Si Yan took out his abacus and began to count. The jujube wood beads sparkled in the sunlight, and the bottom of the abacus was still stained with yesterday's icing sugar. "Mother, the Hu family has stockpiled 8,000 liang of salt. Based on the current price, we're losing 220 wen per dou, so our total loss is..." He suddenly looked up, his little face filled with the excitement of calculating the accounts, not even wiping the bean paste from the corner of his mouth. "More than 100,000 taels!"

Su Jinli wiped her son's mouth with a handkerchief and looked out the window at the crowds of people rushing to tell each other about the incident. She remembered herself in her previous life, lying on her sickbed, unable to even drink salty soup. Her nose felt slightly sore. She saw a woman holding a child, the child clutching half a salted cake, devouring it ravenously. Suddenly, she felt that her morning tea was particularly scalding. "Greed is insatiable, like a snake swallowing an elephant. You deserve it!" She turned to look at Jiang Yan. The morning light gilded his moon-white gown, and the collar was still stained with the sugar stains Nianli had rubbed against it last night. "That letter... was it really written by you?"

"It's just copying the people's private accounts onto rice paper." Jiang Yan picked up the teacup, the heat of the Biluochun tea blurring the cunning in his eyes, and the tea foam clung to his lips. "But Nianli's nursery rhymes are more powerful than thousands of troops. I heard the salt inspector's advisor humming them yesterday."

Nian Li raised her chin proudly, the pomegranate-red pompadour in her hair brushing against the teacup, nearly spilling the tea. "That's right! Grandfather said the loudest voice wins! Yesterday, the night watchman sang my lyrics while striking the gong!"

As he was speaking, the teahouse owner hurried over, holding an oil-paper package still stained with dew and bearing the faint scent of gardenias. "Sir, are you from the capital? Just now, an old man named Hu asked me to give this to you, saying you'll understand once you see it."

Su Jinli's heart stirred. She took the oil-paper package and opened it. Inside was a crystal-clear piece of mutton-fat jade, the very piece her grandfather had given her. The previously blurred inscription on the back of the jade token had been polished, and the words "Jin Ji Hu Bo" were clearly visible in the morning light. A tiny gardenia was carved around the edge, even grains of salt embedded in the petals.

"It's Uncle Hu..." Su Jinli's fingertips traced the jade token, and she remembered the old friend her grandfather had mentioned. She remembered the old man in blue clothes who had secretly handed her a copy of the account book outside the salt warehouse that day. It turned out that the page of profiteering list tucked inside Hu Wanguan's account book was exactly what Uncle Hu had copied overnight.

"Let's go," Su Jinli put away the jade token and took the children's hands. The tea leaves in the teacup had already sunk to the bottom, like sleeping butterflies. "Let's go see the hustle and bustle of the Hu family salt warehouse, and buy Siyan two Yangzhou account books, the kind with illustrations."

Si Yan immediately perked up, the abacus jingling at his waist, the clatter of beads startling the sparrows on the windowsill: "I want to see how much they've lost! I also need to calculate how much the salt price in the salt market has to drop to be enough to cover the people's food expenses, plus compensation for their mental damage..."

Outside the teahouse, sunlight already bathed Yangzhou City. Su Jinli watched Nianli leap and chase butterflies, her skirt brushing against grains of salt on the roadside, startling a flash of white light. Siyan squatted on the ground, scratching at the abacus with a branch, picking up pebbles when she ran out of beads, her face full of earnestness. Jiang Yan watched them from the side, a smile on her face, her sleeves lifted by the wind, revealing the gardenias she had embroidered on her wrist. In the distance, the black wooden door of the Hu family salt warehouse stood wide open. Yamen runners were carrying bags of salt out, and civilians lined up to receive the free salt. Laughter rolled like pearls on the bluestone slabs, shattering in the salt pile in the corner.

She recalled the anonymous letter, Siyan's "list of huge profits" glued together with abacus beads, the warmth of his fingertips still etched on the beads; she recalled Nianli's children's rhymes, sung at the top of the stone lions, her voice like a key, unlocking the long-suffocated mouths of the people. Suddenly, she understood her grandfather's words, "The people's hearts are a scale"—a scale that ultimately measured Hu Wanguan's greed and Yangzhou's Qingming Festival, its scale still stained with children's saliva and cooking ash.

"Mom, look!" Nian Li ran over, holding the sugar painting she had just bought. The dragon was crooked and had a piece missing from its tail, but it looked more majestic than ever. "The grandfather who sold the sugar painting said that this was bought with the salt money earned by Fatty Hu!"

Su Jinli took the sugar painting. Sunlight filtered through the amber-colored sugar threads, casting a shimmering light on her palm like a handful of silver coins. Jiang Yan reached out to brush the sugar crumbs from her shoulders. His fingertips touched the strands of hair at her temples, and he whispered, "Next stop, the embroidery workshop in Suzhou will miss us. I heard the brocade there can be woven into dancing phoenixes."

Si Yan, however, squatted at the door of the salt warehouse, tapping the salt grains on the ground with an abacus. The beads and salt grains collided with each other, making a clear sound. "Dad, look at this page of the account book. There's a note under the 170,000 taels! It says 'a kickback to Mr. Hu in the capital'..."

The waiter at the teahouse poked his head out, holding a freshly salted duck egg, the shell still stained with salt. "Sir, the freshly salted duck eggs are here! They're dripping with oil!"

Su Jinli gazed at the children's gleaming eyes, at the streets of Yangzhou bustling once more, the fragrant smoke rising from every chimney. The anonymous letter, like a pebble dropped into a lake, not only caused the price of salt to plummet for three days, but also sent ripples through her heart. It turned out that to speak for the people, one didn't need to wield a sword or mount a horse; all that was needed was the genuine voice of a child, a piece of paper that expressed the people's will, and the warm aroma of everyday life. And her next stop was to carry this warmth with her, to the more splendid depths of Jiangnan, where the embroidery thread could weave a world even more beautiful than sugar paintings.