“Another old friend is gone!” Yun Ye muttered as he stuffed the apple in his hand into Wang Cai’s mouth. He Shao couldn’t eat anymore, and Wang Cai was in the prime of growing, extremely able to eat. However, he ultimately lacked the grandeur of old Wang Cai. Old Wang Cai, when eating fruit, never ate the core. He would always gnaw a circle of the plumpest flesh and be done with it.
Since he’d promised He Shao to pay respects at his funeral, it would be best to prepare in advance. Master Sun had now completely become an immortal. When the old man said someone would die at a certain time, he absolutely wouldn’t let you live past one extra day. So now those seeking treatment from the old man were all super-wealthy people and nobility. The old gentleman didn’t like this. A ninety-year-old man, he would still enter deep into the Qinling Mountains to treat mountain villagers. When staying in the mountains, it was often for half a year at a stretch. According to the old man, that was truly saving lives and healing the wounded. With nobility and wealthy people dying, one less was one less. They didn’t produce anything themselves but instead had to be waited upon hand and foot. With each one who died, the common people’s burden lightened by one portion. Who knew where the old man got such radical views from? Probably seeing the Yun Family’s extravagance being outrageous, he said it deliberately.
Yun Ye looked down at his own attire—it wasn’t too excessive! Clothes made of blue cotton cloth, cloth shoes on his feet that Lingdang made by hand. Previously, he liked to hang a jade pendant at his waist to display his status. Now from head to toe, apart from one ebony hairpin, he had no decorations at all. How was this living in drunken dreams and death?
In the morning, one bowl of thin porridge and two buns. At noon, one bowl of noodles and two garlic cloves. Dinner was even more pitiful—only noodles without garlic cloves, because Xinyue complained that eating garlic cloves made one’s breath stink. The Grand General lived a life worse than even a big hoodlum’s—how was it that people all over the world were gossiping about the Yun Family?
Xinyue’s head already had white hair. Na Rimu’s hair remained jet black and shiny. When people got old, they increasingly liked to dress up. Shu silk gauze draped on the body was like wearing nothing at all. The pink chest wrap was faintly visible. Combined with two long-stalked golden walking hairpins, if you said she was only thirty years old this year, people would believe it.
Half of the Yun Family’s reputation was ruined by Na Rimu. Whenever Xinyue mentioned it, she gnashed her teeth. Standing together with her daughter, where were they mother and daughter? They were simply sisters.
Yun Ye believed this was jealousy, and naked jealousy at that. Every day plucking white hair from the temples wasn’t troublesome enough. That stuff grew more the more you plucked. The more one felt they were old, the faster a person aged.
While he was alive, Xinyue could still occasionally act coquettish and play the little woman. Once he died, Yun Ye felt Xinyue would definitely become abnormal—the kind of murderous old lady who sat in the great hall intimidating without anger.
When he was busy before, naturally time didn’t feel hard to endure. Now that he had leisure, after sleeping and waking, he discovered it was still early. Sleeping again and waking, he found the sun had just reached noon.
“Husband, you can’t always sleep! Sleeping first thing in the morning isn’t good. Why don’t you also learn from others, ride a carriage up the mountain to look at the maple forest, gaze at the red leaves, compose a few poems? Then your concubine can also show off at banquets.”
Xinyue saw her husband lying listlessly on the bed in a daze and quietly counseled him.
“Compose poetry? Does this matter require running to the forest? It comes right out of my mouth. Listen: Far up Cold Mountain’s stone path slants, white clouds deep within, there are homes. Stopping the carriage to sit and love the maple grove at evening, frost-touched leaves redder than second-month flowers.”
“I’ll casually compose one for you. Hurry and take it to show off. Just say I wrote it when I had nothing to do.”
Xinyue laughed giggling. An old woman laughing like this was very creepy. Looking left and right to see no one nearby, she embraced her husband’s old face and affectionately kissed it several times. After a good while, she stopped and said, “The world’s talent measures one dan, and you alone occupy eight dou of our Great Tang. Those young fellows, especially that one called Wang Wei, who composed a few poems and doesn’t know the height of heaven and depth of earth—you don’t even need to think. Poems you compose while sleeping groggily are a hundred times stronger than what they compose by racking their brains! Your concubine will go right now and see who else has this ability!”
Xinyue left again. It turned out that these past few days, the women of Yushan were holding a garden party. What princesses, commandery princesses, first-rank madams, ducal madams, countess madams—countless had come. Xinyue also went. Probably at the garden party, she wasn’t too satisfied with Wang Wei monopolizing the limelight, so she specially ran home to have him compose poetry.
Who was Wang Wei? The renowned Buddha of Poetry, called the ancient romantic figure with supreme achievements in both poetry and painting. The poems he composed all carried an air of transcending dust, giving people the feeling of not eating the food of mortals when reading them.
He himself wasn’t composing poetry but reciting poetry. Du Mu wouldn’t be born for another hundred-some years. Using it now had no major problem. Having been in the Great Tang for several decades, up to now he still hadn’t learned to compose poetry. Fortunately, with high position and great power, people thought the Grand General didn’t particularly like composing poetry. By now, as long as he didn’t proactively compose poetry, no one had the qualification to order him to compose poetry. Even Zhangsun wondered why he had no excellent works published these years.
