Chapter Summaries

Gu Mochen’s attempt to visit a porridge shelter ended in a public, bizarre outburst after he took Chen Qing’s pill. In Yi Prefecture, Pu Yunshan arrived at the Flower-Between Pavilion with Gu Moran’s five-hundred-tael advance and found Qin Hongxiu being pressed to repay her brother’s debt to the Caoyun Gang.

• Gu Mochen took Chen Qing’s pill and went to the porridge shelter to show the people of Anyang that he cared for them.
• At the shelter, Gu Mochen became feverish, charged toward a young woman, and had to be restrained and dragged into his carriage as onlookers watched.
• Pu Yunshan arrived at the Flower-Between Pavilion wearing the new clothes Gu Moran had sent him and carrying a five-hundred-tael banknote.
• Pu Yunshan found Master Ma demanding that Qin Hongxiu repay her brother’s five-hundred-tael debt to the Caoyun Gang.
• Pu Yunshan asked for the IOU, but Qin Hongxiu warned him not to intervene because the Caoyun Gang controlled Central Shu’s waterways.

Pu Yunshan gave Qin Hongxiu five hundred taels to make Master Ma and the Caoyun Gang leave, then stayed to comfort her and promised to help with her brother’s debts. Gu Moran watched from a private room and ordered another rush job for Pu Yunshan, leaving him unaware that he was being drawn into further trouble.

• Pu Yunshan threw Master Ma a five-hundred-tael banknote and drove the Caoyun Gang men away from Qin Hongxiu.
• Qin Hongxiu thanked Pu Yunshan, urged him to leave, and asked him not to spend more money on her.
• Pu Yunshan learned from the madam that Qin Hongxiu’s brother gambled, drank, and fled his debts, then waited outside Qin Hongxiu’s room before going home.
• Gu Moran and Liu Ruyan discussed how Qin Hongxiu had arranged the confrontation and whether Pu Yunshan might challenge the Caoyun Gang.
• Gu Moran told Uncle Fu to place another rush order for repairs at the Flower-Between Pavilion, requesting Pu Yunshan by name.

Pu Yunshan learned that Qin Hongxiu had pawned her jewelry and signed a binding three-year contract to repay his five hundred taels. When the madam tried to force Qin Hongxiu to entertain Squire Li, Pu Yunshan intervened and declared his identity as the young master of Mount Qingcheng.

• Pu Yunshan repaired the Flower-Between Pavilion’s stairs despite the madam’s complaints and remembered why he had given Qin Hongxiu the five hundred taels.
• Qin Hongxiu returned the money, explaining that she had pawned her jewelry and signed a binding three-year contract to settle the debt.
• Pu Yunshan tried to help Qin Hongxiu up after she knelt to thank him for saving her.
• The madam ordered Qin Hongxiu to drink with Squire Li, and Qin Hongxiu agreed to go that night.
• Pu Yunshan shielded Qin Hongxiu, threatened anyone who forced her, and announced that he was the young master of Mount Qingcheng.

Pu Yunshan learned that Qin Hongxiu’s lifetime contract could only be broken by buying her freedom, and he promised to do so despite having no money with him. The chapter ended with Qin Hongxiu questioning his offer.

• Pu Yunshan gave Qin Hongxiu a banknote to keep, then agreed to work at the Flower-Between Pavilion after the madam demanded he pay to free her.
• Pu Yunshan chopped wood, carried water, and accepted more repair work while asking a kitchen maid about Squire Li and Qin Hongxiu’s contract.
• The maid told Pu Yunshan that Qin Hongxiu’s freedom would cost at least a thousand taels, and he worried about how to get the money without asking his father.
• Pu Yunshan visited Qin Hongxiu in the music room and promised to buy her freedom, leaving her stunned.

Pu Yunshan learned that Master Wei had come to force Qin Hongxiu to entertain him, despite her irrevocable bond to the Flower-Between Pavilion. When Qin Hongxiu considered cutting off her hair to escape, Pu Yunshan left to borrow money to help her.

• Pu Yunshan promised Qin Hongxiu he would earn the thousand taels needed to resolve her situation, and she treated the wounds on his hands.
• Master Wei arrived at the Flower-Between Pavilion, paid a deposit, and demanded that Qin Hongxiu attend him.
• A maid told Pu Yunshan that Master Wei had tormented other courtesans and that Qin Hongxiu would rather cut off her hair than go with him.
• Pu Yunshan found Qin Hongxiu holding scissors and learned the madam claimed her bond left her no choice.
• Qin Hongxiu warned Pu Yunshan that he could not protect her every night, and he left to borrow money.

