Biyu felt somewhat ill at ease.
Although she was of servant status, she had worked in the Princess’s manor since childhood and rarely ventured into such filthy alleyways.
Now Chen Baoxiang had pulled her down to sit here, where years of black grime coated both the walls and the ground around them. The drainage ditch gave off an unidentifiable sour stench, and not far away, the cracks between the stone slabs carried the smell of slop and a latrine pit.
She found it almost difficult to breathe.
Yet when she turned to look, Chen Baoxiang resembled a fish returned to its pond — a ruffian returned to its hometown. Far from showing any discomfort, she was positively animated, grabbing the nearest person to chat with: “Things are pretty tight out here, aren’t they? Not enough mouths being fed?”
“Oh, there are mouths to feed all right, just fewer than before.” The beggar muttered into his broken bowl. “The area around Xuanwumen is under a curfew — can’t go there. There’s an opening near Pingxuan Ward, but the big beggars have all claimed it. No room for us.”
“I heard all the salt wells in Shangjing collapsed this year — maybe there’s laborer’s work and food to be had?” Chen Baoxiang probed.
“Salt wells?” The beggar looked puzzled. “Haven’t heard any whisper of that. Hey, Old Five, you heard anything?”
The beggar nearby called Old Five turned around, his expression contemptuous: “Where’d you dig up that rubbish? There’s nothing to it. If you want real news, you come to me — my ears are better connected than the Emperor’s.”
Biyu was so startled her face changed color; she instinctively moved to stand.
Chen Baoxiang pressed her back down and smiled warmly at Old Five: “I’m in luck today, running into an expert like you. Care to enlighten me?”
Old Five’s clothes were in tatters — clearly he was no stranger to going hungry — but he was quite generous and informal about it: “There are over twenty salt wells in Shangjing, every one of them under government control. You think they could all collapse in a single night? Ha. It’s just the officials skimming so much off the top that salt prices became absurd, so they needed an excuse to cover it up.”
The Great Sheng dynasty maintained specialized regulatory offices for salt, iron, and similar commodities, controlling both production and sales through official channels to stabilize market prices — a policy originally intended to benefit the people. But for the government to oversee everything from start to finish meant greatly expanding the number of responsible officials, which naturally multiplied the opportunities for corruption.
If she remembered correctly, Zhang Zhixu had submitted a memorial to His Majesty just last month urging cuts to the salt and iron administration’s staff — but the court’s reaction had been considerable, with many blocking it, and nothing had been resolved.
“Old Five really does have sharp ears,” Chen Baoxiang said, raising a thumb in admiration. “This kind of information can’t be found anywhere out there.”
“Of course.” Old Five lifted his chin with pride. “What would ordinary people dare say? They’ve got families to think about — unlike me. One man full, whole family fed. I say whatever I please — I’d bet every official who manages the salt prices has a bowl made of gold at home.”
Biyu slowly grasped what Chen Baoxiang was doing.
This beggar’s den was better informed than a hundred Ningsus combined. Sit here for two hours and ask freely, and you could learn anything.
Chen Baoxiang not only gathered information about the salt price changes over the past several years, the location of the largest salt well, and the surnames of the key figures responsible for setting prices — she even learned how many singing girls Song Jüqing had recently taken in, the price of the custom wheelchair Cheng Huaili had ordered, and the location of the new house he had purchased.
— He still had spare money to buy a house.
Chen Baoxiang’s expression went flat as she pulled out her small abacus.
She had shut down over twenty of Cheng Huaili’s shops and more than a dozen of his martial arts schools. His visible income had been cut by more than half. Cheng Huaili also maintained private troops, which was no small expense — by all reasoning, he should have been struggling.
Yet somehow, he had other sources of income?
She narrowed her eyes and finally rose.
“I should remind you of something,” Biyu said quietly, walking alongside her. “You are the City Defense General, not the Salt and Iron Transport Commissioner. Don’t go sticking your nose into affairs outside your jurisdiction — the censors at the Imperial Censorate will impeach you for overstepping your authority.”
Chen Baoxiang knew this perfectly well.
