“Commandery Princess Xu, there is something Yunwan does not understand. I truly could not wait any longer today, so I have come to ask your advice!”
Before the person even came clearly into view, her slightly breathless voice had already reached Xu Qinghuan’s ears.
Xie Yunwan’s usually cool and composed face was now a mixture of exhaustion and urgency.
Xu Qinghuan spat the sunflower seed shell in her mouth into the brass spittoon beside her.
With a bright smile, Xu Qinghuan waved her over. She extended the tip of her foot and kicked a short stool out from beside the brazier.
“Come, come! Sit down.
Miss Xie, it’s been so long since you last came by!”
Xu Qinghuan thought about it, and a trace of melancholy rose in her heart. She had crossed into this world ages ago, yet she still had not made even one close female friend!
She was simply too busy! Far too busy!
Xie Yunwan removed her cloak and handed it to the maid beside her.
Then she sat down by the brazier. The warmth of the coals gradually eased the chill in her body.
“You decisively burned all those stale, pretentious poems and disbanded the Begonia Poetry Society.” Xu Qinghuan cracked open another sunflower seed and praised her. “Then, despite enduring the spit of every noble family in the capital, you went to the southern part of the city, bought a residence, and opened that Practical Affairs Society.
“Miss Xie, with courage like yours—nine out of ten of the muddleheaded fools in the capital would have to kneel down and shine your shoes.”
Xie Yunwan’s cheeks warmed beneath the praise, and she lowered her head slightly.
But at once, she raised her eyes again, her expression turning solemn.
“Commandery Princess, you flatter me. It is just that although Yunwan has recruited Su Wan’er, Shang Jia, and several other women who are willing to join us, I still feel as though my heart is suspended in midair.”
Xie Yunwan clenched her fist, thinking about how to put it.
Keeping accounts and reading factory reports were ultimately matters for merchants.
If certain people wanted to make trouble, all they had to do was accuse them of “competing with the people for profit” and “women usurping men’s authority,” and they could smash the reputation of their new society to pieces.
“We’re missing a banner.”
Xie Yunwan propped her chin on her hand, her face filled with doubt.
“A banner to raise before the eyes of the whole world—one that even the old scholars at the Imperial Academy and the upright censors at court would not dare openly condemn, much less bring down! But what should this banner say? I have racked my brains, yet I still cannot find a way to break through.”
Xu Qinghuan stopped cracking sunflower seeds.
She brushed the crumbs from her palm, sat up slightly from the soft couch, and clicked her tongue thoughtfully.
“Miss Xie, tell me—in this capital, what is the most dangerous ordeal in a woman’s life?”
Xie Yunwan froze, then answered without hesitation.
“Childbirth.”
Xu Qinghuan nodded. She picked up a cup of hot tea from the table and leaned back against the cushion once more.
“Physicians at the Imperial Medical Bureau pride themselves on their lofty principles and observe strict separation between men and women, so they refuse to enter the birthing chamber. And the midwives? They cannot read a single character. All they have are a pair of rough hands and a few baseless formulas passed down by word of mouth.”
Xu Qinghuan blew away the tea leaves floating on the surface. A meaningful smile curved across her lips.
“Whether she is a first-rank imperial noblewoman or the wife of a peddler from the southern city, once she lies on that blood-soaked birthing bed, her life is worth exactly the same.
“It is all placed in the hands of people who cannot even identify half the medicinal herbs.”
Xie Yunwan’s breathing quickened.
The image of her late aunt flashed through her mind.
Her aunt had been the matriarch of a great Jiangnan clan. When she suffered a difficult labor, the imperial physicians had only dared to diagnose her pulse through a screen, then prescribed a heap of powerful labor-inducing medicines.
Her aunt’s shrill cries had continued throughout the night. She had bled until there was scarcely any life left in her. When they carried her out, the bedding beneath her could still be wrung out for blood.
It seemed she had grasped something, yet she still felt that one final layer of paper had not been pierced.
Xu Qinghuan set down her teacup and held up three fingers.
“Then let the society focus on this. Keep writing poetry, certainly—but obstetrics, pediatrics, and smallpox inoculation must all be developed as well.”
“I have already carried out inoculation work at Zhenbei Pass. You should have heard something about it.”
Xie Yunwan was startled. Instinctive adherence to social convention made her hesitate.
“We will save the women the midwives cannot save.” Xu Qinghuan’s voice was as hard as iron. “Our platform will establish itself.”
Xie Yunwan was stunned.
