Chapter 135: Auction

But, regardless of how ominous the situation at the border was, the capital grew busier and busier by the day. In the past decade, there hadn't been a single rebellion that had broken into the capital, and even if there had been disasters in the surrounding areas, the refugees had been settled locally, and they hadn't poured into the capital again as they had in the previous regime.

The common people of the capital had calmly and rapidly evolved in these ten years, and the degree to which the capital flourished now had already exceeded every prior year of the past century.

The sun had just crawled above the eaves, and the streets were already crowded with hawkers carrying their goods. Children crowded before the stalls selling sugared preserves, and two women selling flowers fought over the refreshing shade beneath the eaves. The assistant at the silk shop was standing on a ladder, hanging up the newly arrived silks, whose surfaces were embroidered with gold thread which dazzled the eye under the sunlight and made one squint.

Jiang Changbai and Song Juguang walked, shoulder to shoulder, along the street, watching the passersby, and found a sense of gratification swelling in her heart.

"Make way, make way!" The urgent voice rose from behind them, and looking in its direction, she found four stout women carrying a massive box, making their way through the market area.

Atop the box was impressed a wax seal in Honghailou's style; seeing this, Jiang Changbai couldn't help but frown; thinking on it, Chen Xun's business had grown more and more popular.

"Dear ladies," a solicitor for the teahouse suddenly came before the two of them; she was a young girl probably around three or four years old, but when she spoke, it was quite deft. "Idling about is idling about; wouldn't it be better to come to our teahouse and have some tea?"

The smile on the young girl's face was brilliant, and anyone who saw it would feel overwhelmingly pleased. Jiang Changbai, teasing her intentionally, said, "If there aren't ten teahouses on this street, then there are five; why must we come to yours?"

The young girl didn't grow anxious, as if having long since expected the answer. "Our proprietor's roots are in the south, and our biluochun tea is all the type from our proprietor's ancestral fields. It's delivered at speed to the capital in only two or three days, and it's very fresh. The biluochun at other teahouses is probably the leftovers from last year."

When she spoke, the young girl's eyes filled with wit, and Jiang Changbai was rather pleased by it; she took a piece of silver from her breast, and said, "A gift for you."

Once she finished speaking, she turned and headed for the shop. The young girl was dazed for a moment after taking the silver, unable to help but sigh at the generosity of this patron, but the next moment she yelled assiduously towards the shop, "Two for a private room!"

She hadn't even finished speaking when another waiter emerged from within. Her smile was equally as charming, and she led Jiang Changbai and Song Juguang upstairs. Only once the waiter had left did Song Juguang lower her voice and say jestingly, "Your majesty is quite refined and elegant."

Hearing her, Jiang Changbai glared at her, and then coughed lightly, and reprimanded under her under her breath, "Don't call me that outside."

"Then what should I call you?" As she spoke, Song Juguang shifted closer, and just as Jiang Changbai was about to push her away, she turned and sat back into her chair. "A Bai?"

Jiang Changbai's barely there nod could be counted as a tacit acceptance, but her ears had grown faintly flushed. Hands behind her back, she made her way to the window, and then reached out to push the carved window open.

Looking down from on high, the street was an entirely different scene.

Over here, a rouge-seller was twisting the ear of her apprentice and scolding her, and over there, a few scholars were arguing heatedly over the only copy of a book. Jiang Changbai recognised one of the scholars as She Qiang, who'd been recommended by Xie Qianbing to temporarily take over her position.

Seeing Jiang Changbai hadn't moved, Song Juguang picked up a pastry and held it out to her. "It doesn't taste the same as the ones at home."

Jiang Changbai took it, placing it into her mouth, sidestepping the poison testing procedures of the maids at the Palace when she took meals. She'd just thought to say something, when she saw the scene on the street below suddenly turn into a racket.

Sixteen short-collared, stout women had formed four groups, each group carrying a wooden box with a wax seal as they passed by. The hawkers yielded to them, and the three words of "Honghailou" rose intermittently from the crowd.

