Having seen everyone off, Wang Yu returned to Red Willow Garden, only to find Li Yunxiu still pouring and drinking by herself.
She had consumed quite a bit of wine tonight, yet not a hint of a blush showed on her face. Instead, her eyes grew brighter and brighter as she looked at Wang Yu with a faint, knowing smile.
Wang Yu asked solemnly, "Finished testing her? Everything checks out, doesn't it?"
The corners of Li Yunxiu's mouth curved upward, and she said, "On another note, the perfume workshop procured enough flower petals back in spring and has long since begun production. It's estimated to bring in two hundred thousand taels of silver a year to replenish the prince's manor treasury.
"The ironworks has also finished building five blast furnaces. Besides supplying military needs, it has already begun producing iron woks, kitchen knives, farm tools, and the like. I've already instructed our people to ramp up extraction at the Longshan Iron Mine and to keep searching for other mineral veins."
At this point, Li Yunxiu looked at Wang Yu and suddenly asked, "Do you have any other ideas for making money?"
Wang Yu was taken aback. "Why the sudden change of topic?"
Li Yunxiu said flatly, "Because there is nothing worth discussing about Meng Zixiao."
Wang Yu asked, "Why?"
"Because she is not simple." Li Yunxiu sneered faintly. "Every single one of her answers came too quickly. It was as though she had prepared them long in advance—fluent and unhesitating, her gaze frank and upright, without the slightest flaw."
"A lack of flaws is a problem too?" Wang Yu asked.
"Having no flaws is the greatest flaw of all," Li Yunxiu said coolly. "Since I already know she has ulterior motives, what is there left to talk about?"
Wang Yu shook his head. "I think you're nitpicking."
Li Yunxiu looked up. "Care to make a wager?"
"On what?"
"If I win, you divorce Qianqian."
"*Cough, cough, cough!*" Wang Yu let out a dry laugh. "Let's stick to talking about other money-making ideas. Besides, isn't the manor well-off? Why are you suddenly looking to earn more?"
Li Yunxiu gave Wang Yu a deep look. "Isn't it all because of you?"
Wang Yu pointed to himself. "What does that have to do with me?"
"Because you uncovered Feima Fortress, and you also uncovered the Black Qiang King's failed marriage proposal."
Li Yunxiu continued, "The Black Qiang King proposing marriage to the White Qiang shows he intends to unite with them. Life on the steppes is harsh and cannot sustain so many people; his sole purpose in uniting with the White Qiang is to march south and wage war.
"Though the proposal failed, that does not mean the Black Qiang have extinguished their desire to strike south. Shi Mo is the foremost master of the Black Qiang, and of his two disciples, one is on the front lines hunting our scouts, while the other infiltrated the pass as an undercover agent to disrupt our rear. This alone reveals their rapacious ambitions.
"'Warfare is the ground of death and life, the path of survival and ruin; it cannot be left unexamined.' Since they have laid so many preparations, they cannot possibly remain idle. They may already be preparing to strike south.
"If so, we must naturally begin our own preparations. As the saying goes, 'Before troops and horses move, grain and fodder must go first.' Military funds must be as plentiful as possible—to serve as bonuses to boost morale, compensation for fallen soldiers, and even logistics for striking into Mobei.
"The manor's current funds are more than enough for defense, but insufficient for taking the initiative. Back then, when Zhao Zheng supposedly 'swept across Mobei,' he only took three thousand cavalry with him; fifty thousand battle-ready troops remained behind in the northwest, not daring to make a move.
"If we wish to resolve the threat of the Black Qiang, three thousand cavalry will certainly not suffice. We must either expand our cavalry further or send infantry deep into the grasslands—and all of that requires money."
Wang Yu blinked. "Then isn't that my doing as well? Whether it's producing perfume and blast furnaces, or exposing Yang Chengwu."
Li Yunxiu nodded. "Indeed. It was precisely because of you that I saw through the Black Qiang's schemes. I never said it wasn't your doing."
Wang Yu asked again, "Then since I've already contributed so much, why are you still coming to me about making money?"
"Isn't it because the capable should shoulder more?" Li Yunxiu's voice softened. "I feel you still have plenty of talents you haven't shown yet. Doing this could save the people of the northwest while strengthening the Prince of Zhenxi's Manor. Wouldn't that be killing two birds with one stone?"
From the very beginning, when she had merely treated Wang Yu as a puppet and a tool, to gradually discovering his calm, decisiveness, and wit, she had come to view him as an exceptional partner.
Yet ever since he produced perfume and blast furnaces, and then slew Wei Honggang with a single sword strike, Li Yunxiu had realized that he was not only adept at making money, but was also a martial arts genius!
The more Li Yunxiu observed Wang Yu, the more she felt he was a veritable treasure trove. Sometimes, when she reflected on how he looked identical to Zhao Yu, she wondered whether it was a blessing or a curse. If placed in the imperial court, could he perhaps command armies as a general and steer the court as a prime minister?
By now, as Li Yunxiu looked at Wang Yu, she felt that aside from his habit of constantly mingling with Qianqian and his frequent urges to sleep with her, he had virtually no flaws.
Wang Yu naturally had no inkling of the shift in Li Yunxiu's thoughts. Seeing her tone soften actually startled him, and he looked at her warily. "What are you planning?"
Li Yunxiu rolled her eyes at him. "I want you to make money, and I want you to divorce Qianqian."
"Did Qianqian provoke you again?" Wang Yu asked with a chuckle.
