Chapter 133: Chill

Leaving the restaurant and returning to the Wu estate, the day had already grown late. The Wu family's grand residence was brightly lit inside and out. Over the past month and a half, the festive atmosphere within the Wu household had not dissipated; such joy could be seen in the vigor and spirit of every servant and underling. Perhaps only the servants closest to those of the highest status in the family could faintly sense something amiss. As he entered the front gate, a servant on watch hurried over cautiously.

"Eldest Young Master has returned. Second Young Master and the Master arrived home half an hour ago. In addition, Third Uncle, Fifth Uncle, Sixth Uncle, Manager Can, and Manager Nie have also arrived. Right now, they are discussing matters with the Master in the side parlor."

This was shortly after dinnertime for an ordinary household. Over the past month or so, many of the estate's managers had to socialize outside until late into the night before returning; it was only in these last two days that such a situation occurred. Wu Qilong nodded and walked in silence toward the side parlor. Just as he reached the corridor, he heard a sharp *bang*—the sound of a teacup smashing onto the floor.

"You're saying it can't be resolved? After a mere three days? You're saying it can't be resolved?!" The person who had thrown the teacup and was speaking right then was none other than his father, Wu Chenghou. Over all these years, it was rare to see him in such a state of loss of control. It was because the consequences of this disaster were far too grave, and the sudden reversal had caught everyone completely off guard. Struck fiercely by a sudden blow to the head, everyone had been left somewhat dazed. In the side parlor, the person speaking with the father was Fifth Uncle from the clan. While Manager Nie was technically in charge of the technical aspects of fabric dyeing, Fifth Uncle was the primary manager. At this moment, he was probably the only one who could haggle and bargain with the father.

"But... it truly cannot be resolved. The formula wasn't researched by our side to begin with. In the two months since we obtained it, the master artisans at home have tried modifying it, but this formula is simply too sensitive. Any modification, big or small, alters the color drastically. The Su family even used some raw materials originally intended only for dyeing blue fabrics. Now... it's not that it's completely impossible to solve... perhaps with a bit of luck..." Fifth Uncle Wu Chengke found himself in a difficult spot. As Wu Qilong stepped through the doorway, his father, seated at the head of the room, glanced at him, gave a casual wave of his hand signaling him to sit nearby, and then turned his head back to confront Fifth Uncle.

"...Luck?"

"Hah, the Su family spent two or three years researching this formula, while we don't have the slightest clue now. Master Chen and the others say... perhaps we can only rely on luck..."

In the world of commerce, when one asked for a solution to a problem, the answer received was actually that one could only rely on luck. Wu Chenghou stared with wide eyes, and the entire main hall fell into a heavy silence. After a long while, Wu Chenghou parted his lips several times before leaning back into his seat. "So, can it be confirmed? It wasn't that something went wrong on our end, but rather that we were... set up by the Su family?"

Among the people gathered in the side parlor, no one dared to speak, and no one dared to draw such a conclusion. Perhaps everyone had entertained the thought, but if that were truly the case, the price they would have to pay afterward would be truly terrifying to contemplate. Amidst the silence, Can Minzhi shook his head. "There are still suspicious elements to this matter, difficult to comprehend. If the Su family really orchestrated such a trap, wouldn't it have been better for them to simply secure the role of Imperial Merchants? Su Tan'er spent years working toward this; anyone can sense that. Look at the Su family now, running about in utter distress. Even if there were some miraculous turnaround, the commotion over the past month and a half alone would be enough to cause them heavy losses. Third Brother, Manager Nie, and I have all considered this: if there had been a conspiracy two months ago, the risk for the Su family would simply have been too great..."

Nearby, Wu Chengyuan, the third in seniority among the Wu family, nodded as well. "Brother Can is right. We originally had no intention of using the Su family's formula; it was only a temporary impulse a little over two months ago. If the Su family truly had an alternative recipe, there is no way we wouldn't have known. Subsequent deductions also proved without a doubt that there were no issues before we used this brilliant golden brocade. To say the Su family laid this trap from the very beginning—how could they have been certain from the start that we would take the bait? To say they calculated everything so flawlessly, I simply don't believe it. Su Tan'er does not possess such capability, and even Su Yu, for all his craftiness, has never reached such a level..."

"Regardless of how it happened, our current situation is what it is..." Wu Qilong had taken a seat nearby without speaking upon entering the room, but his mood clearly seemed low as his gaze swept indifferently over the people in the side parlor. Wu Qilong's younger brother, Wu Qihao, glanced at his elder brother a few times before letting out a sigh and beginning to speak.

