Chương 59: Chapter 57

I'm sitting at the desk with my legs covered by the blanket Lianhua brought this morning. Light streams through the windows and fills the room as I go over the ledgers where we record both income and expenses, and Lianhua's orderly calligraphy makes it clear just how seriously she takes her work.

Although only a month has passed since I decided to speak with my mother about the matter of money, and as Lianhua and I had anticipated, it all ended in my financial independence, since the year was drawing to a close I'd decided to review the accounts to see how much I'd spent in my first month. The expenses in taels appear, and my first major expenditure stands out right away, one that consumed nearly half the money that had been quietly saved throughout my entire life.

The Qi gathering formation was purchased at such a steep price that, had it been on a whim, it would have been an act of madness. But it wasn't, because I consider it an investment, perhaps the most sensible one I've ever made. I remember with vivid clarity how it all began, with that formal request to the Shangshu in a letter I sent shortly after taking control of my finances.

As tends to happen with my requests, the formation master arrived shortly after, and although he was surprised that his client was me rather than my mother, he recovered quickly from his surprise and presented me with the options available, from the most affordable, which by his tone were the ones he expected me to choose, to the most expensive, which he only showed me because I had asked him to present all the options. It was not a difficult decision.

Not when I could afford the most expensive one, which, given its price, I imagined was something only noble families of great wealth could purchase. And I wasn't about to be stingy with something that would not only benefit Lianhua now, but that in a few years would benefit me as well, and even Xia. I still remember when I told him I would take the most expensive one.

He was so surprised I thought he was going to faint right there, but fortunately nothing worse came of it and he only asked me to confirm that this was indeed the formation I wanted to purchase, which I did without any trouble, and from that point on there were no further issues. But I pull myself out of my memories and return to the figures, continuing to review the expenses. The rest of the expenses are so small they seem almost anecdotal. A few one-time purchases, necessary for assuming control of my own money.

Symbolic gestures more than real expenditures, and in fact, when added together, they barely fill a page. I had suspected as much from the beginning, but seeing it in writing confirms something important, which is that starting next month, my monthly expenses will fall below the regular stipend. If I don't squander it, I shouldn't have any problems, which is a comforting thought. Although there is one variable I must consider, and that is the fact that my birthday is a few months away.

With that in mind, I jot down a note reminding myself to ask my mother how much it cost to organize the last celebration at the Imperial Palace. Not to replicate it, but to have a frame of reference from which to plan the festivities, since I can't be cheap about it either if I want to save face, as the saying goes. I close this ledger and set it carefully to one side, then pick up the book where we keep the accounting for spirit stones.

Though not all of them are recorded, of course, since the spirit stones stored in the storage bag aren't listed, only the ones we officially possess. I look over the few entries in the book, as it's not like we have many uses for spirit stones right now. We only have two expenditures for them, though they are fixed ones. The first is the Qi gathering formation, which requires one spirit stone for each non-consecutive day of use. And here I smile at the thought of Lianhua.

I remember the moment the formation master entered my room accompanied by Lianhua to tell me the formation was complete, and after Lianhua escorted him out of the Pavilion and returned to my room, I looked her straight in the eye and surprised her by announcing that I was assigning her two spirit stones per month to cultivate in the formation. And she did not disappoint me with her reaction. Her initial surprise, followed by a protest about the waste of resources.

But I didn't give her room and interrupted her mid-argument, telling her clearly that it was not a request, it was an order, and she was obligated to use those two spirit stones each month for cultivation. Sometimes, looking after someone means not letting them choose. But I set aside my memories of the surprise I had planned for Lianhua and turn my attention to the second fixed expense, the more uncertain one, though no less relevant for it, since it was one spirit stone per month for information.

Or more precisely, informal access to the rumors and internal intelligence of the Yushitai. Or so it was supposed to be, since a few days ago Lianhua came and told me that now that she had been cut off both from the few official reports that used to reach her and from the rumors and confidences her colleagues would share, she no longer had access to the same information as before.

But thanks to those rumors, she knew of a, let's say unofficial, way to have information from the Yushitai passed to her firsthand, although it was expensive, so expensive it cost one spirit stone per month, if I authorized the expenditure. But since I knew Lianhua would never make a proposal that wasn't reliable, I had decided to authorize it, which had increased our monthly spirit stone expenditure by one.

But this month, despite the two fixed expenses, I've gained two spirit stones, since I haven't actually spent spirit stones on anything else. Although, being realistic, that's mostly because I don't know what else to spend them on beyond formations, though I can imagine that for a noble family with multiple members who all need to use a formation, the cost could scale rapidly.

