”

I nearly dropped the tangerine I’d just peeled. This was a secret worth its weight in gold!

If it was true, then if I stockpiled raw silk in advance and set up overseas trade, the profits…

I was so excited I threw my arms around Li Jingzhou and planted a big kiss on that handsome face of his.

“Husband, you really are my money tree!”

Li Jingzhou froze. His face went crimson all the way to his ears, and his eyes flickered—he actually looked a little shy.

“Ah… it’s nothing,”

he said, turning his face away, but he couldn’t stop his lips from curling up. “Just look at who I am.”

At that moment, I suddenly felt that this useless heir wasn’t so annoying after all.

After all, a man who could make money always had a certain charm.