Rong Pu had made Yueli Academy thrive magnificently, and it was foreseeable that in the coming days, it would continuously provide talented individuals to the court.
These talents would ultimately all bear one name: “the Crown Princess’s people.”
Not to mention that Yueli Academy carried the Crown Princess’s label, even if these students had no feelings for the Crown Princess, once they entered the academy with such a dean who would use every means possible to constantly show off Tie Ci’s presence to them, after several years, they would be thoroughly brainwashed.
Tie Ci was in excellent spirits, so while strolling through Ping Yun, she even bought gifts for Rong Pu, having Chi Xue keep them hidden so Murong Yi wouldn’t discover them.
Tie Ci suddenly stopped. Ahead were three tall buildings arranged in the character “品” (pin): Yijiang Mingyue Tower, Shugu Tower, and Yuzhuan Tower.
She looked at the three buildings, all facing Mirror Pool, able to overlook the prince’s mansion from afar. Behind each building was a garden, and each had a separate rear building.
From their location and setup, they all matched what Aunt He had described—places that could keep You Weixing quiet and prevent him from causing trouble.
Moreover, they were close to the prince’s mansion. If anything happened, reinforcements from the mansion could arrive quickly.
However, the rear courtyards of all three buildings were off-limits to people, and they certainly all had guards. If she guessed wrong and alerted them, there would be no chance later.
Furthermore, it wasn’t just these three buildings—the area between them was collectively called Three Towers District. The area was prosperous, all prime real estate with high land prices. Many officials’ and wealthy merchants’ shops and gardens were scattered throughout, and the Confucian Temple and Kun Zhou Academy were also located here. These buildings all had gardens too. Even though she had narrowed the range to this area, it was still quite a large region.
You Weixing, due to his supposed “idiocy,” wasn’t valued by the You father and son. He existed more as a chess piece to restrain You Weixuan. But if the You father and son discovered she wanted to rescue You Weixing, they wouldn’t think it was due to friendship—they would only believe You Weixing was useful to Tie Ci, and they might simply eliminate him.
Tie Ci observed from afar for a while but didn’t directly go to investigate the Three Towers area. Instead, she took Aunt He to an inn several li away from the three buildings.
……
At dawn, in the misty morning air, the green and blue terraced fields of the Mo clan village resembled a patchwork quilt spread across the earth, while the wooden buildings were like rustic buttons scattered across the quilt.
With a creak, a small wooden door suddenly opened. A disheveled person with bleary eyes crawled out from inside, with a snow-white bare foot planted on his buttocks. The ankle wore a golden-brown snake-shaped anklet.
The bare foot pushed him outward while a woman’s voice came from inside, drowsy: “…Get up, get up, time to feed the pigs!”
Feng Huan’s eyes were still closed, his hands groping blindly on the ground. “Where are my clothes… where are my shoes… I’m so sleepy… can’t I sleep a bit longer… when I was at the mansion, I never got up before noon…”
The bare foot drew back slightly. Feng Huan was delighted and wanted to turn around to go back to sleep, but the foot suddenly shot out again, kicking hard on his buttocks. The golden-brown snake-shaped “anklet” slithered away with a whoosh.
With a splash, Feng Huan tumbled into the pig pen below.
Several hungry pigs grunted and surrounded him, their long snouts gnawing randomly. Feng Huan let out a wail and was completely awake.
He climbed up, face covered in eye discharge, looking bewildered at the pigs and cattle around him, the pig and cow dung everywhere, the messy dried grass on the ground. He scratched his disheveled hair and straightened up, somehow pulling something that made him hiss.
He muttered: “This life is unbearable.”
The pigs stared at him expectantly.
“Before, when I woke at noon, I lay on a bed with seven layers of brocade quilts. The first thing I saw was the embroidered canopy ceiling and golden tent hooks hanging with silk cords. Incense smoke curled from bronze censers, beauties wore nothing, soft as jade and warm as fragrance. Their eyes gazed at me like pools of water. I only had to crook my finger, and they would massage my shoulders beside me.”
Several pigs tentatively crawled over and began gnawing on his feet.
Feng Huan pulled back his feet. From upstairs came a bang as a basket was thrown down. A sharp sickle bounced out of the basket, nearly stabbing his buttocks.
“After the massage, someone would bring fruits on golden plates, wine in silver pots, pastries on jade dishes, along with various fruits, cakes, southern shrimp, northern ham, eastern dried scallops, western mutton… I never had to lift a finger. Wherever my eyes looked, someone would pick it up with a silver fork and feed it to my mouth.”
With a whoosh overhead, a straw raincoat fell down—the morning mountain dew was heavy, this was to protect him from the moisture.
Feng Huan put on the straw raincoat, got up, and picked up the sickle. Cutting pig feed every morning had become his unshakeable daily task.
He put on the straw shoes A’Ji had woven, looking sadly at his feet that used to be soft and tender but now had grown a layer of calluses and no longer felt the straw shoes chafing.
He had a lot of straw on him, which he brushed off.
“She says I’m dirty. Won’t let me sleep in the bed. Sleeping on straw on the floor, every bone gets poked and prodded.”
Walking onto the field ridge, he lazily began cutting pig feed.
“She says I’m lazy, that young master habits are disgusting, that I need to work more to wash away the pampered air. These pigs downstairs are my responsibility. At year’s end, they’ll be weighed—however many catties the pigs lose, I’ll have to cut that much from my own body to make up for it.”
