The rain that had fallen all night stopped at daybreak. The waning moon hung on the horizon as no more than a thin outline. Early summer in Jiangnan still clung to the tail end of spring, and the morning retained a trace of chill.
Every year around this time, jasmine came into season.
The flower market west of Linjing City opened at the Hour of the Rabbit. Usually, flower buyers did not truly begin arriving in force until the middle of that hour, but today was different. Before the hour had even reached its midpoint, the market was already roaring with voices.
The muddy roads could not hold back the hurried footsteps. Mules and horses came one after another outside the market, from the purchasing agents of the Maritime Trade Office to the flower sellers who went from street to alley. They had all arrived early. Beneath the awnings in the market and along both sides of the lanes, flower trees and plants for sale had once filled every space. Today, every single one was jasmine, leaving only a narrow path for people to walk through.
Raindrops from the eaves occasionally fell into a passerby’s collar, their sudden chill making people draw up their necks.
The fragrance of flowers mingled with the dampness of the fresh rain and filled the lanes, refreshing the heart and mind.
The bamboo shed on the western side of the market was packed with people. Inside, a broker was auctioning off jasmine. The potted jasmine displayed on the ice-carved flower stands were covered in tightly clustered buds. Though only three-tenths of the flowers had opened, they already spilled down like waterfalls, while the remaining buds lay scattered among the green leaves like pearls. Both the flowers and the pots were of the highest quality.
“Li Shaohuan, are you also interested in the top-grade Jade-Bone jasmine being auctioned inside?” A flower farmer beneath the cool awning in the corner called out to a young woman passing in front of his stall.
The seventeen- or eighteen-year-old Li Shaohuan had been drawn by the commotion in the bamboo shed and was standing on tiptoe, peering through a gap to watch.
She wore a pale pink, narrow-sleeved top and a pale grass-green pleated skirt, with a white apron patterned with little butterflies. The silk sash around her waist had been tied into a wood-sorrel knot that hung over her skirt and swayed gently as she moved. It accentuated her light steps and graceful figure, making her look like an ordinary visitor who had come out with an older family member for a stroll, rather than a flower seller.
Hearing the flower farmer’s voice, she turned to look at him. A pair of limpid almond-shaped eyes gazed out at him, and the corners of her slightly upturned lips held a smile. Her face was as lovely as flowers and the moon, equally suited to joy or anger. Amazement immediately rose in the flower farmer’s eyes, and he nearly forgot what he had meant to say.
“Whoever came here today has not heard of that jasmine?” Li Shaohuan curved her lips upward, and the smile seeped into her eyes, making her all the more radiant.
Yesterday, a ship from Min Province had arrived in Linjing, bringing the first jasmine crop of the year. Among it was a batch of top-quality potted jasmine. Aside from the portion purchased for the imperial household, several pots had also been put up for auction through the broker.
“One of those pots costs an ordinary person a year’s expenses. Common folk can only watch the excitement. If you want to buy flowers, why not look at mine instead?” Taking advantage of everyone’s attention being focused on the broker’s auction, the flower farmer pointed to the row of jasmine behind his feet. “Look at these fresh branches and buds. They’re all excellent quality. Li Shaohuan, why not buy one or two pots, take them home, and you’ll be able to enjoy the flowers in a couple of days.”
Li Shaohuan looked over. The flowers had indeed been placed in an inconspicuous corner, but just as he had said, their shapes were full and rounded, and they were thick with buds. Some had already begun to show white, clearly on the verge of opening.
“How much are you asking for one pot?” she asked.
“Not expensive. Only five hundred copper coins.” The flower farmer held up five fingers to indicate the price.
Li Shaohuan’s gaze moved over the flowers. At his words, she smiled. “That’s expensive.”
The flower farmer’s tongue was as smooth as a lotus blossom. “Li Shaohuan, go ask around up ahead, then. Is there anywhere here selling them cheaper than I am? They’re all first-crop jasmine shipped from Min Province, so naturally the prices are high. Flowers of the same quality sell for nearly a string of coins elsewhere, while mine are at least thirty percent cheaper. Buy them now and you can enjoy them first. Once they bloom, cut a few sprigs and tuck them into your hair. Take a stroll by the lake, and who knows? Perhaps the top scholar will take a fancy to you. Before long, you could be the top scholar’s wife.”
She burst out laughing, revealing teeth as neat and white as shells. As she walked inside, she said, “Making you sell flowers is a waste of your talent. You should be a storyteller instead.”
The flower farmer laughed and let her enter to choose her flowers, assuming he had persuaded her. He continued without holding back. “Which pot catches your eye, Li Shaohuan? I’ll carry it out for you. If you buy several pots, I can take another ten or so copper coins off each one, and I’ll deliver them to your residence as well.”
