Miss Li’s words abruptly ceased.
She involuntarily took a step forward, reaching out to gently stroke the fabric, the displeasure in her eyes gradually replaced by astonishment. “This luster… how peculiar…”
Pei Yanshu, who had been waiting nearby, stepped forward at the opportune moment, offering a slight bow as he launched into his persuasive spiel: “Miss Li has a discerning eye. This brocade is named ‘Buddha’s Hand Gold,’ drawing from the auspicious omen of ‘The Buddha guides the destined, gold and jade fill the hall with spring.'”
As he spoke, he turned his head and called out with utmost naturalness: “Nianyi, come, fully unfurl this fabric so Miss Li may examine it carefully against the light.”
That “Nianyi” made Shen Nianyi’s heart skip a beat, but she understood now was not the time to dwell on it.
She complied, stepping forward. With A Man on one side and herself on the other, they carefully spread the entire bolt of Buddha’s Hand Gold fabric, allowing the morning sunlight to fully illuminate the satin surface.
In an instant, it was as if life had been breathed into the dignified base color. A delicate, warm, golden-red sheen flowed across the cloth like water.
“Observe this hue closely,” he continued. “Warm and restrained, its brilliance subtly concealed. Does it not share a remarkable similarity with the centuries-old gilded pillars in the main hall of Ci’en Temple, seasoned by incense smoke?”
He paused, lowering his voice with a hint of mystery. “To be frank with you, Miss, the dyeing and crafting of this brocade involved considerable serendipity, not something that can be forced by mere human effort. It has transcended the mundane; it possesses a certain Buddhist affinity. It is an auspicious brocade capable of bringing peace to a household and gathering blessings. It is most fitting for a wedding gown, symbolizing a harmonious marriage and enduring prosperity.”
Miss Li’s eyes grew brighter and brighter as she listened.
She was a devout Buddhist herself, and her family valued elegance and refinement. Swept along by Pei Yanshu’s flattery and mystique, and looking at the fabric again, she found it increasingly pleasing to the eye. Its unique color and luster seemed to genuinely carry a touch of transcendent Zen-like grace and nobility.
“So that’s it… It actually holds such profound meaning and history…” The displeasure on her face had long been replaced by delight. She gently caressed the fabric, unable to put it down. “In that case, it seems I failed to recognize treasure when I saw it. I like this fabric very much!”
A rather dignified matronly servant beside her leaned in for a closer look, nodding repeatedly. “This old servant must say, this fabric is indeed unique. This luster, this aura, it’s so much more elegant than the common red.”
Another clever senior maid immediately chimed in softly: “Indeed, Miss. This color is both distinctive and majestic. Wearing it out would guarantee it’s one of a kind; you’d never clash colors with anyone else.”
Hearing the agreement from those around her, Miss Li was even more satisfied. She felt she had indeed shown discerning taste, stumbling upon a treasure others could only dream of. Contentedly, she left Cloud Silk Atelier with the bolt of Buddha’s Hand Gold.
The moment the customer was seen off, a collective sigh of relief echoed through Cloud Silk Atelier.
A Man slumped against the counter, patting her chest. “Finally gone…”
Da Chun simply sat down on the threshold, wiping sweat from his brow. “Scared me half to death.”
Shen Nianyi let out a long exhale, feeling her legs go a bit weak.
She looked towards Pei Yanshu beside her, who was fanning himself with a perfectly composed expression. Her feelings were indescribably complex.
Pei Manor, Songhe Hall.
The Second Mistress, clutching an embroidered handkerchief, was vividly recounting the events to the Old Madame Pei:
“Mother, you haven’t seen it! All the ladies and young misses in Chang’an are fighting over a fabric called Buddha’s Hand Gold! Even the abbot of Ci’en Temple wants to use it for his kasaya! And this fabric was actually created by our Sixth Young Master at that Cloud Silk Atelier in the West Market!”
The senior maid pouring tea trembled, nearly spilling the tea.
Old Lady Pei’s hand, which had been counting prayer beads, paused. She lifted her eyelids: “Oh? Instead of attending his duties at the Household Administration, he’s learning dyeing now?”
“Not just learning dyeing! He’s now the general manager of Cloud Silk Atelier! He spends all day mingling with those shop assistants, and I’ve heard he even carries fabric rolls himself and scrubs dye vats! The other day, someone saw him learning how to knead dough from the flatbread seller at the West Market entrance, saying he wanted to understand the proper force for kneading fabric!”
Her voice grew increasingly shrill as she spoke, her handkerchief whipping through the air: “What’s most infuriating is that now everyone outside is saying our Pei family’s Sixth Young Master is a prodigal son who has turned over a new leaf! They say he made a stunning debut at the Silk Competition—that’s the same time he publicly said something about pledging himself in marriage!”
Mentioning this old matter made a vein throb at Old Lady Pei’s temple.
