Chapter One: Even a Girl Watching from the Sidelines Can Be Adorable

“The princess is at the lake.”

Four simple words were written on a thin sheet of mulberry paper. After reading them, An Ning lit the paper on a candle atop the table, watching it burn to ash.

“I’m going out for a while,” she said quietly. Her expression betrayed nothing, yet her tone was resolute.

A maid standing in the corner nodded in acknowledgment but suddenly remembered something and asked hesitantly, “Madam, the ledgers need to be finished by tomorrow.”

An Ning adjusted her heavy hairpin and pressed a hand to her forehead. “Let Ge Sheng handle it.”

“What?” The maid exclaimed in surprise. “Young Master is only ten years old. Madam, that’s too much to ask of him.”

“Ten years is not young anymore,” An Ning affirmed, then pulled a thick ledger from the desk and placed it on top before standing up.

“This place will soon be unsettled,” she said calmly. “I don’t know how long I’ll be gone, but no matter what happens outside, you must all stay inside the manor and do not leave until I return.”

The maid caught the gravity in her voice and nodded earnestly. “Understood, Madam.”

***

“What?” Ge Sheng couldn’t believe what Lihua had just told him.

He had gotten up on time as usual, made himself a bowl of wheat porridge in the kitchen, and was about to go practice Taiping Fist in the courtyard when Lihua informed him that An Ning had urgent business and would be out all morning. He didn’t need to prepare breakfast for her, and this year’s ledgers were entrusted to him.

“Yes,” Lihua nodded firmly. “Madam said it’s time for you to gain some experience, so she gave you this task as a test.”

Ge Sheng took the thick ledger with a grimace and casually asked, “When does it need to be done?”

Lihua thought for a moment before finally telling him the truth: “By tonight.”

“I want to die,” Ge Sheng groaned in despair.

“But Young Master, you must live well,” Lihua said seriously, patting his shoulder. “It’s the master’s dying wish.”

“Mm-hmm.” Ge Sheng recalled the meaning of his name once again, then suddenly had an idea. “Can I get someone to help?”

“Well...” Lihua hesitated. “Madam didn’t say you couldn’t.”

“But there’s no accountant within ten miles.”

“That’s just because you don’t know,” Ge Sheng said mysteriously, grabbing the ledger and waving it. “I’m going down the mountain. Find me a book I haven’t read yet.”

“Yes.” Lihua frowned, pondering which books Young Master had yet to take out.

“Also, I won’t be back for lunch,” Ge Sheng added over his shoulder.

***

Ge Sheng walked three or four miles down the mountain path with two books and the ledger until he reached the large lake. Normally no one lived here, but now a pristine ice house stood by the water’s edge.

He was already familiar with the place and followed marked signs along a winding path into the ice house.

A girl dressed in white sat there, glancing up at him with a hint of surprise before raising a finger to write in the air:

“Not tomorrow?”

“Uh,” Ge Sheng felt a bit embarrassed and set the ledger on the ice table. “Please, Little Nine, help me out.”

The girl known as Little Nine was somewhere between a young maiden and a child, her white dress clearly a bit small but still unworn. She said nothing, instead reaching out to carefully leaf through the ledger. After a long while, she slowly nodded.

The boy was so overjoyed he almost wanted to hug her, spin her around twice, and plant a big kiss, but seeing her faintly cool expression, he thought better of it. Just then, she quietly extended a small, jade-like hand—wordless, but full of understanding.

Ge Sheng sighed and took from his chest the tightly wrapped 244th volume of “Orchid Leaf Anecdotes.” “That should be the two hundred forty-fourth book, right? I think you’ve read almost half of the books in my family.”

“Half remains,” Little Nine replied swiftly in the air with her left hand, making a point perfectly clear.

“Right, right.” Ge Sheng laughed bitterly. “Read first, then calculate?”

