When the warm breeze of early spring gently swept across the plains, Yushan still showed little change. The cold wind blew through the mountain pass, making it impossible to feel even a hint of spring. The waterfall behind the mountain lacked its summer magnificence—only a small stream of water fell from the cliff, and before reaching the foot of the mountain, it was scattered by the cold wind, transforming into mist that filled the sky.
Li Tai, wrapped in fur, was shivering from the cold. His bluish-purple lips trembled continuously, his teeth chattering against each other with a clicking sound. A sturdy guard stood in front of him, preventing the water mist from touching the prince’s body. Water droplets constantly slid down the guard’s leather coat, and he himself was nearly frozen solid.
A wooden windmill slowly turned in the cold wind. A large coil of rope was wound around the windmill’s main shaft, and as the windmill rotated, the rope wrapped around another circle. Every meter along the rope was marked with red paint, making it easy to calculate exactly how many meters of rope the windmill had pulled in during a given time period.
“Fifty-seven,” Li Tai muttered a new number. He reached into his pocket, pulled out his hand, and tremblingly recorded this number in a small notebook with a pencil. Within the time it took to burn a stick of incense, under load conditions, this simple windmill had pulled in fifty-seven meters of rope.
He had the guard remove the locking bar from the windmill. The rope, losing its restraint, quickly slid down. Freed from the rope’s constraint, the windmill rotated more flexibly, its speed increasing. In moments, it was swaying and shaking in the valley’s cold wind. The wooden frame creaked and groaned—this level of force wouldn’t take long to completely shake the wooden frame apart.
“Materials are a major problem. An iron windmill can’t be moved by wind, and processing is also difficult. Wooden structures lack sufficient strength and can’t withstand the windmill’s powerful kinetic energy. What can be done? The larger the windmill’s blades, the more wind they catch, and the heavier the objects they can lift. There’s a pattern to follow here, but unfortunately, I still don’t understand how to minimize the loss of force.” Once he started talking about these matters, Li Tai seemed to forget the cold. With his hands in his pockets, he kept wandering around on the ground, like an old donkey pulling a millstone.
“Damn Yun Ye, why did you have to run off to the military camp, and then go to the grasslands? What if you get chopped into pieces by those cursed Turks—who will I ask about these questions? You’re just a scholarly type—what are you doing becoming a military commander? Going on campaigns too—are you really that good at fighting? Even if you took a dog to the grasslands, its combat ability would be stronger than yours, wouldn’t it? What does warfare have to do with you? Instead of staying safely at the academy teaching, what hero are you trying to be?”
Watching the wooden frame gradually collapse, Li Tai’s resentment grew even stronger.
“Your Highness, the frame has collapsed. We can’t conduct today’s experiment. Let’s go back. This humble one is worried your body can’t withstand the cold wind here. If you fall ill, Her Majesty will chop me up and feed me to the dogs,” the sturdy guard said, afraid Li Tai might come up with another crazy idea. Taking advantage of the collapsed frame, he quickly urged Li Tai to return—it was truly too cold here.
Li Tai proved quite compliant. Upon hearing his guard captain’s words, he immediately climbed into the sedan chair. The two bearers lifted it and ran down the mountain in a flash. The guard captain moved his entire body, vigorously rubbing his long-frozen numb cheeks, and followed the sedan chair at a light jog. Ever since the prince came to the academy, his workload had increased tremendously. Previously, when the prince hid in his study, once he started reading, he wouldn’t change location all day. The guard’s days had been wonderfully leisurely—he’d not only had time for a few drinks but even had time to visit his sweetheart in Ping’an Ward. Those were the days of real living. Nothing like now, living worse than a dog. A few days ago, they had to carry stones up the mountain, then throw the stones down from the peak. He’d finally looked forward to a day without carrying stones, planning to rest properly for a few days and recuperate his exhausted body, only to find they now had to watch windmills pull ropes in the freezing wind, sometimes even hanging wooden buckets.
