Taking care of children is a pleasure, provided the children you’re caring for are your own. Even the most fastidious mother will turn a blind eye to her child’s feces at such times. Examining the child’s stool to see if their digestion is normal is homework infant mothers must do every day. So when Yun Ye saw his two treasures, it was like seeing himself.
“Were you a woman in your past life?” Xinyue looked at Yun Ye strangely. She had never seen a man so skilled in caring for children. Even farmer men didn’t have this ability. Na Rimu was also very curious and came over to watch Yun Ye’s technique.
“Would you two not know whether I’m a man? You’re so clumsy at everything you do. Boys now should wear split-crotch pants—having the little thing exposed is so dignified. Na Rimu, I’m talking to you—wrapping a child isn’t wrapping a sheep. Why are you being so rough? And also, you’re so tall for nothing—your milk supply is actually less than Xinyue’s. My daughter is growing right now and can’t be short on food. Tonight I’ll make you some crucian carp soup and you’ll drink it all. Tomorrow eat two more pig’s trotters—I don’t believe there won’t be milk.”
Driving the two women out, the wet nurse was also useless—drive her out too. Today’s time was parent-child time, not to be disturbed by outsiders. Supporting his daughter’s waist and head, placing her in the crook of his arm to rock her, he didn’t dare shake too vigorously or she’d spit up milk. His daughter’s pink little mouth was open, staring at her father with round eyes, making meaningless “ah-oh, ah-oh” sounds from her mouth.
Spreading a thick blanket in the vat, Yun Baobao gripping the edge of the vat could just stand up, bouncing and trying to get out of the vat. In families without baby carriages, the male head of household should be sent to feed pigs. After coaxing both son and daughter to sleep, he sketched on paper. Soon a baby carriage with a sun canopy was drawn. He found the household carpenter and gave instructions—select the best wood, polish it so there isn’t a single splinter, make all edges and corners rounded, finish it in one hour, no matter how many people it takes—make two!
The carpenter ran off to work. The Marquis generally didn’t assign tasks, but once he did, it was the household’s top priority. He found the steward and had him bring the mending women and embroiderers to the carpenter’s place to make cushions and sun canopies for the little carriages. Hurry—needed soon.
This was the one advantage of being a marquis—you only needed to speak, and naturally others would handle everything else. With these matters properly arranged, this father also needed to sleep a while, conserving energy to welcome the children’s next wave of crying. Hearing from the steward that the two spendthrift women had already taken a carriage with wine and food to go boating on East Yang River—fine, consider it giving them half a day off.
Children were troublesome. His daughter woke up crying “waa-waa,” then his son also started crying. Yun Ye leaped from the bed and in a few steps was at the children’s little bed. His son was sturdy so could wait—he picked up his daughter and felt her little bottom. She’d peed again, and it seemed she’d also pooped. With warm water basin prepared, he wiped her little bottom once, then washed it with warm water, and only then did the crying stop. As for the sturdy son, he’d long stopped crying, having put his father’s soft cap on his foot and was trying to put his foot in his mouth.
Xiao Ya came wanting to help but was driven away. Xiao Wu came and was driven away—this child couldn’t be near children, especially girls. Shishi was very obedient, helping Yun Baobao pee, just always looking down at Yun Baobao’s little bird.
The steward and wet nurse each pushed a little carriage, happily approaching. People who’d never pushed baby carriages had this problem—spreading the children’s little blankets on the carriages, wrapping them tightly. The sky outside was neither cloudy nor clear—just the right time to take children out.
With Shishi, each pushing one, they strolled through the garden. A sense of pride arose spontaneously. Other little maids seeing the fun toys surrounded them, begging elder brother to let them also push their nephew and niece.
Yiniang never asked her brother for things. Seeing the baby carriage, her eyes turned red. Pulling on her brother, she rarely acted spoiled, demanding the baby carriage—her child also needed this thing.
Fortunately, Yun Ye was prepared. He told her the carpenter was still making them—if she wanted one, just go get it. Hearing this, Yiniang released her elder brother’s arm and ran off in a flash to the carpenter’s place, without a bit of the bearing of the household’s young madam.
When the bright moon rose, the two women exhausted from playing finally entered the house. They themselves felt they’d gone too far, pushing and shoving each other, not daring to enter. Xinyue used a hairpin to pierce the window paper, secretly looking into the room. She saw Yun Ye using his foot to push the cradle beneath his foot, holding his son in his arms, the two of them reading a book. He even had time to lower his head and sip tea from the teapot. Every time he turned a page, he specially solicited the opinion of his drowsy son. Father and son were quite harmonious.
No panic, no irritation—just like handling other matters, still so methodical and orderly. Seeing the peaceful and tranquil room, Xinyue suddenly felt her husband would live very comfortably even without women. What in this world was there that he couldn’t do?
Don’t even mention cooking—the meals he made were famous in Chang’an. She couldn’t catch up even on horseback. Na Rimu told her that her husband also sewed clothes himself on the grasslands, with good craftsmanship. Even now, when in the mood, he would occasionally tell Xinyue what kind of clothes would look better when worn. He always held an opposing attitude toward Na Rimu’s red-and-green color combinations. Helplessly, this was Na Rimu’s favorite attire.