Little Nine said nothing but already unfolded the ledger, splitting it in half and handing one part to Ge Sheng.

He smiled wryly, nodded, and took from his pocket a bundle of counting rods, dividing them in half and handing her some. Little Nine opened the ledger, arranged the rods in a row, turning pages with her left hand and manipulating the rods with her right, fingers flying as she inscribed numbers in the margins.

“Truly, Little Nine,” Ge Sheng thought admiringly, though he kept silent. He also opened his half, arranged the rods in familiar positions, and began calculating.

This ledger held all the records of Fengmian Manor for the second half of the year: the taxes on tenant farms, loans each household owed the manor, and even the manor’s own income and expenditure for the past six months, all recorded in this thin book.

Their task was to compile everything into a detailed, balanced financial report.

The process seemed complicated, but was even more so in practice.

Most taxes were in kind: rice, millet, sorghum, wheat, beans, cotton, ramie, hemp, silk—these were stored in the warehouses and had to be carefully counted and converted into monetary value.

This alone was an enormous headache, but it paled compared to the loans. Loans weren't just cash; the eastern family was short on cloth, the western family lacked medicine, the southern owed money, the northern was low on grain. Among neighbors, countless debts of favors and exchanges complicated matters further. Determining which debts were settled, which remained outstanding, and the exact sums or goods owed could make even an accountant with decades of experience dizzy.

As for the manor’s own income and expenses, that was not difficult, just tedious.

A yard of cloth, a bushel of rice, cosmetics, sugar cakes, preserves—every small expense incurred by maids and laborers had to be recorded and reconciled meticulously. To avoid mistakes was a blessing; to finish everything without losing one's mind was nearly impossible.

Yet Little Nine nodded calmly and began calculating as if it were effortless.

If Ge Sheng hadn’t heard it with his own ears, he would have thought his stepmother was deliberately making things difficult for him. But the one who assigned this task was his very own mother.

Fengmian Manor was small, occupying only a little hilltop, but governed farmland spanning a hundred or eighty li around it. In earlier times, this was called a fiefdom of three hundred households. Yet, with the manor’s owner, maids, laborers, and even the lone cat residing atop the hill, the total never exceeded the count of two hands. The accounting was usually handled by Ge Sheng’s mother herself, but now, at this critical moment, she had silently slipped away, leaving the burden to the manor’s sole male owner.

Without Little Nine’s help, Ge Sheng probably could have managed the accounting by sheer effort, but it would have cost him dearly.

As for Little Nine, Ge Sheng knew little, but one thing was certain: she was not from here. Though her residence lay within Fengmian Manor’s jurisdiction, she had never paid a single copper coin in taxes nor appeared in any household register.

Ge Sheng thought: she was the kind of person who appeared like magic, “poof,” about half a year ago.

Half a year ago, someone reported the sudden appearance of an ice house by the sacred lake. The report reached Ge Sheng’s mother, the lady of the fiefdom, but she showed little interest. As far back as Ge Sheng could remember, his mother was never one to be easily excited. “None of my business,” she had said. The ice house was no one’s concern, because its occupant rarely interacted with others and paid no taxes or grain tribute. What could outsiders do?

So Little Nine settled there. When others came to report, Ge Sheng was nearby. After a youthful adventure, he caught a lively little girl—the self-named Little Nine—inside the ice house.

Their first meeting ended in a fight, which Ge Sheng lost. This was no shame; for a boy and girl of nine, girls often outmatch boys in combat.

Perhaps addicted to the challenge, Ge Sheng found himself returning frequently, eventually becoming a tolerated presence. Much happened between them, but none of it is to be recounted here.

Because Little Nine had finished.

She put away the counting rods, closed the ledger, and pushed it toward Ge Sheng. Then, without fanfare or a call for praise, she picked up “Orchid Leaf Anecdotes” and began reading, as if merely saying, “Well, I’m done.”