He didn’t understand what the prince was trying to do. To call it a child’s game didn’t quite fit. The last time they threw stones, he’d watched with his own eyes as a two-hundred-pound stone was carried swaying into the mountains by a large umbrella. Many people stood at the foot of the mountain—great scholars from the academy and many students had come to observe. When the stone was carried away by the wind, cries of amazement rose from the mountain’s base. From the prince’s smug expression, this seemed to be quite an achievement.
Later, the prince had wanted a guard to strap on the large umbrella and jump off the cliff, saying he wanted to see how a person could fall from high altitude without suffering the slightest injury. That guard had knelt on the ground and kowtowed until his head bled before the prince changed his mind and decided to use a pig instead. That pig was thrown off the cliff. At first it squealed miserably, but before long, the pig stopped wailing and seemed to be admiring the aerial scenery. When they found the pig about a li away, it was dragging the large umbrella and using its snout to root through the grass looking for earthworms. The pig hadn’t died, so if a person were suspended from the large umbrella, they certainly wouldn’t fall to their death either. The guard who had been selected beat his chest and stamped his feet in regret—if he’d been a bit braver, his official rank would have certainly been promoted after the jump. A golden opportunity had slipped away right before his eyes.
Li Tai increasingly detested the endless trivial matters surrounding him. His fief seemed to never be peaceful—there were always troublesome matters coming one after another to disturb him.
Sitting behind his desk, he picked up a petition requesting rent reduction, scrawled a few characters on it, and tossed it aside. At fourteen years old, his mind was full of those strange symbols. For ordinary matters, he felt a revulsion rising from the depths of his heart.
The prince’s subordinate officials—Author Xiao Deyan, Secretary Lang Gu Yin, Office Manager Jiang Yaqing, Merit Clerk Xie Yan, and others—always came together to trouble Li Tai. Sometimes they demanded that Prince Wei must serve as a model for the imperial family and seek welfare for the people of his fief. Other times they insisted that Prince Wei should communicate more with His Majesty to secure imperial favor, or even that he should frequently visit the palace to pay respects to Empress, or at the very least, cultivate relationships with important court ministers to leave an impression of shrewd competence in His Majesty’s mind.
As an imperial prince, Li Tai was no fool. How could he not see these people’s intentions? They were nothing more than strongly supporting him in competing with his elder brother Li Chengqian for the position of Crown Prince. He used to have such fantasies, occasionally dreaming at night of becoming emperor.
Now such extravagant hopes barely left a trace in his heart. Didn’t his father emperor sleep at the third watch and rise at the fifth, with his desk always piled with endless memorials to review? Today worrying about locust plagues, tomorrow grieving over former subordinates rebelling. Sigh, was this imperial life of raising the knife to cut people down and lowering the knife to scheme really what he wanted? Father Emperor had increased his fief again and again until it had now reached its limit. Each time he saw third brother Li Ke’s envious expression, why couldn’t he feel proud?
Why did he feel ecstatic when the parachute carried the pig away? Why did his heart beat so wildly when the hamster emerged from the white circle he’d drawn with perfect precision? Why did Yun Ye surrounded by lightning make him so envious he was entranced? Even such tedious work as marking maps with horizontal and vertical lines made him absorbed. I’m an imperial prince—wasn’t I naturally meant to fight to the death for the emperor’s throne?
He forced himself to calm down and picked up those memorials again, examining them one by one.
“A qilin has appeared in Chuzhou?” Reviewing the memorial from the Chuzhou Governor, Li Tai encountered this sentence and flew into a rage. Scoundrel, trying to deceive me again! Last time they said there was a peach tree with twin blossoms, calling it an auspicious omen for the ages. He’d issued an order of commendation, only to be mocked by Yun Ye for a full six months. Yun Ye had even given him the nickname “Twin Blossom,” which spread widely among the students. What twin blossoms—Yun Ye had found no fewer than twenty such flowers in the orchard. And now they’re trying again? And what’s this about a qilin? That creature is covered in flames and can ride clouds and mist—how did you capture it? Are they trying to deceive me again?
