The Pretty Maid Yun Niang

By midmorning, the Lin Manor kitchen was already bustling with activity.

The chopping, the stir-frying, and the loud voices of the kitchen maids intertwined into a symphony brimming with the warmth of everyday life.

"Brother Ping, here to help again?"

A young woman in a blue floral cloth dress, with a blue apron tied around her waist, was squatting by the kitchen stove picking vegetables.

Hearing footsteps, she looked up, revealing a fair and gentle face.

Her name was Yun Niang. She was a helper in the Inner Kitchen, just past twenty, and a widow.

Her husband had died young and left her no children. Her husband's family had driven her out, leaving her to scrape out a living at Lin Manor.

Because of her meek nature, the older servant women often bullied her. Usually, only Chen Ping would speak up for her or help her with heavy work.

"Idle hands are idle hands anyway. Sister Yun, I'll chop this firewood."

Chen Ping smiled. Without standing on ceremony, he walked straight to the corner, picked up an axe, and began splitting the wood with practiced ease.

Crack! Crack!

The logs split apart at once, exposing fresh grain within and releasing a faint woody fragrance.

Yun Niang watched Chen Ping's thin yet sturdy back, her gaze growing slightly unfocused.

Though this young fellow was still young and had a pitiful background, he was steady in his work and clear-eyed. Unlike the other male servants in the manor, whose eyes always seemed hooked into her, as if they wanted to swallow her whole.

"It's quite a coincidence today. Second Miss wanted Osmanthus Cake, so we steamed an extra basket. Those old hags haven't had time to divide it up yet, so I saved two pieces for you."

Yun Niang looked around. Seeing that the supervising matron was absent, she swiftly pulled an oil-paper packet from deep inside the steamer and stuffed it into Chen Ping's arms.

The packet was warm, carrying a rich, sweet scent of osmanthus.

"Thank you, Sister Yun."

Chen Ping did not refuse. He accepted it openly.

In this manor, the give-and-take of human relations was most subtle.

Yun Niang giving him food was affection; him helping Yun Niang with work was duty.

That unspoken understanding needed no words.

"Right, Sister Yun."

As Chen Ping chopped wood, he lowered his voice and asked, "I remember you once said you had a distant relative working as a clerk at a pharmacy?"

Yun Niang froze for a moment, then nodded. "That's right. He works at Huichun Hall in the south of the city. What is it, Brother Ping? Are you feeling unwell?"

Concern appeared on her face. She put down the vegetables in her hands and moved as if to examine him.

"I'm not sick."

Chen Ping waved his hand, bringing the axe down heavily on a hard log. "I just want to ask around. How much do ordinary medicinal herbs for strengthening the body generally cost on the market?"

Practicing martial arts required not only a Cultivation Technique, but resources as well.

It was no empty saying that scholars could be poor, but martial artists had to be rich.

If one practiced without replenishing oneself, one would be draining one's life away. In the end, the body would break down even faster than that of an ordinary person.

"This..."

Yun Niang thought for a moment, her delicate brows knitting. "I don't know the exact prices, but I've heard none of it comes cheap. Even the poorest ginseng rootlets cost several hundred copper coins per qian. Brother Ping, do you want to practice martial arts?"

Yun Niang was a clever woman. She immediately guessed what Chen Ping was thinking.

"The world is in chaos. It's always good to learn some skills to protect yourself." Chen Ping gave a vague reply.

Yun Niang sighed, and her expression became somewhat complicated.

"Practicing martial arts is a bottomless pit. How can people with bitter lives like ours possibly fill it? But..."

She paused, untied a half-worn purse from her waist, hesitated, then handed it to Chen Ping anyway.

"There's some loose silver in here, what I've saved bit by bit over the years. If you truly want to learn, take it for emergencies. It's a good thing for a man to have some ambition."

Seeing the purse, still carrying her warmth and the faint scent of soapberry, Chen Ping's heart gave a sudden tremor.

He had not expected Yun Niang to take out her private savings for him.

In a wealthy household, a widow's private savings were life-saving money, money for her coffin.

This kindness was so heavy it scalded his hands.

"Sister Yun, I can't take this money."

Chen Ping firmly pushed it back, his gaze sincere. "I've saved some silver. It's enough. I accept your kindness, but this money is for you to rely on in the future. You absolutely must not touch it."

Seeing how resolute Chen Ping was, Yun Niang could not force it on him. Her eyes merely reddened slightly as she said softly,

"If you ever come up short, you must tell me. In this manor, you're the only one I trust."