I close the ledger and set it carefully on top of the other one with nothing much left to do for the rest of the morning, since I'm supposedly still convalescing and they won't let me do too much. I'm just thinking about calling Lianhua to bring me some tea when the door opens softly. I raise my head to see who's coming in and recognize Xia's small silhouette even before she steps through the doorway.

"I did it!" she tells me before she's even finished entering, a grin stretching across her face. I blink and watch her, tilting my head slightly as I try to understand what she's referring to.

"I managed to grab the fifth speck of Qi!" she continues, a mix of pride and impatience in her voice.

"And I've already turned eight, so can I start cultivating now?" Her words hang in the room along with her impatience, so I close my eyes for a moment and take a deep breath before letting out a sigh, after which I gesture toward the door with my chin.

"Close the door and sit down", I tell her softly. Xia shoots me a suspicious look when she hears my tone, but she closes the door gently and sits in a nearby chair, crossing her arms with an expectant expression.

"You're going to have to wait a little longer", I tell her bluntly. This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it"Why?" she asks without even pretending to be patient. I raise an eyebrow and let a slow smile form on my lips "Because I've gotten you a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, one that very few people in the entire Empire have ever had, an opportunity many would kill for, literally."

Xia narrows her eyes and lets out a short huff "You've used that trick on me too many times back in the city of Xi'an. It doesn't work anymore. Tell me what's going on."

"Fine, fine. I'll tell you", I say after clicking my tongue with feigned resignation.

"I told the Emperor about my idea of trying to replicate what happened to me on my first day of cultivation, and it seems he liked the idea." She swallows hard after hearing me, and her expression changes in an instant.

"The Emperor knows about me?" she asks nervously. I nod calmly "Yes, he knows about you. And he's curious about what we're doing." Her mouth opens, then closes again, as if she doesn't know what to ask next. Finally, she looks at me and asks "And what are the problems?"

"The formation I used that day wasn't just any formation. It was the Emperor's personal formation", I explain.

"And as you can imagine, the Emperor can't allow just any handmaiden to use his private formation."

"And what does that have to do with me having to wait to start cultivating?" she asks with clear doubt in her voice.

"It turns out that the Emperor, in his infinite generosity, has given me a single use of his personal Qi gathering formation as a birthday gift", I tell her with a broad smile on my face.

"And due to my particular situation, he has authorized me to bring two handmaidens to assist me that day." Xia stares at me for a long moment, then furrows her brow in confusion "And what does that have to do with…?" But halfway through her sentence she stops and lets out an exclamation she barely manages to contain between her teeth.

"But Xia, that has to remain an absolute secret", I tell her when I see she's understood what I was trying to say. She looks at me with wide eyes, but then her expression softens.

"I'm not stupid, I know", she says. I incline my head in approval of her words.

"In the meantime, keep practicing with the five specks", I tell her next.

"But don't try to create a sixth mental hand. All you'd get is an unbearable headache, and it wouldn't do you any good anyway. You won't be able to create a sixth until you've finished Skin Tempering."

"I understand", she tells me with a mix of disappointment and renewed enthusiasm. I watch her for a few seconds, seeing how her energy starts to bubble up again, and with a half-smile, I change the subject.

"And now, since you've finished your training successfully, why don't you head to the kitchens and ask the cooks to help you make a pizza for lunch later in the garden?" Xia looks at me as though I've just made her day, but then suddenly deflates "The cooks won't listen to me. They're grumpier than the ladies back in the city of Xi'an." I laugh softly at her discouragement, but fortunately I have the solution for that.

"Then go find Lianhua first", I tell her.

"Tell her I want pizza for lunch and have her accompany you to the kitchens to inform the cooks that they are to obey all your orders for preparing the dish that the Zhāohuán wishes to have for lunch." Xia watches me and asks with doubt "Will that actually work?"

"It will work perfectly", I assure her. She doesn't need to be told twice. The decision is made inside her the moment she hears it, and she leaps to her feet, her eyes shining once more.

"Then I'll go do it right now", she tells me, after which I watch her leave, closing the door behind her with renewed enthusiasm. The room falls silent again and I turn my gaze back to the desk, but my thoughts are no longer on this month's accounts. Instead, they fly toward my upcoming birthday as I wonder whether it would be good or bad for my reputation to include a few dishes that would seem strange for this culture. I'm sitting at my desk, tapping my fingers against it.

Not out of nervousness, but out of impatience, as I stare at the door as if the mere act of watching it could make it open faster. Today, at last, I've been given permission to leave my confinement. Or as they've been calling it, my convalescence. Convalescence, bah. I've been insisting for days that I'm perfectly fine and that I need no more rest, no more herbal tea, no more sitting in the sun in the courtyard while I recover from my traumatic experience.