They had to enter eventually. Xinyue gently pushed open the door. Just about to apologize to her husband, she discovered Yun Ye smiling as he put down the book in his hand, placing his hand at his lips to signal her to be quieter—the child was asleep…
Early in the morning, the one attending Yun Ye’s washing was Xiao Ya. Xiao Dong, Xiao Nan, Xiao Xi, Xiao Bei, Shishi, and Xiao Wu also came. Di Renjie kept his mouth tightly shut, wordlessly carrying over a small bucket of well water. In summer, Yun Ye most liked using ice-cold well water to wash his face.
Knowing they had something to ask, he didn’t expose it. After washing up, he sat in the front hall waiting to eat breakfast. Several children all brought their homework from yesterday for Yun Ye to check. Not bad, not bad—yesterday’s homework was all done very carefully, with neat handwriting and unified answers. These children couldn’t even fake it properly. You couldn’t have Xiao Wu get problems wrong and all of you follow suit and get them wrong too. Besides, having Di Renjie do five or six assignments would exhaust him.
“Little Jie, doing homework last night must have been very tiring. You must rest more at night. You’re still young and can’t stay up late.”
“Not tired, just when writing for Xiao Bei my hand got a bit sore.” After saying this, he saw six pairs of eyes glaring at him viciously. Wanting to cover his mouth was already too late, so he simply stood behind his master and said loudly: “They want Master to build them a house in a tree. They forced me to write their homework. Last night I wrote until the third watch. I’m dead tired.”
Hearing Di Renjie’s tearful accusation, Yun Ye very much sympathized with this pitiful child. In an environment with many girls and few boys, not being bullied was a very difficult thing. He’d previously told them about tree houses, and they didn’t have much reaction. He thought girls didn’t like climbing up and down. Since yesterday when they saw the little carriage, these children thought of this matter, felt it must be good, which led to this morning’s scene.
The garden had several trees very suitable for making tree houses. After telling the carpenter his ideas, Yun Ye no longer managed it. Teacher Sun had an important experiment to conduct today that he must go observe. As for the house design, let them think of it themselves. As for Xinyue and Na Rimu, they’d already taken the baby carriages with the children to the Niu family to show off. After the summer harvest there was always a long period of leisure. Xinyue, who’d been busy from early spring until now, indeed needed to rest a bit.
The subject of Sun Simiao’s experiment was a dairy cow. The cow’s full udder was covered with pox pustules. With a light squeeze, pale yellow fluid flowed out. This was cowpox. Today Sun Simiao would inoculate this thing on a living body. The academy always had medicine subjects—all specially sent secretly by Li Er. For instance, today’s subject had reportedly committed murder and voluntarily came to the academy to be a medicine subject. If he didn’t die, the officials would no longer pursue his past evil deeds. Otherwise, according to law, he would be beheaded.
Ever since that fellow who gave Old Qin a blood transfusion and didn’t die swaggered through the Chang’an market, being a medicine subject for the academy became death row prisoners’ last chance to gain a thread of survival. Now as long as they weren’t utterly unpardonable serious criminals, before beheading they would all be asked if they wanted to be medicine subjects for the academy. If they agreed, execution would be suspended, they’d be kept in prison, waiting for academy people to come collect them. This day was almost a festival for death row prisoners. Until now, very few death row prisoners died from medicine trials. But there were quite a few who went blind or became disabled.
In the bright room, Yun Ye carefully disinfected the death row prisoner’s arm, used a small knife to make a small cut, and Huo Zhu used cotton swabs dipped in cowpox fluid to repeatedly apply it to the wound. After confirming the application was complete, they bandaged the wound and waited for time to verify the effects.
The experiment was done on five groups total before ending. When Yun Ye and Huo Zhu removed the linen clothes they wore and came to the front hall, they saw Sun Simiao with closed eyes chanting scriptures, looking very pained. His face had also become flushed, as if he were ill.
Yun Ye quickly felt behind Sun Simiao’s ears and found them alarmingly hot. This wasn’t catching cold from wind—it was fever caused by a virus. This pedantic old Daoist wouldn’t have used himself as an experiment subject, would he? Opening the old Daoist’s robe to expose his left arm, there were clearly two small wounds that had already festered—the disinfection wasn’t thorough and they’d become infected.
Together with Huo Zhu, they helped the old Daoist to bed, opened the windows, and used a bamboo sprayer to spray alcohol throughout the room. This was the only disinfection method Yun Ye could employ. Huo Zhu fetched white medicine to squeeze out the pus, then applied medicine, using alcohol to wipe the old Daoist’s forehead, armpits, and inner thighs, giving him physical cooling.
The old Daoist had always held an opposing attitude toward whether to use living people for experiments. At first, Yun Ye also didn’t approve of doing this, always thinking it was inhumane. The academy supervisors Liu Xian and Xu Jingzong didn’t agree, believing that using death row criminals for experiments didn’t violate moral principles or law, but rather accumulated virtue for descendants and future generations, giving death row criminals a chance to live.
When news came from Shouzhou in Huainan Circuit of heavy casualties from syphilis, Yun Ye decisively agreed to use living specimens. When Li Er learned that success in the experiment could eradicate syphilis, he specially sent people to tell Yun Ye and Sun Simiao: “As long as you succeed, don’t worry about lives lost. The sin is on him, on heaven, not on Sun or Yun.” For this he specially burned memorial tablets to inform heaven, to ease Sun Simiao’s heart. He hadn’t expected the old Daoist still couldn’t pass his own test.