Yushan Academy had a different opening ceremony from other academies—it welcomed the first day of school with fifty-nine students’ swollen buttocks.

Fortunately, as the first cohort of new students, they received a complimentary set of desks and chairs from the Yun family, plus a set of study implements—compasses, rulers, triangles, and protractors necessary for natural sciences. Yun Ye planned to open some simple geometry courses while teaching mathematics. After all, they were all seventeen or eighteen years old, the youngest being fourteen or fifteen. They should be able to handle high-intensity learning.

In fact, Yun Ye was still somewhat optimistic. The one thing he hadn’t considered was the students’ intelligence quotient. After getting used to it, Yuchi Dasha was still gritting his teeth and checking the correctness of numbers one by one. Placed together there was no problem recognizing them, but once separated he was completely lost. You couldn’t even scold or hit him—if your expression looked slightly displeased, the nine-foot-tall man would look about to cry. Yun Ye wished he could end his own suffering with a knife stroke.

Below sat four old men, squinting their eyes, striving to see the characters on the blackboard, much more conscientious than the students. After letting the other students leave the classroom, Yun Ye planned to tutor Yuchi Baolin alone.

“Baolin, how old are you this year?”

“Eighteen.”

“Good, that’s very correct. Can you pick out two numbers from these digits to form your age?”

Yuchi Baolin quickly picked out two numbers. No matter how hard Yun Ye tried, he couldn’t make these two numbers add up to eighteen—though they could form Li Gang’s age. Rage poured from Yun Ye’s nostrils. Suddenly, Yun Ye stopped being angry. He discovered that Yuchi Baolin was literate and could write excellent small regular script, even better than Yun Ye’s characters. He wasn’t stupid—Yun Ye just hadn’t found the right method.

“Baolin, who taught you your characters? They’re truly beautiful.”

“My mother taught me. The teachers wouldn’t teach me.” Yuchi Baolin was quite proud. “How did Madam teach you to recognize characters?”

“My mother wrote characters on cards and hung them around my neck. I learned a few each day. In three years I learned all the characters.”

Yun Ye understood. His mother had made unimaginable efforts for him, and the facts proved her efforts were effective. Now sending Yuchi Baolin here, she probably also hoped her son might become enlightened. Probably only Yun Ye would wholeheartedly teach their foolish son.

Yun Ye strung together the hand-drawn teaching pictures with rope and hung them around Baolin’s neck. He called over the smartest of the auditing students, named Huo Zhu. Yun Ye extremely liked this child—principled, having suffered all kinds of hardships for his younger sister, he should be a child with perseverance.

“Huo Zhu, from now on your menial duties are exempted. Your main responsibility is to help Senior Student Baolin pass the mathematics examination. Understand?”

“This humble one understands. From now on, whenever there’s time, I’ll teach Senior Student Yuchi.” The answer was very straightforward, except when leaving the door, he hesitated and looked at Yun Ye.

“I know teaching him isn’t easy. Whatever conditions you have, just state them.” Yun Ye didn’t mind giving this child a little preferential policy.

“Teacher, could I also teach my younger sister at the same time? I guarantee it won’t delay Senior Student Yuchi.” Yun Ye said nothing, only drew out a set of drawing tools from the lecture desk, handed them to Huo Zhu, patted his forehead, and walked out of the classroom with hands behind his back.

The new teaching aids were welcomed by several great Confucian scholars. The appearance of the blackboard made teachers’ lectures three-dimensional, reducing the burden of labor, especially suitable for elderly people. Li Gang liked this thing very much and overnight recommended it to the Imperial Academy and the Chongwen Hall.

Yun Ye sighed. It looked like the lime kiln at home would be insufficient again.

Old Cheng came from Chang’an to Yushan, bringing the curved-shaft plow and seed drill that Yun Ye designed. He said that after using them, Li’er was greatly pleased and specially raised Old Madam Yun’s imperial mandate by one rank, bestowing fifteen oxen. Li’er knew Yun Ye wouldn’t care about money, and as for official rank, there was no way to promote him—at the age of only sixteen he was already a marquis. Promoting his official rank now wouldn’t be an honor but rather destroying him with excessive praise. This was best—it could properly satisfy Grandmother’s vanity.

Old Grandmother now rode a cart around the Yun family fief every day, like a tiger patrolling its territory. Which Third Rank mandated lady had the hobby of touching boundary markers in the fields daily? She wouldn’t listen when told. After stopping for two days, she quietly circled the estate again.

Forget it, Yun Ye really couldn’t be bothered managing it anymore. If people laughed, let them laugh. As long as Old Grandmother was healthy, let her do as she pleased—consider it physical exercise. Hadn’t he noticed she came back from the fields every day with a beaming smile?

The academy also gradually entered normal operation. Because four great Confucian scholars were teaching at the academy, poor scholars often came to attend lectures. These old gentlemen turned no one away—as long as you were listening, they absolutely wouldn’t pay attention to you, lecturing on their own. As for how much you heard or whether you understood, that wasn’t within their consideration.

Under Old Niu’s high-pressure control, all luxurious living had long departed from Yushan Academy.