"Since things have already reached this point, we must start considering our next response. Father and I spoke with Magistrate Dong today; postponing the delivery date should not be an issue. But the trouble now is that once we officially submit a request for a postponement to the Weaving Bureau, the matter must be put into official documents, and at that point, it will no longer be something Magistrate Dong can suppress.

"The news that the Wu family is in trouble will inevitably leak out, and it's hard to say what kind of situation that will turn into. There are still ten days left until the agreed delivery date, and we must figure out how to cope when those ten days are up."

He paused for a moment. "Regardless of whether we postpone by a month or two, to ultimately resolve the problem, we still need to adjust this formula. Fifth Uncle, Uncle Nie—whether we fight with our lives or rely on luck, we have no choice but to try. Furthermore, if the Su family genuinely holds the true formula, we will likely have to attempt to acquire it. When that time comes... Eldest Brother, we will have to depend on your side..." Wu Qilong looked toward his older brother. On the other side, Sixth Uncle from the clan shook his head. "If the Su family isn't the one orchestrating a trap, doing this would indeed be viable. But right now, we can't be certain of that."

"Yet at present, we can only handle it this way," Wu Chengyuan interjected. "We indeed cannot be certain right now, but if it's not the Su family's trap and truly just a coincidence—if the problem originated on our side and we fail to handle it, won't we end up becoming a laughingstock in the end?"

***

Amidst the somewhat hurried and argumentative voices, Wu Qilong rose to his feet under his younger brother's gaze. He patted Wu Qihao's shoulder. "Father, uncles, I... I have recently been busy handling matters regarding our development in the Northwest, and I haven't paid close enough attention to what's been happening within Jiangning City. I've heard a little about these events, but not in great detail. May I ask... what exactly has the Su family been up to lately?"

Wu Qilong possessed the demeanor of Wu Chenghou. Although his voice was low at the moment, he clearly had already formed some conclusions in his mind. The others glanced at him. Wu Chengyuan thought for a moment before sitting back down in his chair. "They're having an internal feud."

"The situation is bad. Su Zhongkan and Su Yunfang are exerting pressure, and right now, the infighting is fierce," Wu Chengke also shook his head. "Su Tan'er is running around in a frantic state of distress, offering apologies everywhere and pulling strings, trying desperately to maintain all her previous partnerships."

"I heard... it doesn't seem to be having much effect, either. Su Tan'er is capable, but previously she had Su Boyong standing behind her. Now, I hear Su Boyong is paralyzed and hasn't been able to get out of bed for quite some time. The Li and Nian families, who were originally partners, are already preparing to cut ties with the Su family's primary household, and several smaller, scattered businesses have also been affected. The main thing is that everyone is saying Su Tan'er won't be able to hold onto the primary household's business much longer. The Xue family has also been courting these people recently. Once the Su family's business shrinks, those partners with shallower ties might as well partner with the Xue family from the start..."

Everyone had recently been busy with other substantive matters and knew very little about the specific concrete affairs concerning the Su family. Can Minzhi had attended numerous banquets lately and had paid some attention to these matters. As everyone spoke in a jumble, Wu Qilong frowned. "And what about Su Tan'er herself?"

"Trying to maintain her previous partnerships, of course," Wu Chengyuan chuckled. "With Su Boyong incapacitated and the businesses of the Su family's secondary and tertiary households shrinking, she still wants to keep all those old businesses going and hold onto everything Su Boyong used to manage... How could that possibly be..."

Wu Qilong looked toward his third uncle, his expression unchanged. "Yet, what is the entire primary household of the Su family actually doing?"

"The entire primary household of the Su family..." Wu Chengyuan stared at his nephew, waved his hand, and then paused mid-air. After a moment, he shook his head without speaking. It seemed he had begun to realize something, or perhaps he had considered it long ago, but was simply reluctant to voice it. No matter how one thought about it, it felt utterly bizarre and incomprehensible. The expressions of everyone in the room shifted slightly; what came to mind at that moment was nothing good.

"Actually..." Wu Qilong wore a bitter smile that was hard to put into words, and slowly began, "Actually... Third Uncle, Fifth Uncle, you probably considered this a few days ago, didn't you?"

"That's putting the cart before the horse. It's impossible," Wu Chengke said with a gloomy expression.

