TAMW CH74

This year, when the year-end dividends were distributed at the port, Vice President Zhou supervised the proceedings in person.

What should have been a joyful, harmonious occasion—collecting profits and heading home to celebrate the holidays—turned into an ordeal of sheer terror, with each payee more frightened and tense than the last.

Vice President Zhou’s reputation was notorious; at times he wore a warm, gentle smile, while at others his face was dark as a storm cloud. He had a vile temper, a fact known to everyone throughout the Chamber of Commerce building.

Only days ago, an out-of-town merchant, ignorant of Baizhou’s ways, tried to lure the President into closing a deal the Shanghai way, through brothels and gambling dens. The man arrived in Baizhou in the afternoon, and by nightfall, he was packed into a crate aboard a ferry, ready to be dumped to the bottom of the sea.

Had the President not arrived in the nick of time, the fellow would have drowned in two or three minutes flat.

Zhou Xiao had hauled the half-drowned wretch ashore and fired several warning shots around the docks, declaring that Baizhou had its own rules, and no one would bring that decadent filth into their city. If Shanghai relied on whoring, gambling, and drinking to grease commercial wheels, that was Shanghai; this was their Baizhou, a Baizhou where even the military garrison had to bow to their will!

At the time, many thought Vice President Zhou was a man of unshakeable principle who conducted business strictly by the book, proof that the Zhou family’s prosperity stemmed from upright domestic discipline.

Indeed, it successfully scared off quite a few opportunists hoping to worm their way into leasing railway access.

Yet not long after establishing this rule, Vice President Zhou broke it himself.

An English clothing merchant gifted Vice President Zhou a crate of garments, and that very night, his permits were greenlit with astonishing speed.

Only, after the Vice President accepted that crate of clothes, it was the President who failed to show his face at the Chamber building for several days.

By comparison, President Ruan was far gentler.

Every year, it had been the President who distributed dividends to the shareholders. For some reason, the duty fell to Vice President Zhou this year; each person who went inside to collect their payout emerged soaked in cold sweat.

Those receiving dividends directly from the Vice President were naturally prominent figures in the Chamber.

They owned substantial enterprises in Baizhou and had weathered plenty of storms; how could they be frightened out of their wits like this?

Wiping the sweat from his brow upon stepping out, someone pressed, “What did he say in there?”

“Collecting a bit of money is a nightmare! He interrogated me on how many checks the President issued this year, whether any were made out to individuals, and to whom—he’s auditing the President’s personal ledger!”

“That’s only because you oversee the accounts! He grilled me on how many dinners I shared with the President this year, and whether any unfamiliar faces joined us—he’s investigating the President’s social circle!”

“Hey, do you think… since one is the Zhou family’s biological son and the other is an adopted son, the Vice President is sick of playing second fiddle and gearing up to seize power? Why else would the President fail to show his face right before the New Year?”

Whispering among themselves, they kept glancing around, terrified of being overheard by the man inside.

The Vice President was notoriously fickle, best left unprovoked. Stepping into that room felt like having a layer of skin flayed off, leaving those waiting in line rattled to the bone.

Before long, Deng Yongquan emerged from within. People grabbed his sleeves, pelting him with questions: “Why isn’t the President here today? Has something catastrophic happened?”

“Is the President alright?”

“Say something, you’re killing us with worry! If something’s brewing, give your brothers a heads-up so we can prepare ourselves!”

Deng Yongquan answered, “The President is ill.”

As a household servant, he knew to keep quiet about his masters’ private affairs; if word reached the Master’s ears, he would pay dearly.

Especially today, with his master in a foul temper, he had no desire to court disaster.

He brushed them off with a few curt words before hurrying downstairs to fetch some supplies.

Yuqing was indeed sick; on that point, Deng Yongquan had told no lie.

His constitution was frail to begin with, but ever since the young master was born, the Master had pampered, coaxed, and hovered over him every waking second, making it rare for him to fall ill.

Had it been Zhou Xiao’s own negligence that caused the illness, he wouldn’t have been half this furious.

The trouble was that Yuqing had caught it from the young master.