Those words, "you're the only one I trust," carried traces of resentment and dependence, warming Chen Ping's heart slightly.

But he quickly suppressed those tender thoughts.

Now was not the time for romance.

Without strength, all beautiful things were like flowers in a mirror and the moon in water, liable to shatter at any moment.

The next morning, Chen Ping asked the Steward for leave, changed into a cleaner set of blue cloth clothes, and walked out through the gates of Lin Manor.

Though Qinghe County was only a county town, it lay beside the Grand Canal, and commerce there was quite prosperous.

Shops lined both sides of the streets, while cries of vendors rose and fell without cease.

With a huge sum of money tucked against his chest, Chen Ping first went to an old-established liquor shop in the west of the city. He spent three hundred copper coins on a flask of strong liquor called Strong Liquor.

Then he went to the nearby general store and bought two packets of premium Yipinxiang tobacco, along with two jin of braised beef.

These things were not for his own enjoyment, but rather the "knocking brick" for Weiyuan Escort Agency.

Carrying the gifts, Chen Ping passed through the bustling crowd and arrived before a grand residence in the north of the city.

Two imposing stone lions crouched before the gates. The black-lacquered doors stood open, and waves of deep, forceful shouts came from within. The escort hands were training.

"Stop! What are you here for?"

The moment he approached the gate, a gatekeeper with a face full of flesh barked at him.

Chen Ping hurriedly piled on a smile and bowed slightly. "Big brother, I've come to see Uncle Liu Sanjin. I'm his distant nephew, here especially to visit him."

As he spoke, he slipped several dozen copper coins into the gatekeeper's hand without leaving a trace.

The gatekeeper weighed the coins in his hand, and his expression immediately softened. He gave Chen Ping a sidelong glance.

"Liu Sanjin? He's brushing horses by the rear stable. Go on in, but don't wander around. If you offend the chief escort, you'll have a bitter pill to swallow."

"Yes, yes, I understand."

Chen Ping nodded repeatedly, carrying the liquor, meat, and tobacco as he hurried into the escort agency.

Passing through the training yard, he watched bare-chested men with knotted muscles lifting stone locks to temper their strength. A flicker of envy passed through his eyes.

But he knew those fierce, forceful methods did not suit him now.

When he reached the rear stables, a pungent smell of horse dung hit him head-on.

An elderly man with grizzled hair and a slightly stooped back was brushing a date-red horse with a brush.

"Uncle!"

Chen Ping called out.

The old man paused, turned around, and squinted his cloudy eyes for quite some time before recognizing Chen Ping.

"Oh, isn't this Brother Ping? What are you doing here? I heard you were sold to the Lin Family as a bookboy?"

Liu Sanjin put down the brush and wiped his hands on his oil-stained apron. His tone carried both surprise and a measure of distance.

These so-called distant relatives only exchanged visits during holidays. Since Chen Ping's parents had died, that connection had long faded until it was as thin as water.

Chen Ping did not mind. He stepped forward, placed the liquor, meat, and tobacco on a nearby haystack, and smiled.

"I have the day off today. I was thinking I hadn't seen you in a long time, Uncle, so I came especially to visit. I brought you some Strong Liquor, and some Yipinxiang tobacco as well."

At the sight of the flask of liquor and the braised beef inside the oil-paper packet, a gleam immediately appeared in Liu Sanjin's cloudy old eyes.

At the escort agency, he was merely the head of the horse-feeding laborers. Though he was nominally an escort hand, he had long since been too old to run escorts and was only scraping together a meal.

When could he normally bear to buy such fine liquor and meat?

"This... this is too much. Your meager monthly allowance isn't easy to come by either."

Liu Sanjin spoke politely, but his hand had already honestly reached for the wine jar. The wrinkles on his face bloomed like flowers with his smile.

"Come, come, sit wherever you like. It's dirty here, so don't mind it."

Chen Ping went along with it and sat on the haystack. He watched Liu Sanjin impatiently pull out the stopper, take a deep breath of the wine's fragrance, and reveal an intoxicated expression.

The time was about right.

Chen Ping thought to himself.

"Uncle, actually, besides visiting you this time, your nephew has an impertinent request."

Chen Ping chose his words carefully and spoke slowly.

Liu Sanjin took a sip of wine and squinted in comfort. Seemingly casual, he asked,

"What is it? If you're here to borrow money, your uncle doesn't have any. If you want a job at the escort agency, this little body of yours won't do either."

An old hand of the jianghu was an old hand of the jianghu. With one sentence, he blocked off most of the paths ahead.