"There's no other way at this point. Even if it's putting the cart before the horse..." Wu Qilong shook his head. "Three years of preparation, an initial investment of two hundred thousand taels of silver for the Imperial Merchant bid, and perhaps even more invested before that. Su Tan'er upgrading the looms under her control—we originally thought she was doing it to meet the massive demand for annual tribute fabrics and was dead set on winning the Imperial Merchant status. But even after the Imperial Merchant matter was settled, she didn't stop. Outsiders thought she had gone crazy, riding a tiger and unable to dismount, wanting to target our Wu family by increasing production and dumping goods at low prices..."

"A woman whose mind has snapped is capable of anything," Wu Qilong muttered softly. "But what if that wasn't it... Father, uncles, dumping goods at low prices and ruining market rates would cause everyone to unite and crush her, which is why we were never afraid of her moves. But what if, from the very beginning, this woman had her eyes on our Wu family's share? What if she was just waiting for us to vacate our share ourselves? What would happen then?"

Up front, Wu Chenghou stared at his son for a long time before speaking in a slightly hoarse voice, "If that were truly the case, she is already fully prepared by now."

"Yes," Wu Qilong smiled with weariness, and the next moment, raised his voice. "Right now, no one in the market is watching our Wu family. We are going to expand, and even as we walk forward, everyone else is considering how to step aside and make way. Led by the Xue family, everyone is watching the current Su family, waiting for the day it suddenly collapses so they can carve up its share. But what if the Su family simply won't collapse? Ever since we secured the Imperial Merchant status..." He waved a hand. "No, even before we secured it, she was already waiting. Once trouble arises on our end, all the fabric merchants in Jiangning who have been watching the Su family will become the butt of a massive joke. The moment the Wu family's market share is abandoned, before anyone else can even react, Su Tan'er will devour most of it, leaving everyone else to stare in helpless frustration."

"For a month and a half, we felt everything was fine, treating them as defeated foes left far behind. But in reality, they had already diverted the attention of the entire Jiangning weaving industry and quietly made all their preparations. Su Tan'er upgraded the looms under her control, increasing a seemingly useless output rate. Everyone was laughing, but only we realized that after we finally woke up, she had already been preparing for over a month..."

An indescribable sense of suffocation enveloped the entire side parlor. After a moment, Wu Chengyuan still shook his head. "This is the worst-case scenario. If this is true, then this trap is far too absurdly grand. How could we not have felt even the slightest trace of it..."

Wu Chengke frowned. "Even if that's truly the case, the people of the Su family aren't having an easy time right now either. How much longer can Su Tan'er hold out? How much longer can we hold out? At worst, we'll request a postponement, drag it out for two months, and drag her down until she breaks..."

"Extravagant or not, this is the reality placed before us. Moreover..." Wu Qilong looked at Wu Chengke. "Fifth Uncle, they aren't going to wait for us to collapse on our own. Trouble broke out in the workshop the day before yesterday, and Uncle Qin fell ill. Did you notice yesterday? Someone started spreading rumors outside, saying the Wu family ran into trouble with the Imperial Merchant contract... Of course, chasing shadows and making wild guesses is common in the business world, but this is happening much too fast. Everyone knows someone behind the scenes is spreading rumors; it's just that not many people are paying attention yet. However..."

He pulled a sheet of xuan paper from his robe. "Before coming back, I actually investigated Su Tan'er's movements over the past month or so. Now, the picture is perhaps a bit clearer. Ever since the Imperial Merchant matter, all her adjustments and expenditures have been aimed squarely at our Wu family—how calculated and meticulous. For a month and a half, we marched forward blindly while she quietly set up all her swords, spears, halberds, and axes without a sound. Every single weapon has been pointed straight at our fatal spots... Father, Fifth Uncle, have you sensed it?"

Wu Qilong smiled bitterly, shook his head, and looked in the direction of the Su estate. "That woman has quietly finished all her preparations... and has begun to strike..."

The sheet of xuan paper was passed around the hall. Over the past month, all these things had seemed like a joke; as long as nothing went wrong for the Wu family, all those strategic deployments would have been entirely meaningless. But what if something *did* go wrong for the Wu family? It was under this premise that they had marched triumphantly toward the best-case scenario. Only when they discovered they were standing at a dead end, in that brief moment of bewilderment, did they realize that the surrounding space was already bristling with sharp blades.

An indescribable feeling gripped them as they looked at the paper detailing the layout Su Tan'er had methodically constructed against the Wu family over the past month and a half. For a moment, everyone felt a chill creeping up their spines, a bone-chilling aura rising from within. If this was all true...

