The room was so quiet that the sound of dust falling could be heard.
The bowl of tea had long since gone cold. A few withered yellow tea stems floated on its surface, perfectly still.
Pan the Stonemason rubbed his hands together. The "pouring out his heart" expression on his face was beginning to crack. He gave two dry laughs, trying to break the suffocating silence.
"Qingxuan, you see... Your Uncle Pan isn't someone who refuses to pay his debts. It's just that the family's circumstances have truly been difficult these past few years, and your aunt's health isn't good either. She has to take medicine every few days. It's really..."
Ye Qingxuan raised a hand and cut him off.
"Uncle Pan, my family is struggling too." His voice was flat, without the slightest ripple. "My father lent you the money out of goodwill. Your family repaying it is only proper. Those are two separate matters."
He paused, his gaze shifting from Pan the Stonemason's face to Aunt Pan, who sat restlessly nearby.
"I didn't come today to ask whether your family is doing well. I came to take back what belongs to my family. If your family truly had difficulties, you should have said so back then. After all these years, I'm afraid that explanation won't hold water anymore."
His words were clear and well-reasoned, leaving no room for rebuttal.
Pan the Stonemason was choked into silence, his face swelling to the color of pig liver.
Aunt Pan, however, was like a cat whose tail had been stepped on. She sprang up from her stool and pointed at Ye Qingxuan's nose, shrieking, "You little brat! What kind of way is that to speak? Our family does owe yours money, but you can't bully people like this! When your father was alive, when did he ever pressure people the way you do? Are you trying to drive us onto the road to ruin?"
As she spoke, she even slapped her thigh, looking as though she was about to start wailing.
"It's not that we refuse to repay you—we're just short on cash! You're a strapping young man working for the government, eating well and drinking fine wine. Do you really have to keep us from living over half a tael of silver?"
Ye Qingxuan remained seated, his body unmoving. He looked at the shrewish woman, his face still utterly expressionless.
He did not argue with her. Instead, he slowly rose and straightened the half-worn short shirt he was wearing.
"Uncle Pan. Aunt Pan."
When he stood, the light in the room seemed to dim several shades. His not-particularly-tall body nevertheless radiated an imposing pressure that could not be underestimated.
"Since this debt can't be settled by talking here, perhaps... we should discuss it somewhere else."
Pan the Stonemason's heart jolted, and he sensed trouble. "Somewhere... somewhere else?"
Ye Qingxuan turned toward him. The corner of his mouth twitched, but it was not a smile.
"I'm now serving in the Fengtian Division. Though I'm only an unregistered temporary constable, the officials there are sticklers for law and fairness. I imagine they'd be willing to hear this lawsuit over a debt."
The moment the words "Fengtian Division" left his mouth, they struck the hearts of the couple like three heavy hammers.
Aunt Pan's wailing cut off abruptly. She stood there with her mouth open, having forgotten the rest of her lines.
All color drained from Pan the Stonemason's face. He instinctively took a step back and struck the corner of the table, crying out in pain.
"N-no... it won't come to that! Qingxuan, it won't come to that!" He waved his hands repeatedly, beads of sweat the size of soybeans breaking out on his forehead. "We're neighbors, after all. We see each other every day. How can we trouble the officials over such a small matter?"
Commoners did not fight with officials. That was an iron law carved into the bones of every resident of Linyuan Prefecture's city.
What kind of place was the Fengtian Division? It was a government office that ate people without spitting out their bones! Ordinary people spent their whole lives steering clear of it. Who would dare seek it out on their own? If someone were truly dragged inside, they would lose a layer of skin even if they were in the right.
"Is it a small matter?" Ye Qingxuan countered. "I think it's a matter of the utmost importance. A person cannot stand without trust. Uncle Pan, wouldn't you agree?"
"Yes, yes, yes!" Pan the Stonemason agreed repeatedly, no longer daring to hesitate. He shot his wife a furious glare, as if saying, You good-for-nothing woman, you nearly caused a great disaster.
He turned and hurried into the inner room. A burst of clattering and rummaging sounded from within.
Before long, Pan the Stonemason came out holding a cloth pouch, a smile piled onto his face that looked worse than crying.
"Qingxuan, take a look... This... this is five hundred copper coins. Count them."
He handed over the pouch, but Ye Qingxuan did not take it. He merely pointed at the table.
