“The sun rises and sets three hundred and sixty times, cycling endlessly from the beginning. Vegetation withers and flourishes through four seasons, one year has twelve full moons.” This was the simplest calendar verse. Before it, all the prosperity and decline, withering and flourishing of the world were merely changes of sun and moon.

The Great Tang entered the sixth year of Zhenguan amid favorable weather and abundant harvests. On the grasslands, flashing blades and swords never ceased day and night. Xueyantuo allied with Tuyuhun and finally bared their fangs at the Western Turks. The Western Turks hastily stopped killing each other and formed a united army to deal with their former servants.

Yun Ye had been in this world for four years. The nineteen-year-old youth was already a third-rank marquis of the Great Tang—an anomaly. Dressed in crimson robes, standing among the current dynasty’s great lords, his martial bearing was in no way inferior to others. Among the aged faces, one young face appeared so glaring.

“What are you standing on tiptoe for? No manners.” Niu Jinda standing beside him pulled him back, telling him to behave properly and not stand on tiptoe with that air of looking down on everyone. Everywhere were seniors—he shouldn’t let people think he’d become so arrogant he regarded no one.

Shrinking his neck, he quickly stood properly. Old Niu had already criticized him several times today. Yun Ye didn’t want to provoke the old man and add trouble for himself.

It was just a heaven worship ceremony. In the gray vast sky, who knew which deities were waiting to attend today’s most extravagant banquet.

Li Er performed this ritual every year, but this year was somewhat special. On the offering table, there were not only the three sacrificial animals but also several round potatoes. After three years of cultivation, the imperial family had finally bred enough seeds. The official fields were all planted with this thing—reportedly enough to plant one thousand mu.

Yun Ye’s heart was joyful! Even when Hanhan at home had completely destroyed the alfalfa grass, he wasn’t angry. Xiao Dong was hugging a jar counting money again. Seeing Yun Ye arrive, he hastily hid it behind his back, lowering his head waiting for his brother’s scolding. Unexpectedly, his brother took the jar to look at it, then tossed two more silver cakes into the jar.

The falling leaves had such rhythm, even the rising dust was beautiful. Mixed in the dust, he was like a cloud-riding, fog-driving monster—specifically the Yellow Wind Monster. The detestable Chang’an city looked festive today.

All these years of bad luck were swept away. Li Anlan had finally given him a plump son, a full seven jin and six liang. From her letter, you could completely see the meritorious appearance of a hen that had laid an egg.

At the end of the letter, she even said that if Xinyue couldn’t give birth to a son, her son Li Rong could completely be adopted by Yun Ye to continue the family line. Changing his name to Yun Rong would be no problem.

With a son, all matters are complete. Now that Li Anlan had a son, naturally she would open her lion’s mouth wide and demand things righteously: weak after childbirth, she needed five thousand dan of grain to recuperate; the child’s health was poor, constantly getting sick, requiring various medicinal materials. In short, everything was measured in cartloads. He didn’t know what exactly was wrong with his son that he needed so many medicinal materials—enough to consume for two lifetimes.

The child had no biological father to make clay figurines for him and constantly cried pitifully, making people’s hearts ache. Even receiving a hundred jin of gold wouldn’t matter—she just wanted a cartload of clay figures, which must be delivered by the child’s hundredth day. On that day, she as the mother would invite all the Liao people in Lingnan she could invite and tell them that the king of the Liao people was born. Although he could only cry and drink milk now, whoever didn’t listen to the king’s commands would certainly face extremely miserable consequences.

With a newborn child, the household servants weren’t enough. The Liao people were all coarse-handed and couldn’t care for children. The Yun family servants were still the best to command. She named names, wanting the Yun family’s old servants, not those newly promoted servants. The child having no one to protect him was also a problem—thirty more suits of armor must be sent, only Mingguang armor.

Except for the armor, Old Grandmother agreed to everything. What could five thousand dan of grain be used for? Didn’t the Yun family have a steward in Weizhou? Hurry up and send it—procure it locally.

The child’s small clothes filled two whole carts. The clay figures Yun Ye pinched for a whole day were baked hard in the kiln and sent together. Liu Jinbao, in order to secure a good position, volunteered to go to Lingnan, taking with him a full six guards—all younger sons of families with no hope of inheriting the family business, who could only go to Lingnan to try their luck.

Yun San was specially sent to care for the young master, and his wife went with him. Leaving Yun Ye, this fellow showed not the slightest bit of sadness, but rather was extremely high-spirited.

“Boy, why are you sometimes like a monkey, sometimes like a fool, muttering to yourself and even grinning foolishly? Could there be some good news? Tell this old man—I’m extremely curious.”

Old Cheng stuck his head over. His position was much farther forward than Yun Ye and Old Niu’s—who knew how he had moved over. He seemed to have been watching Yun Ye for quite a while.

“Uncle Cheng, Uncle Niu, after the heaven worship, let’s go to Xinghua Ward. Your nephew will make a few small dishes, and we’ll have a good few drinks. I’m happy in my heart, but it’s not convenient to speak here.”

Old Cheng and Old Niu deeply agreed, nodded, and continued standing properly to hear Li Er’s long-winded nonsense to Heaven.

Family, state, and all under heaven—in military affairs and in sacrifices. Yun Ye believed that every time he worshipped Heaven, Li Er was sincere and reverent. He began fasting three days in advance, bathing morning and evening daily. Li Er, who was as lustful as life itself, would of course abstain from sexual relations at this time, living alone in the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests with a pure heart and few desires, eating radishes.

