Even after returning to the palace, Zhangsun’s anger had not subsided. When Li Er saw her, he merely shook his head with a smile, turned around, and spoke to Lan Ling, who was holding a small plate: “Lan Ling, is this the cream candy you made?”
“Yes, Father Emperor. This is what your child just finished making. Please try some, Father Emperor.” Lan Ling stood on tiptoe, trying to raise the plate higher to make it more convenient for her father to reach.
Li Er hesitated, but seeing Lan Ling’s eager expression, he took the smallest piece from the plate, put it in his mouth, and turned it over a few times. He said to Zhangsun with surprise: “Empress, come try this. This child Lan Ling’s confection is truly excellent.”
Zhangsun looked up at the father and daughter, leaned back in her cushioned chair and said: “You should indeed try more. This consort has already eaten some. Dozens of buckets of milk produced only that much. How could it not be delicious? Your daughter relies on this to make her fortune. This consort bought ten strings of cash worth. Consort Yang and Consort Yin also bought quite a bit. I heard Qing Que bought one hundred strings worth. Ask your daughter how much money she’s earned from the palace this month.”
Hearing the Empress’s words, Li Er picked up another piece from the plate, examined it carefully, bent down and asked Lan Ling: “Tell Father Emperor, how did you come up with the idea of using this to make money? Who taught you?”
“That night there was a great storm. Lan Ling was sleeping and dreamed of an old man with a white beard making this at a stove. I just stood beside him and watched. After the old man finished, he said to me: ‘Have you learned it? If you’ve learned it, go make it yourself. Even Immortal Sun says this is a good thing—it will make you rich!’ Then your daughter woke up.”
This lie was well told. Li Er felt these words sounded rather familiar. Zhangsun continued: “No matter who asks, it’s always these same lines. Who knows how that white-bearded old man snuck into the palace to appear in Lan Ling’s dream? This consort has asked several times, but she just won’t say. When pressed urgently, she even cries, so this consort had to accept it.”
“Empress, don’t you find the phrase ‘even Immortal Sun says it’s good’ very familiar? I remember when a certain unscrupulous merchant was promoting locust powder to me, he used this phrase. When selling kelp, he also said this. Now it’s been passed down in the same vein to these little confections. By the way, what did you gain from visiting the Yun residence today?”
“Sometimes I really wish I could split open his head and see what’s inside. I gained two poems and was lectured by Old Master Yan Zhitui.”
Li Er chewed his milk candy, picked up Lan Ling and placed her on his lap, and said to Zhangsun: “Recite those two poems for me to hear. You don’t need to describe the process.”
“One is ‘Ancient Plain Grass.’ Yan Zhitui said this poem surpasses even ‘Song of Liangzhou.’ It only has four lines and seems incomplete, but just these four lines are already quite remarkable. Listen carefully: ‘Luxuriant grass on the ancient plain, each year it withers and blooms again, wild fires cannot burn it all, spring winds blow and it grows again.’ A mere twenty characters express the full cycle of prosperity and decline—the language is refined to the utmost.”
Li Er nodded and ate another milk candy, saying to Zhangsun: “It truly is good poetry. The artistic conception, meaning, and style are all top-notch. The language isn’t particularly ornate, yet it shows brilliance through simplicity. What’s the other one?”
“The other one can’t be considered great poetry, but in terms of quick wit, it’s absolutely first-rate. This consort was worried he would deceive us again with his master’s poetry, so I had him compose a poem following the oil painting on the table. Who would have thought he recited one—unexpectedly good.”
“Haha, Empress, you were quite cunning. But I very much want to hear how this boy composed this poem. Quickly recite it—I can’t wait.”
“‘From afar the mountain has color; up close the water makes no sound. Spring departs but flowers remain; people come yet birds show no alarm.’ What does Your Majesty think?”
“Nothing to say—truly nothing to say. Forget it, I won’t rack my brain over this. It’s just that this boy has ruined my mood for composing poetry, which leaves me somewhat unwilling. I’d better think more about the matters of the Double Ninth Festival grand court assembly.”
“That won’t do. You should first resolve the problem of the palace having no milk to drink. Lan Ling has led away eleven milk-producing cows, and no one in the palace can even ask about it. You once said they could drink as much as they wanted—milk isn’t a prohibited item. So now Lan Ling has palace maids milk all eleven cows dry every day, bringing it back in large buckets to her place. She’s set up a large pot to make confections for sale. You should really do something about it.”
Li Er scratched his head. His daughter’s current interest in culinary arts was actually a good thing. He knew full well that the white-bearded old man was Yun Ye in disguise, but unfortunately Lan Ling refused to admit it, and he was helpless. This little bit of persistence from a child needed encouragement.
“Lan Ling, keeping one’s word is indeed a virtue for a gentleman, but because you want to make money for yourself, you’ve left everyone else in the palace without milk to drink. Do you think this conforms to your teacher’s instruction?”
Hearing that her father seemed about to take away her cows, Lan Ling’s tears immediately fell like rain. In one month’s time, she had already filled three money boxes and paid the palace maids their wages. Now she was very popular in the palace. Wherever she went, palace maids and eunuchs came to curry favor, all hoping to be transferred to serve at Princess Lan Ling’s Xiyu Palace. Not only was the work easy there, but they could also earn extra income—something incomparable to serving elsewhere.
