Chapter 78 — Business

Once Dou Yan had been sent on his way, Dou Xiuchang went straight to Dou Zhen and told him about Dou Yan's plan to open a stationery shop. "If it were a small sum, and the capital were all Fourth Sister's, I would simply be minding it for her," he said. "But she named a figure of ten thousand taels at the outset. I fear she will be swindled, yet I cannot say so outright for fear of putting ideas in Fourth Sister's head. I had no choice but to agree vaguely. But if she truly is cheated, how am I to answer to the Dou and Zhao clans? People will think I had a hand in it."

"Why would Shouyuan suddenly take it into her head to open a shop?" Dou Zhen was taken aback. But he had weathered much in his day, and after a moment's thought he had his countermeasure. Smiling, he said, "Shouyuan can hardly go choose the premises and order the inks and brushes herself. Simply have the men who manage it report the accounts to you."

"Of course!" Dou Xiuchang clapped his hands together. "Why didn't I think of that? If someone does have designs on Fourth Aunt, at least we won't lose everything at one stroke. And the men managing things for her will become familiar faces—if there's any trace of trouble, we may spot it early."

Dou Zhen nodded, smiling.

Dou Xiuchang passed Dou Zhen's advice on to Dou Zhiwei, in the most tactful terms.

Dou Xin only smiled and said nothing.

Half of the Western Dou holdings—not so easy to manage, after all!

She asked Dou Zhen to find her a chief manager.

The chief managers over the properties under Dou Yan's name each had their own post, and all were doing well; why should she stir things up? And a chief manager was not a role just anyone could fill. From apprentice to clerk to manager to chief manager—without twenty years of seasoning, it was impossible. Whoever had spent twenty years training up a chief manager would never let him go lightly. And whoever had stayed twenty years in one place, risen to chief manager, and still sought greener pastures—there was surely something wrong there. And even if you wanted to inquire, the truth would be very hard to uncover.

Rather than rack her brains and still not know what sort of man she'd get, better to take one straight from the Dou household—someone known inside and out, loyal and reliable.

Dou Zhen laughed. "How grand a scale are you planning, that you need a chief manager? A manager should be quite enough, I'd say."

"Since I've opened my mouth to ask Third Uncle once, naturally I want the best." Dou Yan smiled coquettishly. "I don't care what method Third Uncle uses—my shop opens after the New Year, and when the time comes I'll simply come to collect my man. Otherwise, I'll drag your chief manager from the capital's money house down to Zhending."

Which was, of course, impossible.

Dou Zhen stroked his beard and roared with laughter. After much sifting, he picked one from the family's managers: "...named Fan Wenshu. Apprenticed at eight; he's only thirty-two this year, and already second manager of Jifen Pavilion."

Jifen Pavilion was the Dou family's antique shop in the capital.

Dou Yan nodded with obvious reluctance. "He doesn't deal in stationery, but I suppose it's close enough. Him, then!"

Dou Zhen could only shake his head.

Even a man like this met with disdain—no wonder every manager in the household, great and small, balked when they heard it was Dou Yan asking for hands.

How could Dou Yan know how hard it was to become a manager?

He had no choice but to promise Fan Wenshu: "If the shop goes under, I'll have you made chief manager of Jifen Pavilion's Nanjing branch."

Fan Wenshu smiled bitterly.

As if a chief manager's post were so easily had?

He would have to be equal to it!

A few years away from the antiques trade, and even if he returned to Jifen Pavilion, he'd have lost those years of experience—his eye would be far duller than before, he feared. And the Dou family's Fourth Miss was an unmarried girl; who knew where she'd be married off in a few years.

But Third Master Dou had put it that way—what more could he say?

He handed over the account books, put on a show of beaming smiles, and went to the Western residence.

Gan Lu muttered, "Didn't they say a chief manager?"

"Be content," Dou Xin said. "How many chief managers does the Dou family have in all? With holdings like ours, they wouldn't even look at us twice." She had deliberately left herself room for Third Uncle to haggle.

Gan Lu went off sheepishly to bring Fan Wenshu in.

Dou Yan saw a man of middling height, regular features, and an air of amiability that preceded any word he spoke—the very image of a merchant. Won over three parts at once, she gave him a brief account of the matter and told him to go to Third Cousin for the silver.

Fan Wenshu was dumbstruck for some time.

The main shop was in the capital; over the next five years, ten branches were to open between Zhending and the capital. But how large the scale, how much capital, and who else besides himself would be involved—of none of it was he told a word.

"Does Fourth Miss have any further instructions?" he asked respectfully.

"That is my only requirement. As for the rest—you are the manager, use your judgment." Dou Yan paused, then said, "Oh—you'll have a second manager, surnamed Cui, given name Thirteen. He won't be able to come help at the shop until September next year."

The moment Fan Wenshu withdrew, he set about inquiring after Cui Min.

The Dou family's stewards and managers were all shrewd old hands, and at once everyone knew. Someone laughed: "So Fourth Miss means to elevate the Cui concubine's kin. Fan Wenshu, you're just keeping the crown prince company at his lessons!"

"Keeping the crown prince company is no matter," Fan Wenshu said gloomily. "My fear is that the crown prince doesn't understand and pretends he does, forever pointing and ordering about."

The others laughed. "You sell antiques—what would you know of inks and brushes?"

Cui Min was asking questions too, though his were for Dou Yan: "You'd have an antique dealer sell stationery, and have me serve as your second manager?"

Arguing with Cui Min was thankless work Dou Yan had given up in her last life. She said bluntly, "The Cui concubine has agreed to it."

"You're pulling my leg, surely?" Cui Min rolled his eyes. "Then I'll go ask the Cui concubine myself."

Dou Yan sat serenely drinking her tea.

Cui Min's spirits deflated.

Dou Yan asked him, "How go things on Boyan's side?"

"We've discovered a great many things no one else knows." Cui Min's face lit up at the question. "In a village out Xiping way, the people quietly opened more than two hundred mu of wasteland—six years now, and no one's found out. And at Quyang Bridge, the fish-scale register records only two hundred mu of good farmland, but judging by the look of that village, it seems to be more than two hundred..."

Dou Yan was aghast. "So you found out about all of it." He hastily cautioned Cui Min, "You must not go around talking about this—mind that trouble comes out of your mouth."

"I know," Cui Min said carelessly. "You cut off someone's road to wealth, and they'll cut off your road to survival. I know well enough how much weight these things carry. It's only because you asked that I told you, to give you something to pass the time."

Dou Yan reflected that fellow Dou Yan was a censor by training—how could he possibly set his mind at ease? So when he went to pay his respects to his sixth aunt, he took a detour to his third cousin's wife and gave her instructions about Dou Yan.

"Fourth Aunt, rest easy. I'm not some lad of seventeen or eighteen, charging headlong into things on nothing but hot blood."

You're only two or three years older than a lad of seventeen or eighteen, all right?

Dou Yan grumbled to himself and rose to take his leave.

On the way he ran into Wu Shan and Dou Yong.