"You!" Hu Yong's face suddenly changed, his eyes widening inside his fat pile. How did this kid know this? He subconsciously reached for the purse at his waist. When his fingertips touched the lines of the banknote, he suddenly heard Su Jinli chuckle.

"Mr. Hu," Jiang Yan took a half step forward, his voice not loud but full of pressure, "Do you want to pay the money now, or wait for me to have someone invite you to the boat for 'a cup of tea'?" The guard behind him stepped forward, and the sword at his waist flashed a cold light in the sunlight.

Hu Yong looked at Nian Li, who was glaring at him through gritted teeth, then at Si Yan, who was calculating furiously, then at the calm and composed couple before him. Suddenly, he felt his trouser legs soak—he'd actually peed them out of fear. Trembling, he pulled out three stacks of banknotes and flung them to the ground. Covering his face, he and his followers fled, tripping over their own fat legs as they ran, and fell flat on their faces.

The flower girl helped the old woman kneel down to express her gratitude, tears dripping onto the hem of Su Jinli's skirt: "Thank you, Madam, Master, and Young Master for saving my life..."

Su Jinli asked the guards to help them up and stuffed another five taels of silver into their pockets: "Use this to buy some medicine for your wounds, and don't set up a stall under that willow tree anymore." She looked at the purple fingerprints on the girl's wrist, and suddenly remembered how her stepmother pinched her arm and stuffed her into the bridal sedan in her previous life. Her nails unconsciously dug into her palms.

"Mom, look how powerful I am!" Nian Li raised her little chin, with mud spots on her face. "Grandfather said that bad guys should be bitten with teeth!"

Si Yan took out a handkerchief and wiped the abacus: "It's better to settle the accounts. Biting people will dirty your teeth, and you have to rinse your mouth."

Jiang Yan squatted down to wipe the sweat off his son's face, and his fingertips traced the cinnabar mole between Si Yan's eyebrows. "Well, next time, use an abacus to hit his toes. That would be more elegant."

The family chatted and laughed as they made their way to the pleasure boat. No one noticed an old man in a blue robe waving a folding fan on the second floor of a nearby teahouse. His temples were frosted white, but his knuckles were strong. As he watched Nian Li's bouncing figure, a hint of smile flickered through the wrinkles in his eyes. "Go check and see if that girl is using the 'Spirit Cat Catches Butterflies' movement." His attendants withdrew, and the old man, raising his teacup, gazed at the lake and muttered, "Qing'er's granddaughter... she really does look like her."

As the pleasure boat began to waver again, Su Jinli leaned against Jiang Yan's shoulder, watching Siyan carefully stuff three hundred taels of silver into her purse. Nianli, however, dangled Hu Yong's dropped gold ring from her hairband. The lake breeze carried the distant sound of pingtan music, and the tinkling of a sanxian zither seemed to linger, like a lingering accompaniment to this minor disturbance.

"Look at Siyan, that money-obsessed little fellow," Su Jinli poked her husband's chest, "he's just like you when we settled our accounts for the Autumn Examination."

Jiang Yan held her hand, and rubbed the thin calluses on her palm with his fingertips: "It's up to you. When you were getting rid of the dandy bills, you were much more ruthless than this." As he spoke, he lowered his head and kissed the top of her head. The fragrance of cedar mixed with the moisture of lake water was more reassuring than Dingsheng cake.

Nian Li, who was at the bow, suddenly pointed in the distance and exclaimed, "Mom! Look, is that White Snake's umbrella?"

Su Jinli looked in the direction she pointed and saw a pale blue mist covering the lake. Sure enough, an oil-paper umbrella slowly moved beside the Broken Bridge. She suddenly laughed and squeezed Jiang Yan's hand. "Who cares about White Snake? In this life, our family is the most powerful 'Fahai,' specializing in taking down all the evil bullies in the world."

Jiang Yan watched his wife and daughter laughing and playing, a gentle wave in his eyes. As the pleasure boat passed through the rain curtain, he heard Si Yan muttering at the bow: "It's raining so hard, the price of West Lake vinegar fish should go up..."

The June wind in the south of the Yangtze River eventually turns the bitter rain of the previous life into honey in this life.