When the sun of Chang'an West Market climbed onto the glazed tiles of the Persian merchants, Zhang Yifan's abacus bead pouch rattled crisply among the piles in the Silk Road Brocade Box. Moli watched the surging crowd of buyers, her wolf-hair brush tip landing on her sketchbook to capture Huwa carving a ghost face—the little fellow was squatting in front of the fabric stall, chiseling a small abacus-bead portrait of "Hu and Han United in Heart" onto every brocade box.
"Yifan!" Pei Hongxiu's indigo cloak swept across the stacks of coarse cloth, an ivory comb dangling a newly carved glass bead from Huwa. "Ali the Persian merchant says he wants to buy into the third-tier goods. Are you really planning to let them share the profits?" Zhang Yifan raised an eyebrow, his abacus beads bouncing into the character for "harmony" at the edge of the brocade box. "Does Boss Pei know that as the Guanzi says, 'When profits flow from a single source, the state is invincible'? Right now, our 'source' is the hearts of the people, and the Persian merchants are merely beads strung upon that source."
Huwa immediately carved a little figure in foreign attire onto Pei Hongxiu's ivory comb, its abacus-bead eyes gazing at the gold thread between the teeth of the comb. "Sister Xiao has drawn *The Hu and Han as One Family*, and Brother Fan's abacus beads can string together all of Chang'an!" Moli unfolded the scroll. In the painting, Ali held Persian brocade, Pei Hongxiu handed over coarse Tang Brocad…
Chapter 106