Lan Ling’s magic weapon was her abundant tears. No one knew where such a small person got so many tears. She left Li Er at a loss, patting Lan Ling’s back and saying: “It’s alright. If Lan Ling likes cows, then the imperial palace will raise more. We’ll bring in another dozen or so. As long as my daughter is happy.”
Zhangsun rolled her eyes dramatically at this father-daughter pair. She strongly disapproved of Li Er’s unprincipled indulgence, but seeing Li Er holding and coaxing Lan Ling, she said nothing more.
“Father Emperor, eleven cows aren’t enough. Your child now owes so much milk candy—to Crown Prince Elder Brother’s household, to Fourth Brother’s household, to Fifth Brother’s household, and to Uncle Prince of Hejiang’s household. In short, I owe a lot of milk candy. Those eleven cows are being milked desperately and it’s still not enough. Also, there isn’t enough rock sugar in the palace, and there isn’t much of that brown kelp left either. Father Emperor, my mother left early—you must help me.”
Li Er’s head grew big hearing all this. He looked back at Zhangsun, hoping she could help him out of this predicament, but Zhangsun kept her head down drinking tea, ignoring their father-daughter exchange. When it came to doing business, he really knew nothing.
“Father Emperor, the white-bearded immortal said I should first sell the milk candy to all the imperial family. This isn’t difficult for your child to achieve—the elders all like eating the milk candy I make. The next step is to sell to the nobility, and finally to sell in the markets. When milk candy is being sold everywhere in the Great Tang, your child will be a great little rich woman. Father Emperor, your child wants to be a rich woman—the greatest rich woman!”
Li Er was dumbstruck, Zhangsun was greatly alarmed. Lan Ling’s ideal was indeed magnificent. If she really could sell milk candy throughout the Great Tang, this income would be something even the Emperor couldn’t disregard. It was just that Lan Ling was doing business without capital—the bigger the business, the more severely the imperial family would lose.
“Lan Ling, tell Father Emperor, how much money do you have now?”
Lan Ling happily removed three large keys from around her neck to show her father: “These are the keys to your child’s money boxes. There are already three! I want to save up to one hundred!”
A gleam flashed in Li Er’s eyes. He patted Lan Ling’s head and said: “If you like cows, go lead them away. If there isn’t enough rock sugar, have the Internal Affairs Bureau procure more. The Yun family has plenty of kelp—just buy more. Now go play. Father Emperor needs to review memorials.”
The obedient Lan Ling, having gained her father’s support, happily returned to her Xiyu Palace, preparing to lead the palace maids to bring back all the cows behind the imperial kitchens for milking.
Zhangsun waited until Lan Ling had gone far before asking: “Erlang, what is this about? Why are you indulging Lan Ling so much? Doing this is very unfair to the other princesses. You understand the principle of not worrying about scarcity but rather inequality.”
“Empress, I just want to see how far Lan Ling can go, whether she can blaze a different path for our future descendants. Fiefs, princedoms—continuing this way isn’t a solution. The Former Han Dynasty is an example. Eventually, as descendants multiply, there will be more and more imperial family members, all parasitizing off the common people—that won’t do. This contradiction will erupt sooner or later. Lan Ling can support herself and blaze a prosperous path for herself. We should strongly support this. No matter what support we give her now, it won’t have as great an impact as her fief would cause.”
Zhangsun nodded and asked again: “This is because Lan Ling has Yun Ye helping her, opening up a source of wealth for her, which is why she has her current scale. Won’t the other children be at a disadvantage without such convenience?”
A cold light flashed in Li Er’s eyes as he gripped his sleeves and said: “Hasn’t the Empress seen it yet? Through Lan Ling, Yun Ye is submitting a memorial to me, hoping I will stop the endless granting of fiefs and compensate my children through other methods rather than through simple territorial rewards.”
“Some time ago, Qing Que clearly told me he has no energy and no time to manage fiefs. If possible, he wants to ask me to gradually take back those fiefs—just give him the annual income from the fiefs. He said if scholarly pursuits didn’t cost so much money, he wouldn’t even want the income. Such a request is truly unprecedented. Princes of other dynasties feared their princedoms weren’t large enough, but only the princes of our Great Tang are indifferent to fiefs. Ke’er now also isn’t very concerned about his fief and is wholeheartedly managing the Internal Affairs Bureau, seemingly immersed in it. He’s also becoming increasingly mature in monetary matters. From this perspective, the old path I walked, Chengqian and the others won’t walk it again. This makes me feel incredibly fortunate.”
Zhangsun said nothing. Without princedoms, her own children would be fine, but the other imperial family members would cause an uproar. Her husband was dreaming—dreaming the sweetest dream. Day and night he thought of preventing his children from repeating his mistakes. Although now only a sliver of light had emerged through a crack in the dark clouds and the sky was still pitch black, he couldn’t help fantasizing toward the most beautiful realm.
After spacing out for a moment, the cunning Li Er said to Zhangsun: “As long as there’s an ant hole in the dam, it will eventually collapse. Don’t worry, I won’t implement this now, and Qing Que’s fief won’t be taken back either. Since I have a method, I’ll gradually turn my dream into reality. Back then, didn’t I tell you that you would become the most honored woman in the world? Haven’t we now achieved that goal?”