Whenever Yun Ye returned home, his mood would immediately improve. Old Grandmother increasingly resembled a landlady, and Aunt seemed to have transformed into a young maiden, often styling her hair in innocent, girlish arrangements and parading through the streets. Even after being scolded by Grandmother several times, she showed no remorse.

Yun Ye knew Aunt hoped her age would return to her maiden years, so she could find a truly suitable husband rather than that bastard who beat her whenever he drank.

To completely settle Aunt’s affairs, Yun Ye specifically gave that drunkard ten strings of cash to go to the county yamen and process a divorce. The drunkard, clutching the money, was so delighted he forgot everything—even ignoring the coldness in Yun Ye’s eyes.

Aunt had lived in that household for exactly one year, suffering for one year. One whipping per day meant three hundred and sixty lashes. Thirty lashes per month—these had to be returned. Yun Ye gave the drunkard a choice: either take ten strings of cash and receive the lashes, or leave empty-handed. As expected, the drunkard chose to take the money and endure the whipping. Thirty lashes left the drunkard covered in wounds, crying and howling like a ghost, yet he wouldn’t release his grip on the money pouch.

When Aunt learned Yun Ye was punishing the drunkard, she actually stopped Yun Ye from continuing the beating. With a grim face, she summoned a physician to treat the drunkard’s injuries, then gave the old drunkard over ten more strings of cash, telling him to rent a small shop and live properly.

The drunkard was also a ruthless person. He picked up a wooden rod and smashed his own right hand with one blow, saying to Aunt that it was this hand that committed the sins, and he would absolutely never hit women again. After speaking, he wouldn’t even let the physician treat his injury and left without looking back, carrying a large bag of copper coins.

From that time on, whenever Aunt saw Yiniang embroidering her wedding dress, she would feel melancholy. Sometimes she even helped Yiniang embroider. The aunt and niece would sit in the sunlight, stitching the wedding dress stitch by stitch, deeply moving Yun Ye. Whenever he was moved, the gold in his purse would diminish.

All the gold nuggets Aunt wheedled from Yun Ye were sent to goldsmiths to be pressed into gold thread. Who knew how many wedding dresses needed embroidering? This time they’d collected quite a lot of gold. According to the Yun household’s custom, they kept twenty percent of the chest of gold sent to Li Er—all pure red gold. Grandmother had all the large gold pieces recast and stamped with the Yun family mark—a flowing cloud pattern that looked quite handsome.

Thirty-six gleaming gold ingots specially made by the Yun household—Yun Ye wanted to take two pieces to weigh down his long-empty purse, but Grandmother slapped his hand, saying these were the betrothal gifts for marrying Xinyue and he mustn’t squander them.

She casually tossed over a handful of gold leaves, telling Yun Ye to spend frugally. Yun Ye actually had nowhere he needed to spend money. Right outside the gate was the marketplace, which had grown increasingly lively. Ever since He Shao transported the large livestock from the grasslands to sell here, the Yun family estate had become a famous livestock distribution center within dozens of li. Chang’an’s nobles who needed oxen to pull their carriages would also come to the Yun family estate to select animals.

Having a bagful of money with nowhere to spend it was also a kind of suffering. Standing outside the main gate watching the endless stream of people, those tenant farmers who were completely satisfied buying a large packet of malt candy for a few wen made Yun Ye quite envious.

“Xiao Ya, would you like brother to take you to buy candy?” Yun Ye asked Xiao Ya following behind him.

“No way. What’s so good about malt candy? The Xu family’s cheese in Chang’an is delicious. I want the kind with ice.” Xiao Ya’s teeth had finally all grown in, so she no longer needed to cover her mouth. Her yellowish hair had also turned black now. But her habits had changed—she refused to eat malt candy from the marketplace anymore and only ate cheese from Chang’an.

Yun Ye felt somewhat disappointed. Xiao Ya refused to ride on brother’s shoulders anymore, claiming it lacked the bearing of a proper young lady. Not just Xiao Ya—even Xiao Dong, Xiao Xi, and Xiao Nan refused to fool around with brother anymore. Only Xiao Bei still stupidly pestered brother endlessly, loving most to sit in brother’s lap watching Xiao Ya get angry.

