“Your Majesty, do you happen to have a single coin?” Yun Ye suddenly asked.
“I do.” Li’er actually did pull out a Kaiyuan Tongbao coin from his sleeve, casually tossing it onto the table. Yun Ye picked up the coin and tucked it into his own sleeve, then said to Li’er: “Your Majesty, when you leave you’ll have the tools and recipe for making liangpi. It’s very simple. This subject guarantees that the imperial chefs in the palace will learn it immediately.” Li’er grunted in acknowledgment and continued resting, waving his hand at Yun Ye and Li Tai, shooing them away like flies.
Li Tai looked at Yun Ye with contempt, then also pulled out a coin from his sleeve and slapped it into Yun Ye’s hand, saying: “I also have a coin. In a moment, I’ll have someone send the tools and recipe for making liangpi to your residence.”
“That won’t do.” Yun Ye shook his head, holding up five fingers to Li Tai. Perhaps feeling he was being too cheap, he held up another five fingers before stopping.
“Just now my father only needed one coin, so how is it that when it comes to me it becomes ten strings of cash? Looking down on people like this doesn’t seem like the behavior of a gentleman.”
“Selling one’s patent depends on the person—mainly on whether the buyer of the patent can bring benefits to it. If so, you must seize the opportunity, even selling it for one coin has its benefits. For example, if His Majesty buys it, it will have a promotional effect on this small patent of mine. If His Majesty likes eating it, there’s no reason people below wouldn’t like it too. If I wanted to open a shop selling liangpi and spread it throughout all the prefectures of the Great Tang, I would write on the signboard: ‘Liangpi that even His Majesty the Emperor of the Great Tang loves to eat’—text like that. With such wording, I could quietly raise the price somewhat to compensate for my loss in selling the patent to His Majesty. I might even earn more. So selling it to His Majesty for one coin is a good thing, but selling it to you for one coin would be a loss. I’m not an idiot—why would I do something that makes me lose out?”
Li Tai nodded helplessly and said desolately: “If that’s the case, your business principles ignore personal relationships, ignore family affection, ignore good and evil, and ignore ethical propriety—you only consider profit and loss. With the four words ‘I want to make money’ on your head, Kong Fang in your left hand and gold shields in your right, killing gods when gods block your way and killing Buddhas when Buddhas block your way—tell me, what exactly are you trying to teach me?”
“Over these years I’ve felt myself undergo great changes. Sometimes when I wake in the middle of the night and reflect on my past, I suddenly discover that from the moment I entered the Academy, Li Tai was no longer Li Qingque. I used to be proud and arrogant, looking down on everyone except my father the Emperor. After entering the Academy, I discovered there were many people stronger than me. If you stripped away my identity as the Fourth Imperial Prince, I wasn’t much better than anyone else. To maintain my dignity, you clearly know how hard I studied, eventually becoming so immersed I couldn’t extricate myself.”
“But that’s not the point. The point is that I began to look at the world through human eyes, not through the eyes of the Fourth Imperial Prince Li Tai. Those methods you just mentioned are very useful—if one were to open liangpi shops, one could certainly spread them throughout all the prefectures of the Great Tang. But, haha, I don’t like it and won’t learn it. Only considering profit and loss in all matters, ignoring personal relationships—I can’t do that. I’m a person. I have parents, elder and younger brothers and sisters. These things can’t be measured by profit and loss. Even if I earn less money, or no money, or even lose money, I still want to maintain these things. So don’t use your disgusting theories to defile me. Whether you give me the liangpi recipe or not, at worst I just won’t eat it. What’s the big deal?”
Hearing Li Tai’s words, Yun Ye sighed and took out a coin from his sleeve, placing it in Li Tai’s hand and saying: “I couldn’t do it either. You win. This coin is yours. The recipe and tools will be sent to your home immediately. What I was just describing was a type of person, a pure economic animal. You can’t deny that they truly exist in this world—there are many of them, and they’re considered models of success. If you want to succeed, you must first make yourself into a pure person—for example, a pure emperor, a pure politician, a pure military man, a pure merchant, a pure scholar. I once heard a saying: ‘Only paranoids can succeed.’ The two of us can’t become paranoids—we can only become two complete fools.”
Li Tai tucked the coin into his chest, looked at the courtyard full of noodles, and winked at Yun Ye, saying: “I think being a fool who smiles foolishly at a courtyard full of noodles is actually a very happy thing. Being happy because of others’ happiness brings much more joy than being happy because of your own happiness. Don’t you agree?”
“Don’t disgust me. Someone who smiles all day long is the village idiot. No proper person is always happy. Having that kind of cultivation and saying such things is really disgusting.”
The Yun family’s courtyard walls were crowded with guards—there wasn’t a quiet place anywhere. Yun Ye and Li Tai could only go to the front courtyard to watch Xinyue and the others making noodles under the shed.
Zhangsun was also there. Having just given birth and finished her month of confinement, she looked much more prosperous overall. She wore an orchid-patterned headscarf on her head and was placing chopped potatoes into the millstone’s opening. She occasionally slapped the rump of the donkey pulling the mill. Her whole person seemed wrapped in an aura of joy, her spirits robust and vigorous.
Seeing his mother working, Li Tai went up to lead the donkey in circles. After just a few rounds, he felt dizzy. Zhangsun laughingly scolded and shooed her son away—whose household has the master also walking in circles when the donkey is pulling the mill?