Jiang Changbai's brows furrowed unconsciously, and her gaze fell on Song Juguang. "Go take a look."

Song Juguang wasn't willing to leave, and she stood on the spot with some hesitance. "Leaving you alone here…"

Jiang Changbai knew what Song Juguang was thinking—that her being alone in the private room wasn't safe. She rolled her eyes at her, and scoffed, "I'm not made of clay; weren't my martial skills all taught by A Guang?"

Hearing this, Song Juguang knew clearly that Jiang Changbai was about to grow annoyed, but before she left, she grabbed her hand and squeezed it. By the time Jiang Changbai came back to herself, the door to the private room had already been closed gently.

Most of the people sitting in the teahouse were scholars and literati, and they gathered here to discuss poetry and classics. But now, the words that emerged from their mouths were the three of "Honghailou".

"This Honghailou truly is growing greater and greater," a youth clad in a light blue tunic said, waving a fan, "they've been a restaurant for so long, and now they want to start some sort of auction."

Someone by her side echoed an agreement. "You can say that again—what treasures would someone who opened a restaurant have that would be worth an auction?"

"You're really looking down on them," someone cut off before she'd finished speaking, "Honghailou's trade caravans travel all over the state, and it's rumoured that their proprietor's rich enough to rival the country, and has every type of treasure."

After listening in for a bit and understanding the shape of things, Song Juguang returned to the private room, but not far away, in Honghailou, Chen Xun was staring at her treasures with regret.

"Do I really have to sell them?" Chen Xun's hands were crossed over each other and pressed against the surface of the table, and her gaze was filled with a heavy reluctance.

These goods were ones she'd gathered from various trade caravans, not only in the Great Li, but in neighbouring states as well. True treasures were hard to find, and Chen Xun had only managed to gather them after over twenty years of painstaking efforts; now that she was about to sell them all, it was hard to avoid being regretful.

By her side, Feng Puzhi scoffed. "If you sell them now, you'll have some money to buy provisions, but if you wait, if you wanted to sell them, you probably wouldn't be able to find a place to do so."

Chen Xun rarely saw Feng Puzhi wear such a stern expression, but she still clung onto some luck. After all, for her, aside from Honghailou, the most important thing to her were these things she'd collected. So, she hesitated for a long while, and then finally asked, "Is there really no other option?"

Hearing this, Feng Puzhi glared at her. "There were, but you already missed them. Back then, I wanted you to stop Xie Qianbing from going to Shejin on a diplomatic mission, but were you able to?"

Hearing this, Chen Xun was quite exasperated; it wasn't that she hadn't urged her, but that Xie Qianbing hadn't listened. They were Xie Qianbing's own legs; could she have stopped her from going? More than that, Xie Qianbing's diplomatic mission had been ordered by the Emperor; if she'd wanted to stop her, not only would she likely not have been able to protect these treasures of hers, she might even have lost her life.

Though Chen Xun was an adult, in Feng Puzhi's eyes, she was still a child. Seeing her worried expression, in the end, Feng Puzhi couldn't bear it. "Your original fate was a weak one, and you only accumulated such assets after years of good luck. But the state of a weak body and great wealth was never stable to start with; if you sell them now, perhaps in the future you'll have the chance to buy them back."

Hearing Feng Puzhi pacifying her, Chen Xun forced out a smile. "It's not just a love for these items; I was just thinking, we've lived only such a short time so well—will things have to go back to how they were before?"

Hearing her words Feng Puzhi fell into silence. In the past, though she'd lived secluded in the depths of the mountains, she'd paid attention to the matters of the world, and she knew that the common people of the Great Li hadn't lived well. In the past, the princes had fought for power, scheming and struggling—if one tried to kill another, then the other would try and hurt him, and the common people hadn't lived any stable lives.

Ten years ago, when Jiang Changbai had ascended the throne, the second female emperor of the Great Li had brought ten years of peaceful living for the common people, but now that was in peril.

