Facts proved that rationality was a scarce commodity for everyone, and Li Er, the emperor of the ages, was no exception. In great fury, the decisions he made would be somewhat outrageous. The Censorate had engaged in groundless speculation and acted recklessly. Reminder Wei Zheng was demoted one rank in nobility. Censor Huang You was exiled three thousand li. All others who had seconded the motion were fined one year’s salary. Yun Ye acted recklessly without propriety, so he too was fined one year’s salary. This was the first time since the founding of the dynasty that censors had been punished for reporting on hearsay. For a time, the court and countryside were shaken. Anyone wanting to impeach others in the future—without solid evidence, it would be better to exercise caution.
No one mentioned those twenty-six charges again, as if the matter had never occurred. Even those fellows who had just moments ago been seconding the motion in Taiji Palace to have Yun Ye’s head chopped off now smiled and cupped their hands in farewell, as if they had never known Huang You, who was being dragged away wailing by the Imperial Guards. From their enthusiastic smiles, Yun Ye sensed a tremendous threat.
Li Tai was ordered by the Emperor to recuperate in the palace for a month. Once his health recovered, he would return to the academy to research together with his teacher Gongshu Mu. It wasn’t worth destroying two once-in-a-generation talents over a piece of fabric. Yun Ye didn’t care about his salary—ever since he became an official, whenever he was in the capital, his salary was always completely forfeited as punishment. Compared to the stable politics of early Zhenguan, the events of these past two days could already be considered shocking and unprecedented.
Fortunately, he had managed to shut the mouths of these annoying crows before he started seizing money. If this money-making scheme succeeded, he planned to take a long journey to avoid the impending Buddhist-Daoist conflict.
Li Chunfeng had already visited three times, hoping Yun Ye could attend the birthday purification ceremony at Laojun Temple and together await the arrival of the total solar eclipse. This calculation of Chang’an’s total solar eclipse was the result of calculations by Yuan Tiangang and his disciple Li Chunfeng together with countless Daoist masters. According to him, the margin of error wouldn’t exceed half a double-hour. This data was already quite remarkable—one must know that calculating the sun’s orbit and the ecliptic, as well as calculating the moon’s orbit and the white path, all required tremendous manpower and material resources. In an age when everyone used counting rods, this was an enormous project.
The data was given to Yun Ye, who recalculated it using his mobile phone. A solar eclipse definitely occurs at the new moon, meaning on the first day of the lunar month, which gave Yun Ye a tremendous opportunity to take shortcuts—he only needed to calculate the orbital intersection time for that day. To be accurate to the minute would somewhat insult Daoist wisdom, so Yun Ye had no choice but to make the time accurate to the duration of a cup of tea.
Even this was enough to make Li Chunfeng regard him as a divine being. To simplify so many tedious numbers in a single night—this was something only a god could do. Just as he was preparing to bow in worship to this divine person, he was exposed by Li Tai, who was lying in a rocking chair recuperating: “He has an abacus. Compared to counting rod calculation, it’s dozens of times faster. It’s not strange at all that he calculated those figures in one night.”
Of course, Yun Ye wouldn’t tell him the truth that he had actually calculated it in less than a double-hour. He could only admit that what Li Tai said was fact. Daya now stayed in Yun Ye’s office, studying on her own. When she encountered something she didn’t understand, she would run to consult Li Gang, Yuanzhang, and the others. Yun Ye really didn’t have the courage to arrange for Daya to sit in the classroom, ostensibly to look after him.
Taking the tea Daya handed him, he lay down on the reclining chair next to Li Tai. Glancing back at Li Chunfeng, who was staring stupidly at the abacus, he then asked Li Tai: “Didn’t His Majesty forbid you from running around everywhere? Why have you run to Yushan again? The experimental site has been sealed off by the Imperial Guards—even I can’t get in. What are you running back here for? Next year you’ll be enfeoffed to your territory. It’s better to make preparations early, lest when you arrive at your fief you’re completely clueless and inadvertently harm the common people without even knowing it.”
“Ye Zi, I’m extremely fed up with government affairs right now. Just seeing those things gives me a headache. Wasn’t your purpose in educating me to make me fall in love with mathematics, physics, geometry, chemistry, biology, and these sorts of things? I know you don’t want to see me compete with Elder Brother for the throne, and moreover, you’ve never concealed your purpose. Now that you’ve succeeded, why are you trying to persuade me to be interested in government affairs again?”
Yun Ye discovered that there weren’t many fools in the Great Tang. In fact, Li Tai had seen through his purpose long ago. It wasn’t that Yun Ye’s schemes had succeeded—rather, Li Tai himself had chosen the path he wanted. If he hadn’t liked it, none of the subsequent events would have happened at all.
“Qing Que, let me tell you a little story. After you hear it, just laugh it off. In the distant ancient past, there was a wise emperor who had many sons and daughters. When they were young, this emperor said his children must be the most outstanding children in the world. Heaven blessed him, and his children indeed turned out to be exceptional as he had hoped. As a result, problems arose—the throne could only be occupied by one person, and so…”
Li Tai listened very attentively. When he heard about that wise emperor dying alone, tears streamed down his face.
