Li’er walked ahead with his hands clasped behind his back, while Wei Zheng and Yun Ye followed behind. They had no particular destination, just wandering aimlessly around the estate. Wang Cai waited for a while, and seeing that Yun Ye was ignoring him, pulled his cart home by himself.
Li’er found everything fascinating. Whenever he saw a household’s gate open, he would walk right in and look around without any courtesy, as naturally as if he were returning to his own home. Perhaps there was reason for this behavior—after all, the entire Great Tang belonged to him.
Back when Liu Bang won control of the realm, he had asked his father: “You used to say I wasn’t as good as my older brother at accumulating family wealth. Now look—how do you think the family enterprise I’ve established compares?”
His father, together with the civil and military officials, congratulated Liu Bang on creating such a vast enterprise. No one raised any objections. Even someone as brilliant as Zhang Liang had no complaints, which showed that everyone believed the realm was Liu Bang’s family property. By the same logic, the current realm belonged to Li’er.
Li’er loved looking at the grain stacks in farming households. He enjoyed seeing the crude furniture made from raw timber. The sight of meat hanging from the roof beams pleased him. When he reached into a pile of wheat straw and pulled out a warm egg, he would squint his eyes and grin foolishly, holding it in his hand without returning it to the owner, while the farmer’s son could only purse his lips in dismay.
He patted the rumps of every livestock animal in the households. He had to inspect the farming tools leaning against walls to check if they were in good condition. When someone had finally managed to get some lacquer and freshly painted their porch, he would pick at the lacquer to see if it had been applied thickly enough.
The villagers were good-natured people. When he took an egg, no one asked for it back. When he patted their household oxen on the rump, no one reproached him. Even when picking at the lacquer made the owner suck in a pained breath, no one spoke ill of him—their honest smiles remained as before.
When they reached the last household and looked out at the open fields beyond the courtyard wall, Li’er said to Yun Ye: “How I wish such prosperous scenes would never end—that on the other side of the road, beyond the mountains, across the great rivers, everywhere would have the same beautiful scenery. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?”
Great men have great ambitions. Yun Ye considered himself a small person, so he was content as long as his own tenant farmers lived happy and comfortable lives. Never mind the other side of the great river—even if the Yun family tried to extend influence to the other side of the road, it would be a major undertaking.
The sky darkened. There was no curfew on the Yun family estate. Every household lit their lamps, families gathered around their heated kang beds—some doing work, others studying. This was how farming families should be: quiet and peaceful was the mainstream. Through the paper covering a window, a young boy was reading aloud, his voice carrying outside.
“The Master said: ‘Wealth and rank are what people desire, but if they are not obtained by proper means, one should not dwell in them. Poverty and low status are what people detest, but if they are not obtained by proper means, one should not abandon them. If a superior person abandons benevolence, how can he fulfill that name? A superior person does not abandon benevolence even for the space of a meal. In moments of haste, he cleaves to it; in times of difficulty, he cleaves to it.'”
Li’er stood outside the wall listening to the child recite the Analects as if hearing celestial music. He closed his eyes and listened for a long while before opening them and saying to Yun Ye: “This child left out the character ‘zhi.’ Tomorrow his teacher’s punishment will surely be unavoidable.”
Hearing this, Yun Ye smiled and said: “If he recited it wrong, he deserves a beating. Not one of the teachers the Yun family employs is anything but upright—they’re all strict, good teachers. Only after receiving punishment might this boy understand the principle of being careful.”
The monarch and subject looked at each other and smiled, quite anticipating the sight of the boy being punished.
“Marquis Yun, I’ve heard that your wealth here is not on the surface but underground. Is this true?”
Wei Zheng was quite talkative. Having wandered around the Yun family estate for many days, he was very familiar with the conditions of the farming households. To curry favor before Li’er, he even exposed the matter of the cellars.
“Is there anything about the Yun family estate you don’t know?” Yun Ye asked Wei Zheng irritably.
“Many things I don’t know. For instance, how your family’s horses can grow wood ear mushrooms, causing the price of wood ears in Chang’an markets to plummet. My wife never buys these expensive things, but yesterday she steeled herself to buy half a jin of dried ones—a full five hundred wen! How they’re grown, nobody knows except your family. This is growing money, not growing crops.”
Li’er watched from the side without speaking, observing how Yun Ye would respond.
“This makes no sense! Will you people let the Yun family live or not? When it comes to business, every one of you makes money hand over fist, but you won’t allow the Yun family to do business. Now I’m not doing business anymore—I’ve come home to farm, and you’re still complaining. What’s the reasoning here? Will you only be satisfied when the Yun family ties up its mouth?”
His temper flared. Wasn’t it just growing mushrooms in the cellars? A few old servants with nothing to do had imitated the stable environment, gathering some wild mushrooms from the wilderness and trying to grow them in the family cellars a few times. Unexpectedly, they succeeded! Yun Ye had only told them that mushrooms reproduce through spores. As for what spores were, he hadn’t even explained, yet these old fellows with too much time on their hands had actually managed to grow them. The first crop was to be offered to Old Madam to taste.
Yun Ye had been furious. Successfully cultivating wild mushrooms into domesticated ones required detoxification trials. He wouldn’t have objected if they’d found a sheep or a pig, but using the Yun family’s matriarch for medicinal trials—killing them would have been too light a punishment!
