Chapter 6

Chapter 6

The most difficult battle I fought in Jiangnan was negotiating the “open accounts” with the Old Salt Gang.

They were used to taking a cut from the black market. Seeing a woman in charge, they tried courtesy before force, and finally, they simply flipped the table.

I placed my blade on the table and asked with a smile, “Do I need to teach you how to calculate the cost of flipping a table?”

That negotiation lasted until the middle of the night, and no one came out of it looking dignified.

But the next day, the Old Salt Gang signed their names according to the new regulations.

They called me ruthless, and I accepted the title without reservation.

During my two years in Jiangnan, I forcibly dragged a salt trade route that was rotten to the core back into the light.

I uprooted seventeen corrupt officials, suppressed nine Private Salt Gangs, and renegotiated the river transport taxes three times.

I slept on ships at night and spent my days at the docks until my skin tanned dark and my hands grew calloused. Even the noble ladies of the capital wouldn’t have recognized me.

Yet, I had never felt so satisfied.

I was no longer anyone’s “fiancée candidate,” no longer someone’s “old flame.” I was Shen Zhiwei.

The documents I signed would turn into grain, into military supplies, and into the salt in the commoners’ pots.

This feeling was more stable than any sweet words of love.

Yin Xianshan wrote me many letters.

At first, they were written in the tone of official business, asking about salt prices and military supplies.

Later, they turned into just a few short lines.

“It rains often in Jiangnan. Has your old injury flared up?”

“I’ve had someone send the plum soup you like to your ship.”

“It’s snowing in the capital tonight. I’m reminded of that year in the Cold Palace.”

I didn’t reply to a single one.

Until one day, an emergency report came from the border.

The Northern Di had launched a surprise attack. The imperial court was short on grain, and Yin Xianshan personally led the campaign.

When the military report reached Jiangnan, I was at the docks arguing over prices with the salt merchants.

The string of my abacus snapped with a sharp pop.

The next day, I mobilized the Chuntai Fleet to head north. Thirty-seven grain ships sailed day and night without pause.

The deputy accompanying me asked, “Junzhu, will the Regent think you still care about him?”

I closed the ledger and said indifferently, “What I care about are the hundred thousand soldiers of the Northern Frontier. It has nothing to do with him.”

A month later, news of a great victory arrived from the front lines.

However, Yin Xianshan had been seriously wounded by an arrow and was unconscious.

Rumors flew wildly through the capital, saying that if the Regent did not wake up, the Heir Position would fall into chaos and the court would collapse.

Some also said that Shen Zhiwei should be crying her way back to the capital to keep watch over his coffin.

When I heard this, I only gave one response.

“He won’t die.”

Because many years ago, I had broken the Heart-Protecting Pill my mother left me into two halves and fed them to him.

Back then, he was delirious with fever, yet he still gripped my finger and told me, “Don’t be afraid.”

I hated those words for a long time afterward, but I also remembered them for a long time.

Because the arrow wound he took back then was even heavier than this one, and he survived.

As the person who personally dragged him back from the gates of hell, I knew better than anyone how stubborn his life was.

But I didn’t expect that when he woke up, he would have amnesia.

He forgot the details of the court from the last five years, forgot Ning Zhiheng, forgot the wedding, and forgot our falling out.

Yet he remembered only that snowy night in the Cold Palace seven years ago.

On his sickbed, he gripped the military doctor’s sleeve and asked over and over, “Where is Zhiwei?”

When the news reached Jiangnan, I was presiding over a Salt Voucher Case.

My subordinates looked at my expression and asked cautiously, “Junzhu, are we returning to the capital?”

I took my brush and wrote the words “Remand for Trial” on the dossier.

“The case isn’t finished. I’m not going back.”

Once a heart has turned completely cold, no amount of wind or waves can warm it again.