Song Dynasty: Yuan Dynasty, you didn't expect this, did you? I'm still alive.

Songjiang Mansion.

Sun's Cloth Shop.

Sun Maocai calculated that he had sold three bolts of cloth this month.

Three horses.

He flipped through the ledger three times to make sure he wasn't seeing things because of his old age.

Three bolts. In previous years, families marrying off their daughters could buy thirty bolts in June alone. Last year was a little less, but still twenty. This year—three bolts.

"Ah Fu." He closed the ledger.

The shop assistant, Afu, was squatting by the door swatting flies when he heard this. He turned around and asked, "Boss?"

"What does that 'Shun Kee' shop on the street sell? Why did it steal all my business?"

Afu's expression immediately became subtle.

"Cloth," Afu said, "Song cloth."

"Song cloth?"

"From the Song Dynasty. So wide—" Afu stretched his arms out as far as he could, "The colors are as vibrant as a New Year's painting. As for the price…"

"How many?"

Ah Fu's voice lowered, as if he were confessing something shameful: "Our... 20%."

Sun Maocai's account book fell to the ground.

"Twenty percent?" He bent down to pick it up, bumping his head on the counter, ignoring the pain. "Has Zhou Wenrui gone mad? How can he make a profit on twenty percent?"

"They made a lot of money," Afu muttered. "They sold dozens of horses this morning. His assistant's wrists are swollen from handling all the money. I saw him rubbing his hands at the door when I passed by just now."

Sun Maocai was silent for a moment, then slammed the account book on the counter: "Watch the shop."

"Where are you going, shopkeeper?"

Sun Maocai didn't answer. He had already left.

There was a long queue outside Shun Kee Foreign Goods Store.

Sun Maocai lived for sixty-three years and had seen people queuing to buy rice, queuing to receive porridge, and queuing to receive government grain in Songjiang Prefecture. Queuing to buy cloth—this was the first time he had ever seen it.

There were many familiar faces in the group.

The wife of Scholar Li from the south of the city bought six bolts of cloth on credit from his shop last year as part of her dowry, and still owes him one tael of silver. Widow Zhao from the north street comes every month without fail to buy two feet of coarse cloth to make shoe uppers. And then there's Boss Qian from the silk shop—what are you doing here, a cloth seller?

When Boss Qian saw Sun Maocai, he quickly unfolded his fan to cover his face, pretending to admire the sycamore trees on the street.

He stared intently at the tree, not a single leaf had turned yellow.

Sun Maocai ignored him.

He walked straight to the shop entrance, bypassing the entire queue.

A shop assistant stood at the door, dressed in a short jacket. Sun Maocai recognized the attire—recently, several people like this had appeared in Songjiang Prefecture, running errands for their employers to sell Song goods; they were known as "compradors."

When the comprador's assistant saw him, a smile spread across his face, but when he spoke, he had a strong Quanzhou accent: "Old man, you have to queue to buy cloth—"

"Let me see."

"Look?" The waiter looked him up and down, his smile fading slightly. "Then please stand to the side and watch, don't block the customers' view."

Sun Maocai stepped to the side of the door.

Inside the shop, Zhou Wenrui was personally pulling out cloth.

He had a white cloth wrapped around his forehead, whether from a bump or something, I don't know, but he looked as energetic as a rooster that had just laid an egg.

On the long table in front of me were piles of rolls of cloth, indigo, maroon, emerald green, and pale yellow, so bright they were dazzling in the sunlight.

A woman reached out and touched the indigo fabric, exclaiming in amazement, "This color! If I had this fabric for my wedding dress, I would be laughing in my sleep!"

Zhou Wenrui laughed and said, "This is called 'Song Blue.' The Song Dynasty used chemicals to dye it, so the color won't fade no matter how you wash it."

What is chemistry?

"You wouldn't understand even if I explained. It was something created by the True Lord. In the past, it was something that only celestial maidens used."

"Really?"

"I'm lying to you, this is what I am." Zhou Wenrui made a turtle-like gesture.

The woman chuckled.

Sun Maocai did not laugh.

He reached out and touched the indigo cloth.

His hand froze the moment his fingers touched the fabric.

He sold cloth for forty-seven years.

You can touch a piece of cloth with your eyes closed and tell it the warp and weft density, the thickness of the cotton yarn, and whether it was made from the first or second batch.

But this cloth—it's as fine as silk, as stiff as bamboo paper, and as soft as a baby's face.

He had handled cloth for half his life, but he had never touched anything like this.

"Old man, have you seen enough?" the comprador's clerk's voice drifted over. "If you've seen enough, move over. There are others waiting in the back."

Sun Maocai withdrew his hand, turned around and left.

Back at his own fabric shop, Afu was lying on the counter counting flies.

The Songjiang fabric on the shelf was stacked from the floor to the beams, like a silent wall.

The sounds of a loom came from the backyard—the rustling of the shuttle passing through the warp threads, the clicking of the reed striking the weft threads, and the creaking of the pedals rising and falling.