"I still don't believe it," Wu Chengyuan suddenly waved his hand. "If this is really the case, then we didn't just walk into it ourselves—we were lured into it. They've been plotting against us from two months ago or even earlier? Su Tan'er spent three years preparing just to set a trap like this? It's not like we didn't consider the possibility of receiving fake goods beforehand. If the whole thing had been deliberately orchestrated step-by-step, everyone would have seen through it! No one could lay a trap of this scale! This matter... it's not something you can just dream up and execute. Everyone knows how difficult the entire process is and how many variables there could be. Su Tan'er couldn't possibly do it, and Su Yu wouldn't take such a risk! If they could have secured the Imperial Merchant status, why didn't they? If they couldn't, why build up such massive momentum beforehand to the point where they almost failed to trap anyone? Take acquiring the formula alone—if it were too hard, we wouldn't have gotten it; if it were too simple, we wouldn't have believed it. Only after we verified it numerous times did we confirm there were no issues. Who could pull off something to this extent?"

"She has already started making her move. In just a few days, it will become clear. Actually, I hope I'm just guessing blindly..." Wu Qilong sat there, shaking his head quietly. "But if I'm not, then looking back at the entire affair... Heh, it becomes quite interesting."

"Su Tan'er falling ill at the time was real, and Su Yu was in no position to handle such matters during that period—he is old, after all. But there is one person we may have all overlooked, or rather, aside from the very beginning, none of us ever took him seriously. Look... throughout the entire affair, he seemed to do nothing at all. Yet after Su Tan'er fell ill, he was actually the one handling everything. He led us in circles, behaving almost as if he were just telling jokes every day. But behind all that, he was the one who boldly stepped out and claimed he wanted to make a grand spectacle of publicizing that yellow fabric, proclaiming that their Su family had the most formidable strength..."

"Thinking about it now, there's actually something quite interesting. Both I and the people from the Xue family had a habitual mindset at the time. Whenever we gathered in restaurants and teahouses to talk about what foolish thing Ning Ning had done lately, we never forgot to remind others: *Su Tan'er is formidable, and the Su family is still seizing the Imperial Merchant status through completely upright means, so don't be fooled by Ning Yi's act.*

"In the end, everyone thought they were clever, and everyone kept their eyes locked entirely on that piece of fabric from the Su family."

"Third Uncle, do you remember what you told me when I was a child? If you want to make people see something, the best way is not to place it in the most obvious spot, but to leave it there and cover it with something, or bury it in the ground and lay a layer of sand over it. *The more you try to hide something, the more conspicuous it becomes...* From start to finish, Ning Yi kept telling us: *The Su family has the best fabric! The Su family has the best fabric! The Su family has the best fabric!* And... we all thought we were smart, spotted the underlying focal point, and gradually let down our guard..."

"He's a fool, an idiot in the business world, right? Su Tan'er fell ill, so a few omissions were bound to happen. If it had been Su Tan'er herself, we might have been much more vigilant, because such minor mistakes shouldn't have been made. But he kept making minor mistakes, and not one of us thought it was abnormal. Heh... In the end, he didn't really do anything; we simply obtained the formula for the yellow fabric, and he just watched, and then... *Old friends who know each other's hearts still draw their swords when facing doubt...* He finished his work, tossed the items aside, and left. For the past month and a half, he has remained just as he always was, not even bothering to look at business matters. Yet to this day, no one knows—perhaps he simply never regarded any of this as worth taking seriously."

Wu Qilong finished speaking as if talking to himself, and sat there with an ironic smile. Beside him, Wu Qihao frowned. "Ning Yi? How could this... That's impossible..."

Wu Qilong raised his head. "Heh, I hope I'm wrong too. But do you know what? Today I went to talk to our plant insider planted within the Su family, and he told me something. While chatting with Manager Zhou—the person in charge of the dyeing formulas at the Su family—the past two nights, Manager Zhou got drunk and let slip a remark. He said that in the entire Su family, the only person he respects besides Su Yu is Son-in-law Ning..."

Someone widened their eyes.

Wu Qilong paused. "Anyway... there are still a few days left. No matter what, within ten days we must request a postponement from the Weaving Bureau. When that time comes, if it truly is a trap laid by the Su family, everything will follow, and we'll know whether he was just putting on an act back then or if he saw through it all clearly from the beginning. If it really is like this..." He gazed into the darkness outside the doorway, recalling the scholar's silhouette. "I will be somewhat afraid of him..."

Recalling Ning Yi's behavior during that period and recently, the room remained silent, dumbfounded, and lost for words, exchanging disbelieving glances with one another. Yet if it was true, the spine-chilling sensation it induced was truly bizarre beyond measure.

After a moment, Wu Qilong rubbed his temples and let out a soft, murmuring sigh.

"Poor Xi Junyu... he still has no idea..."