The accounting office of the Xu Manor.
The clinking of copper coins sounded like a downpour, a continuous, cacophonous jingle. The hands of the several accountants flew over their abacuses, almost sparking with friction, their faces flushed with the exhilaration of a bountiful harvest.
Only Xu Qinghuan sat in the master's chair, staring at the several large wicker baskets on the floor, filled to the brim with copper cash and silver notes.
The smell was overpowering.
The stench of money, mixed with the lingering, fermented scent of earth, assaulted her nostrils.
The red countdown bar on her system interface, which had been sitting steadily in the middle, had now—due to that wave of "grateful masses kneeling in thanks"—shrunk back a disgustingly large chunk.
If this continued, forget returning to the modern era to enjoy air conditioning; she was afraid she'd be stuck in the Daqian Dynasty as the "Fertilizer Queen" for life.
Thwack!
Xu Qinghuan slammed the table. The noise startled Li Sheng, who was happily counting, nearly sending his ledger flying.
"Stop calculating!" Xu Qinghuan pointed at the baskets on the floor, grinding her teeth. "Li Sheng, do you think just because our Xu family has earned these five thousand taels, we can sleep soundly on a pile of money?"
Clutching the ledger, Li Sheng looked utterly bewildered. "Young Mistress, this is five thousand taels in ready silver! Plus the new orders just delivered from the neighboring county, we're booked until next spring. This... isn't this a joyous occasion?"
"Joy my foot!"
Xu Qinghuan stood up and began pacing anxiously around the room.
Liquid capital. That was the most terrifying thing. Money sitting in the vault was a curse. It would depreciate, it could be judged by the system as hoarding wealth, and most importantly—if it wasn't spent, it wouldn't disappear!
She had to turn this money into "junk"—something immovable, unsellable, and requiring constant daily expenditure for maintenance.
"Pass on my order, establish a new rule." Xu Qinghuan stopped pacing, her eyes fierce. "Starting today, the Xu family implements the 'Two No-Retains.' No retained cash in the vaults, no surplus grain on the books! As soon as money enters the account, it must be spent by that very night!"
Li Sheng felt his scalp prickle. "Spent? How could we possibly spend it all? Buying land is acquiring assets, hoarding grain is stockpiling... this money, it's alive..."
Xu Qinghuan walked to the window and shoved it open.
Outside was pitch-black night. Taoyuan County might be clean now, but it was still poor. Once night fell, apart from a few lanterns hung at the gates of wealthy households, the entire street was so dark you couldn't see your hand in front of your face, with only the lonely clang of the night watchman's gong breaking the silence.
Xu Qinghuan stared at that lifeless darkness, and a flash of inspiration struck.
Got it.
Nothing was more profligate than burning money.
"Li Sheng, look at this sky," Xu Qinghuan pointed out the window.
"It's dark," Li Sheng answered honestly. "It's the Hour of the Dog, of course it's dark."
"Too dark. I don't like it." Xu Qinghuan turned around. "I want lights. I want the main street of Taoyuan County to be as bright as day. I want to see clearly whether a rat scurrying across the street is male or female."
...
Half an hour later, on the main street of Taoyuan County.
Li Sheng trailed behind Xu Qinghuan, holding a dim little lantern, stumbling along the uneven road, listening to the heart-stopping words tumbling from the young mistress's mouth.
"Every ten paces, erect a pillar for me. Don't use wood; it doesn't burn well enough. Buy stone! White marble!"
"For the lamp oil, don't use lard. That stuff smokes too much, chokes you. I want mermaid oil! I hear there's this deep-sea fish oil from the Eastern Sea, costs five taels of silver per tael of oil? Buy it! Buy up the entire stock south of the Yangtze!"
Li Sheng almost fell to his knees.
Mermaid oil? That was a luxury even the imperial palace didn't dare burn every day! A single drop of that oil burned wasn't light, it was years of a commoner's food rations!
"Young Mistress... this is too..." Before Li Sheng could finish, Xu Qinghuan cut him off.
"And the lamp shades." Xu Qinghuan pointed at the dark sides of the street. "These paper lanterns are too crude, they tear with a gust of wind. I want glass. Colored glass! The fragile kind that shatters if you so much as look at it wrong, the kind where you can't even hear a proper clink when it hits the ground!"
Li Sheng felt he was suffocating. "Young Mistress, glass is a treasure! It's fragile and expensive. If it's placed on the street and some mischievous child breaks it..."
