Qiuyue entered the room and saw Song Qingyuan sitting on the kang bed, talking with Mother Song. She quickly reined in her large stride, switching to a delicate, mincing gait. After suppressing her labored breathing, she forced a sweet smile onto her angry face.
“Madam, Young Master, I’ve returned.”
Mother Song glanced at her. “Did you deliver the message?”
Qiuyue pouted. “The Madam kindly tried to persuade her, but she showed no gratitude at all. She just scolded me, telling me to mind my own business and saying that even if she’s poor, she shouldn’t be sitting at home pointing fingers at others.” After speaking, she stole a quick glance at Song Qingyuan before lowering her head and peeking at him from the corner of her eye.
She had entered the Song family at twelve and watched Song Qingyuan grow from a quiet, elegant boy into a handsome, refined young man. In her eyes, the young master was flawless, no matter how one looked at him.
The thought of Nie Qinghe treating him with such neglect infuriated her, so she had attributed Mother Nie’s words to Nie Qinghe instead.
Mother Song’s brow furrowed, her expression darkening. Pointing fingers? Was she insulting me?
Song Qingyuan frowned slightly and looked at Qiuyue. “Did Qinghe really say that?”
Hearing him call her “Qinghe” so affectionately, Qiuyue’s frustration mounted. She pouted. “Yes. She even said that if men can sell things in shops and women can buy from them, then why can’t she sell things in a shop? And she told the Madam…”
She shot a quick glance at Mother Song and Song Qingyuan, then gritted her teeth. “…to go to the shop and buy her things.”
Mother Song snorted coldly. The girl truly doesn’t know her place.
“Mother, there must be some misunderstanding,” Song Qingyuan said softly. In his memory, Nie Qinghe was lively and spirited, but never this sharp-tongued.
“What misunderstanding?” Mother Song replied coolly. “She simply resents our family. Can’t you feel it yourself? How often did she visit you before? And how long has it been since she last showed her face?”
Song Qingyuan lowered his gaze.
“Thirteen days,” he said slowly.
Mother Song glanced at him, displeased. So he’s keeping count.
“When I sent Qiuyue to deliver the velvet flower the other day,” she continued deliberately, “I learned she’d been ill for several days. Since I wasn’t feeling well, I sent Qiuyue to deliver the tonic and gifts in my stead.”
Mother Song’s health always seemed to decline just when it was convenient.
“Then I will go in Mother’s place,” Song Qingyuan said.
“Nonsense,” Mother Song snapped.
The Nie family clearly knew Mother Song was unhappy with the marriage arrangement. They were trying to break off the childhood betrothal, which was why they had been so curt with Qiuyue.
This was for the best. If the two families drifted apart, the engagement would simply fade away. As for the men’s relationship, that could be dealt with when Song Qingyuan returned.
Song Qingyuan looked at his mother in confusion. Just recently, when he had wanted to travel to the Capital to seek a mentor and have his essays reviewed, she had told him not to get distracted. Why was she suddenly so concerned about his focus now?
“Don’t tell me you actually want to marry her?” Mother Song asked.
Song Qingyuan’s face flushed crimson, but he didn’t deny it. He wanted to argue that this was the betrothal his parents had arranged, but before he could speak, Mother Song’s voice turned cold.
“Think carefully, Qingyuan. You are a Xiucai now. Do you still intend to become a Juren? Do you want to earn the Jinshi degree and enter the Hanlin Academy or the Six Ministries? We are an ordinary family. Your father can offer you no influence, and your aunt can only help with money. The rest of the path you must walk alone.”
She paused, her gaze sharpening. “How many young talents are there at the foot of the Emperor’s throne? They either come from scholarly families, have world-renowned teachers, or marry into prestigious clans. What do you have? You lack all three. No matter how well you study, you’ll only ever make it as far as the provincial examination. The metropolitan examination is a bridge crossed by thousands of soldiers; those with connections will always get the opportunity. Why would they ever give a nameless boy like you a chance?”
Song Kun’s prospects were limited. Becoming a County Magistrate would be a remarkable achievement for him, but any further advancement would be blocked.
Song Kun had only one son, a brilliant and handsome young man with a talent for scholarship. Yet, their family’s background already placed them a step below the rest. How could he possibly marry the daughter of an artisan household? That would only drag them further down.
Nie Qinghe was a wonderful girl—truly wonderful. But she was a match for the Qingyuan of the past, not the Qingyuan of today.
If her son were content to merely pass the provincial exam as a Juren, or perhaps barely scrape by as an Associate Jinshi, he could marry Nie Qinghe. He might never enter the Hanlin Academy, but could still be appointed as a County Magistrate. By his forties or fifties, he might even become a prefect or a junior official in one of the Six Ministries.
But what if he married a wife with powerful connections?
