Ch 107: Reborn to Raise My Husband

After several days of searching, Xiao Yuanbao and Bai Qiaogui finally found a shop they liked—a two-story standalone building just outside the city walls.

It stood near the end of a side street beyond the busy market district. Yet in the capital’s maze of lanes, the “end” of one street often led directly into the “head” of another. Though far from the market’s center, this street connected to Ginkgo Avenue, and from the second floor of the shop, one could see the golden trees in autumn.

There was a small courtyard in front, large enough to hold four tables, and behind it a kitchen yard and two storage rooms.

Though not in the heart of the market, Xiao Yuanbao was pleased. The main streets were crowded and profitable, but rent there was exorbitant. This location, quieter and more refined, suited their business better.

Their food-therapy venture was unlike a common eatery. It was meant to nourish the body, and such things were better served in calm surroundings. Finding a peaceful, pleasant setting was essential.

The previous tenant had sold cloth and fabrics but had gone out of business. Xiao Yuanbao minded it little. Shops failed all the time—it was nothing unusual.

As long as the place carried no lawsuits or bad debts, he cared nothing for talk of ill luck or bad feng shui. Those, he thought, were merely excuses for poor management.

“This courtyard is good,” he said. “We could build a flower wall here, and plant a few blooming herbs—it would fit our theme perfectly.”

Bai Qiaogui agreed, smiling. “And upstairs we can make private rooms. On the first and fifteenth of each month, I can see patients there for consultations.”

As they walked through the shop, they were already mapping out the layout in their heads.

Both satisfied, they asked the property agent about the price.

“The rent is twenty strings of cash per month,” the agent said. “If you take it by the year, it comes to eighteen.”

The agent was someone they already knew—he had helped them lease their current residence—and had seen how sharp Qi Beinan could be in bargaining, so he named a fair price straightaway.

Bai Qiaogui sighed. “This costs more than our house.”

“Shops always do,” Xiao Yuanbao replied. They had already looked at several; smaller shops in the main market ran up to thirty or even fifty strings a month, enough to ruin a household.

After a short discussion, they asked the agent to speak with the owner: they could take the shop for six months at eighteen strings, or, if necessary, a full year for two hundred ten.

The agent agreed and went off to negotiate, while Xiao Yuanbao and Bai Qiaogui decided to stroll down Ginkgo Avenue. The autumn leaves had turned gold and carpeted the street—too lovely to miss.

“Most likely he’ll only manage the two hundred ten,” Bai Qiaogui said as they walked.

“He’s handled several of our matters already,” Xiao Yuanbao replied. “He arranged the lease for our house, and Beinan knows him—says he’s reliable. Don’t worry, he won’t play tricks. But you’re right: two hundred ten will probably be the final number. I offered the lower figure just to set the owner’s expectations. Once he sees a fairer price, he’ll agree more readily.”

Bai Qiaogui laughed. “You’ve become quite shrewd.”

Xiao Yuanbao smiled. “In business, you must be a little sly. Otherwise, it’s not trade—it’s charity.”

“Are you two here to look at the shop?”

A voice came from ahead.

They looked up to see a woman waving a fan as she approached. She was in her thirties, graceful and smiling.

“I’ve seen this place stand empty for some time,” she said warmly. “Today it’s lively again—saw the agent come by and guessed someone might be viewing it. From afar I could tell you two had fine bearing; I couldn’t help but come over.”

“I keep a cosmetics shop just across the street. We’ve just stocked fine goods from Jiangnan. If you don’t mind the size of my place, you should come by for a look.”

Xiao Yuanbao smiled politely. “We’d love to, though we have business to finish today. But if we find the time, we’ll certainly visit.”

The woman took the refusal easily. “No offense taken. If you lease this shop and open your business here, there’ll be plenty of chances to visit later. When you do, I’ll bring out my best powders and give you both a fair price.”

Bai Qiaogui found her enthusiasm fitting for a merchant. “Thank you, that’s very kind.”

The woman fluttered her fan and asked, “May I ask what trade you plan to open here?”

