On the top floor of the Glazed Pavilion, the howling wind seemed completely shut out by an invisible barrier.
The midday sun poured down unobstructed, piercing through the transparent glass walls on all four sides. It illuminated the space like a celestial palace, devoid of a single shadow. It was so blindingly bright that it left one dizzy and unsettled.
Song Yubai remained slumped in his chair, his spine stiff with tension.
Opposite him sat Xiao Jingyan, the Third Prince of the Great Qian Dynasty, a man legendary for his cold face and colder heart. He was absentmindedly swirling a goblet in his hand. The scarlet wine clung to the sides of the glass, its hue bearing a striking resemblance to the color of absolute power.
"What is it? Has the sight of me robbed you of your ability to speak?"
Xiao Jingyan did not turn around. His gaze remained fixed on the chessboard-like streets of Taoyuan County outside the window, his voice so flat that it betrayed neither joy nor anger.
Song Yubai snapped out of his daze. His knees buckled as he moved to drop to the floor in a formal bow.
"Your humble student, Song Yubai, pays his respects to..."
"Dispense with the formalities." Xiao Jingyan raised a hand, his long, slender fingers gesturing vaguely toward the empty seat across from him. "We are away from the court; there is no need for sovereign and subject here. Sit. Join me in a glass of this... vintage 'eighty-two' fine wine."
Trembling, Song Yubai sat back down, daring only to perch on the very edge of his seat. He cupped the wine glass with both hands but did not dare to take a sip. His eyes darted around nervously as his heart pounded in his chest.
What kind of setup was this?
This was Xu Qinghuan's devilish den for amassing wealth, a vulgar place swarming with merchants. Why would His Highness, a man who could not tolerate a single grain of sand in his eye, be here? Furthermore, by the looks of it, he had been here for quite some time.
"You have been observing all along the way. What do you make of this Taoyuan County?" Xiao Jingyan suddenly asked.
That question instantly opened the floodgates to the emotions that had been building up inside Song Yubai.
At the mention of Taoyuan County and that young woman in red, Song Yubai's fear vanished, replaced by a fervor akin to religious devotion. He set down his wine glass. His eyes grew slightly red, and his voice rose in pitch from sheer excitement.
"Your Highness! This is... a miracle on earth!"
Song Yubai took a deep breath and pointed toward the faintly visible outline of the mines in the distance.
"Only today did your student truly understand the meaning of boundless love, and what it means to sacrifice one's family fortune to relieve the suffering of the masses!"
"To build those roads, Master Xu did not hesitate to sell cement at a massive loss, bearing a cost of fifteen taels per stone! To ensure the miners were well-fed and warm, she forced the laborers to eat braised pork, and even distributed an unheard-of 'high-temperature subsidy'!"
"This Glazed Pavilion may appear extravagant, but in reality, it is Master Xu's way of 'begging' from the wealthy to fill the bottomless pit of infrastructure costs!"
The more Song Yubai spoke, the more emotional he became, his voice even choking with sobs. "She is using the wealth accumulated by generations of the Xu family to breathe lifeblood back into the people of Great Qian! Such extraordinary righteousness, even if Confucius and Mencius were reborn, they could do no better! She... she is a living saint!"
The air fell silent.
The only sound was the soft clinking of ice cubes in the wine glass.
Having finished his impassioned speech, Song Yubai looked expectantly at Xiao Jingyan, hoping to hear even a single word of agreement from the prince.
However.
"Heh."
A light chuckle shattered that solemn moment of self-indulgent emotion.
Xiao Jingyan turned his head. In those eyes, as deep and unreadable as an abyss, there was none of the profound emotion Song Yubai had anticipated. Instead, there was a trace of worldly amusement, and even... a hint of pity for Song Yubai's intellect.
"A saint?"
Xiao Jingyan shook his head. He set down his wine glass and slowly stood up, walking over to the floor-to-ceiling windows with his hands clasped behind his back. The sunlight stretched his shadow long across the floor.
"Compiler Song, your perspective is still far too narrow."
Song Yubai froze, his expression stiffening on his face. "Your... Your Highness, what do you mean?"
Xiao Jingyan extended a single finger and tapped against the glass, pointing at the bustling crowds below. His voice turned cold, hard, and commanding.
"You only see her distributing her wealth. You only see her doing good deeds. You think she is trying to inspire the world through moral virtue?"
Xiao Jingyan's gaze was like lightning, piercing straight through Song Yubai's heart.
"Wrong! You are completely wrong!"
"She is not running a charity. She is governing a nation."
Boom!
Those words were like a clap of thunder exploding in Song Yubai's mind. Governing a nation? A merchant's daughter? A prodigal heiress?
"Are you aware of the 'Xu Family Rice Price Crisis' from half a month ago?" Xiao Jingyan asked.
Song Yubai nodded instinctively. "I am. At the time, the Xu family was buying up stale rice at exorbitant prices. Everyone in town laughed at Xu Qinghuan, calling her a fool for hoarding a pile of moldy garbage."
"A fool?" A cold sneer curled the corners of Xiao Jingyan's lips. "At the time, even I thought she was a fool. But what was the result? The grain merchant alliance's scheme to hoard supplies and drive up prices was utterly shattered, and the price of grain plummeted back to normal overnight. The commoners did not starve, and the imperial treasury did not spend a single copper coin."