"Break it, then replace it with a new one!" Xu Qinghuan's eyes gleamed.
Fragile was good! High maintenance costs were the essence of squandering! If she installed iron lanterns that lasted for centuries, how would she ever complete her mission?
"Three days." Xu Qinghuan held up three fingers. "Take that five thousand taels and sweep the markets south of the Yangtze. Within three days, I want to see this street lit up. If a single copper coin remains unspent, I'll stuff you into the compost pit to ferment into fertilizer!"
Li Sheng's face turned green, but it wasn't over.
Xu Qinghuan walked on, kicking an empty wooden frame by the roadside where a stall had long been packed up. It was where vendors set up their stalls during the day, paying monthly rent to the Xu family.
This was another annoying source of income.
"Who built this shed? It's hideous." Xu Qinghuan looked disdainful. "Tear it down."
Li Sheng hurriedly flipped through his ledger. "Young Mistress, this is Pockmarked Wang's pancake stall, and over there is Zhao Si's sundries shop. We can at least collect a few hundred coppers in rent each month..."
"Do I lack those few hundred coppers?"
Xu Qinghuan waved her hand, pointing at the rows of prime, money-generating spots lining the street. "Tear them all down! Clear the space for me."
"And then... leave it empty?"
"Empty? Don't be ridiculous. Plant flowers!" Xu Qinghuan had already planned it. "Buy those outrageously expensive peonies, herbaceous peonies, the delicate kind that needs daily watering, sun, and yet shade. Plant them everywhere!"
"And buy some rocks." Xu Qinghuan gestured. "Know of Taihu rocks? The kind that's thin, porous, perforated, and wrinkled—utterly useless except for looking at. Have them shipped from Suzhou and placed along the roadside."
"And benches. Build several rows of long benches for idlers and beggars to sit on for free."
Li Sheng was dumbfounded.
Tear down profitable rental shops to plant flowers and grass, and even build benches for beggars?
What was this? This was smashing a cornucopia to use as a chamber pot!
"Young Mistress, this is called... public facilities?" Li Sheng tried to grasp the term. "But this doesn't make money! We'll have to hire gardeners, maintain everything... it's a bottomless pit!"
A bottomless pit was exactly what Xu Qinghuan wanted.
She patted Li Sheng's shoulder, speaking with grave sincerity. "Li Sheng, you need to broaden your perspective. Money is something you can't take with you when you're born, nor when you die. Our Xu family's reputation is too good now, it invites envy. Only by spending money on utterly useless things like this can we prove we have no ambition, that we're simply... mentally deficient."
Li Sheng looked at the young mistress's face, etched with "profound wisdom," and suddenly felt it made perfect sense.
Yes, what family planning a rebellion would spend their money on planting flowers and lighting lamps? This was clearly showing weakness to the imperial court, a form of self-sabotage!
"This humble one understands!" Tears welled in Li Sheng's eyes, moved by the young mistress's "political acumen." "This humble one will see to it immediately! I guarantee every last tael of that five thousand will be spent, not a single copper coin left!"
Xu Qinghuan nodded in satisfaction.
As long as this street became a gold-devouring beast that only consumed wealth and never spat any out, she refused to believe that damned progress bar could shrink back again.
...
Over the next three days, Taoyuan County experienced a bewildering catastrophe.
Hundreds of craftsmen toiled day and night, clearing every roadside stall in their path. The vendors could only watch in silent resentment as the lucrative plots of land were dug up, filled with humus soil, and planted with delicate, showy flowers.
Cartloads of wagons, shrouded in thick cotton cloth, rolled in from the docks, unloading one dazzling, iridescent glass lampshade after another.
Then came the jars upon jars of tightly sealed mermaid oil. Even the faintest scent that escaped carried a mix of sea-breeze saltiness and the cloying sweetness of money.
On the evening of the third day.
The last crimson blush on the horizon was swallowed by darkness.
The entire main street of Taoyuan County had been scrubbed spotless. Two rows of white marble lamp posts stood like sentinels, their glass shades already filled with wicks soaked in the expensive mermaid oil.
Xu Qinghuan stood at the head of the street, a fire starter in her hand.
Behind her, Li Sheng trembled with heartache, clutching an account book now more than half empty.
"Miss, are we really lighting them?" Li Sheng's voice was choked with tears. "The oil we'll burn tonight alone could feed gruel to every refugee in the county for a month."
"Light them!"
