Volume One: Wandering Amidst Unrecognizable Paper Leaves Chapter Forty-Four: The Fief

“How is it different?”
Duan Canghai replied, “Though everyone at the Rising Sun Escort Agency was killed, the wagons themselves were left behind. But the goods inside vanished without a trace—nothing was left.”
“The goods vanished?” Yang Ning’s brows knitted together. He said softly, “That’s odd. If they wanted to steal the cargo, they could just take the whole wagon. Why leave the wagons behind? Did they transfer the goods to their own vehicles?” He shook his head. “If you’re robbing an escort, you’d want it over quickly. Moving the goods takes time—were those bandits out of their minds?”
“Oh, young lord, what does ‘out of their minds’ mean?” Duan Canghai found the phrase novel and immediately asked humbly.
Yang Ning gave him a sidelong glance. “Your head’s supposed to be filled with brains. If water gets in, it mixes with your brains and turns them to mush. Soak it long enough, and there’s nothing left up there. Don’t you get it?”
Duan Canghai marveled inwardly, thinking the young lord’s metaphor was both fresh and amusing. He also found it odd—before, the young lord hadn’t been the sharpest, yet now he was cutting straight to the heart of things, far sharper than most people. Ever since the young lord’s return to the manor, he’d changed completely. Perhaps being kidnapped had jolted him, making him more intelligent. If so, it was a blessing in disguise; perhaps the ancestors of the Jinyi Marquis and the Qi family were watching over him.
“You’re right, young lord—that’s the crux of the problem.” Duan Canghai said, “The wagons are there, but the goods are gone. It’s truly bizarre.” He continued, “Qi Feng heard people talking—many suspect both escort convoys were attacked by the same group, but I think that’s unlikely.”
Yang Ning nodded. “The methods are different. Besides, after committing such a major crime, the robbers’ first thought would be to hide, not to keep at it.” But in his heart, he mused: the calamity that befell the Four Seas Escort Agency was just bad luck. The flying cicada assassins weren’t really after the cargo. Afterwards, the missing wagons were simply the assassins cleaning up after themselves—they were after Xiao Guang, and would hardly bother with the Rising Sun Escort Agency.
He recalled that when he left, the old man in the gray robe was still fighting the flying cicada assassins. He didn’t know whether he had survived.
Duan Canghai gave him a thumbs up. “Young lord, you see straight through things.” He added, “Strange happenings keep piling up. So many died. Both these agencies are powerful, but this time they’ll suffer dearly.”
Yang Ning pondered the phrase “the goods vanished,” a spark of realization flashing in his mind, the corner of his eye twitching slightly.
If the aim was to rob, transferring goods between wagons made no sense. To Yang Ning, there were only two possibilities: either the robbers feared being tracked by the wagons and transferred the cargo—assuming it was easy to move and wouldn’t take long.
But even if they switched vehicles, any clever thief would move the wagons far from the scene before making the exchange.
Aside from that, as Duan Canghai suggested, perhaps the goods had “flown” by themselves.
If it was ordinary cargo, that would be impossible. But if the “goods” were living, they could leave on their own.
At this thought, a shiver ran through Yang Ning.
If that were true, the Rising Sun Escort Agency was likely the one connected to Xiao Yishui. In that case, it was them who took Little Die from outside Huize City.
So the missing goods could be explained.
Yang Ning’s heart raced. He hoped his deduction was correct. If so, Little Die and her companions might not have been delivered to the capital, but had escaped midway.