Brothers were the most reliable. Wang Cai nudged with his head to signal not to forget about him. Yun Ye proudly raised his eyebrows at those delicate young ladies who wouldn’t go browse the country marketplace with him. The two brothers plunged into the crowd and went with the flow.

Wang Cai was a regular customer at the marketplace. The tenant farmers selling goods had now recognized Wang Cai’s status as a customer. Whenever his big head extended over, vegetable vendors would place fresh green baby bok choy by Wang Cai’s mouth, letting him taste whether it was fresh.

After chewing a stalk of bok choy, perhaps finding the taste wrong, he turned his mouth twice and spat it out. Immediately busybodies began scorning the vegetable seller, saying using inferior goods to deceive Wang Cai had been exposed—even deceiving a horse meant you weren’t a good person, and so on.

The stall owner anxiously broke into a sweat. Seeing everyone didn’t believe his bok choy was good bok choy, he tore off a stalk and stuffed it in his mouth, eating with relish and shaking his head in enjoyment. Opening his mouth to the crowd, he said it was good bok choy—Wang Cai was just tired of eating it; it wasn’t that his bok choy was bad.

Wang Cai never had the habit of eating for free. Though he’d eaten and spat out the bok choy, he still stretched his neck waiting for the stall owner to take money from his purse. The stall owner irritably pushed Wang Cai’s big head away—who cared about the money for one stalk of bok choy?

Yun Ye hadn’t seen wrong. He spotted sugarcane, now called sugar stalks—five wen per stalk, expensively priced. Surrounding it were children with their hands in their mouths, staring blankly at the sugar stalks, knowing that thing was delicious but having no money to buy it, so they could only look.

Wang Cai’s big head squeezed in. He smelled the scent of sugar but didn’t see where the sugar he recognized was. While puzzled, the children watching the excitement pointed at the purple sugar stalks, encouraging Wang Cai to buy some.

The sugarcane vendor was somewhat arrogant, holding a peeling knife and ignoring Wang Cai. He peeled the skin off a sugarcane stalk, exposing the white, tender sugarcane core, and bit into it with great display, making those children drool with longing.

Wang Cai also drooled, stretching his neck waiting for the vendor to peel sugarcane for him. This vendor was clearly new and didn’t know Master Wang Cai’s temperament. After waiting a while without any sugarcane being offered, he got angry and kicked the sugarcane stalks all over the ground, urging the vendor to peel sugarcane for him.

The vendor panicked and pulled out a sugarcane stalk, preparing to strike Wang Cai. Yun Ye was watching the fun when, seeing Wang Cai about to suffer a loss, he prepared to step forward and intervene. Who knew before he could walk to the front, a butcher selling meat nearby grabbed the sugarcane in the vendor’s hand and said fiercely: “How the hell do you do business? A customer came to your door waiting for you to peel sugar stalks, and you’re about to strike the customer? The Yun family estate doesn’t do business your way.”

The vendor was stunned, looking at the several children around and that fat horse constantly sniffing at the sugarcane, not discovering where the customer was. Just as he was about to argue, the butcher snatched away his knife and in a few moves peeled one clean, placing it by Wang Cai’s mouth. Seeing Wang Cai continuously gnawing the sugarcane, he then pulled five wen from the purse under Wang Cai’s neck and tossed it to the vendor with a face full of disdain.

The children, seeing Wang Cai had sugarcane, surged forward. Wang Cai ate one end while the children ate the other—very harmonious. When the sugarcane was finished, Wang Cai just stood there with half-closed eyes, waiting for the children to scratch his itches. Spring was coming and he’d be shedding his coat soon—his body was very itchy.