Xu Qinghuan knew that difficult childbirth was the leading cause of death among women of childbearing age in this era, while infant mortality was so high that every household had known the grief of a funeral.
If there were a team of female physicians who could read, had received proper training, and followed standardized procedures, there would be no need for them to fight for recognition. They would simply pull tens of thousands of lives back from the gates of death.
Why did midwives hold such a lowly position? Because they were illiterate, their skills were passed down by word of mouth, and whenever someone died, all the blame fell on them.
What the society had to do was turn this craft into a literate, standardized, codified discipline.
For the first time, women would stand in this world with the authority of professionals—not as appendages defined by their roles as virtuous wives and devoted mothers.
“When you burned those poems, they accused you of corrupting public morals.
“But if you establish a school and medical hall that educates women and saves lives, who would dare condemn you? Whose household has no women? Which family can afford the risk of losing both mother and child?”
Xie Yunwan felt her scalp tingle.
That was right! As long as the society saved people’s lives, wouldn’t it silence the mouths of those critics?
Her heart burned with excitement, and her eyes were filled with admiration as she gazed at Xu Qinghuan reclining on the soft couch.
“Commandery Princess.” Xie Yunwan’s voice trembled faintly. “When you established the Jiangnan factory and recruited more than a thousand female workers, it stirred up such a storm throughout the capital.
“Did you… foresee from the very beginning that it would lead to women standing independently in this world, creating such a far-reaching vision for the future?”
Xu Qinghuan shook her head with great seriousness.
“Don’t put such a lofty hat on me. At the time, I simply wanted to solve the shortage of workers and, incidentally, lower the labor costs. It was nothing more than a merchant pursuing profit. The willow was planted without intention.”
Xie Yunwan paused, clearly not expecting such a blunt answer.
But then Xu Qinghuan changed the subject.
She suddenly bent down toward the brazier. A mysterious smile appeared on her dazzling face.
“But, Miss Xie…” Xu Qinghuan lowered her voice until it was barely audible—low enough that only the two of them could hear.
Xie Yunwan instinctively leaned forward.
“I can tell you a… secret!”
A moment later, Xie Yunwan’s heart shook violently. She instinctively held her breath.
She could not believe what Xu Qinghuan had said. Her entire body trembled.
Xu Qinghuan returned to the soft couch and smiled meaningfully.
She waved her hand.
“Still, you can treat this as an assignment and slowly figure it out yourself. Hahahaha!”
Xie Yunwan covered her heart. It took more than ten breaths before she could barely suppress the storm raging inside her.
She shook her head with a bitter smile.
“Commandery Princess, this assignment of yours is so enormous it could punch a hole straight through the heavens.”
After the overwhelming shock, a strange silence settled over the heated room.
Xie Yunwan drew a deep breath, forcing her thoughts away from that terrifying dead end.
Her heart tightened. She coughed twice, using the motion of lifting her teacup as cover.
“Commandery Princess.” Xie Yunwan spoke softly. “The Luming Banquet is being held at Brightmoon Tower today.
“The hall is filled with venerable scholars of the old school, and the First Prince is presiding from the principal seat. Xu Zijin is attending alone, surrounded on all sides.
“What do you think… will he be able to escape unscathed today?”
Xu Qinghuan had just lifted her teacup. At those words, her movement froze in midair.
Her eyes rolled once before settling on Xie Yunwan’s seemingly calm face, which nevertheless betrayed a hint of concern.
Xu Qinghuan immediately put on an exceedingly lecherous expression.
She arched one eyebrow and drawled out the words.
“I know what you mean~”
Xie Yunwan’s hidden thoughts had been exposed by those four words.
Embarrassment immediately spread across her cheeks, and the tips of her ears turned bright red.
“Goodness, Commandery Princess Xu! Yunwan was only discussing the state of affairs. This struggle between the old and the new concerns the entire realm—I have to pay attention to it!”
Xie Yunwan hurriedly rose to her feet to explain, stumbling over her words.
“I understand, I understand. No need to explain.” Xu Qinghuan suppressed a laugh and waved her hand, looking thoroughly entertained by the spectacle.
Just as the atmosphere had relaxed, an unpleasant humming suddenly drifted in from outside the door.
“In the first month, I went picking flowers, but there were no flowers to pick~”
Knock, knock, knock.
A voice from the steward, Xu Fu, interrupted the off-key country ditty.
“Miss.”
“It seems a letter has arrived—apparently from the north?”
