“Qing Que, are you still planning to expose the flaws in her presentation?” Li Chengqian was highly amused. The women of Chang’an had already become increasingly formidable. When noble families arranged marriages, the difficulty was no longer how to climb up to a good match, but rather worrying about where to find bridesmaids of sufficient status and position.
In disputes between men and women, regardless of whether the man was in the right, the final result was always that the man would be sneered at. If he suffered a loss, people would say he couldn’t even handle a woman. If he gained an advantage, people would say the man was too petty, actually stooping to the same level as a woman. This principle applied to all Tang men, from prime ministers to peddlers and laborers alike.
The Fang Xuanling household had always been an example that Tang women took pride in. When conversing with Fang Xuanling, you could discuss the winds and clouds of the realm, critique historical heroes, direct the course of the nation, write stirring words, and treat past marquises like dirt—all without problem. You would certainly converse with laughter and ease, and Fang Xuanling would make you feel right at home.
Talking about children was also fine. Old Fang’s two sons, one civil and one martial, were both rare young heroes. Especially the incident where Fang Yiai threw Gao Yang onto the Crown Prince’s carriage on the Avenue of Great Ceremony—this was passed around as a wonderful tale among women, who consistently believed that such a courageous and loyal husband was a woman’s first choice. Every time children were mentioned, Fang Xuanling would always stroke the few sparse whiskers on his chin and wave his hand modestly: “My unworthy sons act foolishly, making all you gentlemen laugh. Aside from being recklessly bold, they only have some sense of loyalty. Whether they become worthy or not doesn’t matter—the key is that they become decent people, hehe.”
Over these years, Yun Ye had met with Fang Xuanling quite a few times, but had never seen anyone dare to discuss domestic matters with Fang Qiao, Fang Xuanling. Even close family friends would not mention Lady Fang by half a word. As for inhuman existences like Yan Zhitui, he was naturally not in this category—pointing at Fang Qiao’s nose and scolding him for not understanding the principle of mutual respect, saying that when the hen crows at dawn it will certainly lead to household unrest, that he lacked neither backbone nor courage, yet how could he be so cowardly as a chicken in this matter? Truly the shame of the scholar-official class.
When Old Yan scolded people, no matter who they were, they could only shrink their necks and listen. Even though Fang Xuanling’s face turned black as the bottom of a pot, he still had to bow and apologize. Watching this, Yun Ye could only maintain a poker face, not daring to reveal even half a hint of schadenfreude. When Fang Xuanling got angry, although he couldn’t make heaven and earth lose color like the Emperor, making your household change color was still no problem.
A good man doesn’t fight with women. Hypatia keenly discovered this fatal weakness of Tang men and acted recklessly and tyrannically in the Academy. As long as she was teaching, if her lecture notes weren’t finished, she would definitely run overtime. Even though she clearly knew the professor for the next class had been standing outside the classroom holding his lecture notes for half a hour, she still had to finish her lecture first. As for apologies, it was just a bright smile, or a piece of meat that had been roasted in complete chaos, half-raw and half-cooked.
Everyone at the Academy were refined people. Since she had apologized, naturally they couldn’t get angry. Whether the meat was delicious or not, it was still her sincere gesture. For a lone foreign woman to roast meat to seventy or eighty percent done was already not easy.
This approach was useless on two people at the Academy—one was Yun Ye, one was Xu Jingzong. Yun Ye had long seen through this woman’s heart, liver, spleen, lungs, and kidneys, and never treated her as a woman. The meat she sent was generally given to the Academy’s guard dogs. No matter whether she acted coquettishly or cried, if something couldn’t be agreed to, he wouldn’t consent even if beaten to death. So Hypatia was actually much more normal in front of Yun Ye.
Xu Jingzong always viewed people from the worst perspective, seeing himself as a weak little mouse and everyone else as fierce cats. No matter how friendly a cat was to him, he believed its purpose was to eat him. So this beautiful female cat Hypatia, no matter what poses she struck, had no way to bewitch him. The only thing he couldn’t stand was Hypatia’s crying. As soon as this woman started shedding tears, he would immediately open his office door wide, prop open the windows, and summon servants to stand by his side to prove that he hadn’t been moved by lust or deliberately bullied Hypatia. He valued his good reputation more highly than gold.
Even though Old Xu was so cautiously on guard, he still unknowingly gave Hypatia many openings. During the days when Yun Ye wasn’t around, Hypatia’s office became the most luxurious and best-equipped at the Academy. She could enter and exit the library without restriction for twelve hours, and could even take out two beautiful pieces of tortoise shell from the library’s treasured collection to display in her office as decoration. At the Academy, Hypatia enjoyed better treatment than a princess.