Xiao Yuanbao meant to stop Bai Qiaogui from speaking, but she was quicker. “A food house.”

“Ah, I see,” the woman said with a smile. “A fine choice—no one can live without eating. If I had the skill, I’d do the same myself.”

Then she paused, her gaze flicking toward the shop again. “It’s a good business,” she said softly, “only…”

She left the thought unfinished and fell silent.

Bai Qiaogui immediately caught the hint of hesitation in the woman’s tone and asked, “Is there something wrong with this shop?”

The woman only smiled. “How could I say? I’ll just offer this—perhaps the lady and gentleman should take some time to think it over. Don’t be too quick to decide.”

With that, she excused herself and left.

“We never heard the agent say there was anything wrong with this shop,” Bai Qiaogui muttered as they left the street. “We asked around too—no lawsuits, no accidents. The last tenant just failed at business. Could it really be bad feng shui?”

The woman’s vague warning had left her uneasy.

Xiao Yuanbao frowned. “There’s something off about that woman.”

“What’s off? She just seemed warm and friendly.”

Xiao Yuanbao gave a quiet laugh. He had grown wary of “friendly” people—especially those who went out of their way to show kindness without cause.

“Didn’t you notice?” he said. “She came up praising our looks first. Empty flattery, but it puts people at ease. Then she said she ran the cosmetics shop across the street. Anyone would think she was just trying to bring in customers and wouldn’t suspect more.”

“After that, she made it sound like we were all merchants on the same street, offering discounts and good will. Clever—she never asked outright if we were leasing the shop, just spoke as though she already knew we were.

“If we had truly liked the place, we’d naturally talk about our plans. If not, we’d say it wasn’t fated. Either way, she’d get her answer without asking. Then she asked what kind of shop we were opening, and you told her—‘a food house.’”

Bai Qiaogui stared, startled. “You think she meant all that on purpose? Maybe we’re overthinking.”

Xiao Yuanbao shook his head. “We mean no harm, but we still have to be cautious. You’ve never been caught like that before. I once trusted too easily and got played for it.”

Bai Qiaogui’s brows knit. “Then should we still take the shop or not?”

“I’ll ask around more carefully,” Xiao Yuanbao said.

Back at home, he sent two men to make inquiries—one to learn more about the shop itself, and another to investigate the woman across the street.

The results were telling.

The man who checked the shop came back saying the place had bad luck—previous tenants had failed, and strange things happened at night. Rumor had it someone had once been killed there, and the ghost still lingered.

The second man reported that the woman did indeed own a cosmetics shop nearby. She was a native of the capital, and her brother ran a mutton restaurant at the end of the same street.

Xiao Yuanbao relayed everything to Qi Beinan. “The agent said there’d never been trouble, and the last tenant just failed at business. But now we hear this other story. Which one’s true?”

Qi Beinan listened to the full account and smiled. “You already know the answer.”

“I’m just afraid I’ve judged wrong.”

“She came to pry for information, then dropped a warning about the shop—just to make you curious enough to start asking around. She’d already arranged for people to feed you those ghost stories, to scare you off so you’d give up the lease.”

Qi Beinan went on, “Now that we know her brother runs a restaurant across the street, her motive’s clear. What else could it be?”

Xiao Yuanbao sighed. “Even if I know her intent and that the shop’s fine, it worries me. The business hasn’t even opened yet, and she’s already stirring trouble. Once we move in, won’t it be worse?”

Qi Beinan pinched his cheek, smiling. “No business runs without trouble. Even if you switched streets because of her, who’s to say there aren’t others with the same schemes elsewhere? At least now you know what kind of person she is—you can deal with her openly. That’s better than those who plot behind your back.”

He added, “Besides, if you avoid this for fear of trouble, you’ll only invite more later—more searching, more delays. Better to face what’s in front of you.”

Xiao Yuanbao thought it over and nodded. “Then if the price settles right, we’ll take that shop.”

Qi Beinan smiled. “Don’t worry. If trouble comes, I’ll stand behind you.”