The second daughter-in-law didn’t notice and continued chattering: “Now it’s even worse—all of Chang’an knows our Pei family’s Sixth Young Master is a fabric dyer! This… this is utterly improper, Mother!”
A soft chuckle suddenly interrupted the second daughter-in-law’s complaints.
Everyone in the room froze, looking toward the head seat in disbelief.
They saw Old Lady Pei not only unangered but actually wearing a slowly spreading smile. She leisurely picked up her teacup. “I thought it was something serious. If he can truly settle down and dye fabric in the West Market, I’d thank heaven and earth.”
The second daughter-in-law grew anxious: “Mother! He’s disgracing the Pei family’s reputation!”
“Reputation?” The old lady blew on the tea foam. “When he previously spent a fortune on a singing girl in Pingkang Ward, got into a fight over a plate of roasted lamb at a tavern, and last year during the autumn hunt, shot through the tail feathers of the Third Prince’s hunting hawk over a rabbit—forcing the elder master to smile apologetically before the emperor for three days—did the Pei family have any reputation then?”
She set down her teacup, her tone light: “Now he’s just making trouble in a different place. Let him be. It’s still better than if he suddenly becomes ambitious someday and wants to compete with his brothers for something.”
The second daughter-in-law’s eyes shifted, suddenly remembering something. She spoke up: “What Mother says is right. But… since Sixth Young Master seems somewhat settled now, should we arrange another marriage proposal for him? Last time he ruined the match with Vice Minister Liu’s family. This time, I have a distant niece from my maternal family…”
“Stop right there.” The old lady raised her hand to interrupt. “Do you think the Pei family hasn’t been laughed at enough?”
She slowly counted her prayer beads: “Last time, he went to the Liu family banquet and said in front of all the guests that their young lady ‘walked like a duck,’ making Madam Liu faint on the spot. The time before that was even more outrageous—he directly took General Wang’s daughter to the West Market to watch pig slaughtering, frightening her into illness for half a month.”
The second daughter-in-law persisted unwillingly: “That was all in the past when he didn’t understand things…”
“Didn’t understand things? Didn’t he last year take the portrait of that distant cousin you introduced, alter it into a painting of Zhong Kui catching ghosts, and hang it at the entrance of Pingkang Ward for three days? Your cousin’s family still doesn’t dare enter Chang’an city easily because of that.”
The second daughter-in-law was immediately speechless.
“Forget it.” The old lady waved her hand dismissively, her tone laced with sarcasm. “That restlessness in his bones comes from his birth mother. If you marry him off to some well-bred young lady from Chang’an, what if one day he loses his mind and runs off to the Western Regions with his new bride to find those relatives of his who sell flatbreads and dance whirling dances? Wouldn’t our Pei family become the laughingstock of all Chang’an?”
She stood up, giving the second wife one last glance. “Right now, he’s fooling around in the West Market, at least still under our watchful eyes. If we really give him a wife and they hit it off, holding hands and running off to the desert to look at camels, where am I supposed to find them?”
The second wife was about to say something more, but the old lady cut her off. “By the way, since the cloth he dyes is so rare, go and get a bolt of it. Next month is the Princess of Yong’s birthday banquet, and I happen to be in need of a fresh outfit.”
The second wife could hardly believe her ears—just moments ago, she was talking about how Liulang was a disgrace, and now she wants to wear the cloth he dyed to a banquet? Wouldn’t this be… supporting that illegitimate son?
“Mother, is this… appropriate?” the second wife couldn’t help but ask. “Wearing cloth dyed by Liulang, won’t people think our Pei family…”
“Think what?” The old lady shot her a glance. “Think our Pei family is magnanimous, willing to wear cloth dyed by an illegitimate son’s fooling around? Or think this old woman is broad-minded?”
The second wife was instantly speechless.
Only then did she understand: her mother-in-law intended to turn Liulang’s achievements into a tool to showcase her own virtuous reputation.
“Go quickly,” the old lady said lightly. “Remember to pick a bolt with a steady color, none of those gaudy ones.”
Watching her mother-in-law’s leisurely departing figure, the second wife thought: The older ginger is indeed spicier!
Meanwhile, the subject of their discussion, Pei Liulang, was in the backyard of Cloud Silk Atelier—
“This time it’s definitely a success!”
Pei Yanshu excitedly held up a piece of cloth fresh from the dye vat, the fabric dripping with murky water.
“Give it up, Young Master Pei!” A Man pointed at a pile of oddly shaped cloth in the corner. “How many vats is this today already!”
