flstandardbreds Chapter 166 The Funding Dilemma Awaits a Break
Chapter 166 The Funding Dilemma Awaits a Break
The funding predicament awaits a breakthrough.
As dusk enveloped the long street paved with bluestone slabs, Su Yunlan stood under the mottled inn signboard, her fingertips gently brushing against the peeling vermilion lacquer on the door frame.
Three days ago, she made a special detour to look at the inn's accounts—it had lost six hundred taels of silver last year, and there were even rat bite marks on the elm wood table in the front hall.
"Does the young lady really want to take on this hot potato?" Manager Li emerged from the shadows, clutching his abacus. His withered fingers clicked the beads. "Just re-laying the floor joists will cost three hundred taels, not to mention breaking through the second floor to make a courtyard..." His cloudy eyes reflected the fiery clouds on the horizon, like embers about to go out.
Just then, Young Master Xiao Twenty-One was carrying two newly dyed Moonflower Brocade pieces across the threshold. Upon hearing this, he put the fabric on the counter and said, "Why does Uncle Li always like to pour cold water on things?"
Last month, Sister Yunlan said she wanted to mix gold thread into the brocade, but didn't you also say it would damage the loom? The young man wiped the sweat from his forehead, revealing half of his sun-reddened forearm where his indigo sleeve had slipped down.
Su Yunlan gazed at the exquisite plum blossom and sparrow carvings on the beams and pillars of the porch, then suddenly pulled out a charcoal pencil from her sleeve and sketched a continuous, soaring eave on the wall: "If we raised the front hall by five feet and installed a glazed skylight..." The pencil suddenly stopped at a crack in the blue bricks, "...but the cost of the renovation..."
"The dyeing workshop made a profit of over four thousand taels this year." Young Master Xiao suddenly pulled out an oil paper package from his pocket, which unfolded to reveal half a half-eaten sesame biscuit. "If Sister Yunlan is willing to share 20% of the discounts given to our regular customers with me..." He was interrupted by Manager Li's cough before he could finish speaking.
The iron eaves jingled in the night wind. Just as Su Yunlan was about to speak, she suddenly saw a dark corner of clothing flash by the door.
Xiao Yuhan had been leaning against the door at some point, his sword at his waist pressing down on a yellowed copy of the "Yingzao Fashi" (Building Standards).
He reached out and caught a swirling sycamore leaf as it fell, his well-defined fingers tracing its veins lightly: "The contract for the rice shop in the west of the city is worth eight hundred taels of silver."
The sound of Manager Li's abacus abruptly stopped.
As dusk fell, the man unfastened his sword and placed it on the counter. The faded red silk wrapped around the hilt brushed against Su Yunlan's sleeve; it was something she had tied herself on during their exile last year.
When the house deed, still smelling of pine soot and ink, was pushed under the lamp, Xiao Yuhan's fingertips inadvertently brushed against the calluses on her tiger's mouth, the temperature even more scorching than the sunset rays hanging from the eaves.
(Setting the stage for the ending)
In the distance, the sound of the night watchman striking the first watch gong could be heard, and the candlelight cast the shadows of the two men onto the wall covered with renovation plans.
Xiao Yuhan suddenly reached out to brush away the stray hairs at her temples, but just before touching them, he turned to brush the dust off her shoulders.
In the swaying light, the silver python scales embroidered on his dark cuffs shone faintly; they were the totem that the soldiers of the patrol battalion had insisted on embroidering on him during the day.
Xiao Yuhan's fingertips still bore the roughness of the northern winds and sands, yet he gently enveloped Su Yunlan's hand holding the charcoal pencil.
The lamplight cast a deep shadow on his brow bone, blending the scar across his left eye into the night. "Back then, when we were chiseling ice at Yanmen Pass to get water, even the chisels chipped—" He guided her hand to add an arc to the wall, "didn't we still carve out a path for three thousand soldiers to survive?"
Su Yunlan felt a slight ache on her shoulders, the faint scent of wound medicine lingering in the man's clothes.
She turned her head to look at the overlapping hand shadows on the wall, and suddenly remembered that half a month ago when she changed his dressing, these hands had crushed the throat of a Turkic spy.
At that moment, the sparks from the exploding candle wick fell into his pupils, shining even brighter than the Milky Way outside the eaves.
"Fourth Brother is always good at flattering people," Young Master Xiao mumbled, chewing on a sesame biscuit. A splinter of wood flew up as his indigo sleeve swept across the counter. "Last time he said the Tian Shan snow lotus in the hands of the Hu merchant in the South Market could cure cold ailments, which made me work as a stable boy for half a month..."
Manager Li's coughing suddenly became rapid, and his withered hands clutched the coin-patterned collar of his shirt.
Su Yunlan's silver needle had already slipped to her fingertips when she saw the old man tremblingly pull out a faded brocade pouch from his sleeve, pouring out three polished Kaiyuan Tongbao coins. "This is... the dowry money my wife gave me."
Xiao Yuhan suddenly released his grip, his dark robe sweeping across the wood chips scattered on the ground, stirring up the floating pine resin.
He bent down to pick up a broken carved bracket, the silver python pattern shimmering in the candlelight with his movement. "Tomorrow I'll go to the patrol camp. Commandant Wang said last month he wanted to make twelve screens for the lady."
As the water clock ticked, Su Yunlan stared at the crooked red annotation of "three hundred taels" on the account book, her fingertips unconsciously stroking the jade bracelet in her sleeve.
The layers of hemostatic gauze from the supply depot of his past life piled up in his consciousness, but in the end, they turned into a soft sigh.
As the fifth watchman's drum sounded, she tied her ink-scented hair ribbon to the hilt of Xiao Yuhan's sword. "I'm going to meet the clerk of Yongtong Money Exchange."
The morning mist had not yet dissipated, and the night dew still clung to the bluestone slabs.
The four gilded characters "Huitong Tianxia" on the ebony plaque of the money shop were blurred by the thin mist. Su Yunlan stepped over the three-foot-high black lacquered threshold, her embroidered shoes landing in the center of the yin-yang fish-shaped floor tiles.
A breeze carrying the scent of sandalwood wafted through the room, and twenty-eight brass abacuses clattered behind the nanmu wood counter.
"Madam Xiao wants to pledge the profit deed for the dye shop?" The goatee-bearded clerk looked up from behind his crystal glasses, tapping his tortoise-shell thumb ring on the Qingtian stone inkstone. "Shen's Silk Shop just mortgaged its looms to us last month." His thin knuckles suddenly pressed down on the deed Su Yunlan was pushing towards him, a glint of light flashing in his eyes: "Unless... you're willing to use the 'Seven-Day Spring' formula as collateral."
Su Yunlan's pearl hairpin remained unmoved, but her fingers clenched tightly in her sleeve.
When she saved the young head of the canal gang last December, the antidote she casually wrote down was mistakenly called an aphrodisiac.
A barely audible groan came from behind the counter, and half of a robe with gold-threaded python patterns was vaguely visible behind the rosewood screen.
The clerk suddenly coughed violently, his age-spotted hands pushing the contract back a third of the way. "Of course, if you would be willing to take my old lady's pulse for a proper diagnosis..." The corner of the silver note that slipped from his sleeve clearly bore the personal seal of the Vice Minister of the Ministry of Revenue.