He was both relieved and anxious. If someone had killed the escorts and rescued Little Die and the other girls, that would be the best outcome. But if it was merely one group of villains preying on another, and Little Die had just escaped one danger to fall into another, her situation would still be dire—perhaps worse than if she’d been taken to the capital by the agency.
If the agency brought her to the capital, Yang Ning could use the Marquis’s influence to secretly investigate and likely find her, since they’d already tracked down the Rising Sun Escort Agency in such a short time.
But if Little Die fell into the hands of another group, finding her would be much harder.
“Young lord, what’s wrong?” Noticing Yang Ning’s expression shift from cloudy to clear and back again, Duan Canghai grew concerned, unable to guess his thoughts.
Yang Ning snapped out of it. “Nothing. I was just wondering if anyone else will visit today.”
Duan Canghai said, “Everyone who should come has already come. If anyone else arrives, it’ll be those from out of town. Once the general’s funeral begins, the crowd will grow.”
Yang Ning nodded and asked, “Where’s Chief Steward Qiu? I haven’t seen him all day. Did he manage to borrow the silver?”
“It’s not difficult to get a few thousand taels from a moneylender using the pawnshop as collateral.”
Yang Ning made a sound of acknowledgment. “So the money came from a moneylender? Second Uncle Duan, our Marquis’s manor is one of the greatest in the state. How can we not have enough silver? Even if money is tight temporarily, is it worth mortgaging the pawnshop for a loan?”
Duan Canghai replied, “I don’t know all the details, but moneylenders have their rules. Even for a single tael, you need to put up collateral, let alone thousands.”
“Don’t we know any wealthy people?” Yang Ning asked. “This is the capital, the most prosperous city, teeming with nobles. Don’t we have connections?”
Duan Canghai shook his head. “We do have many acquaintances among the capital’s elite, but the old Marquis made a rule: never have financial dealings with officials.”
“What?” Yang Ning was surprised. “There’s such a rule?”
“Young lord never cared about these matters before, so you wouldn’t know.” Duan Canghai spoke solemnly. “The old Marquis was an upright man. Even after being ennobled, he remained incorruptible. As he said, once you have financial dealings, you’re entangled in interests, which makes it hard to act justly. The general also abided strictly by this rule, never having financial ties with the nobility.”
Yang Ning sighed. “So, even if someone tries to gift the manor silver, it can’t be accepted?”
“Of course not.” Duan Canghai said seriously. “Not only that, when the general was at the front, any reward from the court was distributed among his soldiers—he never kept a coin.” He added, “But the general was a marquis of a thousand households. Since the old Marquis’s time, our family has held a fief of three thousand households and several hundred acres of good farmland. Ordinarily, we want for nothing.”
“Damn!” Yang Ning couldn’t help blurting out. “A fief of three thousand households and hundreds of acres, and you call that just enough to get by? Second Uncle Duan, are you joking?”
He had been puzzled that the Jinyi Marquis’s household worried over a few thousand taels, thinking them truly poor. Now he saw their sources of income were not insignificant.
Three thousand households as a fief would yield quite a sum each year, and with hundreds of acres of farmland, even with a hundred mouths to feed, the manor should have no trouble supporting them.
“I’m not joking.” Duan Canghai, knowing the young lord was clueless about finances, explained patiently, “Our income is considerable, but our expenses are enormous.”

“Expenses?” Yang Ning asked, “I don’t see how expenses could possibly swallow up all that silver.”
Duan Canghai smiled wryly. “You don’t know, young lord. The fief and farmland sound impressive, but the revenue that actually reaches us is tiny.”
“What do you mean?” Yang Ning frowned. “Is someone intercepting the funds?”
“No,” Duan Canghai lowered his voice. “Our fief is in Jiangling, the ancestral land of the Qi family—the old Marquis’s birthplace. Because the fief is in his homeland, the taxes collected have always been low, so our income is far less than that of other nobles. Moreover, the old Marquis decreed that the income from five hundred households be given to the third elder’s branch of the family.”
Only now did Yang Ning realize why Gu Qinghan and Chief Steward Qiu spoke of Jiangling’s silver—it was the fief’s revenue. He hadn’t known that out of three thousand households, five hundred supported the third elder’s branch; so the entire branch was maintained by the Marquis’s household.
“Even so, how could the silver not be enough?”
Duan Canghai said softly, “Both the old Marquis and the general were men of loyalty and kindness, treating their soldiers as brothers. When soldiers died at the front, the court’s compensation was meager, and the widows and orphans left behind lived in misery. The old Marquis set a precedent: if a slain soldier’s family was too poor to survive, the manor would provide support—not much, but enough to keep them alive. The general continued this tradition. Do the math, young lord—how much income would the manor have left after that?”
Yang Ning was startled; he hadn’t considered this.
After two generations of war, the number of soldiers in need of support, even if small, would still be a massive expense for the manor.
“And… the Huai River campaign has gone on for three years, with countless casualties. Have the families of the recently fallen been added to this support?” Yang Ning asked. “Surely we can’t keep helping all those families?”
“If we did, even three thousand households wouldn’t be enough.” Duan Canghai shook his head. “And if we help too many, people will accuse the Marquis’s family of buying loyalty. Even with the current small number, some at court have already spread rumors about the general. Fortunately, His Majesty trusts him and turns a blind eye. Now that the general has passed, and the palace has said nothing, I doubt anyone will remember those families.”
Only now did Yang Ning understand why, despite a healthy income, the manor’s coffers were always strained. It was all because of this tradition.
But it also explained why the two generations of Jinyi Marquis were so beloved—soldiers would risk their lives for them out of more than duty.
Just then, a voice came from outside: “The Marquis of Wuxiang has come to pay his respects!”
With that, Chief Steward Qiu suddenly appeared, hurrying to Yang Ning’s side and whispering, “Young lord, the Marquis of Wuxiang is here. This is his second visit—he’s probably come to see you.”
“To see me?” Yang Ning frowned. “What’s there to see?”
Chief Steward Qiu replied, “He’s your future father-in-law, and you’re his future son-in-law. Now that he knows you’ve returned safely, it’s only natural for him to come and see you.”