“No rush.” Li Shaohuan waved a hand, then said meaningfully, “The ship only arrived yesterday. The Maritime Trade Office should be sending an official to inspect the market today, to prevent people from passing off inferior goods as superior ones or counterfeits as genuine. I wonder whether they’ve arrived yet?”
The flower farmer’s expression stiffened. “What do you mean by that, Li Shaohuan?”
“This dog-tooth flower isn’t worth even ten copper coins, yet you’re selling it as seasonal jasmine for five hundred?” Li Shaohuan kept the smile on her face, but the bright expression now carried a hint of shrewdness and authority.
Whenever jasmine season arrived, people in the flower market would pass off dog-tooth flowers or Arabian jasmine as jasmine. If the Maritime Trade Office caught them, the consequences would likely be more serious than a simple fine. The flower farmer had assumed that, because she was young and had a tender, innocent-looking face, he could make a handsome profit from her. He had not expected to meet someone who knew the trade. His expression immediately turned ugly. Just as he was about to argue with her, someone struck him hard on the back of the head.
He wailed and turned around. The moment he saw who it was, he began to stammer. “B-Boss…”
The man who had hit him had a protruding belly. He was a flower merchant who operated in this area.
“You’ve been here only one day and you’re already causing trouble. I think you don’t want to work here anymore.” The man pointed at the flower farmer’s nose and began cursing him.
The flower farmer looked utterly bewildered. He hunched his head and covered it with his arms, letting himself be beaten and scolded while sneaking glances at Li Shaohuan from the corner of his eye.
“You even dared to cheat her? This is the flower lady whom Pei Zhanxi’s residence hired at great expense to cultivate their flowers. She’s a regular customer here. You have no idea who you’re dealing with, yet you dared show off your paltry skills in front of her?! Apologize!” After cursing him, the merchant kicked the flower farmer again. Then he turned to Li Shaohuan with a smile plastered across his face. “Lady Li, please don’t take offense. There have been many customers these past two days, and he’s a newly hired flower farmer. He grew this batch himself. His elderly mother is seriously ill and he needed money, so I took pity on him and let him sell his flowers here so he could earn a little extra. I never told him to cheat anyone.”
“Stop putting on an act. Do you really think this is my first day buying flowers here? Move them out of here, or do you want me to call the Maritime Trade Office and settle this with them?” Li Shaohuan’s pretty face darkened as she spoke coldly.
Flower farmers did not have an easy life. They earned every copper coin through sweat and blood, and there were always people who tampered with their flowers to make a little extra money. As for the flower merchants, they received a cut either way the flowers were sold, so they would turn a blind eye. Once trouble arose, they would shirk all responsibility and leave the flower farmer to bear the consequences.
“Yes, yes, of course. We’ll move them right away.” The merchant had the flower farmer start gathering the flowers while he continued apologizing with a smile. “Is Li Shaohuan purchasing jasmine for the marquis’s residence? You only need to send word, and we’ll deliver it to the residence. Why trouble yourself by coming all this way?”
“I wanted to see how this year’s prices are.” Li Shaohuan lazily fanned herself with her hand. “Ten pots of premium Pearl jasmine and ten pots of premium Tiger-Head jasmine. They all need to be full pots, with no fewer than one fragrant-snow measure of buds and branches at least two feet tall. I also want a hundred pots of single-petaled jasmine and fifty field-grown seedlings.”
“Understood. Please come this way.” The merchant bent slightly and led her toward the larger flower-selling area inside the awning.
“Li Shaohuan is here.” Familiar flower farmers greeted her one after another, and one of them even handed her a flower gauge.
The flower gauge was used to measure the height of a plant’s flowering branches and the breadth of its canopy. In the flower market, plants were graded and priced according to the height of their flowering branches, the width of their canopies, and the number of buds.
Li Shaohuan did not take the flower gauge. After thanking the farmer, she reached toward the jasmine arranged in the middle of the awning.
Her eyes and hands were the gauge. One handspan—about four and a half inches.
The hand she extended looked like a delicate flash of jasmine-white amid the green leaves. Her fingers were slender as scallions, and her nails, trimmed close to the flesh, were translucent and faintly pink. It was impossible not to look twice.
It took a full half hour to finish selecting the flowers. Only then did she say, “Move these twenty pots of jasmine onto the flatbed cart for the marquis’s residence. Prepare the rest according to the samples and deliver them to the residence. I’ll inspect the shipment myself. If you try to fool me with inferior goods, don’t blame me when I lose my temper.”