In the early morning, when the bell rang, the former dandies each carried a tin bucket to the kitchen to fetch hot water to return and wash up. Even the two princes were no exception. Each carried their own small bucket while discussing today’s schedule and pondering how to get to the Yun residence for another big feast. From ancient times to the present, school food had never been delicious. Yushan was no exception. Although the school’s braised pork was relatively famous—at least those poor students who came to freeload lectures could buy a portion of fatty, bright red braised pork at the cafeteria for two wen. Just smelling it was intoxicating, considered supreme delicacy. Some couldn’t bear to eat it, packing it in bamboo lunch boxes to take home for the whole family to enjoy.

Yun Ye didn’t deliberately raise prices because they weren’t academy students. He actually enjoyed this process. Braised pork entering poor students’ mouths made him happier than it entering Li’er’s mouth.

Yuchi Baolin had now become enlightened. Who knew how Huo Zhu taught him? Although he couldn’t compare with Li Tai and Li Ke, nor with Zhangsun Chong and Li Huairen, compared to scum like Meng Youtong he was more than adequate. Baolin most loved eating the academy’s braised pork. Each time he also brought a portion for the Huo Zhu siblings. The most common scene was the three of them lying on a stone table happily eating together. This was perhaps their own happiness. Yun Ye had no habit of going forward to disturb them.

When parents of dandies came to visit, without exception they were refused by Old Niu. In front of Old Niu, there really weren’t many who dared throw tantrums. Militarized management—this was what Old Niu had always done. He believed that since the academy was almost entirely filled with sons of military families, they should understand common military knowledge. With nothing else to do anyway, he occasionally instilled military knowledge in the students. Quite a few people listened, often making Li Gang purse his lips.

Throughout the academy, the uniforms were standardized—sky-blue hemp clothing. Hemp clothing was very cheap, but sky-blue dye was expensive. This had always been Li Gang’s point of criticism. He said there was absolutely no need to dye the clothes sky-blue—dyeing them blue or black would be sufficient and could save at least half the money. He wasn’t used to Yun Ye’s lavish spending and often used Yan Hui’s “One bamboo basket of rice, one gourd ladle of water, living in a shabby alley—others couldn’t bear such hardship, but Hui didn’t change his joy” to educate Yun Ye.

Good heavens! You old gentleman need the Yun family’s delicacies daily, need the Yun family’s fine wine, eat until oil drips from your mouth, drink until you sway east and west, and often say, “This old fellow is already seventy years old and can follow his heart’s desires without overstepping boundaries.” You want me to make these lads wear the blue clothes and black pants that servants wear—they’d rebel for sure! This sky-blue color effectively distinguished them from farmers. Wearing it, they could say they were following fashion trends, not that their families were poor and couldn’t afford good clothes.

Yun Ye was calculating buying the land in front of the academy gate to make a ball field. The daily military drills were too monotonous. A group of big lads locked in the courtyard—he could smell the scent of hormone secretion. Without some outlet, problems would arise.

Huo Zhu ran over hurriedly. “Teacher, Teacher, this is bad! Villagers have run over, carrying hoes and shoulder poles, saying they want to settle accounts with the beast in the academy.”

This was bad. What Yun Ye worried about most had happened. Who had ruined someone’s daughter, and now the aggrieved party had come to the door?

He hurried to the academy gate, only to see forty or fifty ragged village farmers surrounding Li Gang, telling him something. Old Li’s face was livid—he was clearly quite angry!

“Who is the aggrieved party? Speak to me. Don’t surround the old gentleman. If even a bit of the old gentleman’s skin or flesh is harmed, your lives can’t compensate for it.” As soon as these words were spoken, the scene immediately quieted down.

The villagers dared not speak. Li Gang, however, pointed at Yun Ye and said, “Fine students you’ve taught.”

Yun Ye made a mournful face, thinking to himself, “My students are your students too, aren’t they? You’re still the headmaster.”

“A perfectly good donkey belonging to a villager was forcibly killed by your fine students. If they had taken the meat, that would be one thing, but they only took one donkey hoof—what kind of reasoning is this?” Old Li said indignantly.

Yun Ye nearly fell off the steps. So it was a donkey, not that someone’s daughter had been violated.

He said to Li Gang with an apologetic smile, “Great sir, please calm your anger. This young one will immediately compensate with a donkey. You absolutely must not harm your health with anger.”

“How is this a matter of one donkey? This only shows that among these students there is someone of extremely depraved morals—showing no compassion for living creatures, no sympathy for the common people, acting according to whim, behaving recklessly and arbitrarily. This old fellow will stand right here and watch how you handle this.”

Old Li was right. This indeed wasn’t about one donkey. This indeed had to do with morality.

Turning to ask the academy students behind him, “Which of you did this? Step forward yourself and you’ll be dealt with leniently.”

No one spoke. Yun Ye found this somewhat strange. The academy students all came from meritorious aristocratic families. No one would care about a donkey—no one would be interested in donkey hooves at all. With such an incident, no one would take a donkey seriously. As long as asked, someone would admit if it was them. Being discovered afterward would mean losing both dignity and face—that was what these dandies couldn’t forgive themselves for.