Shao Qing didn’t seem as if he understood.
Zhi Lan made an impatient noise. “In any case I was making great progress haggling until you interrupted me.”
“Why bother haggling? It’s unlikely a businessman would take anything less than what he intends to sell his products for.”
“Have you ever shopped at a market?” Zhi Lan asked, aghast. “Haggling is the norm.”
“It’s pointless to go through all that effort only to save a few coins.”
“Money is difficult to come by.”
“There’s nothing easier to come by than money,” Shao Qing countered.
Zhi Lan thought that was rich coming from a thief who had just spenthermoney. “Only because you come by it unfairly! Other people labor and sweat for their coin. You reap the profits without any of the work.”
“I labor and sweat during a heist. Is that not work?” Shao Qing said. “One could argue a magistrate sitting in his manor reaps profit without labor.”
“A magistrate enforces order and justice in his city!”
“His constables enforce order and justice. And the magistrate you left seems to care more about being slighted than doing his job. The one we’re going to now engages in illegal transactions.”
“Do you take pleasure in having no principles?” Zhi Lan cried, stamping her foot.
“Principles can only make one’s life more difficult and blind you to truth,” Shao Qing said with his usual sangfroid. “You’re willing to steal to retain your position. There are easier ways for a woman like you to get what she wants.”
Zhi Lan scowled darkly. “And what ways would that be?”
He didn’t seem to take her tone as a threat. “Simple. Become Magistrate Bu’s concubine and you’ll be drowning in fortune for the rest of your life.”
“It’s that easy, isn’t it?” she said bitterly.
“Yes, it is.”
“If you were a woman, would you marry for wealth?”
“Of course. It’s the smart thing to do.”
Zhi Lan’s blood felt hot to the point of boiling. No doubt the scoundrel thought he was being helpful. But what made her even angrier was that Shao Qing was right. If the end goal was fortune, the smart thing to dowouldbe to marry—or even become a rich man’s concubine, his “little wife”. But Zhi Lan was unwilling to give herself to a man in exchange for wealth and comfort.
Many would call her stupid for such a decision. It wasn’t practical. It wasn’t realistic. She was doing herself a disservice. And yet, Zhi Lan had principles. She knew betraying her own principles would truly be doing herself a disservice. She had seen too many women get burned going down the practical path, living out the rest of their lives with men they disliked, or men who only cared for their beauty. If Zhi Lan were to marry, it would be for love, not fortune. She would rather suffer discomfort in her body than in her soul.
But a part of her wished she didn’t have principles, or that they were different. That she could’ve done the practical thing when she was given the opportunity to.
Five years ago, a nobleman had passed through her village. It had been an unfruitful year in the fields due to drought, and Ma had been pregnant with her fourth child. The days were miserable, but Ma, with her cheerful nature, tried her best to lift everyone’s spirits. She’d made puppets out of fallen chicken feathers for her brothers and let Zhi Lan put on a bit of her rouge—a luxury Ma herself rarely indulged in.
Zhi Lan had wandered out that day with flushed cheeks and lips, her spirits marginally lifted. She didn’t realize she had caught the passing nobleman’s eye until he waved an imperious hand out the window of his carriage. Zhi Lan noted his silk brocade sleeve and stopped, wondering what an older man of such importance would want with her.
He had asked her to come home with him and become one of his concubines. Zhi Lan had only been fifteen—and refused him staunchly.
The nobleman, undeterred, followed her back to her cottage, hoping her parents would give a different answer. But Ma and Ba bravely turned him away. He had left in a huff.
Their neighbors watched this all from their windows, and later, one auntie had come by to say that Zhi Lan had been quite foolish indeed.
“Your girl is of age to be married anyway! Why not to a rich man? It would be a blessing to have such high connections during these hard times!”
Her parents would hear none of it.
For the next month, there was hardly enough food on the table. Ma lost the baby. Zhi Lan had been racked with guilt. Some days she wondered where her family would be if she had accepted the nobleman’s offer. They’d be living in the city, dressed in silk instead of hemp, with their bellies full every day regardless of whether it rained or not. She would have an extra sibling.