Xiao Yuanbao’s heart warmed. He squeezed Qi Beinan’s hand. “Then I’ll go talk to Gui-jie.”

“Go on,” Qi Beinan said. “Be back soon.”

When Xiao Yuanbao left, Qi Beinan stepped outside and called for Qin Jiang.

Two days later, the agent returned. The landlord had agreed to lease the shop for two hundred ten strings a year.

Qi Beinan served him tea, signed the contract, sealed it, and handed it over. “Give this to the owner.”

The agent opened the paper and frowned deeply. “So that woman truly meant to harm others. No wonder I couldn’t make sense of it before. Another shopkeeper once tried to lease this same place—deposit paid, everything set—and suddenly canceled. I never knew why. Turns out someone was working against them all along.”

Qi Beinan carefully folded the signed statement and set it aside. “Good thing I looked closely,” he said. “Otherwise that merchant woman would have harmed who knows how many others.”

The property agent agreed. The woman had spread lies about the shop’s feng shui—claiming it was haunted and unlucky—to scare away anyone who might lease it for a restaurant. Not only did it hurt the landlord, leaving the shop vacant for months, it cost the agent his commission as well. There was no angle of it that wasn’t malicious.

The agent returned to the landlord and, in vivid detail, recounted the whole scheme—the deceit of the cosmetics-seller and her brother across the street. When the landlord seemed doubtful, he produced Qi Beinan’s signed testimony.

The document, written by the very man the woman had bribed with a few coins to spread her rumors, was irrefutable proof of her manipulation.

Such matters were not worth taking to court, but they were enough to enrage a respectable merchant. And the landlord was no small figure; a man who owned such a large property in the capital was not one to suffer deceit in silence.

Five or six days later, Xiao Yuanbao and Bai Qiaogui finalized the lease and called in craftsmen to renovate the place.

Still uneasy, Bai Qiaogui hung a charm from a temple beneath the courtyard tree. Xiao Yuanbao laughed. “You really are superstitious.”

“It’s not about ghosts,” she said. “The charm is just for peace and good fortune.”

“That’s fair enough,” he said with a smile.

They were still talking in the courtyard when sudden shouting rose from across the street.

They went to look and saw trouble in the mutton shop opposite. Two rough men were waving bowls of soup, shouting that they had found three large dead flies floating inside.

The men made a great scene, showing the flies to the customers and cursing that the restaurant was stingy—serving flies in place of meat. They accused them of using spoiled meat, saying only rotten food could draw such swarms of insects.

The place was in uproar.

Bai Qiaogui clutched her chest in disgust. “Just seeing it from here makes me sick. Who could still eat after that?”

Before the shouting had even died down, chaos erupted again—this time at the cosmetics shop.

A young woman burst in, crying and screaming that the face powder she had bought there had brought her out in red welts. The crowd gathered, gossiping and pointing.

Xiao Yuanbao watched the commotion—first one shop, then the other. Even a fool could see something was off.

He hurried home, and as luck had it, ran into Qi Beinan returning from the yamen at the mouth of the lane. He clambered into the carriage. “Was that your doing? Those two shops across from our new place?”

Qi Beinan looked amused and asked what had happened. After hearing the story, he laughed. “His Majesty’s selecting courtiers, the Hanlin are drafting reports, and the ministries are drowning in work. Do I look like I have time for such games?”

Xiao Yuanbao exhaled in relief. “Then maybe they just brought it on themselves.”

Qi Beinan smiled. “Everything has its cause. Bad luck doesn’t come without reason.”

He told Xiao Yuanbao about the statement and the landlord’s anger. “Most likely, the landlord decided to take matters into his own hands.”

Xiao Yuanbao’s eyes widened. No wonder it all seemed so coincidental.

Qi Beinan said, “Those siblings ruined other people’s business with dirty tricks—it’s no wonder someone repaid them in kind. Let them deal with the mess they made.”

Xiao Yuanbao frowned. “Anyone can see someone’s getting revenge. Those two are shrewd—won’t they notice too? If they accuse the landlord, could it affect us, since we leased the place from him?”