Having passed five years of age, the young master had begun attending an academy outside. Someone at the school must have caught a chill before the New Year, because the boy came home burning with a fever the night before last.

The child was flesh of Yuqing’s flesh; how could he not dote on him with all his heart?

Qingming was a darling child, whimpering for his mother and father even through the fog of fever.

His frail, trembling voice was enough to shatter anyone’s heart.

Yuqing had barely slept for two days, keeping vigil by the bedside to wipe down the child’s feverish body. Zhou Xiao had urged him to rest and leave the nursing to the wet nurses, but Yuqing insisted that since the child had slept in a separate room since infancy, a parent had to watch over him when he fell sick—Qingming wasn’t born of the wet nurse, after all.

Zhou Xiao had only feared Yuqing would exhaust himself, but seeing him ache for the boy, his own fatherly affection was stirred. Yet after two days of keeping vigil, the child showed no signs of improvement.

Word had it that many children in the city had contracted the same thing—something called influenza—which cleared up after a couple of injections from a Western clinic, whereas Chinese herbal medicine worked far too slowly.

They summoned a Western doctor to administer two shots; Qingming wailed through half the night, but his condition finally began to mend.

Yet just as the child recovered, the sickness passed onto Yuqing.

His voice had turned hoarse this morning. He intended to drag his feverish body to the port anyway, only to be firmly pinned down by Zhou Xiao.

So one could hardly blame Master Zhou for his foul temper.

He was incurably clingy with Yuqing, yet days on end had been consumed by nursing the child, leaving them without a single shred of private time. Now that Yuqing had fallen ill, duty kept Zhou Xiao from tending to him at home, leaving him frantic, irritable, and in thoroughly dark spirits.

The moment port affairs were wrapped up, Zhou Xiao rushed home without losing a second.

“Where is the Madam?”

“Still asleep inside.”

“Did he eat lunch?”

The servant shook his head, reporting that Young Master Qingming had coughed a few times at noon, and the Madam had gone over to check on him.

“Utter madness! Sick as he is, how could you let him wander about?”

The moment Zhou Xiao snapped, the servants bowed their heads, not daring to utter a peep.

Qingming’s side courtyard was the closest to their main quarters—barely ten paces away.

Besides, the Madam wanted to see his own child; who could possibly stop him?

Muttering “little brat” under his breath, Zhou Xiao strode hastily toward the main courtyard.

What sprang to mind was the sight of Yuqing cradling Qingming’s head by the bedside over the past few days, softly lulling him to sleep.

It was fortunate the boy had grown so heavy, or Yuqing would have insisted on lifting him into his arms to rock him.

It wasn’t that Zhou Xiao was jealous of the child; he simply couldn’t fathom how anyone could disregard their own health so entirely for a boy.

He had gone to the docks to shoulder the work on his behalf, yet the man hadn’t even bothered to eat a proper midday meal!

Did Yuqing still hold any regard for him as the master of the house?!

Fuming, he stepped into the room.

It was sunset, the fading light slanting indoors and glinting off the glass face of a Western clock, flashing a dazzling white the moment the door swung open.

The reprimands on his tongue caught in his throat.

Yuqing’s hand, still bearing medical tape from an intravenous drip, dangled languidly over the edge of the bed.

The sheer gauze curtains veiled his figure, yet that faint, hazy silhouette alone was enough to make one’s heart skip a beat.

A potted weeping jasmine bloomed upon the low table; in the heated room, its winter blossoms refused to wither, filling the air with a sweet fragrance that seemed to seep into one’s very bones.

Perhaps catching a draft from the open door, Yuqing coughed softly.

“Yuqing,” Zhou Xiao parted the curtain, calling in a hushed whisper.

Yuqing’s delicate eyelids fluttered, letting out a soft hum through his nose, his other hand patting the inner side of the mattress to beckon him in.

Zhou Xiao’s lips curved faintly, but he sat on the edge of the bed without climbing up. “I’m not coming in.”

A rare sight indeed.

Yuqing opened his eyes languidly. Amused by his sulking expression, he reached out a hand. “What troubles the Master?”