Li Tai belonged to that type of person who didn’t understand romance. In fact, he didn’t need to understand any romance—generally beautiful women came to undress him. His natural sense of superiority made him always boss women around, and in eighteen years he had never made any mistakes. Now, this damned woman had struck heavily at his most vulnerable part, making him jump with rage yet helpless. He suddenly discovered he had no way to deal with this damned woman.
Every month this woman entered the palace to explain Western learning to the Empress. Sometimes the Emperor would also attend. If he truly got into it with this woman, regardless of right or wrong, he would be the one punished—this didn’t even need thinking about.
If a man had slandered him like this in public, he wouldn’t need to lift a finger—countless imperial worshippers would tear him to shreds. But Hypatia was a woman. There were no women in Tang political life. Even the Empress could only sit in the rear palace, and only when the Emperor brought something up to her could she express some opinions.
So many people just smiled knowingly, thinking Li Tai was lusting after Hypatia’s beauty, wanting to attract the beauty’s attention, deliberately setting up small obstacles—a little tactic men used to pursue women.
Li Tai looked through the gap in the curtain at those noble ladies who showed no anger or surprise whatsoever, and let out a long sigh. His already pale face became even paler. Yun Ye discovered this fellow was now so white he was becoming transparent.
“Hypatia came east alone with nothing, only a dozen loyal servants following me. No matter what hardships we experienced, they never abandoned me, giving me a stable research environment. That’s why I made new discoveries. Honored ladies and gentlemen, look—this is a wooden barrel filled with water. It’s made of sturdy wood. The cooper is also a famous good craftsman in the West Market. We need not doubt his craftsmanship. Even if filled with a barrel of iron blocks, it wouldn’t break. Now we’ll seal it and insert a copper tube on top. This tube cost me an entire month’s stipend.”
Hearing this, Xu Jingzong sitting below began cursing in his heart. This was something you had made? It was the Academy that requested master craftsmen from the Directorate of Imperial Manufactories to make it! A copper tube nearly two zhang long—could just any craftsman make that? Li Gang smiled and shook his head at him, indicating he should keep watching.
“In the process of my research, I discovered this strange phenomenon: the smaller the unit area, the greater the force produced. I still don’t know what to call this phenomenon. We all know that the sharper an object is, the easier it is to pierce into other objects, just like the needles and nails we commonly use…”
Li Tai watched as Hypatia, standing on the terrace of the small auditorium, only added one large spoonful of water to the tube, and the wooden barrel below immediately burst open with large cracks, as if an invisible giant hand was squeezing the water in the barrel. He asked Yun Ye curiously: “Ye Zi, what’s going on? You never taught this concept before.”
“I only know this phenomenon is called pressure. Everything else I’ve already returned to my teacher. If you want to understand the truth of the matter and surpass Hypatia in fame, I suggest you do another experiment.”
“We discussed this phenomenon before. You also prepared two huge iron hemispheres. The Academy previously did experiments with several students, but it didn’t show effectiveness. If I use many horses to do this experiment, I’ll definitely crush this ugly woman in momentum. I’ll go back and prepare immediately.”
Li Chengqian looked at Li Tai with envy: “Not attending the Academy back then was truly regrettable. You converse so smoothly, yet I can’t understand a single sentence. The supreme principles of the universe and all things—how many people want to glimpse the gateway but cannot. Yet I repeatedly missed it due to worldly affairs. Truly unforgivable.”
“Elder Brother, why would you need to understand these things? These matters are very mentally taxing and time-consuming. As the future heir apparent, it’s correct that you don’t study these things. I now invest all the time I should spend governing my fiefdom into this, yet still feel there’s not enough time. If you also got absorbed in it, who would govern the Great Tang’s realm in the future? I completely agree with you being emperor. If those younger brothers behind us did it, I’d be very angry. They don’t have that qualification yet.”
“Yes, Chengqian, a person’s energy is limited and cannot cover everything. I have no doubt that Qing Que will become a wise emperor in the future, so you must become a worldly emperor. This way each gains something—what’s wrong with that? Everyone developing their talents to the extreme is always better than staring at that one position. It’s too early to talk about this now. You’ll need at least thirty to fifty years before becoming emperor. Qing Que won’t need that long. In another ten or twenty years will be the most glorious moment of his life. Chengqian, you watch—his achievements won’t be lower than an emperor’s. He might even become someone like Confucius.”
Li Tai chuckled, but then turned his head and saw Hypatia with two servants constantly receiving money from the pile of female relatives. He felt very unhappy. Those foolish women, having just seen a small trick, wished they could take off all their clothes and donate them.
Was the Five Phoenix Facing the Sun golden hair ornament something that could be exchanged for money on the market? Which shop would dare purchase the Bright Moon pendant? Damn it, wasn’t that jade-linked pearl longevity lock the congratulatory gift he sent to the Zhangsun family? How did all the good things end up here?