Chapter 01: A Gift of Love
No matter what, life must go on. The fire in Chang’an City was no longer the main topic of conversation among the people. With the Turks destroyed, envoys from various countries arrived in Chang’an in an endless stream. However, the entire city of Chang’an reeked with a pungent foreign smell. The moment one stepped outside, one would see furtive barbarians looking around everywhere. Before the ward gates of Xinghua Ward even opened, barbarians who had run out early from their guesthouses were already studying the pair of extremely imposing xiezhai beasts in front of the ward gate. The new ward official was very displeased. This pair of winged giant beasts whose names he couldn’t quite recall were his beloved treasures. Every day, he had the ward’s bailiffs wash them clean with fresh water, not permitting even a speck of mud in the tooth gaps. The young master who drew the design had truly put thought into it—fierce beasts with wings looked formidable indeed. The lions of Taiping Ward would merely be meat in these fierce beasts’ mouths. Letting barbarians look at them was truly a waste. No, this was too great a loss. He immediately turned and ordered those grinning bailiffs to cover them with some tattered cloth sheets. As for the barbarians’ regretful clamoring, who cared about them?
His Majesty was the Heavenly Khan, so they were the subjects of the Heavenly Khan. As for the barbarians, they were all sorts of disorderly subjects who didn’t worship their ancestors but believed in all kinds of strange deities. It was said some even used people as sacrificial offerings. Which family’s ancestors would eat their own descendants? Even a vicious tiger doesn’t eat its cubs. Green-eyed barbarian girls didn’t look too bad—high-chested and slim-waisted. As long as you bought one home and washed her a few times, you might wash off the rank smell. As for those gray-eyed male barbarians, you could smell their rank odor from eighty feet away, yet they clamored about buying houses in Xinghua Ward. What a calamity! If those fine houses were all occupied by barbarians, the ward official might as well go jump in the river.
Red brick buildings, one courtyard per family. Large trees with their crowns cut off transported from the mountains cost a fortune. Planted around the courtyards, they would become lush and verdant again next year. There were also rare flowers and exotic plants propagated from the imperial gardens. As soon as they were planted, the ward official dispatched bailiffs to guard them day and night, fearing those without eyes would steal them to dig up and take home.
Marquis Yun was truly generous, raising the bailiffs’ wages by a full three times. Now, except for the construction site, Xinghua Ward’s ground was so clean it looked as if dogs had licked it. On the red brick-paved surface, there wasn’t a trace of debris even in the brick seams. Walking on such streets, you couldn’t bear to spit even if you wanted to. The bailiffs wore short clubs at their waists. If anyone spat on the ground, they’d go up and give them a beating with their clubs—no discussion. This was Xinghua Ward’s new rule. The young master called it something—public hygiene, everyone’s responsibility. The meaning was: as long as you saw someone making the surroundings disgusting, just grab them and beat them.
The stinking ditch was now called the Golden Water River. No one was permitted to dump excrement and urine into the river anymore. Every day at dawn, four-wheeled horse carts came to collect these filthy things. They’d ring a bell, and each household had to bring out their chamber pots and pour the excrement and urine into large wooden barrels with lids, which were hauled outside the city. It was said that when dirty things reached the farmland, they became good things. A high monk even said this was the principle of heaven and earth’s cycle, the endless life and death—even the five grains needed reincarnation.
The Golden Water River became clear and transparent almost overnight. However, there was everything at the river bottom, even dead people’s skeletal remains. How could this do? Those extremely capable young masters blocked up the river’s inlet again and told the households on both sides of the riverbank that each family needed to dig out the sludge from the section in front of their door and pile it on the riverbank. Chang’an people couldn’t stand seeing other families better than their own. This river water would be what their families would drink in the future. What if some dead person’s bones weren’t dug out? Wouldn’t their family be unlucky, drinking human bone soup for a lifetime?
They called on friends and acquaintances to clean the area in front of their homes. If your family dug three feet, my family would dig four feet. Some hotheads dug six feet and nearly struck spring water. Finally, a standard was set: four feet. As families who had put in effort, you could build a small platform for your family to wash clothes, rinse rice, and wash vegetables. Your family had priority. The specifications were all determined by the young masters—four-foot-square stone platforms with carved patterns to prevent slipping and injuring people. The stone materials would be delivered to your home; you’d find people to install them yourselves. Chang’an County wouldn’t handle it.
Small willow trees were planted along the riverbank. These things were hardy—just stick them in and they’d grow. Thinking of the scene of one’s family enjoying the cool under the willow trees after the small trees grew up made people yearn for it. The poor families who originally lived on both sides of the stinking ditch suddenly discovered their broken-down houses had become valuable. Back when they bought their houses for one string of cash, now just the foundation was worth five strings of cash. This was good fortune falling from the sky. They’d finally left a property for their descendants. Old men with bent backs and hands clasped behind them would wander along the riverbank when they had nothing to do. If they discovered any filth, they’d pick it up and put it where filthy things should go. They’d also call out families who had filth in front of their doors and scold them thoroughly: “Your family is born with a poor wretch’s fate, so don’t drag the neighbors into poverty with you. If you throw filth around again, we’ll throw all the ward’s filth to your house!” The scolded families would turn red-faced with no good way to argue back.
From then on, the families along the riverbank developed an almost obsessive requirement for hygiene. Your family’s stove could go unwiped, but the area in front of your door must be swept clean. Even if your parents died, this couldn’t be interrupted. Otherwise, the neighbors would make you die once too.
