People always use the darkest thoughts to speculate about others’ intentions. The anxious mood of worrying about gains and losses caused Yun Ye to lose his natural peace of mind. When we consider something extremely important, we feel the whole world is preparing to snatch it away.

A beggar always worries about the half piece of dry flatbread in his broken bowl. A wealthy man always worries about the copper coins buried in his pigsty. Though the value between these two differs, their state of mind is the same.

The academy wasn’t yet as important in the Great Tang as Yun Ye imagined. In the eyes of the Tang ruler and ministers, the academy was actually a seedling that could grow into a towering tree. At least they would think that in their generation, there was no need to overly consider the academy’s value, because an academy with only massive investment but no output couldn’t provide them with necessary help and naturally couldn’t pose a threat.

Having figured this out, Yun Ye resolved to devote himself wholeheartedly to Her Majesty the Empress’s menu. But what exactly should he make?

Yun Ye indeed had, as the Emperor thought, an extremely favorable impression of the Empress.

Women were strange. Some gave people a warm feeling like home—for example, Xinyue. Some gave people an affectionate feeling like a mother—for example, Zhangsun. As for others, the mere thought of them inspired the urge to beat them—for example, Li Anlan.

Upon encountering the first type of woman, if one didn’t quickly marry her and hide her away at home, he was definitely a fool. The second type of woman needed only to be respected in one’s heart. Though one must be at her beck and call, keeping far away was not a bad choice. We all keep our mothers in our hearts. Not seeing them for a long time, we miss them terribly. But once together every day, you discover you want to leave again. We obtain life and strength from our mothers. It is precisely this strength that makes us hope to break through our mothers’ constraints and seek our own world.

This was nature’s choice for life. Mother beasts would drive their young away from their sides after they grew up, acting quite ruthlessly. Behind this seemingly cold behavior was precisely the greatest part of maternal love.

We’ve praised countless maternal loves, but the most poignantly beautiful is always the longing after separation.

Yun Ye wanted to stay far away from Zhangsun—occasionally reminiscing would be enough. If the number of reminiscences was once a year, that would be best. He really couldn’t stand Zhangsun chasing after him asking why he only gave her the fish head instead of the delicious fish meat. A large fish nearly two feet long—he gave only the head with two inches of body attached, while everything else went to the cooks to fry and eat in the evening.

Watching the plump fish meat being carried away by the cooks with profuse thanks, Zhangsun exploded. Her elegant eyebrows shot upward. This empress eats worse than the cooks—this was her view.

Good heavens! Who eats the fish body when having silver carp and tofu casserole? In later generations’ markets, silver carp were all chopped into two sections—fish heads sold extremely expensive, while fish bodies were ridiculously cheap.

Was the kitchen a place the Empress should come? Yet she tied on an apron in a proper manner, saying she was preparing to learn some culinary skills from the Gourmet Marquis so she could show off later to her father-in-law and husband. In the whole world, only these two were qualified to have her cook for them. She’d long heard that Zhangsun made excellent porridge—the famous white fungus and lotus seed soup. Hearing her boast about adding two or three spoonfuls of sugar each time, Yun Ye’s face twitched and his fists clenched. A fist-sized bowl with two or three spoonfuls of sugar—was she drinking porridge or eating sugar? Li’er, a high blood pressure patient, could he afford to be harmed by one or two taels of white sugar every day? Who knew if this was nourishing the body or harming it? Though Li’er was the eternal emperor, in Yun Ye’s eyes at this moment he was no different from Wu Dalang—just missing Ximen Qing and Madam Wang.

As soon as she arrived, only Yun Ye could remain standing in the kitchen. The other servants and cooks only knew to kneel on the ground trembling. Palace attendants from the palace replaced those plague chickens frightened out of their wits. Though Li Tai and Li Ke disliked entering the kitchen, since their mother had entered, the brothers could only follow.

“Your Majesty, you should really go stroll around the academy, look at the butterfly specimens the students captured, then look at the new amber they made with pine resin. If that won’t do, going to study the dragon skull would also be a good choice.”

After Zhangsun criticized the Yun family kitchen as utterly worthless, Yun Ye only wanted to send Zhangsun away.

Why were iron pots so black? Could such dirty pots cook delicious food?

Why use silver for spoons? Wastrel!

Good linen torn into small pieces—wasteful! Didn’t know the hardship of farm families weaving cloth. She exhausted her capacity for bitter sarcasm.

“What does a greenhorn like you know? This empress farms, raises silkworms, weaves cloth, manages all the large and small affairs in the palace—which hasn’t received praise from all under heaven? Only your chaotic Yun household, with servants eating and stuffing themselves all day, each one fattened like a pig, eating but not working. You’ve raised a horse that now no one can tell whether it’s a pig or horse, yet you still have the face to drive this empress out.”

Last year, he’d seen Zhangsun farm. The Crown Prince led the ox, the Emperor held the plow in the middle, and Zhangsun scattered seeds behind. The family of three planted half an acre of land all morning. Yun Ye had accidentally fallen asleep and been heavily kicked by Old Niu. Even now thinking about it still hurt.

If farming families farmed like their whole family, they’d have starved to death long ago. Could they have kept their lives to provide opportunities for exploitation? They raised a total of one basket of silkworms and called all the noble ladies to come observe. His own grandmother was fortunate enough to see Her Majesty the Empress’s silkworms. She said they were each white and plump, not a single weak one visible, as if picked from tens of thousands of silkworms. The old mistress said that worthy indeed of Her Majesty the Empress—the condition of the silkworms she raised was something she, who had raised silkworms all her life, could never compare to.

