What was the foundation of an aristocratic family? The Zhangsun family’s foundation was disciples all over the world. Old Master Yan’s family foundation was a houseful of poetry and books, along with those history books sharp as knives. Cheng Yaojin’s family foundation was that generation after generation knew how to march and fight in battle.

To distinguish themselves from other aristocratic families, the Yun family could only raise a few aged roosters and use them as their foundation to deceive people. However, everyone in Chang’an acknowledged one thing—the Yun family people seemed a bit smarter than others.

This one point was remarkable, and the result was that others very much liked to form marriage alliances with the Yun family. Yiniang’s eldest daughter was only thirteen years old, and she had found a good family and was planning to arrange an early betrothal. For this reason, Yiniang specially came to seek her daughter’s uncle’s opinion, only to be severely scolded by Yun Ye. For boys, arranging marriage early wasn’t a big problem, but for girls, marriage shouldn’t be arranged too early. What if the betrothed child grew into an idiot? Would one’s own daughter still have to jump into a fire pit?

For men, breaking an engagement wasn’t a big deal. This world placed too severe constraints on girls. Generally, there wouldn’t be major problems, but once a girl was betrothed, if the man’s family suddenly suffered a great calamity, she would often become a sacrifice. Even if some families loved their daughters and dared to break the engagement, a label of “despising poverty and loving wealth” would immediately be slapped on them, passed down for thousands of years, with generation after generation cursing endlessly.

The reason Yun family people were smarter than others lay in their distinctive education. Mathematics was the subject most capable of developing human intelligence. Yun Ye required his children to master the arithmetic level of his former elementary school. Even a little dummy like Xiao Ya could perform simple calculations at the drop of a hat.

When a female household manager sat in her family’s living room, making the abacus beads clatter noisily while staring intently at the person whose accounts she was checking, no matter how experienced the steward was, their heart would tremble. The Yun family were masters of mathematics—this reputation had long become common knowledge in the Great Tang.

Entering the Yun family required learning mathematics first—this was Xinyue’s belief. Although her own mathematics was the worst in the entire household, and she couldn’t understand whether Yun Mu was actually moving abacus beads or fooling her, she could always rely on her outrageously keen sixth sense to judge truth from falsehood. Yun Mu, Yun Huan, and Yun Lu had suffered enough. Only the well-behaved Yun Xiang never slacked off.

Huahua’s face was almost contorted. The abacus beads in front of her simply wouldn’t obey. Her fingers could never produce the correct numbers.

Sneaking a glance at others, she saw eldest sister Yun Mu had already finished calculating and was standing by the window facing the rising sun, performing some extremely difficult movements with her feet—sometimes like a large bird spreading its wings, sometimes doing a vertical split kick, sometimes performing a somersault in the slowest motion, beautiful as a dance.

Yun Huan had also finished calculating, but he couldn’t go out. He could only shake his pen and act dazed.

Huahua quickly placed the paper in front of her before Yun Huan, then pulled away Yun Huan’s paper, smeared the name section into a black blob, stuck out her tongue and laboriously wrote her own name on it. She let out a long sigh of relief, preparing to follow Yun Mu’s example and make her body that flexible as well.

The consequences of such cheating were predictable. The furious Yun Huan would naturally be implicated, so when everyone else went out, only Yun Huan and Huahua were left staring at each other.

“Huahua, it won’t work. Do you know what makes me most miserable in this family? There are no idiots! Not one person in this family is an idiot! Your methods can’t even fool the maids! The tricks we can use like fish in water outside become jokes in this family. Look at that smiling bastard—his name is Yun Jiu, he’s a household steward, but his learning is renowned even at Yushan Academy. You just thought he was illiterate. Do you know that, apart from my father and Sister Xiao Wu, his learning is the highest in the family, and you still wanted to deceive him.”

Huahua’s mouth immediately twisted. She said to Yun Huan embarrassedly: “What if I can’t learn it?”

“Beat it into your head, I guess. Don’t worry, they’ll have ten thousand methods to teach you mathematics, teach you to use the abacus, teach you about two pipes, one filling water, one draining water, and how long it takes to fill the pool. Don’t doubt it—they will definitely teach you. We two grew up together. I’ve known since I was two that you’d be my wife. Childhood sweethearts—I really can’t bear to see you suffer.”

“If you entered anyone else’s family, you wouldn’t have this kind of suffering. But you just had to enter my family. How about it, do you regret it now?”

Yun Huan was beating around the bush trying to persuade Huahua to cancel their engagement.

“That’s not right. How do you know I haven’t looked at other families’ young men? The Qin family’s are too stupid, the Yuchi family’s are too ugly, the Niu family’s are too handsome and look like women, the imperial family’s are even stupider. So after choosing and choosing, you’re most suitable. Apart from that stinking habit of burrowing into groups of girls, everything else is good. I’m very confident I can cure you of your stinking habit. What do you say, Yun Huan?”