At night, they broke open the dam blocking the river mouth, and clean water flowed through again. After a night of washing by the living water, by daybreak, clear bright river water flowed past their doors. The swimming fish in the water were clearly visible. Old people squatted on the stone platforms, scooped up a handful of clean water, took a drink, and exclaimed how delicious it was. No more of that disgusting excrement and urine smell. Having drunk dirty water all their lives, they never imagined that drinking clean water was actually this simple. They’d only put in some effort and planted a few trees, yet for the first time felt the joy of being human.
Of the four rivers in Chang’an City, the Xinghua Ward construction site had only solved one river, only cleaning this section at the river mouth. Some stone materials were spent, nothing more. Before Xinghua Ward’s enormous construction budget, it didn’t even count as a grasshopper. For a time, public sentiment in Chang’an County surged, demanding that the construction site also clean the other three river channels.
Minister of Works Li Daliang, who oversaw the construction of waterways and boat bridges throughout the realm, saw this situation and acted decisively and efficiently without delay. A thousand strings of cash for stone material costs, an allocation of two thousand laborers—these were issued to his subordinates. The blueprints were borrowed from the Xinghua Ward construction site. If they still couldn’t follow the pattern, Li Daliang didn’t mind conducting a complete purge from top to bottom. His Majesty and the common people had long been thoroughly disappointed with the Ministry of Works. Now, no matter how major an adjustment he made, the court would fully support it.
As the essence of this great transformation, Xinghua Ward was undoubtedly the focus of all focuses. However, the ward gates that remained tightly shut all day, along with the fierce and malevolent bailiffs, made the common people of Chang’an stop in their tracks. Wanting to go in was completely impossible.
Officials did go in, but those who came out were all as if they’d lost their souls. Their mouths never ceased praising, saying frankly that this place should only exist in heaven—how many times could it be heard in the human world? After saying this, they’d shake their heads with an air of reluctant lingering attachment and leave, as if having received a great blow.
Even well-informed officials presented such an appearance, making the common people of Chang’an even more curious about what kind of existence Xinghua Ward actually was. How could they know that once officials got on their carriages, they’d touch the exquisite small wooden boxes in their bosoms. Just by saying a few words, they received great gifts. This favor that went with the flow was truly worthwhile. But should they also get a set of housing in Xinghua Ward to leave as an estate for their descendants?
Li Ke took advantage of the great construction to tell the Empress that the current Taiye Pool was a huge sewage pit. Although the Golden Water River now had clean water flowing in, compared to the clean water outside, the greenish water of Taiye Pool made him feel nauseous. If the Empress wanted to change out the dirty water, he as a son should fulfill his filial duty. Of course, his brothers Li Chengqian and Li Tai didn’t escape either. Only three thousand strings of copper cash were needed to solve this, which the three brothers could completely afford.
There was just one trouble: when changing the pool’s dirty water, some of the palace’s noble persons would need to temporarily live outside the palace to avoid being disturbed. For example, his mother Yang Fei lived too close to Taiye Pool and completely needed to temporarily live outside the palace—for instance, at Yushan. He had a house there that he could vacate.
Zhangsun related this matter to Li Er as a joke. After hearing it, Li Er laughed so hard he could barely catch his breath. His fourteen-year-old son had started playing tricks, but these were tricks he was delighted to see. As long as the premise was filial piety, such tricks were a blessing.
He then told this matter to Yang Fei. Who knew that Yang Fei, who always wore a constant smile, would burst into tears before him.
“Beloved consort, do you know what great price Ke’er paid to give you an opportunity to go out of the palace to relax? Qing Que said that now he owes Yun Ye two strings of cash. These two strings of cash are no ordinary sum—they require Ke’er to exhaust all his efforts to earn them back penny by penny. Ke’er is helping Yun Ye construct Xinghua Ward. The entire construction cost exceeded ten thousand strings, and the expected profit exceeded one hundred thousand strings. Even so, Yun Ye was still very dissatisfied and only agreed to let him offset five hundred wen of debt. The rest still requires Ke’er to surpass Qing Que in his studies and obtain the academy’s top model student position before he can earn another string of cash. You know how excellent Qing Que’s studies are. To surpass him is difficult, very difficult.”
Having said this, he burst into loud laughter, extremely pleased. His two sons had long occupied the top two positions at the academy without budging an inch. Qing Que said that Yun Ye was somewhat angry. This time at the academy, he’d already been calling on other students to take Qing Que and Li Ke as their targets to surpass. As long as they surpassed the two brothers, rewards would be doubled, and they’d be given a private courtyard in Xinghua Ward as a gift. Now the academy students had gone mad. Sleeping at the third watch and rising at the fifth watch was commonplace. With cloth strips reading “Defeat Li Tai” tied on their heads, they studied day and night, making Li Tai quite worried.
Being able to make Yun Ye suffer a loss was Li Er’s greatest pleasure now. The feeling of making an opponent gnash their teeth yet be helpless about it—he hadn’t experienced it for many years. Now experiencing it again through his son was truly one of life’s joys.
“This Yun Ye is too excessive, treating my son so harshly. This consort must go to the academy to seek justice for my son!” Yang Fei couldn’t sit still now. Thinking of Li Ke covered in dust, bustling about at the construction site, his small frame going through wind and rain just so his mother could have a period of pleasant leisure time—it pained her heart like a knife cutting.
“I actually think Yun Ye’s approach is correct. Beloved consort, you’re also an educated person and should know the principle of being born in hardship and dying in comfort. Now that Yun Ye is desperately squeezing Qing Que and Ke’er, this is the true way of being a teacher. Once they complete their studies at the academy, won’t the realm be theirs to traverse as they please? My Li Shimin’s sons should also be like the kun-peng. When the day comes that they soar ninety thousand li, they will surely make heaven and earth change color.”