A book, even if written in small hairpin script and arranged vertically with just a few lines per page, would probably need around ten thousand characters to be bound into a volume. Yet the knowledge and experiences in her mind amounted to far more than a few tens of thousands of characters.
Moreover, she also planned to help Lu Yu, Xu Cizhou, and others achieve fame by introducing their works “The Classic of Tea” and “Discourse on Tea” in this era.
Of course, she intended to slip in some of her ideas as well.
“Anyway, I’ll give it a try. When it’s written, you can take a look. If it works, great; if not, we haven’t lost anything,” she said.
Seeing his granddaughter’s confidence, Ye Chongming was also looking forward to it and naturally would not object.
“Good. If you need anything, just tell your grandfather. If you want someone with outstanding literary talent to help you, I can find a suitable person for you,” he said.
Ye Yaming understood what Ye Chongming meant. He was worried that her skills weren’t sufficient and that she wouldn’t be able to write it, so he suggested finding someone to ghostwrite for her.
But her purpose in writing these books, besides legitimizing what she was introducing, was also to promote several pen names and let these names lead the Great Jin dynasty’s tea culture.
She planned to remain behind the scenes, not taking credit openly. But if necessary, if things developed to the point where she had to step forward and claim the pen name, she would do so, not allowing others to steal the credit. What would be the point of having someone else write it for her?
At the very least, these books were ones she had brought from another world. Apart from “The Classic of Tea” and “Discourse on Tea,” she planned to write the other books herself. Every word and sentence was what she had carefully studied from previous theories in her past life, put into practice, and written after gaining her insights. Why should she let someone else claim the credit?
She didn’t even want people to polish her work. What if that person wasn’t trustworthy and claimed these books as their own? With fame and profit at stake, how many people could resist such temptation?
Although the books didn’t exist yet, and she didn’t know if they could create even a small ripple in the Great Jin dynasty, let alone lead tea fashion trends, preventing problems before they occurred had always been Ye Yaming’s approach to doing things.
Ye Yaming brought up another issue: “As for your concern about the distance being too far and difficult to manage, I think many places in Huizhou Province produce good tea, as does Fuzhou. They’re relatively concentrated. We only need to open a tea house in each of those two provincial capitals, then buy mountains and land in the counties that produce good tea, plant tea trees, and send managers to oversee them.”
“With the Ye family’s reputation, as long as the tea tastes good, we won’t worry about selling it. As for these managers, our family and the two young masters can each send one to supervise each other, so there won’t be any problems. Even in the worst case, if the management isn’t perfect, it doesn’t matter.”
“You know, the tea there is good, and its reputation will eventually spread. By then, the tea mountains there will be as valuable as those in Baifeng County, impossible to buy even with a thousand pieces of gold. If we buy them early at very favorable prices, even if we don’t make much money from growing tea, we’ll profit when we sell the land.”
Ye Chongming had been in business all his life and had always been hands-on. Just managing his current assets was exhausting enough, and he constantly regretted having few grandsons and only one successful son.
Now Ye Yaming was telling him that he only needed to send out managers and money to make a profit, and he found it quite feasible, which was very extraordinary.
He stared at Ye Yaming for a long time, until she touched her face and asked him, “Grandfather, what’s wrong?”
Ye Chongming then sighed heavily, lamenting for the 108th time: “Why couldn’t you have been born a man?”
Ye Yaming: “…”
She regretted it herself sometimes. As a woman in modern times, she hadn’t felt any disadvantages, but in this ancient era, she was restricted in so many ways.
Sometimes she even regretted why she hadn’t transmigrated as a man.
…
While Ye Yaming was content to stay at home reading and writing books, the weather gradually turned cold, and winter quietly arrived.
After two months of searching, Old Lady Ye still hadn’t found a suitable son-in-law for Ye Yaming.
“This one surnamed Ma has five sons in his family, and the matchmaker recommended the fourth son. I met the young man, and he looked decent, eloquent, and made a good first impression. But after talking with him for a while, I discovered he’s somewhat glib and not very honest.”
“This one surnamed Chen is honest, doesn’t talk much, and is quite shy. But his mother is troublesome, her eyes constantly darting around, and she treats her daughters-in-law poorly at home. If we form a connection with his family, even though he would be a son-in-law by uxorilocal marriage, we can’t prevent him from taking care of his parents. Then his family would come asking for assistance every few days, which would be troublesome.”
“This one surnamed Gu has no father or mother and grew up on charity. But such people have hard lives and inauspicious eight characters, and I don’t know if he might bring misfortune to his relatives.”
“…”
Old Lady Ye described seven or eight candidates in detail. All of them were good-looking, neither stupid nor foolish, and came close to meeting Ye Yaming’s standards. But there was always something unsatisfactory about each one.
Finally, she said, “Alas, why can’t we find one that’s suitable?”
At this time, the hall was occupied by Ye Chongming, Old Lady Ye, Madam Yin, and Ye Yaming, mother and daughter.
Regarding Old Lady Ye personally selecting a son-in-law for Ye Yaming, Madam Yin had no objections. She knew her own experience was limited and that she wasn’t as good at judging people as the old lady. She was glad that the old lady was willing to take care of this matter.
After hearing about the situations of these potential candidates, she had no particular thoughts and turned to look at Ye Yaming.
“If they’re not suitable, then we’ll keep looking,” Ye Yaming said when she saw everyone looking at her. “Second Sister isn’t engaged yet, and I’m only fifteen. What’s the rush?”
Seeing her nonchalant attitude, Madam Yin worried that the old lady would be displeased and reproached her: “Your grandmother has been worrying herself sick over your marriage, and this is your attitude?”
It was as if she were talking about someone else’s business.
Ye Yaming also felt that her tone was too casual. She scratched her face and looked innocently at Old Lady Ye: “Grandmother, don’t worry. Perhaps my destiny hasn’t arrived yet.”
Old Lady Ye couldn’t help but smile and said to Madam Yin: “The child just hasn’t awakened to these matters yet.”
Ever since the broken engagement, whenever Ye Yaming talked about marriage, she always had an indifferent attitude, without any of a young girl’s shyness. In Old Lady Ye’s view, this was because Song Yifeng had broken her heart.
But she couldn’t say that, so she could only say that Ye Yaming hadn’t awakened to these matters yet.
Ye Yaming continued: “Grandmother, I won’t marry until I’m at least eighteen, so there’s no hurry. The reason I haven’t stopped you during this time is that the Yang, Li, and Lin families have all sent people to propose. Your formal search for a son-in-law by uxorilocal marriage helps avoid those troubles. Now that they’ve given up hope, you can rest from the task of selecting a son-in-law. If someone suitable comes along, we can discuss it then.”
In the past, the original owner had been engaged to Song Yifeng early on; Madam Tao had extremely high requirements for Ye Yaqing’s marriage and was looking in the direction of scholars. Those tea merchants had sent people to propose a few times, but seeing that the Ye family didn’t respond, they had ceased their efforts.