After half a year of silence, Wei Zheng finally erupted. At the grand court assembly three days ago, holding his tablet, he furiously accused the meritorious nobles of being greedy by nature. For money, they disregarded the court’s dignity, striking out in all directions, treating common people like oxen and horses, driving soldiers as if they were bandits. The stench of copper in Chang’an City was overwhelming. Cruel officials exploited the people, catching people in the wilderness had become routine, and workshops were suspected to be hellish.

In short, he was saying that the common people of the realm had reached the edge of rebellion. Those black-hearted merchants must be severely cracked down upon to restore the court and people’s values back to the golden period of taking agriculture as the foundation. If those merchants continued to run rampant, people’s hearts would not be as they once were, human desires would run wild, and simple folk customs would cease to exist. This was what Wei Zheng hoped for—rather starve than lose integrity.

Li Er’s finances had just gotten some relief. Last year finally saw a surplus in finances. The Ministry of Revenue absolutely didn’t care about any corruption of people’s hearts—they only hoped the storehouses would be piled full of wealth and goods. Once the court had need of money, being able to produce it was the Ministry of Revenue’s responsibility.

The meritorious nobles had also gained considerable benefits from the great trade of these two years. No one wanted to return to the dark age of poverty and destitution. It’s easy to go from frugality to extravagance, but difficult to go from extravagance to frugality—this was an unchanging principle. Wei Zheng’s words enraged all the meritorious nobles. For a time, verbal and written attacks never ceased.

The civil officials were very united this time. Even Ministry of Revenue Minister Zhangsun Wuji remained silent this time. As a meritorious noble who had transferred from military to civil office, he sat on the fence watching the excitement.

Li Chengqian secretly worried for Yun Ye in his heart. Without a doubt, he was at the core of the incident. The Yun Family had risen too quickly these past few years. More than half of these new waves of wealth were brought about by Yun Ye. Thinking of the currency reform he was about to implement, Li Chengqian felt cold all over.

Li Er didn’t care about meritorious nobles doing some business. What he cared about was people’s hearts. If each commoner had grass growing in their hearts, dissatisfied with reality, he, as Emperor, would find it very difficult to sit steady. The policy of keeping the people ignorant wasn’t a good method, but it was very useful.

Investigate the entire realm—this was Li Er’s decision. Start by investigating the inner palace first. Zhangsun once again set an example. Li Chengqian knew that the Yun Family would probably suffer great losses this time. No one dared target the imperial family—even Wei Zheng didn’t dare—but the Yun Family was different. Neither too big nor too small, most suitable to take the blame. Those vested interests, meaning the meritorious nobles, probably also held this thinking. “Let the Daoist friend die, not this poor Daoist” was the most appropriate metaphor.

While undercurrents surged in court, the Yun Family remained carefree. Xinyue was taken up Yushan by Old Madam. Grandmother and granddaughter lived in the Yun Family’s small building, determined to ignore worldly mundane matters and focus on nurturing the pregnancy. Everything at home was handed over to Yun Ye to manage. At this moment of turbulent winds and clouds, she and Xinyue still couldn’t handle it.

Xiao Ya couldn’t beat Shishi, which made her very unwilling. Moreover, Han Han was also no match for Shishi. After Shishi grabbed his ears and rode him for three laps, Han Han would run away upon seeing her, no longer daring to come close. Unwilling to let her brother be monopolized by someone else, Xiao Ya contacted Xiao Xi and Xiao Bei to teach Shishi a lesson together. The result was still poor. Xiao Xi and Xiao Bei, who had been practicing martial arts, were also no match for the Shaolin Temple little girl. They were beaten badly. Xiao Dong and Xiao Nan were already eleven years old. Considering themselves grown young ladies, they didn’t join Xiao Ya in fooling around. This forced Xiao Ya to seek outside help.

Second Miss Wu and Xiao Ya had always been on good terms, only she lived in the small building on the mountain and couldn’t easily come out. Xiao Ya had met this little girl at the market. She had accidentally miscalculated accounts and nearly caused the vegetable-selling old woman to lose money. Fortunately, Miss Wu corrected it, preventing Xiao Ya from embarrassing herself. This young miss was very clever. The extremely forthright Xiao Ya immediately considered her a kindred spirit and taught her all the boring learning her brother had entrusted to her. She even stole new books from her brother’s study and gave them to Xiao Wu to broaden her horizons properly.

Taking a light carriage, she hurriedly came to the Wu Family and stood below the building shouting: “Xiao Wu, Xiao Wu, come out quickly.” On Yushan, no one didn’t recognize Xiao Ya, and no one disliked Xiao Ya. The adults of the Wu Family, seeing Xiao Ya calling for the young miss, paid no attention, allowing the little girls to fool around together.

A little girl in a pink skirt soon ran down, skillfully climbed onto Xiao Ya’s carriage, and was about to take the reins, preparing to drive the horse. In fact, Xiao Ya’s carriage wasn’t called a horse carriage—it should be called a donkey cart. A gray, docile old donkey was selected to be Xiao Ya’s horse. Xiao Ya liked the old donkey’s long ears and kept saying her horse most resembled a rabbit. Xiao Wu explained to her several times that this was a donkey, not a horse, but Xiao Ya didn’t care. She believed her donkey was a horse, so it must be a horse—a horse with long ears. Xiao Wu, seeing the matter was hopeless, also pretended she was riding in a horse carriage. No one could change Xiao Ya’s stubbornness.

