In all of Longcheng, the person Li Xuanji knew best — apart from his two old subordinates Wen and Lin — was none other than Jinyuan.
Zhao Baihui had washed his hands of the whole affair. Once he'd lost interest in the emperor, he'd simply handed the matter off to Jinyi.
Jinyi was swamped with work, so she'd promptly passed it along to Jinyuan.
Jinyuan, to her credit, took the responsibility seriously and gave Li Xuanji a crash course in common knowledge that lasted a full day.
Then came the question of fabricating an identity for him. She decided she'd introduce him as her distant cousin on her mother's side.
Heh — but this was the emperor! The most exalted person in all the land — well, the second most exalted in her own heart, though first in everyone else's eyes.
And she'd gone and claimed him as her cousin, just like that. Ha!
Let everyone else turn green with envy!
This girl was growing up, and her nerve was growing right along with her.
"Jinyuan, you're here." Li Xuanji greeted her with a smile. He had a genuinely good impression of this girl.
Bright and lively, easygoing, considerate of others — young as she was, she had already begun taking on real responsibilities.
By any measure, she was exceptional, and it was hard not to like her.
Jinyuan shot Lin Zhenghui a magnificent eye-roll, leaving the man looking rather awkward.
"Jinyuan, what did Official Lin do to offend you?"
"Hmph! He did offend me, yes! But I've already had my revenge — and yet I still can't stand the sight of him. I don't want to be anywhere near him!"
Li Xuanji was charmed by her bluntness, and turned to say, "Official Lin, my humble dwelling is rather plain — I won't keep you any longer."
You're asking me to leave? You actually dare to ask me to leave! Fine, you want me to go, then I'll just — go, I'll go then…
And so Official Lin, possessed by the spirit of high drama, drifted away in a daze.
"Cousin, you've been at work all day — how do you feel? Are you tired? Be honest."
"Not too bad, honestly. A little tired, yes — mainly because I've never walked so much in my life. My legs are rather sore."
He was an emperor, after all. Even when fleeing for his life he'd had a carriage. This was genuinely the first time in his life he'd walked so much.
"Ha! Your stamina is really something else — on par with my master and Brother Mingxin, those two who start complaining after a few steps."
Li Xuanji felt no irritation at Jinyuan's good-natured teasing. If anything, he found it rather amusing — and besides, wasn't it nice to have two companions in his misery?
So even great men were the same as him in this regard. That was rather entertaining to think about.
Oh — and who was Mingxin?
"You're right, my constitution is quite poor. I'll have to train more."
"You really should. The constabulary works in two shifts, and neither shift is that long — you'll have plenty of free time every day. You ought to use it to get yourself in shape."
"That way, if something ever happens and you need to make a run for it, at least you can be a little faster."
Coming from anyone else, he might have taken that as a pointed jab at his reputation as a fleeing emperor. But from Jinyuan, he was certain it was nothing more than an innocent slip.
"I will. I'll train properly."
"Cousin, do you have enough money? If not, I can lend you a bit more."
She said lend, not give — and somehow that made Li Xuanji feel far more at ease.
Li Xuanji had never handled money in his life and had no real sense of its value. Right now, he had essentially none.
Two days ago he had simply followed along with Zhao Baihui's group, and neither Wen nor Lin had thought ahead. Zhao Baihui's people were genuinely putting him to work but hadn't arranged even basic food and lodging for him.
Jinyi hadn't thought of such small details either.
Jinyuan had thought of it, had asked about it — and then, in her wonderfully peculiar way of thinking, had lent him money. Not very much, either.
Yes — yesterday Jinyuan had lent him a hundred yuan. After spending the day getting his bearings, he'd worked out roughly that meals cost two or three yuan a day, and his daily wage was two yuan.
Any extra income from the work was negligible.
A wage like that barely covered food, let alone a spare set of clothes.
