Chapter 5

Chapter 5

I didn’t sleep at all the night after the warehouse fire. I sat by the ruins, meticulously reconstructing the loss statement line by line.

Yin Xianshan arrived just as dawn broke. He crouched beside me, the back of his hand smeared black with charcoal ash.

“I’ll help you rebuild.”

I didn’t look up. “The Regent is a busy man with a myriad of affairs to attend to. Don’t waste your time playing the part of the devoted lover here.”

His Adam’s apple bobbed as he whispered, “It’s not an act.”

The tip of my brush paused for a fraction of a second before I continued writing.

“That line is also far too late.”

Ning Zhiheng began to grow desperate.

First, she sent people to discuss a partnership, wanting to merge the Ning Family’s weaving lines into Chuntai.

I refused.

Then, she spread rumors throughout the capital, claiming I was using our past relationship to pester the Regent and using the trading company as a front to form a political faction.

I laughed out loud when I heard it.

“She makes it sound like I’m so idle that all I do every day is fight over a man.”

The shop manager asked softly, “Junzhu, should we retaliate?”

“Yes.”

I slammed the account book onto the table. “Compile the records of the Ning Family’s tax evasion in the Jiangnan weaving industry over the past three years into three sets. Send one to the Censorate, one to the Ministry of Revenue, and one to Princess Consort Ning herself. Remember to wrap hers beautifully.”

Three days later, the Censorate seized two of the Ning Family’s workshops overnight.

Ning Zhiheng intercepted me at a palace banquet, her tears falling rapidly.

“Shen Zhiwei, why must you be so ruthless?”

I looked at her and asked quite seriously, “You call this being ruthless?”

“…”

“If I truly wanted you dead, you wouldn’t be standing here crying to me right now.”

Her face turned pale.

Yin Xianshan approached from a distance, his gaze landing between us like a drawn bow.

Ning Zhiheng immediately leaned toward him, her voice trembling.

“Xianshan, I only wanted to reconcile with the Junzhu…”

I couldn’t be bothered to watch this performance and turned to leave.

Yin Xianshan chased after me, however, grabbing my wrist.

“Do you have to drive her into a corner?”

“I’m driving her?” I laughed in anger. “Yin Xianshan, it was the Ning Family who evaded taxes, it was the Ning Family who falsified accounts, and it was the Ning Family who hired thugs to intercept my transport ships. With one ‘I’m driving her,’ you want to flip black and white?”

He fell silent for a long while before saying in a low voice, “I will handle it.”

“I’ve seen your way of ‘handling’ things.”

I pried his fingers off one by one. “First, you let me suffer grievances, then you claim you had no choice. That routine of yours worked seven years ago, but it’s worthless now.”

His hand hung in mid-air, as if grasping at nothing but empty air.

That night, the main warehouse of the Spring Terrace Trading Company caught fire.

By the time I arrived, the fire had been extinguished, but three thousand dan of salt had been burned.

The manager knelt on the ground, shaking uncontrollably. “It was the Ning Family’s people… but they were carrying waist tokens from the Prince’s Mansion.”

I stood before the charred warehouse doors, my chest feeling as if it had been stuffed with a lump of hot coal.

The next day, I went directly to the palace and submitted two memorials.

One impeached the Ning Family.

The other requested an imperial decree to appoint me as the Superintendent of the Jiangnan Salt Circuit.

The Emperor asked me, “You wish to leave the capital?”

I replied, “This subject wishes to hold both her money and her life in her own hands.”

The imperial decree was granted.

On the day I left the capital, Yin Xianshan was waiting for me at the pier.

There were dark circles under his eyes, looking as if he hadn’t slept for nights.

“Don’t go.”

“Your Highness, this is an imperial decree.”

“I can change it.”

I looked at him and suddenly felt like laughing.

Years ago, when I begged him for a single word of trust, he said he was forced by the situation.

Now, he was begging me not to go, but I only felt it was too late.

“Yin Xianshan,” I said softly, “you’ve finally learned how to beg. Unfortunately, you’re begging the wrong person.”