In June in the south of the Yangtze River, even the wind is soft.
The pleasure boat drifted slowly, creating emerald ripples. The carved wooden windows slanted across the lake, revealing a shimmering willow forest. Su Jinli's fingertips rubbed the icing on the Dingsheng cake. The cake was steamed until soft, and the red bean paste, baked by the heat, oozes a sweet aroma. It clung to her gold-embroidered and jade-embroidered cuffs, as if accidentally stained with a piece of sunset glow.
"Daddy, will White Lady really bring heavy rain?"
A childish question echoed from the bow. Nianli, her twin buns swaying, the pearl tassels grazing her cheeks, made her face look like a lychee freshly plucked from a lush green leaf, with water droplets still clinging to the down. She squatted at the bow, her lotus-like little hand pointing toward the pale green stone bridge in the distance. Under the bridge, the sound of a boatman singing a soft Wu dialect tune could be vaguely heard.
Jiang Yan tapped his daughter's little head with his fingers, and the sleeves of his moon-white robe brushed the moss on the side of the boat: "Your true appearance will be revealed when the snow falls on the Broken Bridge. Now it's time to ask where Monk Fahai is hiding." His eyes were slightly curved as he spoke, and his long hair was loosely tied with a black jade hairpin. A few strands were blown to his chest by the lake breeze, making him look more elegant than the tassels hanging on the pleasure boat.
Si Yan, standing beside him, wasn't listening. Ever since he'd disembarked, he'd been clutching a palm-sized version of the Mathematical Classic, a jujube wood abacus pinned to his indigo satin vest. He was now prodding the pages with his fingernails, muttering, "The flood at Jinshan Mountain submerged 7,200 rooms. Repairs cost 3.7 taels per room..." Suddenly, his brow furrowed, sweat forming on the tip of his nose. "Mom said last time that rice prices in Hangzhou have gone up. Shouldn't we add 30% to the market price for lost wages?"
Su Jinli nearly dropped her Dingsheng Cake with laughter as she watched her son's serious expression. These two children, one inheriting her childhood courage of climbing walls and robbing bird nests, the other inheriting Jiang Yan's shrewdness of abacus beads, together resembled a pair of walking twins—Nianli the soaring monkey, Siyan the house-guarding abacus, waiting to settle accounts after causing trouble.
"Mom! Look over there!"
Nian Li suddenly jumped up, her embroidered shoes nearly missing the boat's plank. She pointed at the crooked willow tree on the shore. In its shadow, a clump of lilac-colored clothing lay curled up. It was a flower girl, her wrist grasped by a portly man in a brown brocade robe. The girl's bamboo basket scattered jasmine flowers, their snow-white petals tumbling into the mud. An old woman wailed at the man's lap, her silver hairpins tucked behind her ears.
Su Jinli narrowed her eyes. The fat man wore a thumb-sized jade pendant around his waist, and his belly bulged his clothes as he walked. He was Hu Yong, the only son of the Huji Silk Shop in Hangzhou, nicknamed "Hu Taisui." Last month, while she was selecting fabric at the shop, she saw him hitting a clerk on the head with a folding fan to collect a debt.
"You're seizing a woman in broad daylight?" She stuffed half a Dingsheng Cake at Jiang Yan, her brocade skirt sweeping across the tassels of the soft couch. "Husband, do you mind your own business?"
Jiang Yan slowly wiped his fingers with a handkerchief, his eyes fixed on his daughter: "What do you think, Nianli?"
Before she could finish her words, there was a splash. Nian Li had already climbed down the side of the boat. Her eight-year-old body ran like a cannonball wrapped in embroidery, and in a blink of an eye, she rushed to Hu Taisui's feet. She put her hands on her hips and looked up, her hair on her forehead blurred by the wind. "Hey! You fat winter melon dressed like a sugar melon! Let go of that sister!"
Hu Yong was getting annoyed by the old woman's nagging. He looked down and saw a delicate and delicate baby. He immediately shook his greasy chin and shouted, "Where did this bastard come from! If you make any more noise, I'll throw you into the lake to feed the fish!" He raised his hand to push her, and the gold ring between his fingers brushed against Nian Li's temples.
Unexpectedly, Nian Li rolled on the ground like a nimble little cat. This child, who had been pinned down by her grandfather in a horse stance in the yard since she was three, ducked to avoid a slap, then grabbed Hu Yong's leg with her backhand and bit him. She had just finished her teething period, and her new teeth were exceptionally sharp. The pain bit into Hu Yong's soft calf, sending the fat man leaping three feet into the air.
"Ouch! You little bitch dare to bite me!" Hu Yong broke out in cold sweat from the pain, and his raised hand was about to fall on Nian Li's head.
"stop."
Jiang Yan walked slowly towards them, holding Si Yan in his arms, his moon-white robe rustling in the lake breeze. He didn't even look at Hu Yong, only lowering his head to smooth Si Yan's wind-twisted hair. But then his voice pierced Hu Yong's ears like an icicle: "Mr. Hu, you forcibly abducted a common woman from under the Emperor's feet, and yet you think the Hangzhou prefect's drumbeat isn't loud enough?"
Only then did Hu Yong see the person clearly. Jiang Yan was followed by four sturdy guards, each wearing a belt adorned with a fish symbol, a style only worn by officials in the capital. He sobered up immediately, his fat hand trembling as he released the girl's wrist, but he remained stubborn, "I...I just thought she was pretty, and wanted...to buy her a few more baskets of flowers!"
"Do I need to pinch someone's wrist when buying flowers?" Su Jinli walked to Nianli and wiped the saliva marks on the corners of her daughter's mouth with a handkerchief. "Mr. Hu's etiquette for buying flowers is exactly what you'd find in the Liulichang hooligans in Beijing." As she spoke, the corners of her eyes turned up, and the cinnabar mole between her eyebrows trembled slightly with her expression, making her look even more fierce than the lotus flowers on the shore.
“Crackle—”
The crisp sound of an abacus suddenly rang out. Si Yan struggled down from Jiang Yan's embrace, striding across Hu Yong's face with his short legs. His dark eyes darted around. "Fat Uncle just ripped off three baskets of flowers. Each basket is worth fifteen wen (market price ten wen, Si Yan automatically added 50%), which makes forty-five wen. My sister dropped her hairpin in shock, so that's twenty taels." He paused, the abacus ticking rapidly. "You still want to hit my sister? According to my mother's rule of 'tripling compensation for mental damage,' you'll have to pay three hundred taels. A total of three hundred and twenty taels and forty-five wen."
Hu Yong's eyes nearly popped out of his head when he heard this: "You little brat, you know shit! Three hundred taels is enough to buy ten baskets of you!"
"I won't sell it." Si Yan put the abacus on his waist and put his hands behind his back, imitating Jiang Yan's behavior. "But if uncle doesn't give me the money, I will go to the prefectural government office to read the account books. My mother said that the louder the account books are read, the faster the money will come." He raised his face, his eyelashes clearly visible in the sunlight, but the words he said were like a small knife, "I think I saw the account of Hu Ji Silk Shop's tax evasion last year in some official newspaper..."
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