"All right — lend me another hundred then. Once I get paid — well, actually, my wages probably won't stretch far enough, so it might be... quite a while before I can pay you back."
"That's fine, I'm not short of money. My master says I'm a little tycoon now!"
"He says I'm the second wealthiest person in Taoyuan Town — first place goes to my master himself."
"But he also says that no matter how much money you have, you mustn't spend it carelessly. Lending is fine, but giving it away for nothing is not."
As she spoke, she pulled out a little embroidered purse. Opening it, she revealed a thick wad of violet-colored notes.
She plucked out two. "Here — I'll lend you two hundred!"
Li Xuanji had come to appreciate the importance of money well enough by now. He took the notes without ceremony.
Curious, he asked, "Why are you the second wealthiest? Did your master reward you?"
"No — I earned it myself!" Jinyuan tilted her little chin up with great pride.
Li Xuanji didn't think much of it — how much money could a young girl possibly earn? He asked offhandedly, "You earned it yourself? How much?"
"Hehe — I earned twenty thousand taels all on my own, which is two million yuan! Impressive, right?"
"Twenty thousand taels? You're not mistaken?" Li Xuanji was startled. In the old days, the annual tax revenue from an entire prefecture might amount to only twenty or thirty thousand taels. How could a slip of a girl possibly earn twenty thousand? He couldn't begin to imagine how.
"I'm not stupid — you think I'd get that wrong? And it's not just my twenty thousand, either — I earned sixty-eight thousand taels for Lin Da — Lin Xuejin — plus ten thousand mu of land, plus mountains of grain. And later I earned a hundred thousand taels for the Wolf Army too!"
Li Xuanji's head swam. Adding it all up, that had to be somewhere between two and three hundred thousand taels.
"Jinyuan... how on earth did you earn all that?"
"I asked for it. I just asked, and they gave it to me. When we went to Qingjiang Prefecture, I said Lin Xuejin had no money to work with, and the merchants handed over thirty-eight thousand taels, just like that. Then I said we needed funds to feed the farmers who'd been sent on corvée labor, so I asked again, and they gave another thirty thousand."
"I figured they were running low, so I stopped asking for money and asked for land and grain instead."
"I just thought I'd try my luck — if they gave it, great; if not, no harm done. Worth a shot, right?"
"And they gave it."
"Who knew these people were all crying poverty when they were actually rolling in it! Then later, the refugees arrived at Qingjiang Prefecture, and the Wolf Army came and drove them off."
"I went in asking for the sky — a hundred thousand taels. I just set the number high to leave room for bargaining."
"But they agreed on the spot, no haggling at all. When I saw how easily they gave it, I pushed for a handling fee on top — and they gave that too. Another twenty thousand."
"My master said the hundred thousand was earned on behalf of the Wolf Army, so it would go into the public coffers. But the twenty thousand — that I earned through my own cleverness, so it's mine to keep."
"That's why my master calls me a little tycoon. Two million yuan, all mine — hehe, pretty impressive, right?"
"Impressive... truly impressive..." Li Xuanji replied with a strained smile.
The court was in such dire straits. The tax revenue from a prefecture of hundreds of thousands of people amounted to a mere twenty or thirty thousand taels — and yet a fraction of the population of a single Qingjiang Prefecture could casually produce hundreds of thousands of taels.
Impressive. Truly impressive.
And every last one of them deserved to be put to death.
And then there was that bastard Lin Xuejin — taking all that money without a word, talking grandly about using it to develop Qingjiang Prefecture, and then presenting me with eighty thousand taels as though he'd done me a favor.
"Cousin, I should head back — it's nearly time for dinner. Have you eaten?"
Li Xuanji's mind was churning, his thoughts tangled. He managed, "Hm, yes, I've eaten. Go on home, Jinyuan, it's getting dark."
"All right, I'm off. If you run into any trouble, come find me. Bye-bye, cousin — hehe, I have an emperor for a cousin. I really am something, aren't I."