Golden Curtain Terrace (III) — The Bondservant Cui Wei

After counting, most of the women chose to stay, and Zhou Yao was willing to let them. After all, depending on others meant being beholden to them, and these women were deeply grateful for her kindness.

Zhou Yao had the steward prepare brush, ink, paper, and an inkstone, then summoned a servant boy to grind ink in the study.

Once the contract documents were drawn up, Zhou Yao called the remaining women over. They waited outside the folding screen while she called them up one by one according to the names on their deeds of sale.

They exchanged their deeds for contracts, which included all the terms Zhou Yao had promised, in duplicate.

Some of the women were illiterate and couldn't write their own names, so they helped each other by translating and explaining.

By the time everyone had signed and affixed their fingerprints, the sky had darkened.

The city gates were shut by then, so Zhou Yao and the women lodged outside the city for the night.

That night, the bright moon hung high. Unable to sleep, Zhou Yao wandered the back courtyard of the estate. A small water channel ran through the rear garden, its beauty enhanced by jade decorations, and the shimmering reflections on the water caught her attention.

If colored glass could be processed and installed on windows like shells, wouldn't it replace the drawbacks of paper windows—poor light transmission and easy privacy leaks?

Lost in thought, Zhou Yao heard leaves rustling in the bushes behind her. "Come out."

The person who emerged was Cui Wei. Seeing it was her, Zhou Yao gave her a friendly smile.

"Today, I must thank you, miss, for granting me my freedom. Had I known your status was so exalted that day, I would never have spoken as I did." Cui Wei's delicate brows knitted in worry. "If I said anything improper, I beg your forgiveness..."

Cui Wei started to kneel, but Zhou Yao quickly pulled her up and brought her to her side.

"You're here now; why bring up such things? Since you've regained your freedom, there's no need to mention the past anymore."

Cui Wei seemed ill at ease beside Zhou Yao. "I am but a lowly person; how could I presume to sit as an equal with you?"

"It's fine." Zhou Yao noticed her restlessness and said, "Very well. If you're uncomfortable, then let it be."

Cui Wei immediately stood up. "You saved me from the depths of misery; I shall repay you with the utmost gratitude. If you can trust me, I will give my all and spare no effort, even through fire and water."

"From the way you speak..." Zhou Yao asked, "Have you studied before?"

"When my family was still prosperous in my youth, I studied a bit. We even had a private tutor at home," Cui Wei replied.

"I noticed your household registration lists you as a native of Chang'an. What did your family do before?"

"My father was a minor official below the rank of a hundred piculs. After our family was stripped of property, I ended up at Qingyun Terrace."

Below a hundred piculs? Zhou Yao began to form a suspicion. She looked up, studying her carefully, taking in her features. "Are you familiar with the rules of the palace?"

"I have studied them."

Cui Wei's eyes glistened with a watery sheen, and Zhou Yao's heart softened at the sight.

She turned her head, thinking for a moment. "If that's the case, from now on you'll work directly under me."

"But remember this: keep your lips sealed and your hands clean."

Cui Wei smiled softly. "I understand. I thank you for your guidance, miss."

"Tomorrow, you'll follow me into the city. I'll show you the ropes," Zhou Yao said, gazing at the moonlight as she considered.

From the women she had freed, some chose to return home—those who had been sold by traffickers received ample copper coins to cover their journey; some who had been sold by their brothers to Qingyun Terrace returned home out of sentiment while others chose to stay; and for those who had no family left, Zhou Yao proactively offered to let them remain.

The moment sunlight filtered through the window, Zhou Yao was already up, washing and dressing before her vanity.

She had instructed the steward the day before to prepare the carriage in advance. Early that morning, Zhou Yao and Cui Wei set off for Golden Curtain Terrace; the other women were to report there before the fifth day of the month.

In the carriage, Cui Wei sat near the front, and Zhou Yao quickly noticed the coarse cotton dress Cui Wei wore. After the fall of Qingyun Terrace, its assets had been confiscated by the treasury; these women likely had no money to their names.

"When you have spare time, take the others to the fabric shop and pick out materials you like. As for jewelry, I'll have the household servants send some over in the coming days."

Zhou Yao lifted the carriage curtain to look at the view outside, remarking with studied casualness, "Up ahead is Golden Curtain Terrace. From now on, our main business will be selling colored glass, jade, ceramics, and the like."

Cui Wei was stunned speechless at the sight of the storefront. When Zhou Yao had mentioned it before, she'd only said it was a small shop—she'd never said that small shop was Golden Curtain Terrace!

She had lived in Chang'an for decades. Whenever she passed by Golden Curtain Terrace, she'd never dared to steal a second glance inside. And now, she was going to live here?

As they walked in, a guard from the previous day handed Zhou Yao a ledger listing the skills and strengths of the servants at Golden Curtain Terrace for her review.

Zhou Yao glanced at Cui Wei following behind her, thought for a moment, and dismissed the guard.

"Do you know how to manage accounts?" Zhou Yao asked once they reached the front hall and sat down.

"I've studied it some, but I've never actually managed one," Cui Wei replied.

Zhou Yao nodded, then handed the ledger and a token of authority to Cui Wei.

"I'm putting these servants of Golden Curtain Terrace under your management. Are you willing?" Zhou Yao observed Cui Wei's expression. "Try it for a few days. If it doesn't work out, I'll make other arrangements."

