Chasing Jade (Zhu Yu)

Early the next morning, Fan Changyu left Changning with Aunt Zhao and went out carrying the three hundred wen and a silver hairpin.

The hairpin was given to her by her parents when she came of age, costing over two taels of silver.

If she pawned this hairpin, she should have enough to buy the pigs.

She entered the pawnshop, but the shopkeeper squinted at her hairpin for a long time before holding up three fingers. "Three hundred wen."

Fan Changyu nearly choked. She widened her eyes. "This hairpin is pure silver. Is it really only worth three hundred wen?"

The shopkeeper said, "Though it's silver, it's not heavy, and the style is outdated. I know your family is struggling, so how about this—Uncle will give you five hundred wen. That's the highest I can go."

"One tael. Not a single coin less."

The shopkeeper placed the hairpin back on the counter. "Then you might as well take it back."

Fan Changyu had hoped to pawn the hairpin to buy pigs, but she hadn't expected this unscrupulous shopkeeper to lowball her so badly. Without wasting any more words, she picked up the hairpin and turned to leave.

The shopkeeper hadn't expected this girl to be so stubborn, refusing to bargain at all. He quickly called out, "Hey—come back, come back. Fine, one tael it is. Consider it Uncle taking pity on you, losing money just to take this hairpin off your hands. It's early in the morning, and your business will at least help me start the day with a sale..."

Leaving the pawnshop, Fan Changyu now had an extra tael of silver.

To find out the market price of braised meat, she first wandered down the street where cooked food was sold.

Today happened to be market day. Though it was still early, the marketplace was already bustling. Many farmers from the countryside had brought mountain goods to sell, exchanging them for money to buy New Year's supplies.

After walking around, Fan Changyu noticed that most cooked meat shops mainly sold roasted chicken and duck. Among braised pork, pork head meat and pig ears were the most common, while offal was the least sold.

A plump auntie, seeing Fan Changyu eyeing the food displayed outside her shop, called out, "Buying roasted chicken, miss?"

Fan Changyu asked, "How much for the pork head meat?"

The plump auntie said, "You've got a good eye, miss! This pork head meat was braised all last night—smells amazing! Five wen per liang. How much would you like?"

That worked out to fifty wen per jin, but vendors often deliberately quoted higher prices to leave room for bargaining.

To test her, Fan Changyu deliberately said, "That's so expensive..."

The plump auntie immediately replied, "It's the New Year—hasn't all the meat in the market gone up in price? Mine is the most affordable here. If you really want to buy, I'll give you nine wen for two liang."

Fan Changyu guessed that this was likely the usual selling price, meaning braised pork head meat cost about forty-five wen per jin.

Using this method, she went to other cooked meat shops to inquire about the prices of braised pig ears and offal. Braised pig ears were the most expensive at sixty wen per jin, but since a pig only had two ears, scarcity drove up the price.

In contrast, braised offal wasn't worth much—twenty wen per jin.

Not many people ate offal to begin with. The wealthy disliked it, while the poor didn’t know how to prepare it properly, often ending up with a strong, unpleasant smell.

Butcher shops didn’t even sell it. If someone really wanted to buy, they could get a whole bucket for less than ten wen.

Now that she had a clear idea, Fan Changyu left the cooked food street and headed to the meat market. Beyond that, there was also a livestock market.The meat market was even livelier than the street selling cooked food. Fan Changyu's family owned a prime-location pork stall here. While all the other pork stalls were open, their chopping boards and iron hooks laden with meat, only her family's stall remained tightly shut, its doorway already taken over by other vendors setting up their stalls.

Changyu felt a pang of bitterness in her heart as she stood there, staring at her closed stall. She silently vowed to reopen it soon.

Turning away, she headed to the livestock market with her money.

The livestock market was far more chaotic. Pigs, sheep, cattle, and horses were all being hawked here. One careless step could land you in some unknown animal's dung, and the stench was far from pleasant.

Most vendors were middle-aged men in short coarse robes, with a few pigs or sheep tethered beside them. Their bargaining cries were filled with trade jargon that outsiders couldn't easily understand.

A young, pretty woman like Changyu stood out conspicuously here.

Some livestock dealers called out, asking what she wanted to buy, but Changyu ignored them all. She had come here with her father before to buy pigs and knew that dealing with these middlemen rarely ended well.

Today being market day, many farmers who raised pigs and refused to sell them cheaply to dealers had brought their animals to sell directly. Their prices were invariably lower than the dealers'.

Yet after looking around, Changyu couldn't find any pigs that met her standards. Her father, with over a decade of pig-slaughtering experience, had taught her to choose pigs with round hindquarters and short, thick tails—such pigs had thick skin and ample fat, yielding premium meat.

Just as she was about to leave and look elsewhere, she spotted a thin, dark-skinned old man in a corner.

Beside him stood a plump, sturdy pig, its front legs and neck tied with ropes, apparently waiting to be sold. The pig was filthy, and with it still being early, there were few buyers at the market yet. Almost no one had approached to inquire.

The old man gazed hopefully at passersby but didn't dare to call out, clearly not one for smooth talk.

Changyu approached and asked, "Uncle, how much for your pig?"

Finally, someone was asking. The old man nervously replied, "My family's counting on selling this pig for the New Year. The dealers offered ten coppers per catty in the village, so I brought it to town myself. If you want it, young lady, twelve coppers per catty will do."