One time when idle with nothing to do, he and Li Tai演绎 Cao Cao’s “Short Song Style” under the big moon. When singing to the line “Duke of Zhou spits out food, all under heaven return to his heart,” they nearly scared Li Yifu, who was sitting beside them laughing, to death. He rolled and crawled away from the banquet. Not only Li Yifu—others also ran very fast. These two lines of poetry ordinary people didn’t dare use. Only when Yun Ye used them were they very fitting.
That night there were many people. Somehow, it was reported by the Directorate of Waterways to the Grand Empress Dowager and the Emperor. The Emperor was still somewhat nervous. When Zhangsun asked about the scene at the time, she laughed uncontrollably.
Finally, she told the Emperor this was the Grand General’s infallible method for driving away guests. Probably vexed beyond endurance by endless door-to-door visits, it was deliberate.
Zhangsun Chong recently had been sick unto death. After recovering from illness, he couldn’t do without a cane. Master Sun said bone spurs had grown in the spaces between his bones. He wanted to cut open with a knife and slice off the bone spurs. Zhangsun Chong didn’t dare, so he could only drink medicine to eliminate them. That effect was very slow. He had already not attended court to manage affairs for three months.
Dugu Mou, perhaps because his body lacked some things, lived increasingly robust. Going to Funiu Mountain to hunt, he killed a tiger and even sent the tiger skin to Yun Ye, meaning he still had the strength to kill tigers. Half showing off, half self-pitying—a peerless hero, yet oppressed by the other two people, caught between life and death.
He didn’t dare move. The double track of the railway from Chang’an to Luoyang had already been laid. Now from Chang’an to Luoyang, it almost didn’t take from morning departure to evening arrival. The great camps of the Sixteen Guards were scattered on both sides of the railway line. As long as he showed signs of rebellion, overwhelming great armies would completely annihilate him, not leaving even bone fragments.
Military matters needn’t be considered, so he could only go all out to demand power from the court. Playing balance was Zhangsun’s specialty trick, so Dugu Mou quickly discovered that power in the court had returned to the former three-power balance situation.
The Zhangsun Family controlled the Secretariat, the Yun Family controlled the Ministry of War, his family controlled the Ministry of Finance. As a result, no one could move, no one could do without anyone, no one looked favorably upon anyone. Thus, they could only be like three hedgehogs warming themselves, carefully making contact, carefully probing, carefully approaching, finally finding an optimal distance.
Zhangsun liked this kind of situation very much. The Emperor’s age was too young; he had no governing experience. Now the three of them each guarded one area, with the Emperor making final adjustments. Very good. Recalling what Yun Ye had said before: as long as they removed the obvious family marks on these three forces, the three-power balance situation should be a very good political policy. There was just one prerequisite—that was to do one’s utmost to eliminate the family marks carved on these three forces.
Only thus could a political pattern of mutual coordination, mutual supervision, and mutual concession truly be realized. Only thus could the Great Tang jump out of the previous political vicious cycle where policies died with the person.
So Zhangsun had been instilling a concept in the Emperor—that was, when people from these three families could be used or not used, try not to use them. When people from these three families must be used, employ them from low positions. If you could use fools, absolutely don’t use elites.
The Yun Family didn’t care. In the court, there was only a half-retired Yun Ye, plus Yun Shou holding down the fort. There were just these two blood relatives in the court. As long as the Yun Family was stable, whatever position Yun Shou held didn’t matter. As time slowly faded, power would always be diluted.
Yun Ye was actually quite worried. The Yun Family’s children seemed to not like becoming officials. Yun Shou had no choice. Yun Huan was simply a playboy, deeply detested the court. Yun Lei was also unsettled. After being disciplined by his mother once, he ran off in anger to his elder brother in Lingnan and wouldn’t return, making Xiao Miao heartbroken.
Yun Shou’s children were likewise the same. Every time she saw those two children who even held book scrolls while eating, Xinyue would just sigh. Liking scholarship wasn’t wrong, but the Yun Family’s title ultimately needed someone to inherit it.
Li Rong’s two children were indeed ambitious. Both were raised from childhood by Li Anlan. Who knew what was going on with the Li Family bloodline—naturally liking power. Now they were assembling their own fleet for themselves. By the looks of it, two more who liked seafaring.
Li Anlan never appeared at the same time as Xinyue. Most of the time, she would be with Lingdang. Otherwise, she would go to Prince Wei’s mansion or the Fang Family. She didn’t go to the Cheng Family either.
Seeing her husband sitting in the flower hall drinking tea, humming a nameless ditty in his mouth, the tune was strange—not only unpleasant but also very grating. She carefully walked up close, trying hard to distinguish that weird accent, but no matter how she listened, she couldn’t make it out.
“I can barely understand it myself. Do you still expect to understand it? The reason I can sing it is actually all because I’m led by the tune.” Yun Ye drank a mouthful of tea and looked disdainfully at the furtive Li Anlan.
Li Anlan straightened up, leaned against Yun Ye’s chair, and laughed, “Nothing but Bai Yujing tunes. So unpleasant. In the past, as soon as Bai Yujing was mentioned, you would get angry. Now it’s different. Having become the world’s greatest powerful minister, with no one able to control you, you dare to sing Bai Yujing songs loudly and boldly. When all is said and done, you also have the nature of a guard dog!”
Yun Ye heavily pinched Li Anlan’s buttocks and laughed heartily, “Old tofu tastes pretty good when eaten!”