Cui Wei nodded and headed to the back courtyard shortly after.

Zhou Yao examined the colored glass she'd brought over the previous day and ordered the guards to remove all the paper window panes and replace them with the glass.

The guards worked quickly, and it wasn't long before Golden Curtain Terrace was in a state of cheerful disarray. Zhou Yao didn't mind; she studied the deed map of the property, familiarizing herself with its layout.

It took her several hours just to sketch out a rough plan.

Golden Curtain Terrace roughly had the layout of five halls. Excluding the courtyard for the servants' quarters, Zhou Yao felt the batch of colored glass tiles she'd fired wouldn't be enough.

While her business expenses were currently underwritten by Qi Yanhan's family fortune, that was borrowed money, after all—it would have to be repaid eventually.

After making a full circuit of Golden Curtain Terrace, Zhou Yao made a momentous decision!

She would open only the front hall for business for now; the other courtyards would remain closed to the public.

The night before, the moment Zhou Yao had thought of using glass and shells for windows, she'd sent a letter to Qi Yanhan—shells, after all, were not easy to find in the city of Chang'an.

Shells weren't as transparent as glass, so she planned to pair them with the varying degrees of natural light in the different courtyards.

She first had the guards replace the paper windows of the front hall with glass panes, and then brought in skilled craftsmen to assist. Within half a day, all the windows on the fifth floor had been swapped out.

After the paper windows were replaced, Zhou Yao had a carpenter craft a lattice frame for the windows.

A few days later, once the frame was finished, she installed a mix of thin translucent tiles and colored glass. The colors of the glass filtered through the sunlight, making the interior of Golden Curtain Terrace even brighter. And when one leaned in to view the street outside, there was no need to open a separate window as one would elsewhere.

Zhou Yao was quite pleased with this masterpiece. To speed up the opening of the back courtyards, she instructed the gardener to purchase some seedlings, and ordered workers to dig water channels and ponds in the rear gardens for raising fish and planting flowers—leaving Cui Wei and Qing'er running in circles for days.

After giving these orders, Zhou Yao immediately rode to the Nine Kilns. To her surprise, she encountered an old acquaintance that day.

It was Chen Yuwen, who hadn't been seen in a long while.

He still wore that idle, carefree air, as if nothing in the world truly concerned him.

"I escorted my little sister back to our hometown a few days ago. I came back to Chang'an today and figured I'd visit the Nine Kilns. Never expected to run into you here."

She looked at him standing in his silk robes on the unpaved, muddy ground, and couldn't help but laugh. "Young master, after a trip back home, have you forgotten how precious silk is?"

Chen Yuwen raised an eyebrow, unconcerned, leaning lazily against a pillar.

At the sight, Zhou Yao couldn't help but recall when she'd first met him—those days when he'd buy coarse grain at the market every couple of days, dressed in patched-up hemp clothes, looking so drab and dusty; he'd been a ragged, haughty little stray cat. A single trip home had changed his fortunes as if he were a different person.

"Mind the silk—it might snag," Zhou Yao warned.

"Since you're back, come help me out." Zhou Yao beckoned him to lend a hand. If the two of them worked together, they could increase the output of colored glass.

After that first batch of glass, she'd privately experimented many more times. A pass rate of less than fifty percent, combined with the exorbitant and hard-to-source raw materials, gave her a splitting headache.

Colored glass required extremely high firing temperatures. The Nine Kilns could just barely meet that requirement, but only if someone stayed by the kiln at all times.

She didn't trust anyone else with that task, and she still had plenty of unfinished business besides.

Chen Yuwen nodded and agreed readily. He was hardly short on money or time; if he didn't love the firing process itself, he'd never have traveled all the way from Luoyang to Chang'an to apprentice under a master.

As they talked, Chen Yuwen went into the back room—likely to change clothes. His skin was delicate, and silk did suit him, Zhou Yao mused.

Working in tandem, they made rapid progress. Before long, they'd completed the preparatory work for the top three workshops. Since Zhou Yao needed glass for windows, the priority this time was ensuring the vividness of the colors and the clarity of the glass.

Both of them knew the steps by heart. By the time everything was handled, another half month had passed. During that time, the two ate and slept at the Nine Kilns, with Zhou Yao mostly shuttling back and forth between the kiln and Golden Curtain Terrace, busy from dawn to dusk—but the results were remarkable.

The final firing of the glass was extremely intricate, so Chen Yuwen took the initiative to handle it, for which Zhou Yao was deeply grateful.

Chen Yuwen's firing technique was truly masterful—far superior to Zhou Yao's own. This batch of glass was more than a hundred times better than the previous ones. Once the glass had thoroughly cooled, she picked it up to admire it and found it rivaled even the tributes from the Western Regions.

This batch produced far more usable pieces than Zhou Yao's last attempt. The rejects were either misshapen or had a bubble or two. Rather than discarding them, Zhou Yao picked up her polishing tools and reworked them.

Within a single morning, she turned them into bracelet after bracelet. The glass was clear, with a warm, jade-like luster—even she adored them.

The only drawback was that glass was fragile; cracks or knocks could shatter it far more easily than jade.

She'd produced a fair amount of glass this time, and Zhou Yao thought she might as well give some away as gifts to smooth relations. Glass was valuable enough to be a fitting gesture.