Settling in Wu Commandery

Qiao Shuyi gave Song Jue some money for his journey and had Yan Po smooth his passage along the way before they parted.

Song Jue headed north to join the army, while she continued south to Wu Commandery.

Why Wu Commandery?

In the original book, Su Yunyan's father was a vice minister of rites and a prominent figure in the capital, but she was a concubine-born daughter. Her legitimate mother disliked her, her clan looked down on her, and the only person she could rely on was Su Jingyun, her elder brother by the same mother.

Su Jingyun had been posted to Jiangnan. Others saw it as a demotion, but Zongzheng Heng had quietly gone to considerable trouble to place him in Wu Commandery, the only major prefecture in Jiangnan. He had taken office as a judicial officer, with real power in his hands.

Two years later.

Zongzheng Heng traveled south incognito with his consorts. Su Yunyan, eager to see her brother, wheedled and pleaded with him at his bedside for a long time, so Zongzheng Heng chose Wu Commandery.

That would allow brother and sister to reunite and give Su Jingyun a chance to show his face before the emperor, providing a pretext to transfer him back to the capital.

Qiao Shuyi wanted to enter the palace, but now that she was pregnant, she could not do so through the regular consort selection.

She could only put down roots in Wu Commandery and wait for that person to come.

Under Great Zhang law, the most straightforward way to register residency was to buy a house.

She had no household registration documents, but she had silver.

A road paved with silver worked better than any document.

Yan Po had taken a fancy to a house with two courtyards in the east of the city. It was not large, but it was neat and well kept. An old scholar tree stood in the front courtyard, and several clumps of green bamboo grew in the rear. It was a quiet refuge amid the bustle, just to her liking.

Once the silver was paid and the deed secured, the broker took care of the household registration. A few extra ingots of silver were all it took to have everything neatly settled.

She was now called Liu Susu.

Following Qiao Shuyi's instructions, Yan Po took over a small storefront in the city and hung up the sign of the Yishun Escort Agency, opening a branch in Wu Commandery.

The escort agency was small and handled only short-distance jobs in the surrounding area. It kept a low profile, just as he wanted.

They added two maids, four male servants, and two older servants to the household. Yan Po had personally selected them all with great care; they had clean backgrounds and tight lips.

Qiao Shuyi disliked having too many people and too many wagging tongues, so she assigned them to serve only in the outer courtyard. Apart from Yan Po, no one was allowed to set foot in the inner courtyard.

It was early summer in June, and the weather in Wu Commandery had already grown hot.

Qiao Shuyi lay in a rocking chair in the courtyard, her eyes half closed as she gazed at the thick scholar tree leaves overhead.

Sunlight filtered through the gaps in the leaves, warm and dazzling, making her drowsy.

Her hand rested lightly on her lower abdomen, which had begun to swell, though it was hardly noticeable without a close look.

The days flew by, and before she knew it, late summer had arrived.

Qiao Shuyi had lived in Wu Commandery for two months, and her pregnancy was showing, but she could not sit idle.

She spent her days in the house poring over books and had Yan Po search the city for medical texts and pharmacopoeias. From the Yellow Emperor's Inner Canon to the Thousand Ducat Formulas, from the Compendium of Materia Medica to the Treatise on Cold Damage and Miscellaneous Diseases, they piled high across her desk.

When Yan Po pushed open the door, he found her reclining on a couch, holding a copy of the Essential Prescriptions of the Golden Cabinet and reading it intently.

"Madam, I've asked around about all the apothecaries in the city. The biggest ones all have powerful backers, and they keep their purchase prices for medicinal ingredients extremely low. If we start from nothing, I'm afraid we won't be able to compete."

Qiao Shuyi put down the book and raised her eyes to him. "Who said I wanted to compete with them?"

Yan Po was taken aback.

Qiao Shuyi stood up and spoke unhurriedly:

"The city's apothecaries cater to the wealthy. At the Life-Saving Hall on East Street, a dose of ginseng soup sells for three taels of silver; at the Spring-Restoring Hall on West Street, even ordinary medicine for a cold costs half a tael. Ordinary people can't afford treatment, and the farming families outside the city can afford it even less."

"The pharmacies I want to open aren't for high officials and noblemen. They're for people who can't afford treatment. The medicines must be cheap, the prescriptions simple, and the physicians patient. One city won't be enough; I want to open them in ten. If ten aren't enough, then a hundred."

Yan Po stared at her.

He had followed his mistress for more than a decade and had never seen her concern herself with such things.

Before, she had cared only about whether she was happy, what she wanted to eat, what she wanted to wear, and what she wanted to buy.

"But..." He hesitated. "The purchase price of medicinal ingredients..."