He had listened to these sounds for most of his life, and used to think they were better than any other music.

Today the tune suddenly went off.

He went into the backyard.

The daughter, Qiao'er, was sitting in front of the loom, with both feet on the pedals, one hand pushing the reed and the other pulling the shuttle.

She started working on the loom at the age of twelve, and her skills are now no less than those of her mother back then.

The eldest apprentice, A-Kuan, was at the loom in the middle, while the second apprentice, A-Gui, was on the right. A-Gui was the slowest, but when he saw his master come in, he immediately straightened his back and pretended to be diligent.

These apprentices were all carefully selected by Sun Maocai from among his many apprentices.

For the first five years, serve them tea and water to observe their character.

Let them do odd jobs for five years in between to temper their temperament.

They will only be taught real skills in the last five years.

Of course, the most closely guarded skills will never be revealed to outsiders.

Sun Maocai stood at the door, watching them.

Three horses.

He had three hundred horses piled up in his warehouse.

At this rate, it'll be enough to sell for eight years.

"Father?" Qiao'er looked up, wiping the sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand. "Why are you standing at the door?"

Sun Maocai did not move.

Qiao'er put down the shuttle and came over.

She was half a head taller than her mother, and when she stood there, she reached Sun Maocai's eyebrows.

She glanced at her father's face, then looked towards the east end of the street—though she couldn't see anything through the walls, she seemed to understand something.

"Father," her voice softened, "will you knit again tomorrow?"

Sun Maocai had been away on business for a short time, but he never expected the situation to deteriorate to this extent.

Even his own daughter felt that the business was going to fail.

Sun Maocai opened his mouth, but couldn't say anything.

Ah Kuan's loom stopped. Ah Gui's stopped too. Only the cicadas chirped in the locust tree in the courtyard.

"Let's eat first," Sun Maocai said.

Dinner consisted of stir-fried loofah with eggs, stir-fried green beans, and a dish of pickled vegetables.

The four people sat around the stone table, and no one spoke.

Ah Gui glanced at his master, then at his junior sister, before burying his head in his rice. Ah Kuan picked up a piece of green bean with his chopsticks, chewed for a long time, but couldn't swallow it.

After finishing their meal, Qiao'er cleared away the dishes. A-Kuan and A-Gui sat on the doorstep to cool off.

The moon rose from the east, bathing the courtyard in a silvery light.

Sun Maocai moved a bamboo chair and sat at the entrance of the weaving workshop. There were three looms in front of him and three hundred bolts of cloth behind him.

If other Ming Dynasty merchants engage in malicious competition, he can remain calm and wait for them to sell out before continuing to sell his high-priced cloth.

But these fabrics were transported from the Song Dynasty, and it seems that they had no shortage of them during the day.

It's impossible to sell them all in a short time.

He sat there for a long time.

It was long enough that the moon moved from the east side of the locust tree to the west side, long enough that A-Kuan and A-Gui went back to their rooms to sleep, and long enough that Qiao-er tiptoed out and draped a thin blanket over his knees.

"Dad, go back to your room and sleep."

Sun Maocai held his daughter's hand for a long time.

"Go and wake up Ah Kuan and Ah Gui."

The two apprentices stood in the moonlight, rubbing their eyes. Sun Maocai stood up and walked to the loom that had been with him the longest. The pedals were worn with grooves from his feet, and the reed frame was polished to a shine from his hands.

"Stop the machine."

Ah-Kuan didn't hear clearly: "Master?"

"Stop the machine," Sun Maocai said again, his voice low but each word clear. "Starting tomorrow, we won't knit anymore."

In this situation, the more we weave, the more money we lose.

He was buying raw materials but couldn't sell them, and soon his fortune would be burned to ashes.

For now, all we can do is shut down the machine and see if there's any chance of a turnaround.

The courtyard was as quiet as a well.

That night, the moon over Songjiang Prefecture was exceptionally round.

At the east end of the street, Zhou Wenrui was counting silver coins under the lamp. At the west end of the street, Sun Maocai sat on the edge of his bed, staring blankly out the window all night.

At daybreak, Afu came to work as usual. He pushed open the shop door, and the area behind the counter was empty.

Afu stood there for a while, then scratched his head.

Although working at his master's house was tiring, he really didn't know where to go without this place.

This kind of thing happens in every cloth shop in Songjiang Prefecture.

. . .

Things soon took a turn for the better.

At first, just a few people squatted at the entrance of Shun Kee, not saying anything, not buying anything, just squatting there.

The waiter came out to chase them away, and they moved a few steps. The waiter went back inside, and they squatted back down.

By the fourth day, there were more people.

Dozens.

They were all familiar faces—A-Kuan, who used to weave cloth for the Sun family, several apprentices under Boss Qian of the silk shop, and many weavers from Songjiang Prefecture.

They stopped squatting and started standing.

He didn't say anything, just stared at the entrance of Shun Kee.

Every customer who wanted to go in to buy fabric would slow down, shrink back, and eventually turn away sheepishly after being stared at like that.