Feng Puzhi suddenly said, "Since you're worried about the common people, then sell these things and store up some extra provisions, and in the future, perhaps you'll be able to save someone."

"Who wants to save anyone," Chen Xun retorted rapidly, disdain in her tone. "Other people's lives have nothing to do with me."

Feng Puzhi didn't pay her any further mind, merely waving to the waiters to carry away Chen Xun's treasures.

By the time the heavens fell into the in between of light and dark, all of the lamps in Honghailou's main hall had been lit. Song Juguang and Jiang Changbai, in a private room on the third floor, sat side by side, the copper mirror reflecting the two's luxurious attire, unexpectedly making them seem like a pair of rich wives from among the common people.

In a sudden instant, the previously raucous hall fell silent, and the maid A Ling, who'd been by Chen Xun's side all along, stepped up onto the raised stage, carrying a golden nanmu tray. The golden candle flames suffused the hair at her temples with gold, and the next moment, a sudden ray of light burst out of the box.

Song Juguang instinctively placed herself before Jiang Changbai, but the next moment, she discovered it was merely a Luminous Pearl.

A Ling cautiously took the Luminous Pearl out to show it to the crowd, and said, "A Luminous Pearl harvested from the Southern Sea; the starting bid is five hundred liang of gold."

Seeing this, Jiang Changbai couldn't help but frown because, looking at it from a distance, the Luminous Pearl seemed even brighter than the one hidden away in her Palace.

But A Ling had only just spoken when a voice rose from the southeastern corner. "Five hundred and fifty liang!"

That was a woman wearing a gold-threaded ruqun; though her face was covered by a veil and her features weren't clear, the clatter of jade bracelets on her wrists made it clear she wasn't an ordinary person.

From not far away from her, a person wearing a weimao hat stood suddenly, raising their voice to call out, "Eight hundred!"

With the next few bids, the final price rose to a thousand. But even in a place as expensive as the capital, a single liang of gold was enough for a single family to meet a year's needs.

Jiang Changbai took everything in, caution rising involuntarily in the space between her brows.

Of course, the auction wasn't merely of this single Luminous Pearl; next, a mutton fat jade idol, three chi in height, was brought out. The Supreme Yuanhe, usually depicted in paintings, had been carved in vivid, life-like style, as if it could come to life at any moment.

Cries of surprise erupted suddenly in the hall, and before A Ling could explain, a woman's voice rose from a private room on the second floor. "Two thousand five hundred liang of gold!"

From the northwestern corner of the hall, a slim woman, her face covered, followed after, seemingly without thinking. "Three thousand liang of gold!"

After a few dozen breaths, the wooden gavel fell, and A Ling called out, "Sold."

After the final auction closed, the profits were almost fifty thousand liang of gold. The most expensive item had been a tree of coral, which had reached nearly ten thousand liang of gold. After everyone had dispersed, Jiang Changbai returned to the Yangxin Hall, pondering conflictedly.

"Since when has the Great Li had so many wealthy people?"

Jiang Changbai knew that in these past few years, the Great Li had had good times, but she hadn't imagined that it would lead to so many of the rich who'd spend money as if it were little more than dirt. What had to be known was that she valued well ordered governance, and feared creating people like the previous regime's Minister of Appointments and Minister of War.

Song Juguang came to her side, and kneeling down partway, she brought their gazes to the same level. "Bixia, tomorrow this minister will send someone out to investigate."

"Do it as quickly as possible," Jiang Changbai said, rubbing the space between her brows. "Investigate not only those who bought things, but also Honghailou. How come Chen Xun, who's always properly gathered such precious items, is suddenly selling them?"

"Of course."

Song Juguang had just agreed when she heard Jiang Changbai's voice cut her off. "Send someone trustworthy and intelligent."

"Understood."

This time, Song Juguang didn't rush to stand, but rather shifted forward, pressing her head against Jiang Changbai's. "Bixia, you should rest early."

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