But she quickened her pace anyway, eyes darting about, clearly with no intention of letting the matter rest.
The largest salt well in Shangjing lay outside the main city walls — it was indeed beyond her jurisdiction.
But someone else’s jurisdiction was vast, entirely unbound by city walls.
·
“The salt wells?” Zhang Zhixu listened with a grave shake of his head. “Without a major case to investigate, I have no authority to conduct an inspection either.”
Chen Baoxiang cupped her hands in salute: “Every year, several dozen people die at such a place for no apparent reason.”
“Do you have a formal complaint or any concrete evidence?”
“Not at the moment, but if you look into it, you’ll certainly find some.”
The way she said it — as if the Ministry of Justice were some trifling game where one could dig up anyone’s past at will.
Zhang Zhixu, keeping strictly to official protocol, showed her out: “I still have eight old cases to review.”
No matter how close their relationship, no matter how much he trusted her, he could not show favoritism by disrupting someone else’s rightful place and order.
Biyu was speechless with amazement, thinking to herself that Master Zhang could be so coldly indifferent — no wonder he had made so many enemies at court. He truly spared no one’s feelings.
But that very night, around the midnight hour, Biyu was half-asleep getting up to use the privy and just about to shuffle back to bed when she saw Master Zhang, cloaked in the night stars, stride through the gate into Master Chen’s courtyard.
Biyu: “……”
Was she seeing things? Why was this man still in his official robes?
“I have a day off the day after tomorrow,” Zhang Zhixu said the moment he stepped inside. “The matter of Shangjing’s salt wells has had no formal complaint filed, and the relevant case records are sparse. Even if I can find an overview of major incidents over the years, what reaches my desk will be the most presentable version of events — there will be nothing to catch. If you truly believe something is wrong out there, we’ll go and see for ourselves the day after tomorrow.”
Chen Baoxiang seemed to have anticipated his arrival; she quite naturally passed him a cup of tea: “Thank you, sir.”
Zhang Zhixu drank a sip, then looked at her with dissatisfaction, biting the rim of the cup: “What did you call me?”
The deep autumn rain came and went; he had likely ridden here on horseback, for the tips of his hair were still damp.
Chen Baoxiang reached out and squeezed them, then casually grabbed a dry cloth and gathered his dark hair, drying it little by little: “Is there something wrong with calling you ‘sir’?”
“Since when does any ‘sir’ voluntarily show up at someone’s door in the dead of night to handle their business for them?”
The earlier cases had been complicated and he had been busy until midnight today, likely the same tomorrow. He could hardly see her at all, and on top of that, he got none of the good words he was hoping for.
Chen Baoxiang found this amusing.
Who in the court was it that said Zhang Zhixu was deeply guarded and difficult to get along with? This man wore every emotion on his face — you could read him through in a single glance.
“Fengqing~” she drawled, tugging at his sleeve, twisting herself nearly in half, drawing the last syllable all the way up to the heavens.
Such an unbearably coy voice — Biyu, on the other side of the wall, heard it and winced.
But someone found it entirely to his liking; his expression instantly softened, and he stopped grumbling.
As Chen Baoxiang dried his hair, she gave him a broad overview of the situation at the salt wells, then outlined her own plans and thoughts.
Zhang Zhixu agreed to all of it and arranged to meet her at the East Gate at the end of the mao hour the day after tomorrow.
The two of them had gone to Yanglin Village together before, and Chen Baoxiang had a vivid impression of Zhang Zhixu’s fine riding attire in red and white on that occasion.
But this time, when Zhang Zhixu came walking toward her at their meeting point, he was wearing a coarse hemp shirt that had seen better days, straw sandals, and a bamboo hairpin — even his face had been made to look dark, rough, and weathered.
She stared for a moment.
“What, is it strange?” He followed her gaze down to look at himself, then muttered, “I said the belt needed to look even more worn.”
“No.” Chen Baoxiang came back to herself and shook her head. “I just noticed the clothes are a bit dirty.”
“These are actually quite clean. The people doing real labor look even dirtier.” He brushed it off and tugged her along: “Ningsu’s people are already waiting for us — let’s go.”
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