Pu Yunshan urgently borrowed a thousand taels from Gu Moran and signed a five-year work contract without asking what duties it required. After Pu Yunshan rushed off to the Flower-Between Pavilion, Gu Moran learned that his luck had fallen to rock bottom and received several new rewards from the system.

• Batuer tried to hide that she missed Chen Qing, while Murong Xue teased her about going to Anyang to find him.
• Pu Yunshan barged into Gu Moran's chamber and asked to borrow a thousand taels.
• Gu Moran offered Pu Yunshan the money in exchange for five years of unpaid work, and Pu Yunshan quickly signed the contract with his thumbprint.
• The system reported that Pu Yunshan's destiny line had deviated and his luck had reached rock bottom, rewarding Gu Moran with blueprints and techniques.
• Pu Yunshan took the money and hurried to the Flower-Between Pavilion, so Gu Moran told Song Wan to watch him from a distance.

Pu Yunshan bought Qin Hongxiu’s freedom at the Flower-Between Pavilion and tore up her binding contract. Qin Hongxiu struggled to understand his kindness, while Pu Yunshan blushed when she began to unfasten her robe.

• Master Wei demanded that Qin Hongxiu receive him, but Pu Yunshan arrived and offered the madam one thousand taels for her binding contract.
• Pu Yunshan confronted Master Wei and declared that Qin Hongxiu would never receive guests again.
• The madam handed Pu Yunshan Qin Hongxiu’s binding contract, and Master Wei backed down rather than fight him.
• Pu Yunshan went to Qin Hongxiu’s room and tore up the contract, telling her she was free.
• Qin Hongxiu recalled how a scholar had once deceived her and began to question Pu Yunshan’s motives.
• When Qin Hongxiu touched her collar and started undoing a button, Pu Yunshan blushed and asked what she was doing.

Pu Yunshan gave Qin Hongxiu his Mount Qingcheng sword tassel as a pledge to marry her after five years, and she broke down at his kindness. In Anyang, Gu Mochen had Chen Qing beaten over the woman he chased through the crowd and demanded to know what Chen Qing had given him.

• Pu Yunshan gave Qin Hongxiu his sword tassel, promised to marry her properly after five years, and said she could refuse him or leave freely.
• Qin Hongxiu called Pu Yunshan by his name for the first time and cried as he explained why he had helped her.
• Pu Yunshan went to get charcoal for Qin Hongxiu, then confronted the madam and demanded she provide it for someone in the prince's household.
• Gu Mochen, furious over the public scene at the South Street porridge stall, ordered his guards to beat Chen Qing in the dungeon.
• Gu Mochen asked Chen Qing what the item he had given him was.

Chen Qing endured a beating from Gu Mochen after the medicine caused a public scandal, while urging him to prepare for the threat from Yi Prefecture and Gu Moran. At the old princely residence, Qin Hongxiu saw Pu Yunshan working on the wall and hesitated to return his sword tassel and ask for his contract to be canceled, before Liu Ruyan confronted her.

• Gu Mochen rejected Chen Qing's explanation for the medicine's effects and ordered him beaten while Zhou Huaili warned that rumors from South Street were spreading.
• Chen Qing urged Gu Mochen to take Yi Prefecture's growing power seriously, and Gu Mochen ordered Yang Tie to send all his medicine to Anyang.
• Chen Qing endured the full beating while holding a scrap of cloth that reminded him of Batuer and his wish to return to Yi Prefecture.
• Qin Hongxiu watched Pu Yunshan labor on the residence's damaged wall and reconsidered returning his sword tassel and canceling his five-year contract.
• Liu Ruyan appeared behind Qin Hongxiu and asked whether she had come to see Gu Moran.

Liu Ruyan helped Qin Hongxiu confront her fear that Pu Yunshan would eventually reject her, and Gu Moran proposed opening a foot care hall that would employ older courtesans in skilled, voluntary work. He named the planned shop the Yi Prefecture Foot Care Hall.

• Liu Ruyan challenged Qin Hongxiu's plan to return to the Flower-Between Pavilion and explained that Qin feared Pu Yunshan would tire of her as she aged.
• Qin Hongxiu described how older courtesans were discarded, and admitted she would rather leave Pu Yunshan than risk his future disgust.
• Gu Moran asked whether older courtesans knew massage, acupressure, and how to read customers, then proposed opening a shop for them.
• Gu Moran described a business offering medicinal baths, massages, and prepaid membership deals to traveling merchants and other customers.
• Gu Moran promised that women who chose to work there would have lodging and wages, and named the shop the Yi Prefecture Foot Care Hall.

Gu Moran offered Qin Hongxiu work at a foot care parlor, while Qin worried that Pu Yunshan had signed a five-year contract for her sake. Pu Yunshan misunderstood the job as something indecent, but Gu Moran brought him to try a foot soak and massage, leaving Qin poised to treat his sore feet.

