The Winter Solstice banquet at the Minister's Estate was fragrant with venison, seventy-two bronze lamps casting their light upon the ice-cracked screens. Moli wore a raven-black gathered skirt, her sleeve concealing the grimacing wooden carving Zhang Yifan had sent her half a month ago—a "Cold-Dispelling Grimace" carved by Huwa, its abacus-bead eyes fixed upon her newly penned Treatise on the Righteousness and Evil of the Merchant Way.
"Does Mr. Zhang dare to debate one final round with me?" She raised a hand to sweep aside the screen, revealing five characters brushed on plain silk: *The Merchant Way is the Ghost Way*. Her wolf-hair brush ground a cold fragrance out of the inkstone. "Merchants value profit above all, just like ghouls chasing light. Where is there even a shred of human warmth in that?"
Zhang Yifan stepped through the snow, his Abacus Bead Pouch dangling with the "Winter-Debating Grimace" freshly carved by Huwa, holding up a carving knife shaped like a fire striker. "Does Miss Xiao know that in the Renxin Ledger of Qingniu Medical Hall, every single charitable donation is inscribed with the name of a living person—" He unfurled the ledger, the margins decorated with woodcutter grimaces delivering charcoal and embroiderer grimaces delivering medicine. "Li Yuniang's tofu money was exchanged for Huwa's bean-paste-guarding grimace, and Old Man Wang's firewood was exchanged for cough medicine. What these strung abacus beads rattle with is the gritty, hearth-warm…
Chapter 77