Chapter 353 — Friends
Purple Streets of Chang'an · Page 1 of 4
Dou Huaide hurriedly gestured at Dou Yan to keep quiet, then said with a smile, "Whatever you do, don't tell Uncle Seven. Boyan slipped in quietly and is staying at the Yuanyen Temple; the people over on Huai Tree Lane still don't know a thing!"
Dou Yan was startled. "Has something happened? He's come to the capital, so why wouldn't he pay his respects to his elders? The New Year is nearly upon us—where is he staying? Who's looking after his food and lodging?"
Dou Huaide chuckled. "Boyan had originally planned to go back to Zhending for the New Year, but something came up with a friend of his who needed to come to the capital to settle matters, so he came along to keep him company. The two of them are staying together at the Gaosheng Inn in the Yuanyen Temple Lane."
Dou Yan sensed there was more to this than met the ear. She thought for a moment, then said, "Is his friend's business very troublesome? Boyan wants to help his friend but is afraid of putting Uncle Five in a difficult position, so he simply moved into the inn with his friend to wait and see which way the wind blows."
Dou Huaide sighed. "Why weren't you born a boy!"
"Are girls really so useless?" Dou Yan teased him. "In what way am I inferior to you?"
Dou Huaide just chuckled.
Dou Yan instructed Ganlu to fetch two ingots of snowflake silver and handed them to Dou Huaide. "Since he means to keep his identity hidden, I won't go visit him. If there's anything I can help with, have him send a servant boy straight to me."
Yuanyen Temple Lane lay to the west of the Shuntian Prefectural School, while the Yingzhen Ducal Manor stood to the east—barely two quarter-hours' walk apart.
Dou Huaide accepted without the slightest hesitation. "You're a great household," he said with a grin. "What falls through the cracks of your fingers is enough to keep us fed for quite a while. I'll accept it on Boyan's behalf."
Dou Yan could not help smiling, and teased him, "Shall I give you a little private spending money too?"
"No need for private money," Dou Huaide said, putting on a shameless look. "But could you spare me a couple of decent jade pendants? I want to give them as gifts at New Year."
And why not?
Dou Yan treated Dou Huaide as though he were her own brother.
She personally accompanied him to the storehouse to pick out jade pendants.
The two of them fell to talking about Dou Yan's friend.
"...His surname is Kuang. Given name Chao, courtesy name Zhuoran. His family deals in maritime trade and counts among the wealthiest in Panyu, Guangdong. The year Boyan went to Mount Zhongnan, he was bitten by a snake—luckily he ran into Kuang Zhuoran, who saved his life... This time Boyan went to Guangdong precisely to repay Kuang Zhuoran. Little did he expect that trouble would befall the Kuang family... They say that since September of this year, the Kuang family's cargoes have met with mishap after mishap. They've lost nearly two hundred thousand taels of silver and are on the verge of being bled dry—when a former business associate introduced them to a great merchant from the capital, who offered to buy out their shipping firm, but at half the market price.
"Naturally the Kuang family refused.
"And then one of their ships sank.
"They drew on the connections left by their forebears and finally managed to find out the truth: a certain powerful figure in the capital had taken a fancy to their shipping firm and meant to make it his own. Kuang Zhuoran is a scholar, and scholars can talk to scholars. So the Kuang family decided to send Kuang Zhuoran to the capital with several of their ablest stewards to negotiate, to see whether the powerful figure might be persuaded to take a share of the stock instead.