Though Ge Sheng knew her skill, he still flipped through the ledger to check. Little Nine’s handwriting was a classic rounded regular script, strokes full and smooth—a style reserved for families with deep traditions. No surprise there; Ge Sheng himself was taught the same by his mother.

Since the girl dared to hand it over, there could be no major errors. Ge Sheng spot-checked several entries mentally and found them all correct.

“Truly no wonder it’s Little Nine,” he thought, then paused.

“Little Nine, is this character written wrong?”

He spread the ledger open, pointing at the character “Zhi.” It was the name of a cosmetic ingredient called “Dai Zhi Fragrance,” but in her writing, Little Nine had missed a stroke in the radical, not a common simplification.

“Just habit,” Little Nine glanced over and shook her head as she wrote the correction.

Perhaps some people just have such quirks; as long as it’s legible, it’s fine, Ge Sheng told himself, then hastened his own calculations. He knew better than to lose face in front of the girl.

Within half a tea cup’s time, he finished his part, handed it to Little Nine for review, then leaned back and opened the other book he had brought.

He had hurried here early in the morning because the ledger had to be settled before dusk, but now that Little Nine was done, the sun had just passed the southern zenith, still over half an hour before noon.

No rush to leave, so sitting a while in Little Nine’s ice house was pleasant enough. In summer it was naturally cool; now in late autumn it was chilly, but Ge Sheng had learned Taiping Fist from a fishing elder since childhood, so he didn’t feel cold sitting inside.

Time passed quickly; the girl turned pages silently, sunbeams slanting through the window. They didn’t speak much—they had spent half a year sitting quietly like this, familiar enough not to need many words. Such a peaceful morning felt comfortable.

Ge Sheng finished one story, then another, and began to feel hungry. He looked up; it was nearly noon—time to return.

Little Nine noticed the shadow on the table shift as he moved, closed her book, and looked up. Having known him for over half a year, she naturally understood his thoughts, so she gently wrote in the air: “Have you eaten?”

Ge Sheng nodded.

Soon after, Little Nine left briefly and returned with two plates of dried sweet potatoes, setting them on the table. Ge Sheng did not disdain their humble fare but carefully picked a strip and chewed slowly. They were dry and tough, with a faint sweetness—ordinary sweet potatoes cut into strips and sun-dried, and the girl’s staple food.

He had eaten such food often over the past six months and was determined not to waste any. He knew there were only about ten plates of these dried sweet potatoes—her ration for a week. To procure them, she spent half a day or even a whole day gathering supplies.

Yet she was willing to share with him. Ge Sheng deeply appreciated such trust.

So he would waste nothing.

She was a strong-willed soul. Though Ge Sheng could bring her better food, she refused, and no amount of persuasion changed that. There was no point in arguing.

The dried sweet potatoes were filling. After seven or eight strips, Ge Sheng took a sip of water drawn from the sacred lake behind him. The girl had already eaten and was now lowering her head to lick a stone.

It was a pale blue stone with a translucent quality, no larger than a child’s fist, tied to a string around her neck—like a pledge of endurance, tasting bitter before a meal.

But this was not bitterness, nor was it before a meal.

Ge Sheng was not surprised; he had seen this scene many times over the past six months.

The stone was called “Salt Stone” in many ancient texts. The finest salt stones were sea crystals, transparent and pure enough to be carved like gems.

But the one in the girl’s hand was common rock salt. If crushed and sold at market, it might fetch four or five copper coins. She licked it for a simple reason.

She needed salt.

Over six months, the stone had grown much smaller, but it was still salt.

Ge Sheng had no intention of pitying the girl, nor saying anything. He knew she was prouder than he could imagine, and did not need his pity in the slightest.

So he nodded, stood, and picked up the ledger. “I’m leaving.”

The girl nodded slowly, then wrote three short curved lines in the air—two downwards, one upwards—a symbol anyone could understand.

A simple smiling face: ∩_∩.