"Has she ever provoked me little?" Li Yunxiu took a deep breath. "Who knows what got into her head lately, suddenly wanting to meddle in the manor's affairs."
Li Yunxiu shook her head and continued, "It completely goes against her nature. Reasonably speaking, she should be relying entirely on you and depending on your orders to drive me out, rather than settling for second best by fighting me directly.
"That is pitting her own weakness against my strength. Incompetent though Qianqian may be, she isn't so brainless. I wonder which cunning yet foolish scoundrel has fed her bewitching soup."
The corner of Wang Yu's mouth twitched, and he reminded her, "'Cunning' and 'foolish' are antonyms."
Li Yunxiu snorted. "Shortsighted fools who forget honor at the sight of profit can only play petty tricks. They truly are a great match for a scheming, sweet-tongued hypocrite like Qianqian."
Wang Yu maintained a polite smile and took his leave.
***
"Brother Yu, Li Yunxiu said that the two of us are a perfect match. Why don't you divorce her instead? It would be just the thing to let her fulfill our wishes."
The moment Wang Yu stepped out of Red Willow Garden, Qianqian materialized beside him like a ghost. She looped her arm through his, swayed gently, and wheedled, "Then the two of us can fly off together as a pair!"
"You heard everything?" Wang Yu asked.
Qianqian nodded. "Don't worry, Brother Yu. I wouldn't take the words of an old woman like Li Yunxiu to heart—her head is full of nothing but scheming and betrayal.
"Once she's of no more use to the Prince of Zhenxi's Manor and you've grown tired of playing with her, I'll kill her."
Wang Yu was speechless.
"She's only three years older than you."
"She's actually three whole years older than me?"
Wang Yu felt a wave of exhaustion and took the initiative to change the subject. "Did you find *All Streams Returning to the Source*? If you found it, could you let me take a look?"
"No," Qianqian shook her head. "I've almost turned the main courtyard upside down, yet I haven't found any secret chamber or hidden compartment. The only thing left is to dig three feet into the ground."
"Could he not have kept the secret manual in the main courtyard?" Wang Yu asked.
"I searched both the front and rear halls, as well as the east and west studies, and found nothing." Qianqian looked at Wang Yu. "When you interrogated Zhao Yu, didn't you ask if there were any places of special significance between him and his father?"
Wang Yu answered with a question of his own. "When you entered the manor, my father was still alive. Why didn't you ask him?"
"He didn't even tell Zhao Rong about *All Streams Returning to the Source*, so how could he tell me?"
Qianqian giggled. "Besides, he was a Xiantian Grandmaster after all. Deceiving him just to enter the manor was already pushing my limits. If I had poked around asking about *All Streams Returning to the Source*, wouldn't that have been as glaring as a louse on a monk's shaved head?"
"Then what do we do?" Wang Yu spread his hands. "Are we really going to dig three feet under the manor?"
"Forget it, we'll take our time searching." Qianqian shook her head, then raised an eyebrow with a grin. "Once I find it, if you want to read it, you'll have to divorce Li Yunxiu first!"
Wang Yu was speechless. "I just turned her down."
Qianqian nodded and giggled. "Lucky for you that you didn't agree to her wager, or you'd have lost for sure."
"You also think having no flaws is a flaw?" Wang Yu asked.
"No, I think her temper is simply too good." A sneer played at the corner of Qianqian's lips. "Earlier, I taunted her so blatantly and used a woman's chastity to make an issue of things, yet not only did she refrain from refuting me, she even seized the chance to court a good reputation!
"Judging by her performance just now, she is either genuinely broad-minded and uninhibited, or an intensely calculating woman with consummate acting skills."
Qianqian looked at Wang Yu. "Do you believe there is such a thing as a broad-minded, uninhibited woman in this world?"
Wang Yu was struck dumb.
He could not answer that, so Qianqian answered for him: "There are no broad-minded women in this world, just as there are no men who do not lust after beauty."
Wang Yu said with absolute seriousness, "Thank you for your understanding."
"So everything about her is an act—and clumsy acting at that," Qianqian sneered.
Wang Yu could not help but sigh inwardly on Meng Zixiao's behalf.
To be honest, he really had not detected anything wrong with Meng Zixiao. For one, their rescue of her had been entirely by chance; had they not appeared, her clothes would have been torn to shreds right on the road. For another, her poisoning and injuries were genuine, absolutely not faked.
Yet while a woman could easily fool a man, she could never fool her own kind—especially not a meticulous female Zhuangyuan and an enchantress of the Demonic Cult whose own acting was superb.
Wang Yu was now convinced that Meng Zixiao was definitely not as straightforward and candid as she seemed, but he still found it hard to believe she had deliberately approached him.
"Could her poisoning and injuries have been deliberate as well?" Wang Yu asked. "What if Xu Hao hadn't brought out that medicinal pill?"
"Bone-Softening Powder isn't some instant deadly poison; all it takes is seeing a physician or resting for a few days to recover," Qianqian scoffed. "Did her legs squeeze your brains into mush? You're actually still speaking on her behalf?"
"I didn't, I haven't, stop talking nonsense!" Wang Yu decisively denied it.
Qianqian laughed. "How about we make a bet as well?"
"On what?"
"If I win, you'll make Li Yunxiu serve me tea, fetch water, and bow down to me as an inferior."
"Why are all of you so fond of gambling?" Wang Yu gently shook free from Qianqian's grip and strolled toward the main quarters. "I'll go keep looking for *All Streams Returning to the Source*."
Qianqian gave a huff, slipped backward, and glided away like a breeze.
Chapter 43