The Port's First Seal

(On days with no updates, I'm busy fighting Su He Yi.)

[Upcoming: A Bamboo-Carving Shop in Jiangnan]

[Regularly rereading and polishing earlier chapters every week. The first volume will be free until completion, then go VIP.]

For a hundred years, the brokers at Quanzhou Harbor have profited from every deal.

That lasted until an orphan girl with only three coins to her name set up a little table on the docks.

In her previous life, Ji Lingshu was a notary.

In this life, with her hands to verify contracts and her eyes to spot fakes, she gives every merchant who bypasses the brokers a written record of their transaction.

She pursues unpaid debts and exposes forged contracts.

She has lost her entire family fortune, and nearly lost her life at sea.

But she has never once considered changing the rules she set for herself.

Before long, everyone at Quanzhou Harbor knows:

Ji Lingshu's seal is more binding than the brokers' contracts.

*

At first, Pei Xingxu only wanted to buy that little table for twenty taels.

The deal fell through, but he ended up getting caught up in her life instead.

She investigates his contracts without regard for their friendship.

He takes her out to sea without asking what it might cost him.

The two sharpest people around somehow learn to take a loss for each other.

Years later, merchant ships fill Quanzhou Harbor.

Her seal travels the sea routes, reaching every distant place she has never been.

Ming Dynasty commerce · Rags-to-riches · Two formidable leads, one-on-one romance · Happy ending

Theme: Build trust through contracts and a business through trust, so justice never has to depend on personal favors.