Da Chun leaned in for a closer look and said in a muffled voice, “Young Master Pei, this color… looks like the bottom of my mother’s pickling jar from last year, the one that went bad and she couldn’t bear to throw away…”
“Go on, what pickles!” Pei Yanshu shook the cloth in his hand with full confidence. “This is a pearl lost in the vast sea! Look at this profound base color…”
“I see algae fished out of a sewer!” A Man mercilessly interrupted him, pinching her nose. “Shopkeeper! You have to do something about him! If we let him keep messing around like this, we’ll all be drinking the northwest wind next month!”
Hearing the commotion, Shen Nianyi looked up from her ledger and glanced through the curtain. “A Man, deduct Young Master Pei’s wages for this month first, to cover the loss of the cloth.”
Pei Yanshu immediately charged around the curtain toward the counter, holding the dripping cloth. “Take a closer look, the texture is so unique!”
“Stop right there!” Shen Nianyi slapped her pen down, her willow-leaf eyebrows shooting up. “Pei Yanshu, have I been giving you too much leeway these days? Pushing your luck! I’ll count to three. If you dare let a single dirty drop from that cloth fall on my counter—”
She conveniently grabbed her personal, gleaming large scissors from under the counter and snipped the air with a sharp “snip.””
The wet cloth froze mid-air.
Pei Yanshu looked down at his beloved robe and decisively pulled the cloth back. “…Just joking, no need for weapons…”
Da Chun added with a naive bluntness from the side: “Young Master Pei, perhaps… you should just go to Pingkang Ward to listen to music? That at most costs money, not fabric…”
Everyone immediately burst into laughter.
Pei Yanshu wasn’t annoyed either: “You all just don’t know how to appreciate avant-garde art.”
Shen Nianyi looked at his unrepentant attitude, both exasperated and amused.
This person clearly possessed astonishing talent, yet insisted on using nine-tenths of his energy on fooling around.
Meanwhile, at the Brocade Workshop in the East Market, it was an entirely different scene.
“This is impossible!” Chen Wanqing snatched the Buddha’s Hand gold fabric sample from the clerk’s hand, examining it left and right against the sunlight. “This color… this sheen…”
Fuming, she slammed the fabric sample onto the table and scolded the craftsmen filling the room: “With so many of you alive and well, you can’t even replicate a piece of worn-out cloth? Do we keep you at Brocade Workshop just to eat idle rice?”
The lead master craftsman said with a pained expression: “Madam, it’s not that we aren’t trying our best. It’s just… their dyeing method is too bizarre. I heard they used moldy madder and even poured vinegar into the dye vat…”
“Poured vinegar?” Chen Wanqing widened her eyes. “Are they dyeing cloth or mixing cold dishes?!”
Granny Zhou quietly added from the side: “This old servant also found out that Young Master Pei added honey to the dye vat, saying he wanted to dye something sweet and honey-like…”
“Added honey?!” Chen Wanqing nearly fainted.
Just then, a clerk rushed in excitedly: “Madam! We’ve replicated it!”
Chen Wanqing was overjoyed: “Quick, bring it here to see!”
The clerk presented a bolt of cloth. The color was close to Buddha’s Hand gold, but…
“Why is this fabric so stiff?” Chen Wanqing touched it. “It’s like a door plank?”
The clerk said proudly: “This humble one added glutinous rice paste to the dye vat, so the fabric is crisp and stiff!”
“I want fabric, not door planks! If people wear this out, they’ll think our Brocade Workshop has switched to selling armor!”
Another clerk indignantly said: “Madam, look at mine! I added egg whites, guaranteed soft!”
But that fabric not only had a grayish color, it also attracted a swarm of flies.
“Shoo, shoo!” Granny Zhou busied herself shooing the flies. “This isn’t Buddha’s Hand gold, it’s fly-attracting cloth!”
Chen Wanqing looked at the room full of bizarrely shaped imitations, feeling like crying but having no tears.
She paced anxiously around the room, thinking of the piles of premium madder stored in the warehouse, feeling as if each bundle was mocking her.
“Go!” She suddenly turned around. “Lower the price by thirty percent and sell it off as soon as possible!”
Granny Zhou looked troubled: “Madam, now all of Chang’an knows we’ve hoarded a large amount of madder. Lowering the price at this time, wouldn’t that be…”
“Wouldn’t that be what?” Chen Wanqing grabbed the teacup from the table. “Wouldn’t that be telling the whole world that our Brocade Workshop has so much money with nowhere to spend it, specially buying up grass roots at high prices to do charity?!”
She made as if to throw it, then suddenly remembered it was her favorite celadon porcelain from the Yue kiln, and reluctantly put it down. “If we don’t sell, are we going to keep these worthless grass roots to breed offspring?”
The most infuriating thing was that just then, a vendor’s cry came from outside: “Come look, come buy! Cloud Silk Atelier’s same-style Buddha’s Hand gold… scraps! More than enough to make a sachet!”
Chen Wanqing finally broke down, throwing her round fan to the ground: “Even the scraps are being snatched up?! Shen Nianyi, I’m not finished with you!”