But now that they've finally let me out, I intend to go to the Imperial Library, and even more so now that I've reached the age required to access the second floor. No more of this "you're too young to read those books", many of which I'm sure are related to cultivation.

A pity, I think suddenly, that the documents Lianhua recovered from the Celestial Fragment of the Sands, documents I had carefully set aside with the intention of donating them to the Imperial Library to bribe the librarians into looking upon me more favorably, were kept by my father instead. I sigh at the lost opportunity, thinking to myself that you can't have everything.

Just as I'm starting to wonder whether calling Lianhua instead of waiting for her to come after finishing her other tasks would make me seem too impatient, the door opens and Lianhua enters with her silent step.

"Quick!" I say without hesitation.

"The sooner we leave for the Imperial Library, the sooner we'll get there." But her expression stops me.

"Not so fast, Zhāohuán Wen", she tells me in that neutral tone she uses when there's news she knows I won't like.

"Before we leave, I must inform you that a notification has arrived from the Shangshu." I barely contain a sigh when I hear her tone, bracing myself for the cancellation of my visit to the Imperial Library.

"All right", I say.

"What do they want now?"

"The court has sent a note with congratulations on your recovery", she replies without preamble.

"And in it they indicate that now that you have fully recovered, and considering the new year has begun, it is time for you to resume your classes where you left off before the exile." I let out a stifled groan and let my head drop onto the desk with a soft thud.

"Have they sent the details as well?" I ask, my head resting against the wood.

"Yes", Lianhua replies calmly.

"Classes will begin in four days. You will have the same schedule and the same tutors as before." I raise my head and glance at her from the corner of my eye.

"It might not be so bad", I remark.

"But I'll reserve my opinion until after the first period is over." I pause, take a deep breath, and straighten up, then tell her "But right now I need to go to the Imperial Library to cure myself of the bad news." Lianhua says nothing, but she approaches, places her hands carefully on the handles of my chair, and begins pushing me toward the door with her steady, precise stride, same as always. As we move through the hallway, an idea crosses my mind.

"Do you think Xia is ready to leave the Pavilion yet?" I ask as I watch us advance.

"Not yet", she answers without slowing down.

"I would wait a while longer. Her training has only just begun, and here inside, when she makes mistakes in protocol, they simply correct her since she's an apprentice and they know she belongs to the Zhāohuán's staff. But outside the Pavilion, even if she came with us, things could get complicated, especially in front of officials or nobles." Her words nearly draw a sigh from me, but I don't have time to let it out before she continues.

"Besides", she goes on right away.

"She's busy in the kitchens at the moment. After the pizza incident the other day, the cooks were impressed by her knowledge despite her age and have allowed her to stay and watch them work on some days." I let out a chuckle I can't hold back.

"And so she's decided to go every chance she gets, hasn't she?" I say.

"I'm sure the fact that they've been letting her taste what they cook has had nothing to do with it." I sense Lianhua huff with a soft note of disapproval.

"You should stop talking about Ling Xia that way", she tells me in a more serious tone than usual.

"Her fondness for cooking seems sincere. And if she's encouraged, she could become your personal cook, which would be far better than letting her remain just another handmaiden." I look over my shoulder at her with a raised eyebrow, taken aback by her seriousness.

"Isn't she a little young to be deciding what she wants to do with her life?" I ask skeptically.

"No", she replies firmly.

"She's eight years old. This is precisely when she should begin specializing in a trade. The sooner she's guided, the better her training will be." For a moment I feel thrown off, but then I realize. This isn't my former world. Here, the age of majority is reached at fourteen, which means apprenticeships and decisions come earlier, much earlier. I nod, resigned to the logic of this world, and tell Lianhua "I'll talk to her. If she wants to become a cook, I'll try to find her proper teachers."

"A wise decision", Lianhua says with a slight nod. But even as I've been conversing with Lianhua, we haven't stopped moving through the Pavilion, and we've finally arrived at the courtyard, where my eyes fix on the gate that leads to the rest of the Imperial Palace and on the Nei Wei waiting to escort us. Six of them. Before the exile, I only had a pair assigned to my escort, enough to keep up appearances.

Now I've been assigned half a dozen to accompany me within the walls of the Imperial Palace, and I'm not sure whether that should terrify me or relieve me. But since there's nothing I can do about it right now, it's better to stop worrying and simply accept it as another necessity of my rank. Lianhua pushes me until we reach the Nei Wei, after which two of them step forward, inclining their heads slightly in greeting, while the other four fall into line behind us.

And once in formation, together, we leave the Pavilion of the Scent of Clouds bound for the Imperial Library.