The coolness of an August morning had already taken hold.
As more merchants began to open their shops on the street, a small pushcart had already come to a stop at the curbside, its rack filled with all sorts of sugar figures, glistening and translucent under the sunlight.
"Sugar figures for sale, sugar figures for sale!"
The girl's crisp voice rang out on the street.
After calling out for a while here, she pushed her cart forward, weaving through the streets and alleyways. As the sun climbed towards noon and grew hotter, she stopped again on the busy street, having already sold quite a few of her sugar figures.
Fang Jinxiu took a handkerchief to wipe the sweat from her forehead, then untied a water bottle from the cart and took a sip to moisten her dry throat.
Someone stopped beside her, a whiff of perfume in the air.
"This won't do, these sugar figures are all the same, rather dull."
A somewhat picky and displeased female voice commented while a hand reached out to fiddle with the sugar figures on the rack, the gold bracelet with jade and gems on the wrist shining brilliantly, almost blinding, under the sun.
Fang Jinxiu rolled her eyes.
"Don't touch if you're not buying," she said.
Fang Yuxiu turned her head to look at her.
"Is that any way to treat a customer?" she said, "Make me happy and I'll buy the whole cart, then you'll make a fortune today."
Fang Jinxiu smirked.
"Why would you, with nothing better to do, need to eat sugar figures?" she said.
Fang Yuxiu glanced over Fang Jinxiu's shoulder.
"You've parked your cart in front of my door," she said.
Fang Jinxiu turned to look just to realize it was indeed De Sheng Chang, and she couldn't help but smile.
At first, she would avoid De Sheng Chang and the street where the Fang Family resided, but now she didn't care at all.
"I'll take a sugar figure." Another young shop assistant came out with money in hand and said.
Fang Jinxiu deftly took the money, handed him a sugar figure, and the boy scampered back in; neither party felt the least bit uncomfortable.
"But seriously," continued Fang Yuxiu, assessing the sugar figures on the cart, "these have always been the same, they lack novelty."
"What novelty could there be? A sugar figure is still a sugar figure, novelty or not," Fang Jinxiu replied.
"Do you even know how to do business?" Fang Yuxiu frowned, "Did you learn nothing before? Create some fresh designs, use some better ingredients, attract customers."
"You're just armchair strategizing," Fang Jinxiu retorted, "Some things can use novelty to attract people, but this is about sugar figures, which only children eat, yielding little profit. Even if new shapes attract them, most of the time they're just after the sweetness. Besides, trying new designs means learning and wasting a lot of ingredients, the input and the gain won't match up."
Fang Yuxiu laughed.
"All those words, just to say you're out of funds," she said.
Fang Jinxiu glared.
"That's three words, not one," she said.
Fang Yuxiu giggled behind her hand.
"Hey, Jinxiu, how about this—I'll invest some money, and I'll just take a cut of the profits," she suggested.
Fang Jinxiu, having taken a break, put the water bottle back, and bent down to push her cart.
"Forget it. This sort of business does not need more investment," she said, "Stop trying to meddle in my small enterprise."
Fang Yuxiu held her back.
"What if I introduce you to a bigger business opportunity?" she said.
A bigger business opportunity?
Fang Jinxiu looked at her; Fang Yuxiu handed her a letter.
"A letter from Jun Zhenzhen for you," she said.
Jun Zhenzhen?
Fang Jinxiu hesitated for a moment.
"I feel like you two just don't mesh well," Fang Yuxiu commented, "You've run into a lot of trouble with her. If she's asking you to do something, I suggest you think it over."
After she finished speaking, Fang Jinxiu snatched the letter, tucked it into her bosom, and pushed her cart away, calling out as she went.
Fang Yuxiu watched her retreating figure with a smile.
"Is it really okay for her to go to the capital?" Fang Yunxiao came out with a touch of worry.
"Third Miss has already come to terms with it and let go," Fang Yuxiu said. "She has the ability to accomplish greater things. We can't trap her in Yangcheng to sell sugar figurines her whole life."
"What kind of great things does Zhenzhen want to do?" Fang Yunxiao asked.
