CH 9

On the way back to Changle, they had to go past Minhou. Zhao Su wasn’t in a hurry as there was nothing coming up. After meeting up with Zhao Nuan, the two of them simply strolled along slowly back to Changle, as if to gain more knowledge or experience of the world.

When he was in Fuzhou, he was busy preparing for the Provincial exam, he didn’t have any time to look around. Minhou was close to Fuzhou and could still be considered a Provincial capital. To make up for not looking around Fuzhou, Zhao Su booked a tavern there and intended to stay for two days before continuing on their journey home.

Even though Zhao Su had decided to go down the road of the Imperial Examinations, he hadn’t put all his eggs in one basket.

In recent years, he relied on selling medicinal herbs to Hui Chun Tang. Mother and son were frugal and saved some surplus money. At that time, Changle had just suffered a great flood, and the county was in a mess. Nine out of ten merchants had left, so Zhao Su seized the opportunity to buy a small shop at a low price for Lady Chen to sell some small pastries. Lady Chen had quite good culinary skills, and the pastries were tasty and cheap, and she’d often come up with some new and unique flavours and designs. Everyday, the shop would fill up with locals who wanted to taste pastries made fresh daily, after a while, the shop made quite a name for itself in Changle.

Zhan Lai, the County Magistrate at the time, was also a close friend of his teacher and Zhao Su also had a good relationship with Hui Chun Tang, so that there were no bullies to make trouble at all. They quickly made the initial capital back, and by the end of the year they had turned a profit, and the shop business was booming. Although, mother and son weren’t rich, it is a world of difference compared to their situation before.　

Business in one county has its limits, no matter the size of the business, if there was an unexpected calamity or mishap, then they’d be left with nothing. Zhao Su had seen more than half of the businesses destroyed during the previous flood. So he knew he couldn’t put his eggs in one basket. The stay at Minhou was also an opportunity to inspect the place to see if there was a possibility of creating another branch of the shop right here. The places were relatively close so it would be easy to coordinate.

Of course, this was in its very early stages of development.

“You’re always so mischievous, why did you slink off? Chen Zhu must have a lot of contacts, to be friends with him will definitely bring benefits so why were you in such a hurry to come back?”

Zhao Nuan was no longer the fool from back then, hanging out with Zhao Su all these years, seeing him pass the County exam and opening up his own shop, had made his wish to go into business himself ever stronger. It was just a shame that his father would never let him go down this road, so he could only help out Zhao Su and Lady Chen from time to time and use that as a learning opportunity.

“A wide range of contacts is not necessarily a good thing. In all likelihood, these relationships are mostly likely skin-deep. If you really run into trouble, do you really think these people will come to your aid.” Zhao Su smiled, and then changed the subject to him thinking about opening another branch for the shop.

Zhao Nuan listened and suddenly said “How do you get all these random ideas?”

“I’m still considering it and aren’t I just throwing some ideas around with you now?”

“You’re right though, Changle is not that big and last year, Zhan da-ren was transferred to Henan. We don’t know the new County Magistrate. In order to prosper in the long-run we need to start planning now.”

Zhao Su was quite surprised, the simple-minded Zhao Nuan was also starting to think about the future.

“Well, if we opened a branch here, what would be the benefits? We don’t know the County Magistrate here either.”

Zhao Nuan smiled: “Are you trying to test me? Minhou is very close to Changle, so it’s convenient. Actually I reckon it’s better to open the new branch in the Capital, to be under the feet of the son of heaven, the first of its kind in the Capital!”

“… you’re thinking too far forward, for next year’s Metropolitan exam, scholars from all over the country will be gathered together in the Capital. I still need to pass the exam and get a ranking. Not to mention, I’ll have to get into the 2nd class of rankings to have a chance of getting into Hanlin Academy. Let’s not even talk about following that.”

Zhao Nuan stretched: “Isn’t this exactly what we’re talking about. To be honest, I’m really hoping to open up a shop in the Capital, so that once you become a Court Official, the shop will have someone to rely on, if us two xiongdi put our minds together, we can achieve anything, haha!”

