After the twenty-eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, snow fell day and night. Qingcheng Academy closed for the New Year holiday, and Chen Paper Shop’s “blind bag” campaign wrapped up in triumph. Xianjin spent two hours teaching Manager Dong how to use an abacus.

The forty-year-old balding man treated formulas like “two plus one makes five,” “carry over at ten,” and “subtract five from two” as sacred truths. Once he grasped the method, he immediately abandoned his old counting rods.

Xianjin and Manager Dong reconciled the accounts separately, then together. Without deducting costs, they had earned 187 taels and 4 qian of silver in eight days. That’s nearly 100,000 yuan in just over a week!

Xianjin was thrilled. She buried her head in the abacus and calculated again—yes, they really had made that much!

Having been reborn for nearly a month, she’d felt like she was living in a dream. But now, seeing the black ink on white paper, the clear profit figures gave her a sense of reality—something solid, not dreamlike.

Manager Dong was excited, too. The few hairs on his head swayed in the breeze. “…The shop lease expires on the eighteenth of the first month. Ten taels a month, so 120 taels for the year. Let’s set that aside first. Red envelopes for the staff come to ten taels. That leaves us with just over fifty taels to work with!”

Uh, suddenly, less than a third remained.

Xianjin’s excitement also dropped to less than a third.

Back in college, nearly everyone had a dream of starting a business. Now that she was actually running one, she realized how stressful it was. Every morning she opened her eyes and had to spend money. No matter how much she earned, no matter how impressive the cash flow looked, turn around, and it was all gone.

After discussing with Manager Dong, they decided to collect straw from Anwu and Dingqiao before New Year’s Eve. Master Li Sanshun had said repeatedly that the blue sandalwood bark would last a few more days, but they were short on straw. “We can make at most thirty batches of paper!”

Xianjin had never known that papermaking required straw. She thought bark alone was enough. But Master Li pulled her to the water trough and gave her a mini-lecture: “Blue sandalwood bark is the skeleton of xuan paper; straw is the muscle. More bark makes the paper tough—called ‘pure bark xuan.’ More straw makes it soft—called ‘cotton blend xuan.’ The ratio of bark to straw is a matter of skilled hands. A seasoned craftsman can tell just by touch!”

The old man grinned as he spoke, his face full of wrinkles, like he was showing off a treasured family heirloom.

Xianjin looked at him, a strange emotion rising in her chest.

Everyone seemed to have such clear life goals.

Zhou Ergou talked daily about saving up for a new ox cart—a reflection of modern young men dreaming of buying a car.

Manager Dong, after a lifetime as a deputy, now hoped to climb the ranks. He wanted to help Chen Fu build a foundation in Jing County, then return to Xuancheng as the Chen family’s chief steward. If he could get his sons into the Chen family’s business, that would be even better—a classic late-career gamble.

As for the Zheng brothers, their goal was simple and unified: save money to get married and start a family. The sooner they married, the sooner they’d have kids.

…That kind of wish is hard to translate into modern terms.

After all, people of Xianjin’s generation believed: “Have kids early, enjoy life early. Don’t have kids, enjoy life even more.”

Everyone seemed to know where they were headed.

Xianjin didn’t. She felt like she was always being pushed forward. What did she really want? To be fabulously wealthy? To dominate the world? To lounge in luxury, surrounded by beautiful men?

The mule cart bumped along toward Anwu. Xianjin leaned against the wall, flipping through The Exploitation of the Works of Nature. Her mind was tangled with crisscrossing thoughts—a chaotic mess.

“…If we have time, we must try the small hanging wine with pickled goose at Tiantangzhai,” Chen Fu said enthusiastically.

Oh right. Chen Fu.

This romance-brained man had no clear life goals either. Eat, drink, play, and have fun. While they were busy launching the blind bag campaign, he’d nearly eaten his way through every restaurant in Jing County. He even made a ranked list—dividing 49 restaurants into three tiers based on flavor, ambiance, and quality.

How did Xianjin know? Because this romance-brain tried to take ten sheets of Four-Zhang Xuan from the storeroom “for record-keeping.” Of course, Manager Dong tearfully and tactfully refused.

What could she say? Cheers to the carefree spirit of romance-brains.

Xianjin looked away from her book and took a sip of tea.

Manager Dong said respectfully, “Tomorrow is New Year’s Eve. Our schedule’s a bit tight. Next time, let’s go just to eat, shall we?”

Chen Fu pouted, turned to lift the cart curtain, and looked outside. “Eh? Isn’t that girl cold?”

Xianjin followed his gaze and saw a figure in the rice field, not far away. She wore only a thin shirt and pants rolled to her knees, barefoot in the snowy water, tending seedlings.

A girl. Young—maybe thirteen or fourteen.

Snow was still falling. She was soaked through. Two men in padded jackets stood at the edge of the field, laughing and chatting. Their voices carried to the road, audible even inside the cart.

Chen Fu frowned. “Why aren’t those men in the field? It’s freezing—and they made a girl do the work? That’s disgusting.”

Disgusting indeed. Before her rebirth, there had been many disgusting men. Now, it seemed there were even more.

Xianjin turned her face away. When the cart turned into the village, she didn’t expect to see the girl again—this time at the straw collection point.

Still wearing the same thin clothes, she carried a shoulder pole with two massive bundles of soaked straw. When she set it down, deep grooves were visible on her shoulders. As she looked up, Xianjin saw her face—swollen on both sides, with two clear palm prints on her cheeks.

Xianjin frowned and turned to the steward. “Who is this girl?”

The girl flinched and buried her head in her shoulders.

Before the steward could answer, the two men from the field pulled her close. Without looking at Xianjin, they smiled obsequiously at Chen Fu. “This brat doesn’t know better—we’ll take her home right away!”

One of them raised his hand to slap her again. The girl instinctively staggered back to avoid it.

“What do you think you’re doing!?” Xianjin raised her voice and glanced at Zhou Ergou.

Zhou Ergou set down the straw bundle on his shoulder, his broad arms spreading forward like a shield.

The man quickly withdrew his hand.

The steward stepped in, smiling to smooth things over. “…Old Wang’s second and third sons—come greet Chen Paper Shop’s new accountant! Bookkeeper He!”

Then he turned to Xianjin with a smile. “The Wang family in our village supplies straw to the paper shop. Most of Chen Paper Shop’s straw comes from them. We’re all old acquaintances—no need to fight among family!”

“Who is this girl?” Xianjin raised her voice again.

The two Wang brothers looked at the steward. Seeing him purse his lips and stay silent, they boldly said, “She’s our little sister! If she misbehaves, we’ll discipline her. What’s it to you?”