“This won’t go to court,” Qi Beinan replied. “Even if they trace it back to the landlord, both sides have dirt on each other. They can bluster all they like, but they’d have to admit their own misdeeds first—and that would ruin them faster. In the end, they’ll have to swallow the loss quietly.”

Xiao Yuanbao couldn’t help laughing. “You always see three steps ahead.”

Sometimes he fancied himself clever, but beside Qi Beinan he always felt like a child.

Qi Beinan let out a long breath and drew him close. “Let anyone else take the loss—just not you. I wouldn’t call myself a man if I let that happen.”

Then he added, “By the way, prepare a proper gift. Lord Lin’s wedding is in two days—I received his invitation, so we must attend.”

Xiao Yuanbao blinked. “You mean the new top scholar who placed first on the list with you?”

Qi Beinan nodded. “The very one. I told you before—he caught the Duke of Jing’s eye and was promised his son in marriage. He was supposed to go on provincial assignment, but since he needed to prepare the wedding in the capital, they sent me in his place instead.”

“It’s been a few months now—about time for the ceremony.”

“We took the exams together, work in the same office, and get along well. It’s only right I go.”

“I remember seeing his name in our wedding guest book,” Xiao Yuanbao said.

Qi Beinan smiled. “He came, yes.”

Xiao Yuanbao said, “Lord Lin is blessed indeed. I heard the Duke of Jing has only one son—pampered since birth—and now his heart’s treasure is to be Lin’s husband.”

Qi Beinan raised a brow. “And how did you hear that?”

Xiao Yuanbao grinned. “Tangtuan told me before he left the capital.”

Qi Beinan gave a quiet sigh. “True enough. Many scholars would dream of such a match—and not just them. Even among the court nobility, plenty envied him. Yet somehow, it’s Lin who won that fortune. He should be the happiest man alive.”

Xiao Yuanbao caught a hint of something unusual in Qi Beinan’s tone and asked quietly, “Then Lord Lin isn’t happy?”

Qi Beinan smiled faintly. “Not quite as joyful as others might think.”

In truth, he and Lin Qingyu had once been close—perhaps not intimate friends, but men who could share wine and speak freely together.

When the emperor last held the court selection for noble spouses, the Duke of Jing, unwilling to see his only son taken into the palace, had chosen Lin Qingyu early as his son’s husband.

Lin Qingyu was a rare talent.

He had risen from a humble county school to the capital’s examinations, never once failing a round, and finally took first place as zhuangyuan.

As aloof as his appearance suggested, he was a man of pride.

Like most gifted scholars, he bore his share of stubbornness. He disdained the thought of relying on a powerful father-in-law’s favor. To him, that would cheapen his own worth. He would rather carve his path alone.

Yet when the duke had chosen him, there was no polite way to refuse. Forced acceptance only deepened the quiet resistance in his heart.

After the marriage, he never treated the young lord of Jing badly, but affection between them remained faint—more distant even than formal courtesy.

Outsiders, however, thought them the model couple.

Qi Beinan, having once been among those the duke had sponsored, had seen the truth. They worked in proximity, and he was one of the few who knew what lay behind appearances.

That same year, when Xiaobao had died, Qi Beinan had fallen into despair. Translated on Hololo novels. The emperor sent him to the provinces for tempering, and Lin Qingyu likewise volunteered for an obscure post.

One served in the west, the other in the north; they kept in touch through letters about governance and duty.

Later, both proved their merit and were recalled to the capital.

Xiao Yuanbao said, “If Lord Lin and the young lord had never met before, it’s no wonder they weren’t fond of each other right away. But maybe they’ll grow close afterward—fall in love after the marriage.”

Qi Beinan lifted a brow. “And where did you learn such notions?”

“From opera scripts,” Xiao Yuanbao said. “They tell of couples with no affection who marry first, then slowly learn to love one another. That’s the story, simple enough.”

Qi Beinan chuckled. “And what would you call us then?”

Xiao Yuanbao grinned. “Why, childhood sweethearts, of course.”

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