Changyu was surprised the dealers had driven prices down so low. Other dealers here were already quoting eighteen or nineteen coppers per catty for live pigs, and it took tremendous effort to bargain them down to fifteen.

The old man's price was truly a godsend.

Fortunately, the market wasn't crowded yet, or the pig would've been snapped up already. Changyu quickly said, "I'll take it!"

The market had large scales for weighing livestock. The pig tipped the scales at a hefty ninety catty. Changyu paid the old man one tael and eighty coppers, then drove the pig toward her home in the western part of town.

The meat market had already opened for business. If she slaughtered the pig now to sell, she'd only catch the tail end of the day's trade, facing both fewer customers and lower prices.

Better to go home and prepare thoroughly today, then slaughter the pig and bring it to sell tomorrow morning.

Once out of the livestock market, Changyu driving a pig through the streets made quite a spectacle, drawing frequent glances from passersby.Fortunately, Fan Changyu had thick skin. When acquaintances asked, she could confidently promote her business, saying this was a pig she would slaughter tomorrow to sell at the meat shop, and they should come by to support her.

By chance, she ran into a chef from a restaurant who used to buy meat from her father’s shop while he was out purchasing ingredients. Hearing that her family’s pork shop would reopen the next day and seeing the plump pig she was herding, he immediately placed an order for twenty catties, paying two hundred coins as a deposit.

Fan Changyu returned home in high spirits. The alley was narrow, and as she drove the pig forward with a bamboo stick, the sound of her shouts and the pig’s grunts echoed through the entire lane.

A nearly snow-white gyrfalcon soared from the direction of her house into the sky. Changyu glanced up, puzzled.

In winter, with snow covering the ground, it was common for hawks to steal chickens or rabbits from rural farms. But in this town, where no one raised such livestock, why had the bird landed near her home?

The houses on either side of the alley were cramped, built uniformly by the government years ago, each two stories tall.

At the end of the alley, in a small attic room, a man reclined by the window on a bed, draped in a dusty old coat that did little to diminish his noble bearing. A thin, burnt-out charcoal stick lay beside the brazier at the foot of the bed.

A piece of his original undergarment had been torn off and placed nearby.

The window was half-open, letting in cold gusts that stirred his robes and long hair.

His face, as pristine as fresh snow under a clear moon, was unmistakably that of the man Changyu had rescued.

The clamor in the alley drew his gaze outside. A striking woman walked cheerfully down the narrow, slushy lane, wearing the same apricot-colored short jacket he had seen the night before—like a sudden warm glow in an otherwise drab and ancient painting.

But what she was herding with the bamboo stick was… a pig?

The pig’s squeals confirmed its identity.

The man’s expression turned slightly bemused.

He had met refined noblewomen well-versed in poetry and books, as well as spirited daughters of military families. But a woman herding a pig? That was a first.

The woman soon passed by, disappearing from view outside the window. But he could hear her younger sister’s delighted exclamation: "Elder Sister, where did you get such a big pig?"

The woman’s voice, bright and full of energy, replied, "Of course I bought it!"

Outside, the noise grew as the family’s matriarch presumably joined in herding the pig.

The man paid no further attention to the commotion, closing his eyes to rest. He needed to recover from his injuries as quickly as possible.

Fan Changyu, oblivious to all this, drove the pig into the side shed behind her house and shut it in. Then, carrying the bucket of offal the Chen family had given her as payment for yesterday’s butchering, she went to the well outside the alley to fetch water and clean it again.

Fresh pork was best slaughtered the same day, so the pig she brought back would be killed tomorrow morning. There wasn’t enough time to make braised meat tonight, but she could braise the offal to give away as a bonus for customers who bought pork tomorrow—one tael of braised offal for every catty of fresh pork purchased.

After touring the market today, Changyu had noticed many shops selling cooked food. More shops meant more customers, but also more competition.

If she started selling braised food outright, people might not be willing to spend money trying her braised dishes, especially given the price.Fan Changyu thought it over. Offal was cheap and would make the perfect giveaway to attract customers. People might not necessarily buy it, but they'd likely be happy to take it for free.

This way, when the shop reopened, it could both draw people in to buy pork and build momentum for her future braised meat sales.

After tasting the free braised offal, customers would know whether her braising broth was good. Those who liked it would naturally return to buy when she started selling braised meat.

After washing the offal, Fan Changyu rolled up her sleeves at home and started lighting the fire. She added water to the pot, gathered assorted spices into a clean cloth bag, and tossed it in with ginger and garlic to boil into a braising broth.

Her kitchen was well-equipped. Her mother had been particular about food and took great care with meals. Since their family had been well-off before, stocking these ingredients hadn't been difficult.

Fan Changyu had learned many recipes from her mother, though she was only average at most. The exception was braised food—probably because she'd loved gnawing on braised pig's feet since childhood, so she'd learned this skill particularly well.

As she chopped the braised offal, her movements were bold and forceful from habit of butchering pigs and cleaving bones. The kitchen knife thudded heavily against the cutting board with such vigor that even a thief would have fled in terror.

An hour later, the rich aroma of braised meat wafted from the Fan family kitchen. Neighbors nearby sniffed the air in their homes, wondering who was stewing meat that smelled so delicious.

The fragrance drifted upward. Since the Zhao and Fan residences stood side by side, the man in the attic caught an especially strong whiff.

His Adam's apple bobbed as he closed his eyes heavily.

His body was too weak. Since his injury, he hadn't had a proper meal.