After watering all the vegetables, he seemed to see green sprouts in the first plot. He squatted down to look carefully, discovering he hadn’t seen wrong, and happily continued fetching water.

Fu An crouched behind the bushes. Seeing this, he was about to go over when Shi Hongtu grabbed his collar, “What are you doing?”

“The young master has filled the water vat completely. He must have forgotten while thinking. I’ll go remind him.”

“The Grand General forbids us from interfering with the young master. Even if the water is carried, it won’t be wasted—we can store it in wooden buckets if we carry one more load.” Shi Hongtu had long thought Fu Tinghan needed exercise, but he just didn’t like moving. Every morning, practicing wellness boxing with the Grand General was already his exercise limit. These past few days living on the mountain without the Grand General watching, he did everything except practice boxing. Shi Hongtu felt anxious just watching.

Perfect—carrying a few more loads of water could count as physical exercise.

Fu Tinghan stood by the spring looking down. It was almost dinner time, so smoke rose from below the mountain.

Actually, water resources in the north were somewhat scarce. Drinking water had always been a problem. According to local conditions, what methods existed for drawing water to higher ground?

Currently, digging a well was very costly and prone to danger, taking a long time. In places where water didn’t come easily, they needed to dig very deep before finding water. Current technology struggled to accomplish this.

Fu Tinghan bent to carry the water back. As soon as he set it down, he ducked into the thatched cottage, grabbed a piece of white paper, picked up a brush and dipped it in Fu Xuan’s ink.

Buried in writing, Fu Xuan didn’t pay attention. Only when both father and son came back to themselves was it because it had grown too dark to see.

Fu Xuan looked up, his eyes momentarily blurred. Unable to see clearly where this was, he casually said, “Light the lamps.”

Fu Tinghan came to his senses and brought out a lamp to light.

Only then did Fu Xuan remember they were in the thatched cottage. He scratched behind his somewhat itchy ear and asked, “I’m a bit hungry. What are we eating tonight?”

Fu Tinghan said, “Let’s have porridge. I’ll go cook it.”

Only then did Fu Xuan realize he hadn’t cooked dinner yet. He put down his brush and stood, glancing at the diagrams on his paper. After pausing briefly, he followed him out.

Fu Tinghan quickly rinsed the rice, built a fire, and placed it on the simple stove made of stones.

Fu Xuan learned from him, taking a wooden stump, arranging his robes and sitting beside him. Curious, he asked, “What were you drawing?”

“Which one are you asking about? The farming tools I drew at noon, or the well-digging equipment I just drew—it might not work, so I’ll draw it first, then consult well-digging craftsmen later before modifying and testing.”

Fu Xuan asked, “Is this what you always do at the Ministry of Personnel?”

Fu Tinghan replied, “More or less.”

“Do you feel happy?”

Fu Tinghan said, “When what I create is useful, I’m very happy. When it’s useless, my mood is just average.”

“You previously only had some interest in the ‘Book of Changes’, so your mathematics was excellent. I didn’t know you also liked and excelled at technical crafts.” Fu Xuan turned to look at him, “I thought you would be better at Confucianism and Daoism, yet I didn’t expect you now to study Mohism so much.”

Fu Tinghan replied, “Is Mohism bad? They all serve the people. As long as there are results, that’s what matters.”

Fu Xuan smiled slightly, “You didn’t say this before. You used to say military strategy, Mohism, and Legalism were all techniques, means. To govern a country and settle chaotic times, you must change things from the level of thought, so you studied Confucianism and Daoism, seeking methods to break through.”

“It’s also because of this that you had such great conflict with your mother.”

Fu Tinghan was startled, trying hard to search his memories. He finally found images of arguing with Princess Hongnong. Though very blurred, the thoughts that surged in his heart at that moment were very clear.

The young, brave, and country-devoted youth told his mother that from the perspective of Confucian ritual propriety, the Jin state’s position was improper and shouldn’t exist. Yet it existed—this was going against Heaven’s will, which was why the realm was in chaos.

From the Daoist perspective of natural heavenly order, the Jin state should have perished long ago in accordance with popular will. Precisely because they kept desperately propping it up, neither fully destroyed nor surviving, this trapped the people in prolonged warfare.

The youth felt it would be better to give this realm a major upheaval, let all this decay perish, only then could there be rebirth.

At that time, the person sitting on the throne was still Princess Hongnong’s own father and Fu Changyu’s own maternal grandfather. The War of the Eight Princes had reached its thirteenth year. Prince Donghai had killed his way into the capital, and another wave of people died. The entire Central Plains, Yongzhou, and Sizhou were all caught in warfare.

As long as Fu Changyu went onto the street, he could see civilians who had starved to death or died from injuries. Outside the city, corpses littered the ground. This made the youth who had read extensively since childhood utterly resentful of the great Jin dynasty. He truly couldn’t find a reason for Dajin to continue.

He wasn’t like Fu Zhi, Zhao Changyu, Wang Dao, and other mature people who could view this world more broadly. What Fu Zhi and the others yearned for was peace—peace without change, without more great wars. For this, they were willing to endure some injustice, willing to hold up a broken umbrella for the people and move forward.

He was more radical and lively, wanting to destroy before building, to bury all this decay and grow anew according to his wishes and popular will, to tear apart and trample that broken umbrella, then make a new one.

Even if in the interval between taking down the broken umbrella and raising the new one they would get wet, soaked through, he thought that once the new umbrella was raised, they could slowly dry off.

Fu Tinghan emerged from his memories, lowering his eyes without speaking. He couldn’t distinguish which of their two approaches was right and which was wrong, or perhaps both were right and both were wrong.

When people got wet, they might fall ill while drying and could very well die.

Holding a broken umbrella, temporarily not getting wet, but if the umbrella couldn’t be repaired, they would still get wet eventually—sooner or later. They would also catch cold and die.

Fu Xuan asked him, “So have you reconciled with your mother now? I see you’ve been getting along quite well recently. Her words the other day were because she’s heartbroken about your grandfather’s death, not that she truly thinks you’re unfilial.”

“I know,” Fu Tinghan said. “I’m not angry with her.”

Fu Xuan exhaled, and then father and son had nothing more to say.

He scratched behind his ear, extremely troubled. How could this be so difficult? He thought they would have more to talk about as father and son, yet in three days they hadn’t spoken as much as with the princess in one day.

Fu Xuan couldn’t help asking him, “Tinghan, is this how you and Hanzhang get along too?”

Fu Tinghan looked at him strangely and nodded, “Yes.”

Fu Xuan’s eyes widened, “Without talking?”

Fu Tinghan hesitated before asking, “Would you like me to tell you about well-digging?”

“Forget it, I’m not interested in that.”

The father and son fell silent again. After the porridge was cooked, they silently ate, then went to wash up and prepare for bed.

Oh right, they ate plain porridge. The pickled vegetables were finished at noon, so they just had plain porridge.

Fortunately, Zhao Hanzhang came the next day carrying a basket of items—various vegetables, eggs, and… ink, brush, paper, and official documents.

—