Ever since watching Yun Ye manipulate lightning in the palm of his hand, Li Tai had completely stopped believing in such things. Yun Ye said it was a natural phenomenon—when two different types of clouds meet, lightning is produced. Although he still didn’t understand what these positive and negative electrons Yun Ye spoke of were, Li Tai believed this explanation was far more reliable than the Thunder Duke and Lightning Mother in the clouds wielding hammers and chisels, swinging their arms to clash cymbals.
When Yun Ye grew tired of explaining, he said that one day he would also build a hot air balloon and take him up into the clouds to see for himself—it was all just water vapor, no different from the steam coming out of a teapot.
Reality was much crueler and far more boring than legend. There were no people with wings, no women who could produce lightning by clashing cymbals. Li Tai could already imagine that if the qilin sent to him wasn’t a fat pig covered in gold flakes, the Chuzhou Governor would have at least put in some effort.
He had to quickly issue a reprimand. He’d heard Yun Ye had already reached Guanzhong and would return in a few days. If he found out about this, wouldn’t he laugh himself to death? Last time calling him “Twin Blossom” was already showing mercy. If he learned about this incident, who knew what nickname he’d give him?
For the sake of his reputation, Li Tai wrote four large characters on the Chuzhou Governor’s memorial: “Complete Nonsense!”
The memorials on his desk seemed to multiply the more he reviewed them. When Secretary Lang Gu Yin arrived with more, and Li Tai saw the smiling secretary, he felt the urge to sigh to the heavens. They were always like this—as soon as they saw Li Tai begin working, they became extremely excited, as if their wealth and glory were within easy reach.
“On the tenth day of the second month, barbarians arrived at the port with a Kunlun slave, priced at one hundred strings of cash. This Kunlun slave stands nine chi tall, strong as an ox, with skin black all over, bronze rings piercing his nose and ears, most peculiar indeed. Specially presented to Your Highness to bring a smile to Prince Wei’s face.” This was the memorial from the Yangzhou Governor. Military and state affairs needed to be handled by the emperor; what reached him were all these trivial matters. Just a black man—was it necessary to spend one hundred strings of cash to purchase him? Unable to understand human speech, unable to write, eating more than others, working less than others—he could only serve as a curiosity. That place called Africa was full of such people running around, naked on the grasslands playing hide and seek with lions, often having one or two carried off by lions, crocodiles, and other wild beasts for a meal. Where was the value in one hundred strings of cash? This scoundrel was clearly using public funds to curry favor with superiors.
Mother Empress’s skirts no longer dragged on the ground, her insteps showing, all to use less fabric, to set an example for the realm and save a few copper coins. Did these people have any humanity? One hundred strings of cash could buy more than ten oxen. Make him pay back the one hundred strings from his own pocket.
He called over Secretary Lang Gu Yin and told him his decision, instructing him to draft a document of reprimand. Unexpectedly, Gu Yin stammered and refused to write.
Li Tai flew into a rage and was about to scold him, but saw Gu Yin bow and say, “Your Highness’s concern for the common people’s suffering fills this humble official with the utmost respect. However, Yangzhou Governor Zhou Dake is a frontier official. Though this matter was handled improperly, it was still done with good intentions. As they say, one doesn’t strike a smiling face. Prince Wei will have much need of him in the future—it would be better to preserve some face for him.”
Gu Yin was a rare talent who could compose essays as quickly as leaning against a horse. Li Tai greatly appreciated him. He’d originally thought that coming from a humble background, Gu Yin would look down on such corrupt official practices. He hadn’t expected such conciliatory words to come from his mouth. Did this mean that to gain one more ally, one had to associate even with treacherous officials?