Ning Chen had the red packets ready well in advance. That one didn't stump him.

"Come on, come on... Everybody gets one!"

He'd prepared one for every person there.

Feng Qizheng opened his, took a look and made a face. "Only a hundred taels? That's so cheap!"

Ning Chen said irritably, "If you don't want it, give it back. A hundred taels, and you're complaining... Old Feng, I think you've gotten too big for your britches."

Feng Qizheng could hardly help getting full of himself these days. As the biggest chicken head in Xuanwu City, he was truly taking in jizz by the bushel every day—no, gold by the bushel.

Ning Chen used to be the richest of them. Now the richest was that big dope, Feng Qizheng.

Ning Chen had once thought he had more silver than he could spend in several lifetimes.

But from the moment he'd decided to save the Great Xuan, all that silver—enough for several lifetimes—had been spent. Army supplies, grain and fodder—all of it took money, and these days more was going out than coming in.

"Damn... Talk about playing favorites. Why does Miss Xiao get so much?"

Feng Qizheng had noticed Xiao Yanxi staring blankly at her red packet and leaned over for a look. She wasn't holding one silver note but a whole stack, every one of them worth a hundred thousand taels.

Ning Chen rolled his eyes at him. "Little Xixi's isn't a red packet, it's a debt... Don't you know how much intelligence costs?"

He'd promised Xiao Yanxi he would give the Great Beginning Pavilion a sum of silver before the New Year.

Spying, buying information—it all burned through money.

If he didn't get her some silver soon, she probably wouldn't be able to hold out, and the intelligence network would fall apart.

Ning Chen smiled. "The code word's on the back. Put it away, quick, before Old Feng steals it off you."

A silver note is basically a certificate of deposit, not a check... Holding one doesn't mean you can spend it like silver.

You have to take it…