The news of the establishment of the Taiji Commercial Alliance spread like wildfire through every street and alley of Chang'an. But trouble followed close behind—those business tyrants led by Shopkeeper Wang were throwing wrenches into the works everywhere, either reporting the alliance's stalls for blocking the pavement or spreading rumors that the mutual aid fund was a "money-scamming trick." Huwa was so furious he stomped his feet, brandishing a garlic-flavored steamed bun and swearing, "I'll make them taste a 'garlic counterattack'!"
That day, the backyard of Qingniu Medical Hall became the "commercial war command center." Wearing goggles strung together from Abacus Beads, Huwa directed everyone in setting up the "secret weapon." Uncle Zhang, who sold sesame flatbreads, mixed garlic powder into the dough, muttering as he kneaded, "After eating my garlic-scented flatbreads, let's see who still believes those ghost stories!" Pei Hongxiu led the embroiderers in stitching "Commercial Alliance guarantees and escorts" across lengths of cloth, the stitches so fine they could double as a fishing net.
The most ingenious part was the Protagonist's abacus. He had converted all the surplus-and-deficit problems from *The Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art* into case studies of the commercial alliance's mutual aid: "Now suppose a caravan encounters rain, losing thirty percent of its goods, and the commercial alliance provides a hundred strings of cash in aid—what is the resulting …
Chapter 545