With his character and talent, he would surely soar. He would pass the imperial exam with honors, enter the Hanlin Academy, and rise through the Six Ministries, eventually becoming their head—the Chancellor, second only to the Emperor.
That was a legacy that would bring glory to their entire clan, a name etched in the annals of history.
She would not allow her brilliant son to be buried in obscurity, held back by a girl.
Seeing the pallor of her son’s face and the premature melancholy etched between his brows, Mother Song softened her tone. “My son, it is not that I forbid you from seeing Qinghe. I simply do not want you to lower yourself. Even if you do marry her, you must understand: you are the sky, and she is the earth. She should follow your lead, not the other way around.”
Song Qingyuan’s face brightened, relieved that she did not oppose the marriage. “Don’t worry, Mother. I will study hard. Even without a patron’s help, I will do everything in my power to earn the Jinshi degree. I have already found a teacher in the Capital.”
“Then you must focus on your studies,” Mother Song said. “I will go see Qinghe myself.”
Song Qingyuan nodded. “I will do as you wish. But please, Mother, do not stop her from selling her wares. She enjoys it.” He knew her spirited nature; she had always chafed against restraint.
Mother Song fixed him with a stern look. “Yuan’er, a wife cannot be indulged. If you let her sell things today, she will bring you great trouble tomorrow.”
Song Qingyuan opened his mouth to protest, but his mother cut him off. “Is it not simply a matter of money? I will spare from our own household expenses to support them.”
As she spoke, Mother Song coughed softly, her hand rising to smooth her hair and touch her bun.
Song Qingyuan followed her gesture and saw the white hairs mixed into the temples of her hairline. Her bun was bare, without a single decent ornament.
His mother had always been frugal, spending every coin they had to support his studies. How could he allow her to endure more hardship?
He could secretly take on work for bookstores, editing and refining essays. With his third-place finish in the College Examination, a collection like A Compendium of Sample Questions for the Xiucai Examination would surely earn at least two hundred taels. With that money, he could support both his mother and Nie Qinghe.
As if reading his mind, Mother Song warned, “Qingyuan, don’t you dare go behind my back with any foolish schemes. You are my only son, and I will not let anyone harm you. Just focus on your studies. Everything else can wait until you earn your Jinshi with Honors.”
She broke into a fit of coughing.
Song Qingyuan rushed to her side, patting her back as he helped her lie down. He turned to Qiuyue. “Go fetch the doctor.”
“No,” Mother Song protested. “Just get my Chuanbei Cough Pills and some warm yellow wine. I’ll be fine.”
In the flurry of activity, Song Qingyuan had no choice but to cast his plans aside.
As soon as Nie Qinghe arrived at the shop, three women swarmed her, all demanding the same hairnet.
The previous evening, they had been washing clothes by the river. While the rest of them were exhausted, their hair falling into disarray from the effort, one woman’s hair remained perfectly neat.
She had been wearing a hairnet that tucked away every stray strand, secured firmly with a hairpin. Even as she vigorously pounded the laundry with a wooden mallet, her head bobbing and weaving, not a single hair had escaped.
If we had hairnets like that for work, they thought, our hair wouldn’t get messy, and they’d be breathable in the heat. It’s the perfect solution!
Usually, they wrapped their heads in cloth to work, but the summer heat was stifling.
Nie Qinghe listened to their requests and then told them to come back the next day.
“We’re still preparing the stock,” she explained. “We don’t have any more right now, but we’ll definitely have them tomorrow.”
Crocheting the hairnets was a quick process. With Mother Nie and Honghua working alongside two other women, they could produce a large batch in a single day. Nie Qinghe only had a few on hand to display as samples, so she couldn’t sell them.
The three women each ordered three nets and even paid a deposit.
Though the hairnets themselves weren’t expensive, the women were loud and animated. Their boisterous chatter and lively gestures created the impression that a crowd of ten people was fighting over the limited stock.
Other women, who had come to buy gold and silver jewelry, saw them discussing the hairnets and crowded around to ask questions. Upon examining the nets, they found them to be of excellent quality.
What they might have initially considered merely acceptable now seemed indispensable. The sight of others vying for them convinced the women that they, too, had to secure a few.
Being gold and silver jewelry shoppers, they had ample money. The hairnets were so inexpensive that they ordered over a dozen in various sizes—some for themselves and others as gifts for friends and family.
Thanks to the three women’s enthusiastic promotion, Nie Qinghe had already taken orders for three hundred hairnets within the first two hours of opening!
She immediately sent Laishun to the needlework shop across the street to collect the coarse silk and cotton threads they had ordered. He delivered them all to Mother Nie, instructing her and the other women to crochet more hairnets.
After organizing the rest of her duties in the shop, Nie Qinghe went to the Little Granary Courtyard to check on Nie Dali’s progress with the shampoo.