"That's why we need to find our own suppliers."

Qiao Shuyi walked back to the desk, opened a book she had just bought, and pointed to a page.

"Three hundred li south of Wu Commandery, there's a place called Bluestone Town that produces a medicinal herb called aconite. The locals don't know how to process it and treat it as a weed, selling it for just a few dozen copper coins a bundle. Properly processed, it's a good remedy for wind-cold. If someone taught them how to gather, dry, and store it, then bought the herb from them, our costs could be seventy percent lower than those of the city's apothecaries."

She turned several more pages in succession and pointed to the place names marked on them.

"This place produces bupleurum, this one astragalus, and this one poria. They're all good ingredients, but the locals don't know how to use them. We'll send people to teach them and buy the herbs, establishing our supply routes. Once the pharmacies open and we bring costs down, we won't have to worry about business."

Yan Po listened with rapt attention and could not help asking, "How does Mistress know all this?"

"I read it in books. I've been through quite a few lately and remembered some of it."

What Qiao Shuyi did not say was that she had far more than this to learn.

Medicine was what she would show the world; poison was the blade she truly wanted to hold in her hand.

In a place like the palace, people could kill without spilling blood and administer poison without leaving a trace.

She might not use it, but she could not afford not to know how.

She had to find out which plants and minerals could save people, which could harm them, and which, mixed together, could take a life without anyone being the wiser.

"Yan Po, find me a physician with excellent medical skills, someone older, preferably someone who's traveled far and wide and seen the world. Silver is no concern, but he must have tight lips. And he must know not only how to treat illness, but also how to make poison. Some illnesses in this world are treated with medicine; others require different methods."

Yan Po nodded. "I'll see to it at once."

He turned to leave, but Qiao Shuyi called him back.

"One more thing. Keep an eye on Su Jingyun, the judicial officer of Wu Commandery. Where he goes, whom he sees, what he does-I want to know everything, no matter how small."

Yan Po said, "Yes. I'll have someone watch him at once."

The ninth day of the ninth month was the Double Ninth Festival.

Ten thousand people in Wu Commandery climbed the heights, a spectacle grander than ever before.

Wu Mountain, Tiger Hill, and the North Temple Pagoda teemed with people. The city's residents had turned out in droves, and even young ladies who usually lived in seclusion went up the mountains in groups of three or five.

Su Jingyun had not wanted to join the bustle, but he could not refuse the warm invitations of several close friends. He changed into a somewhat worn blue robe and went with them to Wu Mountain.

He was a scholar who placed great importance on propriety. He climbed the heights to climb the heights and admired autumn to admire autumn; all the way there, he kept his eyes straight ahead and discussed only poetry and prose with the friends beside him.

By the time they reached the foot of the mountain, the crowd had grown thicker.

Su Jingyun was discussing a Double Ninth poem by a poet of the previous dynasty with a friend when Young Master Kong suddenly nudged his arm with a fan. His voice was low and carried a note of excitement.

"Jingyun, look-that's the famous beautiful pregnant woman of Wu Commandery I told you about before."

Su Jingyun frowned slightly.

He had always disliked such frivolous talk. Beautiful or not, peerless beauty or not, it was all idle gossip for lechers.

He was a scholar: he looked at nothing improper and listened to nothing improper. He had always kept clear of what he should not look at or speak of.

He was about to say, "Brother Kong, mind your words," when his gaze involuntarily followed the direction Young Master Kong was pointing.

One glance, and he froze.

A makeshift shelter stood in an open space at the foot of the mountain.

Beneath it were two tables, with pulse pillows, brushes and ink, and packets of medicine arranged neatly on top.

An old man with graying hair and beard sat on the left, taking an elderly woman's pulse.

She sat on the right.

She wore a moon-white, wide-sleeved top, with a soft silk sash tied at her waist. Her lower abdomen was slightly rounded.

The woman was exceptionally beautiful.

Without a trace of powder or rouge, her face bare, she was already a peerless beauty in the eyes of anyone who saw her.

She was neither gaudy nor ostentatious, untouched by the slightest trace of worldly dust.

Her skin was white as snow, her brows and eyes like a painting. However many daughters of distinguished families Su Jingyun had seen in the capital, however many peerless beauties he had seen in Jiangnan, he had to admit at that moment-this woman's beauty was unlike anyone else's.

Su Jingyun stared for a moment, then looked away, silently reproaching himself for losing his composure.

She was a pregnant woman. What sort of behavior was it for him to stare at her?

After all those years studying the teachings of the sages, he was still so frivolous.

"Brother Kong, mind your words. She's a woman from a respectable family. Don't speak so frivolously."