Zhao Su took what he was saying as crazy talk: “Firstly, you need to settle things with your father, if I really pulled you over to help me, he would eat me.”

In fact, at this precise moment, Zhao Nuan hadn’t even managed to pass the County exam, but Zhao Shenyu hadn’t given up hope that his son might still get on the honour’s roll. At first, he still looked down on Zhao Su, until the day that Zhao Su was able to pass the county exam, he then gradually accepted their friendship.

Two years ago, Qi Jiguang and Yu Dayou were stationed in Zhejiang, so the Wukou didn’t dare to invade, instead they gradually turned their sights on Fujian. The people of the coast were petrified of the Wokou. Even if they hadn’t seen it with their own eyes, they had heard the stories of the Wokou’s crimes. Almost everyone was on edge, even Zhao Nuan had been influenced and immediately was suspicious of these people.

Zhao Su asked: “Can you be sure it is the Wokou?”

“I’ve never heard Japanese before, but they were acting very weirdly so they definitely aren’t good people anyway. Plus, why would you suddenly ask about the location of the Government building and where the richest family lives?”

“Which way did they go?”

“I followed them for a bit, but I think they started to suspect and I lost sight of them, but it looked like they were on the way to the outskirts of the city. Oh right, I did memorise some of the phrases I heard.” Zhao Nuan immediately parroted that half a phrase he had heard.

Zhao Nuan was confused: “What is the meaning of this, he didn’t even say what he was going to do?”

Zhao Su pulled him along the road: “Let’s go! They didn’t believe us.”

“What if it’s really the Wukou?”

“Then we’re really out of luck, Changle is very close to Minhou, if Minhou really has Wukou then they’ve probably set their sights on Changle as well.”

Be that as it may, the two rushed back to Changle and didn’t even bother going home first, they rushed to the Government Building directly.

The current County Magistrate was called Yang Rufu, he achieved jinshi in the 35th year of Jiajing. When they arrived there, it was actually lunchtime and the County Magistrate was eating. However, hearing that it was this year’s Jieyuan, he immediately laughed and came out to greet them: “I heard that in Fuzhou, there was a gathering for the juzi that is still taking place. Why didn’t Shao Yong stay a few more days there before rushing back here? This official had planned to put on a feast for you and Bo Xun. This time we have Jieyuan and the Yayuan in Changle, it is such an honour.”

Zhao Su replied: “Speaking of which, when we were on the road coming from Minhou, we stumbled on a matter that we have specially come to let you know.”

Yang Rufu was astonished: “What matter?”

Zhao Su recounted everything simply and in the end added: “Because we couldn’t be sure of their identity, the County Magistrate of Minhou didn’t believe us. But it’s better to be safe than sorry, it’s best if da-ren puts preventative measures in place early.”

Yang Rufu couldn’t believe that Zhao Su had disturbed his lunch for this nonsense. Plus, it was just baseless hearsay, it made him slightly angry, but seeing that he had just got the title of jieyuan, he decided to not make a big deal of this and agreed just for show, but his attitude had entirely dampened.

Zhao Su, hearing him mention his teacher, started to feel a bit worried. “When I was in Fuzhou, I already wrote a letter to teacher, I reckon he should be able to receive it in the next few days.”

Dai nodded happily: “That’s good, that’s good!”

The maids brought over some hot towels, Zhao Su dabbed his face whilst walking: “Where’s my mother?”

Before finishing his phrase, he could already smell the delicious scent of food wafting towards him.

Lady Chen was standing by the table arranging the bowls and chopsticks, seeing him arrive, she smiled lovingly: “You’re back, let’s eat.”

She didn’t ask him about the exam, nor did she make a fuss about his return. She simply said those five words. Just like back then when they were living in that scrum, no matter how much Zhao Su achieved outside, in Lady Chen’s eyes, he would always just be her son.

Author’s note:

The appearance of the ML…Well, it’s not far now… Actually, I think it’s interesting to watch Zhao Su struggle first, what do you think?