After hearing grandmother’s words, an image had already appeared in Yun Ye’s mind of Her Majesty the Empress holding a ruler, measuring silkworms back and forth, tossing each well-measured one into her basket.

When he shared his concerns with grandmother, he received a slap and was told not to spread this matter outside but to swallow it down.

Pregnant people seemed to become delicate. After peeling a scallion down to its core, Zhangsun stopped her destruction. Looking at the busy Li Tai, her eyes were full of deep love. She extended an arm for Li Tai to help her up, saying she couldn’t bear sitting long and needed to stroll in the Yun family greenhouse to stretch her legs.

“Ye Zi, I also want to bring my mother to live at the academy for a while. Can you also make her a delicious meal? I didn’t win prize money this year and can’t give you one string of cash. Next year, even if I risk my life, I’ll win the prize money and pay you back then. Is that acceptable?”

Seeing their maternal compassion and filial devotion, Li Ke really couldn’t bear it anymore. Thinking of his mother alone in the deep palace raising only his five-year-old younger brother Li An, he couldn’t help but request Yun Ye. Wanting Yun Ye to cook—unless he was willing, otherwise having others say so was an insult to Yun Ye.

“Of all virtues, filial piety is foremost. This matter can naturally be done. As long as you can persuade your father emperor to agree to let your mother leave the palace to come to the academy, I can let you owe this one string of cash first and make a table full of dishes for your mother. But according to the principle of fairness, you need to repay me two strings, and this matter can happen once but not twice.”

Such loving matters were what Yun Ye most liked to do. As long as he could help them, Yun Ye didn’t mind making one more meal. If the imperial family only had this kind of competition, if all Li’er’s children issued such invitations, Yun Ye would agree. Children loving their mothers was natural and right.

One could see that having obtained this promise, Li Ke’s entire being clearly became excited. Yun Ye hadn’t given him the cold shoulder because he wasn’t the Empress’s son. As for repaying Yun Ye two strings of cash, he was full of confidence in himself. As long as his mother no longer furrowed her brows, he was willing to exchange anything.

From a very young age, he knew his mother was different from other consorts. Because his father had been the previous dynasty’s emperor, his mother had always been cautious and careful in the palace. Even those consorts of lower rank than his mother, she wouldn’t easily offend. Seeing everyone in the palace, she always smiled at them. He’d never seen his mother angry. This wasn’t a good thing. Last time listening to Master Sun lecture, joy, anger, sorrow, and happiness were things people were born with—indispensable, including anger. Normal people needed these emotions to appear alternately. As long as it wasn’t frequent, it was a good thing. Releasing displeasure from the heart through anger was actually a form of self-protection. Human health wasn’t only physical.

Watching Li Ke truly become happy, Yun Ye pursed his lips. Poor imperial family—they couldn’t even find the simplest happiness. What was the point of living?

“Why isn’t there that kind of chicken wrapped in mud and roasted like last time?”

A whole table of dishes, reasonably matched and nutritious. Fish head and tofu soup, soybeans braised with pig’s trotters, lotus root braised beef, chicken breast stir-fried with wood ear mushrooms. He’d specially made a dish of spicy shredded pig ear—that was Yun Ye’s favorite. Chewy yet crispy when eaten, it was an indispensable dish when Yun Ye drank wine.

He’d stir-fried a plate of hot and sour shredded potatoes. These had been bestowed by the Emperor on the Yun family last year. Other families treated them as treasures to be enshrined, but only the Yun family ate them. Yun Ye was very clear about potato yields. In less than ten years, this thing would be everywhere in the Great Tang. Simple to grow, all the wealthy households in Chang’an had been given gifts and each household was said to be planting them. Planting potatoes was like planting gold—they even sent household guards to protect them day and night. This was still because Yun Ye had told Li’er this thing was his gift to the common people of the Great Tang. As for other people, they weren’t in this category.

So the Yun family wasn’t lacking as one household planting them. When the time came, they’d just eat the ready-made ones.

A table full of colorful dishes made one’s mouth water just looking at them. Yun Ye washed his hands and prepared to sit in the chair to start eating. Her Majesty the Empress spoke: “This was exchanged by Qing Que with one string of cash. We three—mother and sons—eating naturally has no problem. What are you coming up for? Have you ever heard of a cook sitting at the dining table in a restaurant? Can’t even produce a mud-roasted chicken, yet you still have the face to mooch food and drink?”

One sentence choked Yun Ye until his eyes rolled back. He concluded that bitter sarcasm was Zhangsun’s true nature.

At the academy, Zhangsun seemed to have more of a woman’s flavor and less of an empress’s dignity. Perhaps it was related to pretending to be magnanimous and virtuous for years on end while being stifled to the extreme. Once there was a place that allowed her to cast off these disguises, a woman’s true nature would intensify even more in its display. Moreover, she was pregnant, with female hormones surging. Adding these factors together, it would be strange if Yun Ye had good days.

No matter. As a cook, naturally there were cook’s ways of eating. Yun Ye found a huge bowl, filled it completely with rice, then picked the best dishes from the table to cover the large bowl. Finally, he scooped out a pig’s trotter and placed it on the overflowing bowl. Under Li Ke’s immediately envious gaze, he floated away.