Yun Ye poured Zhangsun a cup of tea, asking her to rest while he took over feeding potatoes into the mill opening. Zhangsun removed her headscarf and very naturally used it to wipe her face. For a peasant woman to do this wasn’t unusual, but for Zhangsun, the noble mother of a nation, to do so looked awkward no matter how you looked at it. She had never done farm work since childhood—only during the annual spring plowing would she make a show of it, and during autumn harvest she would follow behind Li’er picking up a few stalks of wheat he deliberately dropped on the ground, and that counted as having worked the fields.
This gesture must have been learned from peasant women during her travels, or seen in literary works. She probably felt it expressed simplicity and her own hard work, putting on a show for the civil and military officials and the common people of the realm—a good bit of theater. She hadn’t even been sweating earlier—pure performance. Someone who could act to this degree was also a pure person.
“Little Ye, how wonderful! The noodle recipes you sent to the palace yesterday were excellent. I especially love that pork stewed with noodles. For the evening meal I ate nothing else—I ate two full bowls of that dish. It’s truly filling and delicious. You’ve accumulated great merit. On behalf of the farming families growing potatoes, I thank you.”
“Your Majesty is too kind. This isn’t this subject’s achievement but the merit of Academy students Wei Chunpeng and Lan Yushu. This subject has already promised to invite their family elders to attend a banquet. At that time, this subject will certainly convey Your Majesty’s gratitude.”
Li Anlan took the wooden basin from Yun Ye’s hands, also taking over his work so that Yun Ye could speak properly with the Empress. Seeing this scene, Zhangsun smiled and came with Yun Ye to the well platform, asking him curiously: “Shouyang and Xinyue are very strange, and your household is very strange too. I really want to know how you manage these two women. Being able to achieve such ease and harmony is beyond most people’s ability. Such skill—tell me about it.”
She had probably been curious for quite some time, and now she could no longer suppress her blazing fire of gossip. She blinked her eyes and began asking questions. What kind of empress would be like this?
“Your Majesty is mistaken. It’s not that this subject manages them—they manage this subject. When goals are aligned, mutual understanding, mutual forbearance, coexistence and mutual prosperity can always be achieved, ultimately forming a delicate harmony. Everything in the world has patterns to follow—just let things take their natural course.” Naturally Yun Ye couldn’t mention his outrageous behavior from a few days ago. He could only give a vague, cloudy explanation.
“Your reasoning makes sense. Previously in the Imperial Palace there was an absolutely beautiful woman whose beauty crowned the entire harem. That would have been one thing, but she was also proficient in various dances and was much beloved by the Grand Emperor. Unfortunately, she always wanted to become Empress, which offended everyone. I won’t hide it from you—last time when you helped the Grand Emperor resolve his inner turmoil, that shadow of the court lady referred to her. To secure her favor, she learned from somewhere an extremely lewd and lascivious dance. The Grand Emperor watched her dance for a month without attending court. This was a model of not understanding the big picture. At that time, His Majesty was locked in battle with Wang Shichong in Luoyang. One reversal could mean the destruction of the state and personal ruin. The Grand Emperor neglecting state affairs wouldn’t do—memorials piled up like mountains on his desk.”
“At that time, Pei Yan entered the Imperial Palace. After seeing that dance, he was greatly alarmed and said this was the nation-destroying ‘Heavenly Demon Dance’ that would ruin people’s minds. Even those with unshakeable willpower would slowly become pliant. Do you know what happened to that beauty?”
Yun Ye couldn’t understand why the Empress would tell him these palace secrets. He could only numbly shake his head, knowing in his heart that this beauty’s fate couldn’t have been good.
“When the officials heard Pei Yan’s words, they immediately stormed the palace en masse. When they entered the Grand Emperor’s bedchamber, the beauty was dancing. The officials’ towering rage was actually dissolved into nothing by her performance of the ‘Heavenly Demon Dance.’ Pei Yan covered his eyes with red silk to maintain his sanity and tearfully begged the Grand Emperor to behead this demon woman as a warning to others. Unexpectedly, the Grand Emperor’s mind was bewitched by that demon woman—he not only refused but wanted to behead Pei Yan instead. How could this be allowed? The officials pleaded for Pei Yan one after another. That Pei Yan, in the prime of his life, actually seized the iron mace from a palace guard and struck down at the demon woman’s forehead. The Grand Emperor tried to help the demon woman by blocking with a paperweight. The demon woman wasn’t killed, but her face was clawed by the iron mace from forehead to chin. A living, fragrant beauty became a true heavenly demon in an instant.”
A trace of schadenfreude appeared on Zhangsun’s face, but it quickly vanished. Women’s jealousy was truly frightening—this emotion didn’t cease to exist just because you were Empress.
“Your Majesty, there’s nothing worth telling about this kind of story. Since ancient times, our history books have been filled with endless accounts of demon women—Daji, Bao Si, Zhao Feiyan. These women’s fates weren’t particularly good. The appearance of another is nothing unusual. This so-called ‘Heavenly Demon Dance’ is nothing more than some obscene dance. Using lust to bewitch people—is such trash really worth Your Majesty’s solemn explanation?”
Zhangsun froze for a moment and asked Yun Ye: “You don’t believe it?”