Among the old fellows was one with a stubborn temper. Hearing Yun Ye speak this way, he flew into a rage, grabbed a raw mushroom from the plate, stuffed it in his mouth and chewed vigorously, constantly saying how delicious it was. After finishing, he grabbed another…
For a whole day, the old fellow bounced around full of energy, constantly swaying in front of Yun Ye to display his superhuman vitality, which resulted in Yun Ye being scolded by Old Madam.
Now Wei Zheng had set his sights on the Yun family’s mushroom cultivation—truly detestable!
“Settle down! What are you shouting about? Minister Wei is just commenting on your Yun family’s assets. Who said you can’t farm? As I see it, if you tinker out some new food crops, it’s far more useful than holding eighty auction meetings. Besides, who said you can’t do business? You just made a huge profit, then turned around and spent it all. I hear you even have a trade caravan that went to the Three Kingdoms of Liaodong. Who knows how much profit they’ll bring back? Good thing the Empress has shares—then we’ll know whether you’ve emptied those three countries or not.”
This time, Wei Zheng simply wanted to use the Emperor’s authority to make the Yun family yield and share these beneficial things so all the people under heaven could benefit. What he despised most were misers who hoarded treasures without letting the world benefit—not that he bore any ill will toward the Yun family specifically.
Beside the last household, there were still lights burning. A portly local magnate was leading his three sons in moving stone slabs that had been leaning against the wall, grunting and groaning as they connected them to the existing stone-paved road.
Judging by the appearance of the father and three sons, they weren’t people who couldn’t afford to hire laborers. Li’er couldn’t understand, so he stepped forward and asked: “Why are you paving the road at night? Wouldn’t it be better to hire some laborers tomorrow?”
The portly magnate, sitting astride a stone slab, wiped away his sweat and filled the cracks between stones with fine sand from a dustpan before answering.
“Good sir, you must not know the rules of the Yun family estate. This old fellow bought that empty plot of land back there and plans to build a residence. When building houses on the Yun family estate, naturally craftsmen step in—there’s no need for this old fellow to lift a finger. But before building the house, the road must be paved first. My family doesn’t lack the money to pay for paving the road, but all along this road, the masters of the estate paved it with their own hands. How could this old fellow hire people to do this? Everyone else paved their own sections—if my family used servants, how could this old fellow face people on the estate in the future?”
“After years of traveling as a merchant to various places, only the Yun family estate has made this old fellow think of settling here permanently. Since I plan to settle here long-term, I must follow the estate’s rules, so my descendants won’t be looked down upon in the future. In other places, doing manual labor would be laughed at by other merchants, but here it’s no problem. I hear that Old Madam Yun works in her manor every day without rest, and Marquis Yun has herded pigs and hoed fields. What status does this old fellow have that he can’t pave a road? The shop is too busy during the day, so I can only pave a little each evening.”
Li’er nodded and said to the magnate: “So that’s the story behind it. This road should indeed be paved by oneself.”
The magnate immediately seized the opportunity: “You must be a distinguished guest. This small person’s shop is at the east end of the estate, selling lacquerware from Yangzhou. If you need anything, just send someone to say so, and I’ll prepare it and send it to your residence for you to choose from. This old fellow isn’t boasting—they’re all works by famous artisans, including the newest eggshell-inlaid lacquerware.”
Li’er smiled without speaking. Once back on the main road, he said to Yun Ye: “Regarding your family’s estate, I truly have nothing to say. It’s too late today—I haven’t seen everything. Tomorrow I’ll look more, to see what your family’s cellars are really like. Now let’s go to your house—I’m hungry. Don’t you dare try giving me carp again or you’ll regret it.”
Once Li’er arrived, Yun Ye couldn’t escape his fate as cook. Fortunately, he had prepared early. The kitchen had already been thoroughly searched by the Bai Qi Si. The family’s portly chef had seen great occasions before and faced the inspection calmly and deliberately, doing preparatory work while occasionally pulling two Bai Qi members to help him tend the fire. Once the ingredients were prepared, the Marquis would naturally return to do the cooking.
Li’er didn’t wish to disturb the Yun household, so he sat with Wei Zheng on the heated kang in the flower hall talking. The women and children of the Yun family were still shopping in Chang’an and wouldn’t return tonight—they were all staying at Xinghua Ward.
Li’er had a preference for fried foods, especially sweet and sour meatballs, which he couldn’t forget. He was a high blood pressure patient; eating these things did him no good whatsoever. But if Yun Ye didn’t let him eat them, the consequences for Yun Ye would be even worse, especially when Zhangsun wasn’t present.
The fist-sized braised lion’s head meatballs—he ate two of them by himself, then swept away a whole plate of small meatballs. He sneered at the lotus root Yun Ye made, considering it food for women. He also ate a whole plate of shredded potatoes, though while eating he prattled on endlessly about how Yun Ye was indeed a wastrel, eating even the seed potatoes.
When a bowl of lamb noodle soup was placed before him, he finally closed his mouth. The chili peppers made it bright red; he added a bit of vinegar himself and ate the huge bowl down to the bottom, sweat streaming down his head.
“Later, have your family chef teach this dish to the imperial cooks. The food in the palace truly isn’t as good as your family’s.”
He sipped from his teapot and deliberately placed it in front of Yun Ye, watching Yun Ye’s grief and indignation. The teapot he had nurtured for two years was never coming back.
After resting for a moment, Li’er returned to the Yushan traveling palace, with Wei Zheng accompanying him. Those guards who had been hiding somewhere unknown emerged like ghosts, surrounding and escorting Li’er’s carriage up the mountain. Looking from afar, the torches in the guards’ hands were like a fire dragon winding toward Yushan.