Xiao Ya didn’t allow anyone to touch her things, not even her best friends. She grabbed the reins first, shook them, and that old donkey obediently turned and walked toward the Yun Family. In her anxiety, for the first time Xiao Ya used violence on her horse. Who would have thought this horse still walked with neither large nor small steps toward home, no matter how she urged it—to no avail.

Taking advantage of the journey home, Xiao Ya explained the causes and consequences to Xiao Wu, specifically using abundant language to describe Shishi’s cruelty. Han Han was described by her as a cute, kind victim. Xiao Wu clenched her fists, unable to control her anger. In her heart, Han Han should have been sent to the butcher’s house long ago to become delicacies on the dinner table. Being abused by Shishi was only proper. A waste that only ate without any output—if it lost even its function of entertaining the master, it deserved to be abused.

Her anger came from Yun Ye. Such a clever, pretty little girl like herself couldn’t catch his eye, yet he picked a wild girl from the wilderness to be his disciple—truly intolerable.

Yun Ye was the most amiable and erudite person she had ever met. He could create rainbows just by splashing water from a basin. He could make water in the canal flow through heat-bent bamboo pipes over embankments and into fields on its own. He could even make a wooden bird that continuously circled in the air. Previously, she thought seeking a teacher to study was something only males could do. She hadn’t expected females could also take masters. Why wasn’t it her? Xiao Wu really wanted to see what virtue and ability that wild girl had that could make a grandmaster like Yun Ye accept her as a disciple.

The Yun Family was always so lively. Everyone seemed to always be smiling, unlike at home where everyone was trembling with fear. Father’s health was poor, Mother was timid by nature. Although her two brothers lived at the academy, they always ran back to humiliate Mother, yet Mother didn’t dare tell the sick Father.

Under the pavilion in the back garden, Shishi was clumsily tracing large characters stroke by stroke with a writing brush. Hands accustomed to holding hoes were so awkward holding a brush. Sweat dripped from her forehead. She wiped the sweat with her sleeve—fortunately, it didn’t drip on the paper. One more large character and today’s lessons would be complete. Shishi was very happy.

Standing beside watching for a long while, Xiao Wu couldn’t help but curl her lips. Not only was the tracing crooked, but the entire paper was crumpled and wrinkled, with many ink spots on it. This was the good disciple Yun Ye chose?

She snatched Shishi’s tracing paper, crumpled it a few times, threw it on the ground, and even stomped on it a few times, mocking: “You call this writing? Not much better than dog scratches.”

Shishi looked up at Xiao Wu and asked: “Then tell me how characters should be written.”

Xiao Wu took the brush and in a short while wrote a large piece on fresh paper. Each character was elegant and upright—clearly the result of hard work. Shishi nodded and said: “Indeed good characters. You write much better than me. Master said as long as I work hard enough, I can also write excellent characters. So your good writing isn’t strange. One day I’ll catch up to you—it doesn’t count as skill. But you crumpled all my characters and even stepped on them with your feet. This behavior is excessive. It’s what Master calls ‘deserving a beating,’ so you will get beaten.”

Xiao Wu immediately burst out laughing, laughing until her belly hurt. She truly couldn’t understand—which girls would fight with their hands? That was something only shrews would do. When she had laughed enough and just straightened up, her nose received a heavy punch.

Unable to stand steady, she fell to the ground with a thud. Shishi rode on Xiao Wu’s body and used her fists to punch Xiao Wu’s bottom, punch by punch. With each punch, she also counted. She punched exactly forty-nine times before stopping.

“You destroyed forty-nine of my characters. I punched you forty-nine times. We’re even.” After speaking, without paying attention to Xiao Wu who was covering her nose with one hand and her bottom with the other, she sat back in the pavilion, took a fresh piece of paper, and started writing fifty characters from the beginning. Master said fifty large characters each day were indispensable.

Previously when bullied by Xiao Ya, Shishi had quietly endured it all, until one day Master said: “Shishi, these past few days Master has seen all the grievances you’ve suffered. Why didn’t I intervene? I just wanted to see how you’d handle such matters. You chose to wrong yourself—this is a good virtue for women, but it’s not the rule of our school. Remember, whoever bullies you, strike back, no matter who they are. You have good martial arts—don’t waste them. They bully you once, you beat them once. They bully you twice, you beat them twice. I think no one will bully you a third time. This world is like this—if you blindly yield, you’ll only encourage their arrogance. Two beatings will do.”

From that time on, when Xiao Ya came to bully her again, she would be ridden by Shishi and have her bottom beaten. After two beatings, things indeed became much quieter. Shishi believed that whatever Master said was correct.

Xiao Wu’s nose was bleeding, her bottom hurt. She had never suffered such abuse before. Because she was pretty and cute, everyone doted on her. There was nothing she wanted to do that couldn’t be accomplished. Today’s lesson made her thoroughly understand that rashly attacking without detailed understanding of the enemy was extremely foolish.

The pretty little girl’s nose was bleeding, tears flowing profusely—not caused by sadness or pain, but because after her nose took a punch, tears and snot couldn’t help but flow down.

Xiao Ya stuck out her tongue and pulled Xiao Wu away, tiptoeing carefully. She was afraid Shishi would deal with her the same way. A broken nose hurt a lot. The nanny stuffed two balls of hemp cloth in Xiao Wu’s nose, finally stopping the nosebleed. She then used a handkerchief to wipe her little face, making her look somewhat better.

Xiao Wu looked at her red nose in the mirror and the two pieces of hemp cloth showing from her nose. Her eyes widened round. Could this ugly creature be herself?