• Gu Moran offered Qin Hongxiu work at a foot care parlor and told her to stop deciding for Pu Yunshan whether she was worthy of him.
• Pu Yunshan saw Qin Hongxiu's reddened eyes, assumed Gu Moran had mistreated her, and protested that he would take any dirty work instead of letting her be harmed.
• Gu Moran explained the parlor's services, then invited Pu Yunshan to try a foot soak after his morning of heavy labor.
• Pu Yunshan soaked his blistered feet in hot water, and Gu Moran told Qin Hongxiu to massage them.
• Pu Yunshan tried to refuse Qin Hongxiu's touch, and she reminded him that he had said he did not look down on her.

Gu Moran arranged for Qin Hongxiu to manage a foot-care parlor that would offer honest work to women from the Flower-Between Pavilion and gather local intelligence. As Pu Yunshan rushed to ask Gu Moran about Qin Hongxiu returning his sword tassel, urgent news arrived that the Emperor had suffered a severe stroke and could barely write.

• Qin Hongxiu massaged Pu Yunshan’s sore feet while Gu Moran explained that the foot-care parlor would provide legitimate work and gather information from its customers.
• Qin Hongxiu agreed to try managing the business, and Gu Moran assigned her recruitment and management while Liu Ruyan, Su Yao, Shen Ling'er, and Pu Yunshan took on other tasks.
• After the others left, Qin Hongxiu served Pu Yunshan noodle soup and returned his jade sword tassel, but he refused to take it and ran to find Gu Moran.
• Uncle Fu brought Gu Moran urgent dispatches from the capital and Anyang and reported that the Emperor had awakened after a stroke with his right side limp and his speech and writing impaired.

Gu Moran learned that Anyang’s refugees were suffering as merchants raised prices amid Lady Lü’s failed charity scheme, and he arranged to sell supplies while recruiting workers to Yi Prefecture. As Qin Hongxiu prepared to lead women and children away from the Flower-Between Pavilion, Pu Yunshan guarded the exit in case the madam changed her mind.

• Gu Moran learned that Anyang’s grain and cloth prices had risen and refugees were receiving only thin porridge.
• Gu Moran ordered old grain and coarse cloth sent to Anyang at market prices and offered workers three-month contracts in Yi Prefecture, prioritizing blacksmiths.
• Pu Yunshan asked Gu Moran why Hongxiu had returned his sword tassel, and Gu Moran suggested she feared burdening him.
• Gu Moran reassured Xie Wanqing that he did not understand every girl’s thoughts and drew her into his arms.
• Qin Hongxiu gathered women and children outside the Flower-Between Pavilion to leave for Yi Prefecture while Pu Yunshan guarded the back door against a possible attempt to detain them.

Pu Yunshan and Liu Ruyan arranged for the Flower-Between Pavilion courtesans to begin new lives working at the Foot Care Hall. Qin Hongxiu voiced her fears about marrying Pu Yunshan, but he refused to take back his sword tassel, and they shared a meal together.

• The madam tearfully sent the courtesans to the Foot Care Hall, where Liu Ruyan offered contracts with wages, food, and lodging.
• Pu Yunshan guarded the group and accepted a food box from Qin Hongxiu, who told him she feared his family and sect would judge her past.
• Pu Yunshan refused to take back the sword tassel and promised to wait as long as Qin Hongxiu needed.
• Qin Hongxiu put the tassel away, then sat with Pu Yunshan to share noodle soup and osmanthus cakes.
• Liu Ruyan watched the pair and left them together while Tuoba Mang drove the courtesans away.

The emperor tried to summon Prince An, but Chancellor Su Wenyuan and the ministers claimed his garbled writing said “secure agriculture” and issued orders to stabilize the realm instead. The emperor raged helplessly and collapsed as Elder Shen rushed to support him.

• The emperor wrote two characters and Gao Fu understood them as a request to summon Prince An back to the capital.
• Su Wenyuan told the ministers the characters meant “secure agriculture,” and the minister of war agreed with his interpretation.
• The grand commandant backed Su Wenyuan, warning that Prince An’s return could provoke a struggle for power and bloodshed.
• Gao Fu concealed his understanding of the emperor’s wish and claimed the emperor was delighted that the ministers had grasped his intent.
• Su Wenyuan ordered preparations for spring plowing, grain inspections and relief, and restrictions preventing regional princes from leaving their fiefs or mobilizing troops.
• The emperor’s anger overwhelmed him, and Elder Shen called for help as the emperor collapsed onto the bedding.