Reluctant to let him strain the hand that had just received an injection, Zhou Xiao leaned down and nuzzled his cheek hard against Yuqing’s palm, catching the faint scent of disinfectant. “You went to see Qingming again this afternoon.”

“Look at you, so petty.” Yuqing pushed himself up.

Western medicine truly worked wonders; after a single injection and an afternoon nap, his floaty, feverish daze had cleared considerably. “Am I still warm?”

Zhou Xiao cast him a mournful glance, yet hastily leaned in to test his temperature, moving to steal a kiss along the way.

Yuqing pressed an index finger against his lips, his voice slightly hoarse. “I am sick.”

“What does being sick matter? If it truly passed that easily, Qingming would have passed it to me long ago. Why should I fear it?”

Zhou Xiao’s face fell. He clearly wanted to throw a tantrum, but aching for his illness, he slumped petulantly across his lower abdomen, wrapping his arms around his waist. “Yuqing!”

“Qingqing, my sweet Qingqing.”

“The Master is far harder to coax than a sick Qingming,” Yuqing smiled, pressing his lips together.

Having his face stroked by Yuqing felt heavenly.

Lying against Yuqing’s lower abdomen brought peace to his restless heart.

Whatever grievances he harbored this morning vanished like smoke.

Though Yuqing’s lower abdomen retained faint muscle tone after childbirth, the layer of flesh was delicate and lean; resting against it felt blissfully soft and warm.

Illness lent his brow and eyes a fragile, glistening sheen; lying on the bed with shallow breaths, his porcelain skin accentuated the delicate flush at the corners of his eyes like an alluring bloom.

Zhou Xiao’s heart throbbed with yearning. Clasping his hand, he whined “good Madam, sweet Madam” over and over.

Then he grumbled that Yuqing didn’t miss him at all and cared nothing for him.

All year round, Yuqing dreaded hearing him spout this nonsense the most.

How could he not care? Zhou Xiao had dragged his quiet, solitary life into a whirlwind of warmth and noise; whenever they met, Yuqing couldn’t help smiling. They had been joined at the hip for years, their child now running across the floors, yet the master of the house remained stubbornly immature.

Yuqing pinched his nose and gave it a gentle wiggle: “So was the milk from days ago fed to a dog? Hmm?”

“You’d rather say you fed a dog than admit you gave it to Zezhi?”

Yuqing laughed softly through his nose: “You can find fault even with that?”

He had a soft spot for Zhou Xiao’s childish petulance; as long as the man wasn’t tossing commercial partners into the ocean, Yuqing was more than willing to humor him in everything at home.

“I was only afraid of passing the sickness to you. If I haven’t recovered and the pillar of the household collapses too, leaving Yuqing without a master to lean on, whatever would I do?”

It was child’s talk meant to cajole, yet Zhou Xiao fell for it every single time.

Zhou Xiao scrambled onto the bed, pulling him tighter into his arms.

Feeling the heat radiating from him, Yuqing asked, “What did I even say to warrant such a fierce reaction?”

Ignoring him, Zhou Xiao burrowed headlong into Yuqing’s chest. “I don’t care. Say what you will. You are sick; I will manage on my own, pay me no mind.”

Watching his hand slip beneath the quilt while he nipped at his earlobe like a pup, Yuqing let out a soft, helpless laugh. “Is all well at the Chamber?”

Zhou Xiao grunted, his hands never pausing. “All is well.”

“Did you miss me at the port today?”

“To death…” The question struck right at Master Zhou’s heartstrings. Whispering a plea, he murmured, “I’m not afraid of catching it. Turn around and let me kiss you, won’t you? My sweet Qingqing…”

“Just a kiss?”

Zhou Xiao naturally craved more, but Yuqing was ill.

Yet Yuqing had always embraced his role as a wife, indulging his husband as custom decreed. Leaning close to Zhou Xiao’s ear, he murmured softly, “The Western doctor said today that breaking into a sweat would do me good.”

“Yet I slept the entire afternoon without breaking a single drop of sweat. What should we do, Zezhi?”