Madam Fang and Madam Zhao had scheduled appointments for their hair to be styled the next morning. Nie Qinghe planned to introduce the shampoo to them then, so it needed to be ready.
The previous evening, she had given Nie Dali the recipe and instructions for brewing the medicinal liquid. He had already washed the ingredients in well water, soaking what needed soaking, grinding what needed grinding, and slicing what needed slicing. Ingredients like soap pods, round gleditsia, He Shou Wu, and bitter melia had all been crushed and soaked overnight.
Nie Dali and Chen Zijian rose before dawn to begin boiling the old ginger. They mixed over thirty catties of it with a bucket of water, bringing it to a rolling boil over a high flame before reducing the heat to a simmer for four hours, until every last drop of ginger juice was extracted.
Next, they turned to the hardier ingredients like soap pods. These were boiled in a specialized large sandpot for another four hours until they yielded a thick, concentrated liquid. Other medicinal herbs were simmered in separate large clay pots until they broke down completely, releasing their potent essences.
Finally, the dregs and liquids from all the pots were combined and boiled together, eventually reducing to a thick, brown medicinal syrup.
Nie Dali and Chen Zijian tended to the three or four vats and large pots from the first light of dawn until the sun began its descent in the afternoon. By the time they finished, they had reduced a mountain of raw materials to a heap of sodden dregs.
The strange, pungent aromas mingled in the air, eventually numbing Nie Dali’s nose until he couldn’t smell a thing.
Chen Zijian, however, was different. He kept taking deep breaths, murmuring, “So fragrant.” He even considered tasting the concoction in the pot.
Nie Dali stared at him like he was an idiot.
Fragrant? Are you out of your mind?
Nie Qinghe checked on them in the back several times. Seeing how reliably her brother was working, she felt at ease to focus on the shop out front. Still, the overwhelming, indescribable stench made her realize they needed to move the ointment-brewing operation. Whether it would hurt business was one thing, but it was definitely going to ruin their relationship with the neighbors on this street.
The other shopkeepers were peering out warily, their faces tight with suspicion. They must think Manager Liu was brewing poison to fume them out.
The proprietors and assistants from the silk shop, Hua Xiangrong’s, and several other establishments had already visited Liu’s to demand what strange concoction was being brewed.
Manager Huang hadn’t come himself. Instead, he’d asked around at a neighboring shop before darting over to investigate. He even went so far as to suggest that Manager Liu was rendering corpse oil in the backyard, speaking with such conviction that the neighboring shop owner had to shut him down.
“Stop talking nonsense,” the neighbor had warned. “You’ll ruin the neighborhood’s harmony.”
Manager Liu seems amiable, the neighbor added, but if you cross his line, he’ll fight you to the death. Take it from experience.
Manager Huang refused to let Liu’s get away with this. Hiring a pretty girl to steal all our business?
He’d had his men look into her. Nie Qinghe was just the daughter of an ordinary artisan household—nothing special. After a bout of illness, she’d suddenly started styling hair, making hairnets, and brewing some “Flower Fairy Shampoo Cream.”
Manager Huang had inspected one of her hairnets himself. What a piece of junk, he’d scoffed. General stores sell those by the dozen. He’d also spied on her styling a customer’s hair. Just typical women’s trifles. What’s so different about it?
He found nothing remarkable about Nie Qinghe. To him, this was all just Manager Liu’s latest scheme: using a beautiful girl to lure in customers.
Now that they were making shampoo, he was curious. A jewelry shop making shampoo—wasn’t that stealing business from the rouge and powder shops? He decided to send someone to buy some for study.
He sent a messenger to his cousin, Madam Li. He had visited her yesterday, so today was the perfect time to go again.
Madam Li was combing her hair at home when an unbearable itch seized her. She scratched and clawed at her scalp until it bled. When her cousin’s messenger arrived and told her that Liu’s Shop had finally produced their shampoo, she abandoned all pretense of decorum.
Her hair disheveled, she bolted out the door. Her husband chased after her, waving a handkerchief.
The two of them raced from the alleyway onto the main street, charging straight for Liu’s Shop. Passersby stared, wondering what major incident was unfolding.
The moment Madam Li burst into the shop, she demanded, “Give me the shampoo!”
Laishun quickly gestured for the other staff to attend to the remaining customers. He led the couple to the back, instructing them to wait by the courtyard gate while he went to notify Nie Qinghe.
Inside, Nie Qinghe was working with Nie Dali and Chen Zijian to bottle the medicinal liquid.
She hadn’t expected such success on the first try, with her providing the instructions and her brother handling the actual work. Big Brother’s hands-on skills are truly impressive, she thought. From now on, I’ll leave the brewing of shampoo, soap, and scented soap to him.