Rumors are like wind—if there’s a small crack, they’ll slip through and then become a large gust. Within two days, news that the Marquis of Lantian planned to become a farmer had spread throughout Yushan. Not only did everyone at the academy know, but even the tenant farmers knew.

Madam Cheng, not knowing who told her, specifically dispatched her steward with a famous Chang’an physician to visit Marquis Yun. Between the lines, she was testing whether Marquis Yun had gone mad. Due to the Marquis’s and Sun Simiao’s reputations being too great, they didn’t dare let the doctor take the Marquis’s pulse, only continuously scrutinizing the complexion on his face.

These past few days, Yun Ye had rushed day and night to write teaching materials. He was somewhat haggard, sporting two dark circles under his eyes with a listless appearance, which further confirmed the rumor that the Marquis had lost his wits. As soon as the steward returned, the Cheng family put out word saying: Marquis Yun was merely exhausted from working day and night and temporarily confused. Whoever dared say the Marquis had gone mad would be going against the Cheng family.

Now it was finished. No one spoke openly, but hiding under quilts and in secret rooms, they whispered mysteriously to each other, forcibly turning the perfectly fine Yun Ye, Marquis Yun, into a dim-witted fool, adding countless magical or bizarre episodes to the story.

For a time, Marquis Yun’s notoriety was unmatched. Throughout Chang’an City, those who knew him and those who didn’t all dispatched stewards to send countless fine medicines for calming the heart and soothing the spirit. Even the Eastern Palace sent a huge silver ingot, saying it was the Crown Prince’s instruction—that Marquis Yun would immediately improve upon seeing the ingot.

The ingot was accepted, but Yun Ye chased out the person who delivered it with a stick. Who told him to have such a curious expression?

Only Sun Simiao cheerfully accepted all the medicinal materials, saying the medicines were greatly useful for the secret formula he was researching. Marquis Yun might as well be sick for a few more days so he could obtain more secret spiritual medicines from the imperial palace’s collection.

Moreover, he practiced what he preached. Whenever dignitaries privately inquired about Yun Ye’s illness, the old man would heave a long sigh, shake his head, his expression desolate.

Now not a single tenant farmer on the entire estate looked favorably upon Yun Ye. The old men would sigh whenever they caught sight of the estate master running wild all over the place. The old grandmothers, with runny noses and teary eyes, said life had become unbearable. The adult men’s expressions were gloomy, even uglier than the black clouds in the sky. No children brushed Wang Cai’s fur or scratched his itches anymore. This made Wang Cai constantly sidle up to children. If any child couldn’t resist the temptation and was about to approach, they’d be slapped twice by adults, then dragged home crying. This made Wang Cai feel very hurt.

The farming households were hardworking. Every piece of land that could be cultivated was covered with crops. Knee-high wheat seedlings and oil-seed rape plants budding and blooming were full of vitality in the pattering light rain. They weren’t as robust as the wheat Yun Ye had seen at farms before, nor were they uniformly neat as if knife-cut.

The wheat here was uneven in height and varying in size. The leaves showed a weak, pale yellow color—insufficient fertilizer! Current farmland received no fertilization at all. They simply burned the wheat stalks haphazardly, leaving wood ash as fertilizer.

Harvesting two to three hundred jin per mu was already a good year with favorable weather. If locust plague came this year, Yun Ye didn’t even dare imagine what kind of tragic state would result.

He had been too utilitarian. Yun Ye felt some regret. He should have taken action at the beginning of the year. Now time was somewhat rushed. Li Er’s inaction made his heart burn with towering fury. Fine, if you don’t care about your subjects, I care about my tenant farmers.

Yun Ye looked at the sky and murmured: “What do you all think locust plague is? I gave you the method, but you ignored it. When the locusts haven’t yet taken flight is the best time to eliminate them. Li Er, you think storing grain in Chang’an can solve the problem? You fundamentally don’t know how terrifying large swarms of locusts are. Later generation African locust plague videos made my hands and feet ice-cold. Could the Great Tang’s national strength possibly have surpassed Kenya fourteen hundred years later? When even airplanes and pesticides are helpless, you expect to rely on catching them by hand? I’d like to see how many locusts you can sell me. Even if I bankrupt my family, I’ll buy them. If I don’t need them for medicine, I’ll use them to feed pigs and chickens—that should work.”

What a pity for all these crops in the fields—they’ll all feed the locusts.

The crop fields couldn’t be relied upon. Only sideline production could be counted on. This was Yun Ye’s method born of desperation. He wanted to escape the locust plague, this culprit that placed him in a dangerous position, but discovered he had nowhere to flee. The powerful inertia of history forcibly bound him to the war chariot, rolling forward.

Old Qian bought back many chickens and ducks from the Chang’an market, plus quite a few geese, and piglets hauled in over a dozen carts. These were almost all the chickens, ducks, geese, and piglets that could be bought in the Chang’an market.

He issued orders: distribute five chickens, two ducks, and one goose per person in each household, and two pigs per household. Tell the tenant farmers that the Marquis likes to eat eggs—all kinds of eggs—plus pork, so the entire estate must raise them. Whoever doesn’t raise them will have their legs broken.

Just this domineering. Yun Ye couldn’t mention the locust matter, so he had to harden his face and be unreasonable.

Crying echoed throughout the estate. Several old fellows came to the Yun household, kneeling on the ground and kowtowing until their heads bled, hoping the Marquis would rescind the order.

Any tenant farmer would wish to have this many livestock at home—they dreamed of it. But at this time when the old grain was exhausted and new grain not yet ripe, where could they find grain to feed these creatures? Even the wheat bran at home was for people to eat. There was fundamentally nothing to feed them.