Huahua patted the table and giggled. Yun Huan banged his head on the table, pretending to faint. They had grown up together. From siblings they suddenly became husband and wife. Huahua didn’t feel anything was wrong. Moreover, Yun Huan felt best when beaten. It was a habit formed since childhood—if she didn’t beat him a couple times when they met, her whole body felt uncomfortable.

The dinner bell rang. Since Yun Ye returned, the family no longer had that rule of no dinner for those who made mistakes. Huahua quickly stood up, dragging the reluctant Yun Huan toward the dining hall. Yesterday at noon they ate fried pork ribs—who knew what it would be today? The Yun family’s meals never repeated, so Huahua was very much looking forward to it.

When the Yun family members ate, they always sat at one large table. It was said that when those aunts hadn’t married yet, the table was even bigger. Now the population had dwindled considerably. The old grandmother and the great-aunts were unwilling to go to the dining hall to eat, so the whole family sat around a moderately-sized table. Yun Shou had already left. Li Yanrong’s spirits had been poor these past two days. This was Huahua’s first time seeing her future eldest sister-in-law at the dining table.

A sickly beauty—this was Huahua’s first impression. However, looking at the posture she sat in, Huahua felt this sister-in-law of hers wouldn’t be simple. Sure enough, as soon as Li Yanrong opened her mouth, she said to Aunt Xinyue: “It’s nothing for me to return to the Eastern Palace. I’ve lived in our family all these years and gotten used to it. I’ve never used those methods. The methods Meiji taught can’t be used on our family members, but Father’s place is different. Mother, are you saying I really need to use heavy-handed tactics?”

Yun Ye patted Li Yanrong’s hand and said: “Originally, inner residence matters don’t amount to much, but once inner residence matters affect a man’s struggles outside, that won’t do. You must use the heavy-handed tactics that need to be used.”

“Such a huge Eastern Palace has become what? Leaking wind from all four sides, rain pouring in from all eight directions. Which concubine your father spends the night with can be spread to the streets. It’s not humiliating enough. If you don’t use heavy-handed tactics, I’m afraid it won’t work.”

Yun Ye tapped the table with his chopsticks, stopping the discussion between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law. He put down his bowl and asked Huahua, who was burying her head in her meal: “Daughter, have you been living comfortably at home these past few days? If there’s anything unsatisfactory, tell your aunt and have her adjust it for you.”

Huahua put down her rice bowl, crouched and curtsied, saying: “Uncle, Huahua is living comfortably and eating comfortably. You don’t need to worry.”

Yun Ye said with a smile: “I’m afraid only studying is uncomfortable, right? You’ve had a boy’s disposition since childhood, and Yun Huan’s disposition is rather soft. If you can’t study well, we’ll study slowly. You can’t treat it as a bitter task.”

Huahua’s small face turned red. She obediently sat back in her chair and lowered her head to eat, not daring to touch even her favorite braised pork. Yun Ye used his chopsticks to push the plate of braised pork in front of Huahua and said: “Eat well. How can such a generous daughter still be shy?”

As soon as these words came out, Xinyue, Na Rimu, Lingdang, Xiao Miao, and Li Yanrong all laughed together. Only Yun Mu said in a cloying voice that Father was playing favorites.

After lunch, a merchant caravan from afar arrived. Just looking at the gifts, Yun Ye was very happy. Truffles—it was rare that Meng Na and Meng Lu still remembered his preferences and had sent an entire basket, all buried in soil with very large blocks of ice placed on top. With this ice, the growth of the truffles could be suppressed, so they would still be fresh even when they arrived in Chang’an.

Those most familiar with the mountains must still be mountain people. He didn’t know what was in this soil. Touching a handful, he found it was all half-rotted pine needle soil. He personally dug out truffles from the soil while listening to the Lingnan steward speak.

“My lord, our family’s business in the south has now completely established a firm foothold. It’s absolutely different from those noble families’ businesses in Chang’an City. Our family in Lingnan is now a local establishment. When good things from the sea come ashore, our family absolutely gets first pick. However, in recent years, the Hou family’s business has also developed well. Old Madam Hou has already spoken, saying that in the future our family doesn’t need to continue supporting and subsidizing the Hou family’s business. If there are any more intersections with the Hou family’s business in the future, it can only be cooperation.”

“Young Master Hou Jie is now on the distant island, having completely established a new world. There are more and more people there. Many noble families have started to have properties on the distant island. As more and more people go, it becomes harder to keep it secret. Young Master Hou asked this old servant to help him pass along a message, asking what should be done. Does he need to completely sever the relationship between the distant island and the mainland?”

Yun Ye didn’t make a sound. This was a huge difficult problem!

“All under heaven is the king’s land, all within the realm are the king’s subjects”—this was Li Er’s current mentality. He would not tolerate an overseas land full of Tang people that wasn’t under his jurisdiction. And this matter couldn’t be kept secret. Perhaps Li Er already knew and was just waiting for him to report to him. If he didn’t report, Li Er simply wouldn’t mention that he knew about that island. He would only make arrangements in secret, ready at any time to execute a thunderous strike.