Zhou Wenrui stood behind the counter, peering through the crack in the door. He turned to the shop assistant and said, "Close early today."

"And those people outside—"

"close."

The shop assistant went to load the door panels. He'd just loaded one when someone outside shouted, "Hey, you surnamed Zhou!"

Zhou Wenrui's hand trembled.

"Come out! You're selling Song Dynasty cloth, what are our Songjiang weavers supposed to eat?"

The door was pushed open from the outside, and the waiter staggered back several steps.

The crowd surged to the entrance, a dense, dark mass.

The leader was a dark-faced man, whom Zhou Wenrui recognized—he used to run a cloth shop in Songjiang, surnamed Liu, but closed it down a few months ago.

"Brother Liu," Zhou Wenrui stepped out from behind the counter and stood on the steps, "listen to me—"

"What did you say?" Liu Datong took a step forward. "What did you say, Zhou Wenrui? How did you work so hard for the Song people? What did you say about selling a bolt of Song cloth for 20% of its value, driving our Songjiang weavers to their deaths?"

A chorus of agreement arose from the crowd.

People started pushing forward.

Sweat beaded on Zhou Wenrui's forehead.

The white cloth covering the skin was soaked with sweat and clung to the skin.

He opened his mouth, the voice squeezing out from his throat: "Gentlemen, I, Zhou, am also a citizen of the Ming Dynasty. But Song cloth is cheap and good. If I don't sell it, others will. If I don't sell it, the ships of the Great Song Dynasty will still dock, and the cloth will still be unloaded. If I sell it, at least the money will still be in Songjiang—at least my men will still have food to eat."

He pointed to the comprador.

The waiter huddled by the door, his Quanzhou-style smile long gone, replaced by a deathly pallor.

The crowd fell silent for a moment.

Then a stone flew over and hit Zhou Wenrui on the forehead.

blood.

The white cloth covering it was instantly stained red.

Zhou Wenrui covered his head and squatted down, blood seeping from between his fingers and dripping onto the steps.

The comprador's clerk screamed and ran back into the shop.

"Smash it!"

Someone shouted.

The crowd surged into Shun Kee's gate like water bursting its banks.

Sun Maocai was summoned from his home.

Ah-Kuan was out of breath and grabbed his sleeve, running towards the east end of the street.

When I arrived, the entrance to Shun Kee was already a mess.

The cloth was dragged out of the shop and piled up in the middle of the street.

Someone set a fire.

Flames suddenly shot up, and the bright, dazzlingly bright Song cloths—indigo, maroon, emerald green, and pale yellow—curled and turned black in the fire, emitting a pungent, burnt smell.

The taste was completely different from that of burning Songjiang cloth—spicy, pungent, like burning something alive.

Sun Maocai stood outside the crowd and coughed because of the smell.

He suddenly remembered that the comprador's assistant had said a word yesterday at the entrance of Shun Kee.

Chemical.

This is the taste of chemistry.

The sound of things being smashed came from inside the shop.

The shelves collapsed, and the ledgers were torn to shreds and thrown out of the window, fluttering in the air like a flock of white butterflies.

Some people were laughing, some were cursing, and some were adding fuel to the fire.

The flames rose higher and higher, illuminating half the street.

Zhou Wenrui knelt on the steps, motionless.

Blood streamed down his forehead, smearing half his face, making it impossible to distinguish between blood and tears. He didn't wipe it away, nor did he try to stop the people smashing his shop. He just knelt there, watching his shop be torn down to rubble bit by bit.

A little girl of seven or eight years old ran out from the backyard, through the crowd, and pounced on Zhou Wenrui.

"father!"

She was wearing a dress made of Song Dynasty silk. Sun Mao recognized the fabric—he had seen it on Shunji's shelf yesterday; it was the most expensive kind of cloth. At this moment, the dress was stained red with Zhou Wenrui's blood. The Song Dynasty silk, soaked with blood, had become a deep, dark color, like a withered flower.

Zhou Wenrui hugged his daughter and finally burst into tears.

When the officials arrived, Liu Datong, the leader, had already fled.

They only caught a few elderly and weak people who couldn't run away—an old weaver in his sixties who was not very mobile; and two onlookers who were just unlucky.

The officers pinned the men to the ground and tied them up, then used water to extinguish the fire in the middle of the street.

The Song cloth was burned to ashes, and when washed by water, it turned into a pool of dark mud that flowed into the sewers through the cracks in the street stones.

Sun Maocai stood outside the crowd and watched from beginning to end.

He didn't push forward, nor did he make a sound. The firelight shone on his face, flickering intermittently.

Ah-Kuan squeezed next to him and asked in a low voice, "Master, shall we... go back?"

Sun Maocai didn't move. Although Zhou Wenrui was in a terrible state, he had relieved Sun Maocai's immediate crisis.

"Ah Kuan".

"Um?"

"Our looms tomorrow—"

He paused.

"—Keep going."

Zhou Wenrui hugged his daughter, looked at the mess in his shop, and hardened his heart. He took a few loyal employees and rushed to Quanzhou that very night.