Yun Ye stood at the gate, painfully clenching his hands and saying: “Listen. These poultry and pigs are your rent for this year. As long as you raise them well and get through one month, there will be things to feed them. Now, there’s still a month and a half until the crops are harvested. The fields don’t need that much labor. Everyone go up the mountains to dig for insects, search for grass seeds. If that doesn’t work, raise the chickens and ducks like sheep. Have children and old people all go herd chickens, herd ducks, herd pigs. This way you won’t need much grain. After one month, I guarantee there will be grain to feed them.”

Promises in the Great Tang weren’t given lightly. Once given, they would be fulfilled even at the cost of one’s life. Otherwise, forget being human—you couldn’t even be a pig safely.

The tenant farmers left with worried expressions. Since the estate master had promised and given them methods, they could only try their utmost to do it. The master’s family gained no benefit from this either, spending all that copper cash to buy livestock and give them to tenant farmers for nothing. If there were losses, they were also his family’s.

A spendthrift! The number one spendthrift under heaven. From then on, the tenant farmers looked at Yun Ye with very strange gazes. More than once, Yun Ye heard people discussing whether his wits were normal.

To thoroughly squander his fortune, he bought another batch and continued distributing them.

The Yun family estate’s brutal breeding industry began operations.

There wasn’t a single idle person on the entire estate. Early in the morning, snotty-nosed children were chased out of their homes, herding chickens, ducks, and geese, leading pigs by hand, searching everywhere for food. Even eighty-year-old grandmothers, leaning on walking sticks with pigs tied by grass rope, searched for fresh tender grass. As a result, it wasn’t her herding the pig, but the pig herding her, dragged all over the mountains running—extremely pitiful.

Yun Manor’s six lime kilns burned stones day and night without stopping, accumulating large quantities of lime. No one knew what the Marquis wanted to do with it. This stuff couldn’t be stored—once it absorbed moisture, it became useless. One furnace of lime was over-burned. The dimwitted kiln worker, busy herding pigs, forgot to open the kiln. As a result, the blazing fire melted the stones in the furnace. Among them, one block surprisingly didn’t turn white but was burned into liquid. After opening the kiln and cooling, it became a sheet of green crystal. The steward showed it to Yun Ye, who said nothing except to have the steward reward the kiln worker five hundred wen.

“Is this glass?” The old grandmother carefully examined that greenish thing.

“Yes. The kiln worker put a stone unsuitable for making lime into the kiln, then forgot to open it. After burning for an extra half day, this thing came out. As long as we understand why the stone was burned into this form, we can make glass. I heard this is an imperial patent. Ordinary households would be beheaded for making it.”

The old grandmother’s hand trembled, nearly dropping the stone to the ground.

“Ye’er, our family doesn’t want this thing. You get a good night’s sleep and forget about this matter. Don’t waste energy on it—just treat it as a stone. Grandmother knows you’re clever. If you wanted to know, you’d definitely figure it out. Our family doesn’t lack this beheading business. Be foolish just this once. Listen to Grandmother.” The old grandmother was almost pleading. She was truly afraid of anything related to the imperial family.

“Your grandson is now a famous spendthrift within a hundred li radius, dim-witted—do I still need to pretend?”

Holding a grudge! So I’ve become a dim-witted fool? Today Li Gang even asked: “Marquis Yun has the style of ancient Lord Mengchang. This old man admires you. However, enriching people this way is somewhat improper. This old man heard rumors saying you’ve recently lost your wits. Could this be true?”

Yun Ye wanted to hit him. The matter of betting with him was what he spread to Chang’an, claiming it was to spread Marquis Yun’s reputation and cultivate popular esteem. Secretly, there was inevitably some intent to force him up Liangshan, but he hadn’t expected it to be twisted by people with ulterior motives. The old man now felt somewhat guilty—clearly he thought Yun Ye’s string of foolish moves were caused by public opinion pressure. He didn’t know Yun Ye had a powerful defense system: that extraordinarily thick face brought from later generations. He had long been accustomed to seeing figures attacked by public opinion. There wasn’t just one or two people who didn’t care even when their bed photos were exposed. Just spreading word that Marquis Yun had lost his wits—what was that? Was that even a thing?

“Teacher worries too much. Whether this student has gone mad will be clear after two months. I merely acted somewhat urgently. Though there are flaws, the results are also remarkable. There are now no idle people on the estate. Do you know, Teacher, that wealth in this world fundamentally comes from labor? As long as effective labor is performed, wealth will naturally be created. Would this student be like Lord Mengchang, that ignorant bandit who cherished his body when doing great things but forgot his life over small gains?”

Old Li’s eyes flashed with sharp light: “Why are you so urgent? This isn’t your usual lazy temperament. Is there something this old man doesn’t know?”

Yun Ye’s face showed a bitter smile. He didn’t speak. Li Er had long issued a gag order on the locust plague matter. Last time at the imperial palace, he had wanted to ask but was forced back by Li Er’s gaze. He wanted to use the locust plague to make a grand statement. Who knew who would be destroyed along with the locust plague?

Even if Old Li was a very reliable person, matters concerning the entire family’s lives were better left unspoken to him. Otherwise, with his temperament, he would certainly stir up waves in the court. Once Li Er’s arrangements were disrupted, whether Li Gang could preserve his integrity in old age would be hard to say. The old man was decent—Yun Ye didn’t want him to suffer misfortune.

Seeing Yun Ye remain silent, Li Gang heaved a long sigh. His person became somewhat dejected. Turning to leave, he waved his hand while walking: “Old, old and useless. I can’t manage it. Looking at your appearance, I also cannot manage it. Won’t ask, won’t ask. Boy, work hard to do things well. Don’t lose your conscience…”