Fang Yunxiao had read every family letter sent by Jun Zhenzhen, and she had also seen the correspondence related to Jun Zhenzhen's affairs at the capital branch of De Sheng Chang. All she could divine was that starting a medical clinic in the capital was not an easy task; she saw nothing else.
"Do you know about Monk Nianzhi?" Fang Yuxiu said.
Fang Yunxiao smiled; not just in Yangcheng, but throughout all of Shanxi, there was no one who didn't know about Monk Nianzhi.
Monk Nianzhi was a renowned monk in Yangcheng, proficient in Buddhist teachings and fate. He had numerous male and female devout followers, and even the officials of Shanxi frequently interacted with him, listening to his teachings on Buddhism and fate, treating him as an esteemed guest.
"Leaving other examples aside, just take the time we caught Song Yunping before," Fang Yuxiu said, taking Fang Yunxiao by the hand as they stepped into De Sheng Chang. "The reason Grandmother gave for sending the cousin and Zhenzhen away was that Monk Nianzhi said 'a father who does not know his son, a son who does not know his father,' which would negate the curse."
The shop assistants inside respectfully bowed and stepped aside.
"This reasoning, as soon as it was given, did not raise the slightest suspicion in Song Yunping," Fang Yuxiu continued. "Why?"
"Because it was Monk Nianzhi who said it, and his renowned reputation makes him credible?" Fang Yuxiu said.
Fang Yuxiu nodded.
"Yes, it's that simple, yet so unfathomable," she said. "But achieving the same status as Monk Nianzhi is no simple matter."
Moreover, it was quite terrifying.
Song Yunping, after planning for so long, so meticulously—had he discovered that Jun Zhenzhen and Fang Chengyu had left Yangcheng, he would have instantly realized that something was amiss. But because of that one phrase uttered by Monk Nianzhi, he let his guard down.
And it was precisely that lapse that completely changed the direction of events.
Perhaps this was the very essence of the saying, "A levee is destroyed by an ant hole."
"Does she want to become someone like Monk Nianzhi?" Fang Yunxiao asked.
"I think so," Fang Yuxiu said. "She wants to use her medical skills to become someone as convincing as Monk Nianzhi."
"But didn't she achieve that in Runan?" Fang Yunxiao thought and said, puzzled. "Then why is what she's doing in the capital progressing so slowly and strangely?"
Despite possessing such excellent medical skills, she wasn't treating just anyone; instead, she was using the techniques of a peculiar fortune-teller to break the ice.
"Probably because it's not easy to establish oneself in the capital," Fang Yuxiu said. "Everything has to be taken slowly. Sometimes, achieving instant fame isn't necessarily a good thing."
Fang Yunxiao smiled and nodded in agreement.
"As long as it's what she has decided for herself, any approach is fine," she said.
.............
The residence where Fang Jinxiu lived was rented; it wasn't spacious, but it was tidy and clean.
Seventh Chen suggested she use the money to buy a house, so even if the sugar figurine business failed, she would still have a place to stay. But Fang Jinxiu didn't care.
The world was vast and anywhere could be a place to stay.
Sitting in the courtyard, she held the letter in her hands. The vast world... Go to the capital? To an even greater capital?
"But still, everything has its risks and rewards. You should think carefully. I'm just extending an invitation; you don't necessarily have to accept it."
Fang Jinxiu curled her lip and tossed the letter aside.
Just an invitation, why bring it up to her and not someone else? It's all because they pity her, selling sugar figurines in Yangcheng.
"Don't waste the accounting skills you've learned."
If she couldn't work at Fang Family's money business, then come and work for the Jun Family, is it?
Fang Jinxiu got up and walked inside.
The Jun Family's medical clinic—she really thought just because her last name was Fang, the clinic was now theirs? She shouldn't forget that she was still the granddaughter of the Fang Family. No matter what she did, people would still associate her with the Fang Family.
Just like herself, kicked out, no longer the Third Miss—did that really sever all ties with the Fang Family?
So what did it matter? Anyway, it had come to this. Why not just do what she wanted?
Fang Jinxiu swiftly dumped everything out of the storage chest on the kang bed and pulled out a cloth bundle.
Then she'd pack up.
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