The enormous bronze horn sounded, its voice deep and low, circling at low altitude like crows. Every time, Li Er would stand at the highest place, spread his arms wide as if embracing all under heaven. Those bare-chested strongmen would then beat the cowhide giant drums, followed by bronze gongs, and finally the bronze horn as the finale.

Burning paper money—Yun Ye didn’t know when this started. He had specifically gone to ask the historian. Chu Suiliang sneered at Yun Ye’s question. In his view, as long as one was human, from birth one should know to burn paper for ancestors. For Yun Ye to pursue this question violated filial piety.

Not only did he despise it, but Kong Yingda, who inadvertently overheard the conversation nearby, also looked at Yun Ye sideways, as if seeing a pile of feces. In their view, filial piety was something humans should inherently possess, just like asking why people needed to grow two hands—no need to ask.

“But paper wasn’t created by a eunuch until the Eastern Han Dynasty. Does this mean that before this, we burned bamboo slips? And before that, we burned turtle shells? Stone tablets? Or bronze vessels?”

“Insolent youngster.” The two old fellows were completely unreasonable. They didn’t care whether things conformed to reality or not. They only knew that filial piety was greater than heaven—the foundation of what made humans human.

Lambs kneeling to suckle, crows feeding their parents in return—these were beautiful scenes of the human world. Only unfilial scoundrels like Yun Ye who questioned everything to the root were the shame of humanity.

Old Cheng and Old Niu laughed and watched the excitement, pretending not to see Yun Ye’s debate with several venerable scholars.

Yun Ye very much wanted to tell them that anything in this world could have its origins traced. Being confused wouldn’t do. Just like the Yun family brick-firing method recorded by Chu Suiliang—altogether just six characters: “mix mud, put in mold, fire it.”

That’s right, just six characters. This fellow who controlled the most important records of the Great Tang’s texts recorded a tremendous invention with great effects on the nation’s military and economy in just six characters.

Who knew who could fire bricks according to these six characters? But below, the record of Yun Ye’s origins, ancestors, and native place was investigated in extreme detail. The genealogical table—even that bastard Yun Dingxing was prominently visible. This disgraced history and also blackened the Yun family name.

“Lord Dengshan, Lord Boshi, the Yun family is a small household that truly cannot enter the hall of elegance. This junior only hopes that when you investigate the Yun family, you’ll pass over the Yun family with one stroke—we’re not worth your additional ink. It’s just those methods of brick-making, cement manufacture, and engineering construction—please take extra care to write them down. Passing them to later generations and benefiting descendants—that’s the important matter.”

Chu Suiliang and Yu Shinan looked at each other and smiled, then said to Yun Ye, “The genealogies of nobles are a great matter for displaying fame and honoring ancestors. So many people wish they could trace back three generations—why are you so unfilial?”

“These two gentlemen have learning spanning ancient and modern times, with insights and scholarship incomparable to this junior, a mere yellow-mouthed child. This junior only thinks that those ingenious techniques and clever crafts, since they can strengthen the nation and enrich people’s livelihood, should have more words and sentences describing them. A mere six characters really cannot exhaust all their mysteries. If the transmission is broken, it will be a great loss to our people. This junior would rather his own family remain obscure forever than have the Academy’s painstaking efforts buried.”

“From now on, whoever dares say Yun Ye is a spendthrift or one of Chang’an’s three harms, this old man will definitely slap him hard.” Yu Shinan stepped forward, transferred his tablet to his left hand, patted Yun Ye’s shoulder twice, then pulled a scroll from his sleeve, slapped it into Yun Ye’s hand, and departed with hearty laughter alongside Chu Suiliang.

The book had no name—just hard leather on the outside. Opening the first page, a line of text entered Yun Ye’s vision.

“In the spring of the fourth year of Zhenguan, there was a disciple of extraordinary people named Yun Ye, who gathered the wisdom of all craftsmen and used ingenious plans to accomplish what others could not… kilns produced ten thousand bricks, ten thousand bricks in one day, one million in ten days. Building tall buildings, constructing city walls—no goodness is greater.”

Yun Ye turned the pages. He saw potato cultivation, the Yun family’s use of fertilizer, the seed drill, the method of piercing oxen noses, winter vegetable cultivation—everything was there. Ancient water wheels, chain pumps, siphons, calendars—all vividly present.

Having judged a gentleman’s heart with a petty person’s thinking, Yun Ye, ashamed beyond measure, tucked the book into his chest, caught up with the advancing Chu and Yu, gave them a big smile, cupped his hands, and rushed into the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests.

This was the first time Yun Ye received the warmest gift from the Great Tang’s officialdom. It need not be precious—only heartfelt.

These years he had done nothing else but wanted to tell all the people of the Great Tang not to forget every contribution they had made to the world, even the smallest trace needed to be remembered. The accumulation of quantity would trigger qualitative change.

It seemed they understood. That was enough. The citizens of Chang’an had already learned from the Dou family’s destruction that they possessed power. The servants of noble and wealthy merchant families were living better day by day. No one casually beat or killed servants anymore. The era of killing people like slaughtering dogs would ultimately end.

As long as they persevered in maintaining current practices, having everyone eat their fill was not a dream.

The long bronze horn sounded once more. For the first time, Yun Ye earnestly prayed to Heaven. This old man was finally a member of the Great Tang.