“Of course not, of course not. We’ll make sure to select flowers even better than the samples for the residence,” the merchant replied repeatedly.
After personally watching them carry the flowers, one pot at a time, onto the cart, Li Shaohuan selected two baskets of freshly picked first-water jasmine and cut branches as well. Only then did she set off back to the residence.
Being Li Shaohuan, the flower lady of the Dingyuan Marquis’s Residence was no easy task.
By the time the flatbed cart reached the side gate of the residence, it was already noon.
Since morning, Li Shaohuan had bought nothing at the flower market except a cup of iced perilla drink to cool herself down. She was so hungry that her stomach seemed to be pressed against her back, but she still had no time to rest.
Receiving the goods, moving them, counting and inspecting them, then putting them into storage—it was another round of frantic work.
Li Shaohuan had become so hungry that she could no longer feel the hunger. All she wanted was to wipe away her sweat with a basin of well water and drink some tea to soothe her throat. Yet she still had to hurry to the main courtyard to report back, and her feet could not stop.
She hurried around a covered corridor. Li Shaohuan, focused only on moving forward, nearly collided with someone coming from the opposite direction.
“Li Shaohuan.” The newcomer had regular features, and his face lit up with delight the moment he saw her.
“Why are you here, Brother Chen?” Li Shaohuan stepped back half a pace and greeted him.
He was Chen Rong, the eldest son of the steward of the Dingyuan Marquis’s Residence. He rarely entered the inner residence under ordinary circumstances.
“I’ve just returned from delivering birthday gifts to the Old Madam of the Dongping Earl’s Residence. I came to report to Madam.” Chen Rong’s cheeks flushed slightly. He handed her the item he was carrying. “I passed by Lai’s shop and bought the date-and-kernel cakes you like. I brought them to you while I was passing by.”
“Thank you for thinking of me.” Li Shaohuan smiled as she accepted the pastries. Then she asked him, “A few days ago, Nanny Lin said she had a flare-up of wind-fire toothache and couldn’t sleep well at night. Is she better now?”
Nanny Lin was Chen Rong’s mother, as well as the marquis’s wife’s most trusted personal attendant and the senior maid in charge of the residence’s inner quarters. Li Shaohuan had been at the marquis’s residence for nearly three years, and she got along well with everyone there. She had nearly become sworn kin with Nanny Lin, which was why she called Chen Rong “Brother.”
“She’s fine now. It’s all thanks to the dried chrysanthemums and honeysuckle you sent to clear the heat. She’s praised you several times in front of me,” Chen Rong replied with a smile.
“They weren’t anything valuable. It was just fortunate they suited her condition. If she’s finished them, I still have some at my place.” Li Shaohuan exchanged a few more pleasantries with him. Since she was in a hurry to report back, she was about to take her leave when she noticed Chen Rong hesitating, unable to get the words out.
“Is there something else, Brother Chen?” Seeing that he seemed to want to speak but kept stopping himself, Li Shaohuan asked.
“I’m going to say something, so please don’t take offense. Recently, I’ve heard some rumors concerning you and our young marquis…” It was rare for Chen Rong to see her, and he did not want to miss the opportunity, so he gritted his teeth and asked.
Everyone outside was saying that the young marquis doted on her and would certainly take her into his chambers in the future. If that were truly the case, he might as well give up on his own feelings sooner rather than later.
“Since they’re rumors, they must be false. A rumor stops with the wise.” Li Shaohuan’s brows drew together slightly, then quickly relaxed.
“Then there really is nothing between you and the young marquis?” Chen Rong was still not reassured.
“He’s the master, and I’m a servant. What could there be between us?” Li Shaohuan countered.
“But he always treats you differently from outsiders.” Chen Rong sensed the coolness in her voice and knew she was displeased, but he still pressed on despite himself.
“How is it different? He merely gave me a few extra gifts on a whim.” Li Shaohuan sighed. “Don’t worry. I know where I stand.”
“That’s good…” Seeing how forthrightly she spoke, Chen Rong could not help but breathe a sigh of relief. A flush spread across his cheeks. He was just about to make his feelings clear when a strange, mocking voice came from the tree above them.
“Good how? Let me hear it, too.”
Li Shaohuan and Chen Rong looked up at the same time. Sitting among the dense branches and leaves of the old locust tree was a young man in fine clothes, gazing down at them coldly.
Dappled shadows from the leaves covered the face hidden among the branches, making his features impossible to see clearly.
Chen Rong’s expression changed drastically.
The young man in the tree was none other than the culprit who had recently plunged Li Shaohuan into a maelstrom of rumors—
the notorious young marquis of the Dingyuan Marquis’s Residence, Pei Zhanxi.