“Planting melons beneath the Yellow Terrace, when melons ripen they hang in clusters. One picking makes the melons better, a second picking makes them stronger, a third picking is still acceptable, but a fourth picking and you return with only vines.” Li Tai recited over and over the sorrowful lament from the emperor in Yun Ye’s story.
“Ye Zi, I know that in this world there might be a stone called the Three-Lives Stone that can see the past and future. I’ve always been skeptical about your abilities—no one can be as erudite as you. I consider myself a clever person, and facts have proven I am clever. I can never figure out why you know the ending when you see the beginning of a story, or why you accuse me of things I haven’t yet done. Tell me—does the Three-Lives Stone really exist in this world?”
Facts proved that Li Tai was indeed a scoundrel. Just moments ago he was grief-stricken and sorrowful, then immediately made a sharp turn, preparing to extract from Yun Ye’s mouth some secrets he desperately wanted to know.
“Little Tai, tomorrow I will very ceremoniously receive a friend who has come from afar. If you’re interested, come along. Remember, you only need to bring your ears, not your mouth. Listen to him tell some stories you’ve never heard, about things you’ve never encountered. He said he has a gift for me—I’m very much looking forward to it.”
“Your immortal friend? I’m not going back tonight—I’ll stay at your house. I don’t want to miss the slightest bit of this. From now on, I won’t leave your side. If you want to transform, just transform in front of me. I’m psychologically prepared.”
Telling Li Tai serious matters was completely a mistake, because he would stubbornly add his own interpretations, thereby turning your serious matters into a complete mess. Perhaps all good scientists had this virtue.
After arranging for Li Tai to teach Li Chunfeng the abacus, Yun Ye went to the window and pushed open the two carved wooden shutters. The entire Yushan seemed to suddenly throw itself into his embrace. He really wanted to transform into the wind and merge into it.
From a team of two hundred people, only Xi Tong returned alive. All the others were buried in the ancient wasteland. Yun Ye knew this was his sin, so he had refused Xi Tong’s request to meet with him casually. Tomorrow, the moment the sun appeared, the gates of the Yun Family would open, prepared to welcome the bravest person in this world. He didn’t care at all whether he was a criminal wanted by the court.
Yun Ye didn’t know how they had survived the eternal night, nor did he know how they had lived for an entire year in the wasteland. Regardless of their starting motives, they were all heroes.
“Big Brother, why are you crying?” Daya stood behind him. She had never seen Big Brother cry before, so she was very worried.
“Big Brother is just remembering some old friends who have died. Each of them was very brave. Big Brother is the most useless coward among that group of people.”
When it came to exploring new worlds, Yun Ye was undoubtedly the best candidate. Out of selfish motives, he had sent Tian Xiangzi and his group to a place of certain death, making them die one by one in the wasteland while clinging to the strongest hope. He didn’t know whether Tian Xiangzi’s eyes were closed when he died.
The time for sentimentality must not be prolonged, or else one would sink into it. It was enough to observe a moment of silence for Tian Xiangzi, especially since he had just shed tears—that was sufficient to atone for his sins.
Qu Zhuo, carrying a water bucket, had already slipped past under Yun Ye’s nose three times. When he stealthily tried to slip by for the fourth time, Yun Ye called out to him: “Qu Zhuo, you’re not over there weeding—what’s the logic in running back and forth carrying a water bucket?”
“Master Huang Shu wants to connect spring water to his shop. He’s cut a lot of bamboo, knocked through all the joints one by one, and plans to connect them together to bring water from the waterfall. He also says the water from Dongyang River now has a sour smell of feet, so this humble one has made a couple extra trips, planning to fetch good water from his house for the masters to make tea after Master Huang Shu succeeds.”
“How is your mother? Can she get out of bed now?”
“Not yet. Master Sun says it will take at least three months. Now her legs have sensation. I’ve taken on some mending work at the academy for my mother. Now we’re living very well. Thank you, Master.”
Seeing Qu Zhuo walk away carrying his bucket, Yun Ye also discovered that his melancholy had dissipated. Could it be that after doing evil, immediately doing good deeds effectively heals one’s psychological trauma? No wonder Buddhism says, “Put down the butcher’s knife and immediately become a Buddha.” As long as one’s mood is comfortable, one must become a Buddha even if one doesn’t want to.
Li Tai’s speculation today about the Three-Lives Stone might be correct. Perhaps he himself was a wisp of ghost that escaped the calamity of Meng Po’s soup, and the Three-Lives Stone wouldn’t have his name on it either.
Whenever he came into contact with Tian Xiangzi, the foundation of atheism in Yun Ye’s mind would weaken somewhat. Fortunately, he was already dead.
But to think that such a great person could only be buried in the wilderness and not receive a proper burial was undeniably regrettable. Li Gang thought about it very openly—he only asked Yun Ye for a coffin made of golden thread nanmu wood. Apart from that, he had no other requests. The one who wanted immortality had already died, while the one always prepared to die was now living so well that black hair was growing back. Li Er specially wrote a plaque for this auspicious omen, inscribed with “Ageless Immortal.”
Tomorrow when he met Xi Tong, he didn’t know if he could persuade him to stay. After drifting for half a lifetime, one always needed a place to settle. This time he would no longer think about nonsense like “using him for my purposes”—he only wanted to give him a small space of his own where he could lick his wounds.