At the palace, Elder Shen tried to stabilize the emperor, while Chu Tianxing realized the needle treatment could prevent him from waking but held back from intervening. At Prince Yi's Residence, Gu Moran and Shen Ling'er refined coarse sugar into clear syrup and made candied hawthorns before Uncle Fu announced a guest had arrived.

• Elder Shen treated the emperor with needles, and Chu Tianxing recognized that the final needles had blocked the emperor's qi and blood.
• Shen Ling'er filtered coarse sugar water through yellow clay and hemp cloth, producing clear, sweet syrup.
• Gu Moran explained the syrup's uses and potential value, while Su Yao began calculating costs and prices.
• Gu Moran and the others boiled the syrup into a coating and made candied hawthorns for the household.
• Uncle Fu hurried into the rear courtyard and told Gu Moran that a guest had arrived at the front gate.

Yun Zhengze tried to reconnect with Tiedan by bringing him a wooden horse and gold, while Yun Shuyue fed him glutinous rice balls and Tiedan teased her about becoming Gu Moran’s concubine. Later, Pu Yunshan used his fourth-rank strength to speed up construction at the Foot Care Hall.

• Yun Zhengze brought Tiedan a wooden horse and six red envelopes filled with gold, and Tiedan accepted them while agreeing to call him Uncle Yun.
• Yun Shuyue brought Yun Zhengze glutinous rice balls, and Tiedan praised them before suggesting she spend more time with Gu Moran or become his concubine.
• Gu Moran told Yun Zhengze to respect Tiedan’s choices and build their relationship by spending time with him rather than using his official authority.
• Tiedan warned Yun Zhengze that the wooden horse and gold were his to keep, and Yun Zhengze agreed.
• Pu Yunshan split timber and helped build the Foot Care Hall, working so quickly that the craftsmen were astonished.

Gu Moran visited Pu Yunshan as he hurried to finish Qin Hongxiu’s Foot Care Hall, while Prince An’s delayed grain ships and rising prices pushed Anyang toward unrest. Zhou Huaili tried to keep the porridge stalls operating and protect the city’s granaries as angry residents gathered.

• Gu Moran and his companions checked Pu Yunshan’s progress, and Pu Yunshan rushed off with candied hawthorns for Qin Hongxiu.
• Gu Mochen learned the grain ships were still delayed and ordered Zhou Huaili to lower Anyang’s grain prices within three days.
• Hungry residents rioted at a South Street porridge stall after the remaining porridge ran out and guards struck people in the crowd.
• Zhou Huaili arrived to find the stall partly destroyed and heard that residents were threatening to burn grain merchants’ granaries.
• Zhou Huaili ordered guards to protect the granaries and sent for two more sacks of rice to keep the porridge stall running.

As Anyang descended into grain-price chaos, Gu Mochen ordered an investigation into the princess consort’s use of donated silver. In Yi Prefecture, Gu Moran learned that the king of Dali had died and began preparing for possible unrest along the southern routes.

• Gu Mochen learned that the gruel shelters and grain merchants were in turmoil, then ordered Zhou Huaili to investigate the princess consort’s accounts despite his worsening illness.
• Yun Shuyue encouraged Tiedan to accept an orange from Yun Zhengze while the household spent a peaceful evening in Yi Prefecture.
• Zhen Daijin reported that the king of Dali had died suddenly, the royal heirs were stirring, and Tubo cavalry had appeared near the northern border strongholds.
• Gu Moran ordered Yun Zhengze to investigate supplies moving from Jiannan into Dali and told Zhen Daijin to send scouts along the southern mountain roads without moving the garrison.
• Gu Moran asked Lin Qingdai to seek mountain guides from Pu Qinghe, while Murong Xue asked whether he would go to Dali himself.
• A guard summoned Pu Yunshan from the Foot Care Hall to discuss urgent matters with Gu Moran, and Qin Hongxiu promised to look after the shop until his return.

Gu Moran learned that Wang Batian and Princess Meng Jiuning of Dali had arrived in Yi Prefecture, then arranged to profit from their visit. At the southern checkpoint, Wang Batian encountered strict rules and fixed fees, while Meng Jiuning saw how disciplined Yi Prefecture was.

• A screen informed Gu Moran that Wang Batian, a fourth-rank Son of Destiny, had entered Yi Prefecture escorting Princess Meng Jiuning to seek aid.
• Gu Moran told Pu Yunshan to remain nearby and instructed Su Yao to prepare white sugar and detailed price boards for the guests.
• Xue Huan arranged the checkpoint for the arrivals, where officials enforced a queue and sold special-access VIP tickets.
• Wang Batian tried to use gold to make the guards clear the way, but the soldier fined him and charged the set price for a VIP ticket.
• Meng Jiuning ordered Wang Batian to pay and, after receiving the ticket, recognized the order and discipline behind Yi Prefecture’s regulations.