act31side

Please keep working, by all means. I'll go get you a glass of water.

Mallow-lush the seventh month, the ninth bid weaving winter clothes. Here comes spring to bring the sun, and warbling of orioles...

Nine! was time to lay the garden out, and ten! to reap the joy of harvest gains. Plant your Millets lest Year end, with hemp and beans and all the grains...

'Mallow-lush the seventh month, the ninth bid weaving winter clothes.'

Winter comes early in Dahuang. We need to ready ourselves some proper clothes soon.

My dear sister, should I make you a set of new clothes?

I wouldn't need it...

I've developed a new weaving method, which yields satins that are light, durable, and colorful.

I have a new design thought out, and I'm certain it will look perfect on you.

Eh, whatever floats your boat...

Shu...

Is this how <i>man</i> lives?

It does seem... rather pleasant.

Yes.

You've truly lived now.

My good gentleman, I know by heart the wisdom of commerce that you've taught me, but there remains one thing that I do not understand.

All things under Heaven are fleeting and indistinct. How should I appraise them?

Haha...

Take a look. How much is the jade pendant I'm wearing worth?

I know this pendant. It is very common and worth at most two taels of silver.

But this pendant was left to me by my mother. I have been carrying it around for as long as I can remember. To me, it is priceless.

In the end, appraisal means appraising the human heart.

...I shall remember.

It's almost summer... Just the season for Jiangnan lychees.

The climate is dry up north. The lychees there are hardly sweet, and simply don't compare to the lychees back home.

I thought I would go back home and open a trade route for selling the southern lychees up north, only for there to be a river standing in my way, stopping me from ever going back.

It's a shame that this rain came at a terrible time.

It will be summer in two days. Once your body warms up, we will hire a boat to cross the river.

Forget it... I know in my heart that this is the end of the road.

Why must man always go against Heaven...?

How old are you this year?

Ages are not very meaningful to my kind.

But if we must, I will be exactly fifty, come Xiaoshu.

I can tell you are not quite the same as mere mortals... I envy your long life. Still, now that I consider it, such a long life would be full of hardship.

No matter what you are, I am eighty-three. You have followed me for so long. It certainly wouldn't be a bad deal for you, if I called you my adopted son.

Indeed, I was fortunate to have met you and seen the boundless sights these lands have to offer.

Fate brought us together. I have nothing much to give you. Aside from that worthless business, this one mantra is all I have.

All under Heaven live for profit, and die for profit.

I have been reciting this mantra from the day I began studying business, and it helped me triumph over many rivals.

But if everything under Heaven could really be summed up with just the word 'profit', this might just be a rather boring place.

I don't have much time left and can't walk much farther. If you truly have such a long life ahead of you, then go and see for me.

Walk this great land. Go and see for me whether there is really some kind of 'great windfall' that profits all under Heaven.

If you truly do find it...

I will remember...

I will go and see.