Xiao Jingyan walked back to the table, drumming his knuckles against the glass tabletop in a rhythmic cadence, as if he were tapping directly against the pulse of the Great Qian Dynasty.
"Those fools in the Ministry of Revenue only know how to impose forced price caps, which only makes goods more expensive. But her?"
"She bought stale rice at premium prices. It looked like she was squandering her fortune, but in reality, she was injecting liquidity into a stagnant market! This is what it means to 'use commerce to halt a slaughter'!"
Song Yubai's mouth fell wide open. He felt as though his brain could simply no longer keep up.
Looking at Xiao Jingyan's unwavering certainty, a profound sense of awe washed over him. To think that behind that seemingly absurd stale rice incident lay such profound wisdom!
"But... this Glazed Pavilion..." Song Yubai pointed at the floor beneath their feet. "This place is undeniably bleeding the people dry! Just moments ago, I saw a man get thrown out for trying to buy a bar of soap..."
"Bleeding them dry?"
Xiao Jingyan burst into laughter, the sound carrying the domineering aura of a man who looked down upon the entire world.
He strode back to the window and pointed at the plump merchant below, the very man who had just been thrown out, yet was currently waving bank notes in the air, desperately trying to force his way back inside.
"Song Yubai, tell me. Why is the Great Qian treasury currently empty? Why do the commoners have no money in their hands?"
Song Yubai instinctively recited the standard lines from the court memorials. "Because of... frequent natural disasters, heavy annual tributes, and the outflow of silver..."
"Superficial."
Xiao Jingyan coldly cut him off. "It is because these wealthy merchants and corrupt officials have buried all their silver in their own cellars!"
"Great Qian does not lack silver; it lacks flowing silver! If silver does not circulate, it is nothing more than a dead object. It is no better than a stone!"
Xiao Jingyan spun around abruptly, throwing his arms wide as if to embrace this crystal-clear, glazed heavenly palace.
"And what is Xu Qinghuan doing?"
"She manufactures this glass, which has zero practical value. She concocts these perfumes, which are good for nothing but their scent. Then, she slaps astronomical price tags on them. She is using these 'concepts' to forcibly extract the moldy silver that those rich men have been hoarding in their cellars!"
"Once that silver enters the Xu family's hands, it transforms into the braised pork in the miners' bowls. It transforms into the imperishable cement roads beneath our feet. It transforms into the wages in the hands of the displaced refugees."
Xiao Jingyan lowered his voice, delivering his words with a spine-tingling intensity.
"How is this merely doing business? This is a bloodless 'currency war.' On behalf of the imperial court, she is turning dead money into flowing water, using it to irrigate the parched lands of the Great Qian Dynasty once again!"
"These are the methods of a true statesman!"
Silence.
A deathly silence.
Song Yubai felt the blood in his veins freeze entirely, only to suddenly rush backward, surging straight toward the crown of his head. He looked at Xiao Jingyan, and then down at the Glazed Pavilion, which was currently devouring gold and silver with ravenous intensity.
So that was it...
So that was it!
He had thought Xu Qinghuan was "robbing the rich to feed the poor," using morality to fill the financial void.
He never expected that she was actually playing a game of "currency war," using economic means to reshape the destiny of the Great Qian Dynasty!
That bar of soap worth five taels of silver, that bottle of perfume worth fifty taels—in Song Yubai's eyes at this moment, they were no longer luxury goods, but sharp arrows Xu Qinghuan was firing at the misers!
"A peerless... talent..." Song Yubai muttered to himself. His hands trembled, and the wine cup in his grasp fell onto the table with a clatter. The liquor spilled everywhere, but he remained completely oblivious.
He had lost.
He had lost with absolute conviction.
Compared to this world-changing masterstroke, his earlier "moral sentiment" was as shallow as an untutored child just learning to read.
Xiao Jingyan looked at Song Yubai, whose worldview had just shattered and reassembled itself, and a hint of satisfaction flashed in his eyes.
The time was ripe.
"Compiler Song." Xiao Jingyan sat back down, his tone softening a bit. "I heard your uncle, the Right Vice Minister of the Ministry of Revenue, Lord Wang, is currently so worried about the deficit in the northern army's pay that he wants to bang his head against a wall?"
Song Yubai jolted, instantly snapping out of his shock. He said solemnly, "Exactly. My uncle... has not slept for three days. He said that if he cannot raise the silver soon, he will petition to be imprisoned."
This was the hidden anguish of his current trip, and also the life-and-death crisis of the Wang family.
Xiao Jingyan toyed with the empty cup in his hand and said meaningfully, "The Ministry of Revenue has no money because their methods are wrong. Begging for food while sitting on a mountain of gold, only knowing how to cry poor—that is the mark of an incompetent fool."
"Since Taoyuan County has a proven playbook right here, why don't you have your uncle come and 'take a page out of it'?"
Song Yubai's eyes suddenly lit up, like a drowning man catching a piece of driftwood.
That's right!
If they could just learn a trick or two of Master Xu's "macroeconomic regulation," even if they only applied this "luxury goods capital return method" in the capital, why would they need to worry about a shortage of military pay?
"Thank you for your guidance, Your Highness!" Song Yubai stood up and bowed deeply. This time, it was a submission from the bottom of his heart. "I will write a letter right now and have it sent to the capital by the eight-hundred-mile expedited courier!"
"Hold on."