Pan the Stonemason understood at once and hurriedly dumped all the coins from the pouch onto the table.
With a loud clatter, a great pile of dark, greenish-black copper coins spread across half the tabletop. Dust clung to them, and they gave off the musty smell of old mold.
Ye Qingxuan reached out and sifted through the pile with his fingers, beginning to count.
He counted slowly, one coin at a time, every one of them clear.
With each coin he counted, Pan the Stonemason's heart twitched.
"Four hundred ninety-eight, four hundred ninety-nine, five hundred."
After counting the last coin, Ye Qingxuan lifted his head.
Pan the Stonemason let out a long breath and hurriedly said, "It's all there, right? Half a tael of silver, five hundred copper coins, not one short."
"The principal is all there," Ye Qingxuan said with a nod.
Pan the Stonemason had just begun to smile when Ye Qingxuan changed direction.
"But something is still missing."
"What... what's missing?" Pan the Stonemason's heart rose into his throat again.
"Interest." Ye Qingxuan spat out the two words.
"What?" Aunt Pan shrieked again, her voice stabbing painfully at the eardrums. "You want interest too? Ye Qingxuan, don't push people too far!"
Pan the Stonemason wore a look of utter astonishment. He could hardly believe his ears.
"Qingxuan, this... this isn't how it's done! When your father lent the money, he never said anything about charging interest!"
Ye Qingxuan tossed a copper coin into the air with his fingertips and caught it steadily.
"When my father lent the money, he surely never imagined that it would take so many years to get back half a tael of silver." He looked at Pan the Stonemason. "Liu San, who lends money at interest in the eastern part of the city, charges one hundred copper coins a month on every tael of silver. Uncle Pan, my father lent you half a tael of silver, and after all these years I'm asking you for only fifty copper coins in interest. Do you really call that bullying?"
His words were reasonable and backed by solid evidence.
In this world, even brothers kept clear accounts. Borrowing money at interest was simply an accepted custom. It was only out of consideration for personal feelings that ordinary families did not spell it out so plainly.
Pan the Stonemason and his wife were left speechless.
It was not that they did not understand the principle. They had simply never considered repaying the debt, much less paying interest.
In their minds, the Ye Family was a fallen household of orphans and widows. If they could simply wriggle out of the debt, then so be it.
Now they had to repay the principal and cough up another fifty copper coins. It hurt worse than having flesh sliced from their bodies.
Aunt Pan trembled with rage. She pointed at Ye Qingxuan, her lips quivering, but she could not curse out a single word.
Pan the Stonemason's complexion shifted from green to white and back again, displaying every color imaginable.
Looking at Ye Qingxuan's calm face, he suddenly felt that this young man was a hundred times more troublesome than the street thugs and ruffians.
With those people, you gave them money and they left.
But this boy insisted on talking rules with you.
After a long standoff, Pan the Stonemason finally lost heart.
He was afraid.
He was afraid that the boy really would stubbornly drag him to the Fengtian Division. It was not worth it over fifty copper coins.
Gnashing his teeth, he fumbled around in the money pouch at his waist for a long while before reluctantly counting out fifty copper coins and slapping them onto the table with a sharp crack.
"Here!"
Ye Qingxuan gathered the fifty copper coins with the other five hundred, put them into the money pouch he had brought, and tied it shut.
The string of coins was heavy and solid in his hand.
He tucked the pouch into his clothes and turned to leave without wasting another word.
From beginning to end, he had not touched the bowl of tea, nor had he looked at the Pan couple again.
It was only after his figure disappeared through the courtyard gate that Aunt Pan came back to herself. She began cursing wildly at the outside of the door. "You little bastard fit for a thousand cuts! You black-hearted, rotten-gutted wretch! I hope you get run over by a cart the moment you leave..."
The foul abuse continued without end.
Ye Qingxuan walked through the alley. The curses behind him scattered with the wind.
His steps were steady, and the five hundred and fifty copper coins in his clothes chimed softly and pleasantly with each movement.
It was not a lot of money, but it was enough for him and his sister to eat a little better in the days ahead.
Only with good food would they have the strength to practice martial arts.
Only with strength could they fight for a path to survive.
As for the Pan Family's curses, he did not care in the slightest.
In this world of turbid currents, the curses of the weak were the most powerless sound of all.
What he had to do was make sure he never became someone who uttered such sounds.
Before you continue