Seeing this, Yun Ye didn’t disturb Wang Cai’s enjoyment of his lordly treatment and wandered around the marketplace on his own. There were already tiger-shaped cloth pillows, stuffed full of buckwheat hulls. Wealthy families all used jade pillows, but Yun Ye had long since thrown that thing far away. At night it made his head ache from the hardness, and if you lay down suddenly, it could kill someone. After being knocked several times, Yun Ye wouldn’t use that thing if you beat him to death.

He presented the soft pillow to Grandmother, but who knew the old lady actually couldn’t get used to sleeping on it, saying it was so soft it was like not having a pillow at all, and her neck hurt after sleeping one night. Now with this buckwheat hull pillow, Grandmother would definitely like it. He had the old woman selling tiger pillows send the items home, then find the steward for payment. Then others helped the old woman pack up her stall, and two large baskets of cloth tigers were sent home.

What was sent home wasn’t just cloth tigers, but also a basket of clay dolls, each one charmingly naive-looking and very festive. Displaying a few in the study would immediately raise its class several levels.

After Wang Cai finished enjoying the children’s service, he came before Yun Ye, who had just bought a large piece of rainbow cloth—woven with rope in five colors that attracted love. He casually draped it over Wang Cai.

Ahead, people were building a house. This entire area belonged to the Yun family. Besides their own household, there shouldn’t be anyone else building houses. Walking closer for a look, it was indeed his own steward supervising work.

“They’re all neighbors from the village—no need to supervise. Don’t you know the temperament of your own tenant farmers? Go back. Let the neighbors build it themselves. You don’t understand anyway. Don’t dampen the neighbors’ hearts.”

“Marquis, this humble one isn’t here to supervise work, but to deliver soup to the tenant farmers. Old Grandmother had the kitchen simmer bone broth and ordered this humble one to deliver it. Old Grandmother said that in spring people have many tasks—planting fields, raising livestock, and now building houses too. Drinking more bone broth will nourish their bodies.”

Sure enough, those tenant farmers covered in mud were each holding a large bowl drinking soup. The lucky ones even pulled out a large bone to gnaw on.

Yun Ye loved this era’s social morality. If there were someone supervising, there might still be a few slackers, but without supervision, everyone would work themselves to death. They only needed the master family’s trust, and that was enough.

When the Yun family collected rent, they never used large measures or scales. As long as you said your family’s rent had been delivered and the amount was sufficient, everyone in the Yun household from Old Grandmother to the accountant would never doubt it and just store it away. Every year, Grandmother calculated the Yun family’s grain by bins—one bin, two bins—never bothering about losses of a few jin of grain. Of course, the grain had never come up short.

This was Grandmother’s most proud domain. Within dozens of li, the Yun family was famously known as a benevolent household. A famous example of being good neighbors occurred at the Yun family.

Because the Yun family’s back wall was built of bricks, quite a few newly arrived households utilized one wall of the Yun family when building houses. This wasn’t allowed. The Yun family was an official household, and there were considerations about who they could be neighbors with. Such brazen behavior wouldn’t do. The authorities came to have the farmers tear down their houses, requiring they build two chi away from the Yun family. The farmers’ newly built houses faced the danger of demolition—this was a great disaster.

The farmers at their wit’s end found Old Grandmother of the Yun family and tearfully pleaded, saying they truly had no money to build houses, which was why they thought to utilize the Yun family’s back wall. They begged Old Grandmother to show mercy and not have the authorities tear down their homes.

Old Grandmother said the authorities’ decision wasn’t wrong. The status difference was too great. In this world, you lived according to status, so using the Yun family’s back wall wouldn’t do. Rules had to be maintained. Just when the farmers were most desperate, Old Grandmother added that they couldn’t afford to build walls, but the Yun family had no problem with it. She had the steward build another wall inside the back wall, yielding a full three chi. Now this small alley was a famous site of the Yun family estate. Whenever neighbors discovered someone questioning the Yun family’s character, they’d drag them to Three Chi Alley and open their eyes.

Sometimes a good reputation is the strongest defense. Grandmother’s defense was comparable to bronze walls and iron ramparts. From his heart, Yun Ye admired Grandmother’s wisdom with complete reverence.