The sickle tip suddenly hit something hard. He skillfully flicked and dug, and a moon-white tuber with many holes appeared on the sickle tip. The holes emitted an eerie blue-purple color—clearly a poisonous substance.
Feng Huan calmly tossed the tuber into another small basket. The tuber gave off an intoxicating fragrance. He took a deep breath and felt refreshed.
But his mood became even worse.
There were too many tubers, greatly slowing down the pig feed cutting, and over there, A’Ji was calling for him to hurry up and finish cutting the pig feed to cook breakfast.
Feng Huan straightened his back. He didn’t feel tired—somehow, his energy was exceptionally good now, and his eyesight was excellent too. He happened to see a wooden building at the very bottom of the terraced fields.
Below that wooden building, flowers and fruits were piled up. Early in the morning, there was already a girl singing mountain songs, her voice like an oriole, causing all the birds in the mountains to sing along melodiously.
Feng Huan thought: “Heh heh.”
With a bang, a window opened, and a man’s voice also began singing mountain songs. This voice was rich and beautiful, with a wide range, gorgeous beyond compare. With just one note, it suppressed all the wonderful sounds in the mountains.
The female voice sang: “The mountain flowers bloom for whom…”
The male voice answered: “Every flower blooms for my A Ci.”
The female voice sang: “…Eighteen bends in the winding mountain path…”
The male voice answered: “Wait eighteen years and take me back.”
The female voice sang: “…Flutter flutter, mountain birds perch on the brow…”
The male voice answered: “Thinking of A Ci makes my heart burn hot.”
Feng Huan: “Ha, hahahahaha!”
How fucking flirtatious!
The female voice stopped singing, the birds stopped their joyful songs. Such romantic duet singing was like eating ten catties of shit-flavored poison.
However, what they say about repeated defeats and repeated battles—Feng Huan had certainly witnessed the tenacity of mountain women during this time. He calmly changed position and continued waiting on the field ridge for the next wave.
The window opened, someone was combing hair at the door. Hair like satin, simply a replica of Uncle’s classic hair-combing scene. That hair gleamed blue-black in the sunlight. The fingers combing were snow-white at the joints with pale red fingertips, even more beautiful than Uncle’s.
This maximally satisfied the eyes of the Mo clan village girls.
The girls chatted and laughed, dazzled and entranced, offering the most beautifully colored poisonous snakes, scorpions with the sharpest tail hooks, centipedes as long as arms, and nests of crystal-clear ant eggs.
There were also various bottles containing personally created poisons, toxins, poisonous powders, and poisonous pills.
The beauty’s long fingers picked and chose, flicking away poisonous snakes, taking scorpions, blowing away centipedes, and graciously accepting ant eggs for wine-making.
The bottled poisons were all accepted without exception.
Feng Huan watched with tears streaming down his face.
Comparing people could really kill you.
He suddenly stood up, threw down the sickle, kicked the basket, and walked away.
In the wooden building, A’Ji was slowly kneading dough. Last night Feng Huan said he wanted to eat Sheng Du’s Crystal Three Spring Cake. She didn’t know what that was, but she could try making it—it was just a cake after all.
During breaks from kneading, she would poke her head out to look outside, just in time to see Feng Huan standing up angrily.
A’Ji smiled unconcernedly.
She could see him getting angry every day. Even A Kou’s tiger didn’t puff its cheeks as high as his.
But A Heng would calm down and come back on his own. A’Ji lowered her head to continue kneading dough. How much water had she added just now?
Upstairs in the wooden building, Murong Yi stood before several paintings that looked like dancing demons. Even though he had been looking at them for days and was sick of them, he still stared until his face was almost pressed against them.
It wasn’t until he finally slowly exhaled and the last trace on his face suddenly disappeared that he hurriedly jumped back, washing his eyes with water in extreme disgust.
That old monster had hidden the antidote in these ghost-like paintings, forcing him to appreciate them day and night until he almost couldn’t paint anymore.
He spread out a bundle cloth and packed up all the bottles and jars he had recently received. Looking up, he saw Feng Huan walking away into the distance.
His figure flashed, and he had already jumped down from the back of the wooden building, circling around through the forest.
Feng Huan was walking when suddenly someone appeared beside him, asking: “What, eloping?”
Seeing Murong Yi now made Feng Huan angry. With his nose not a nose and eyes not eyes, he said: “Right, with you.”
“Thanks for the invitation, but my heart is with A Ci. I don’t look at any old demons.” Murong Yi carried a huge bundle, walking backward while saying: “Can’t take it anymore? Want to leave? Without anyone to row the boat or open the door, can you get out?”
“Can you get out then? Look at yourself—planning to abscond with the funds?”
“I actually can get out.” Murong Yi said lazily: “So tell me everything that happened after A Ci brought me here for medical treatment that day, and I’ll take you out.”
“Ah, nothing much happened. Didn’t His Highness just bring you through the door, take you on a boat, pass through the peak forest, come to the terraced fields, find Duanmu in the wooden house, and that was it.”
Murong Yi chuckled and was about to speak when footsteps came pattering—A’Ji had caught up.
Her hands were still wet, sticky with the dough she could never knead properly. She stared at Feng Huan: “A Huan, where are you going?”
Feng Huan stiffened his neck and wouldn’t look at her: “I’m going home!”
“Why?” A’Ji frowned: “Why do you want to go home? Isn’t it good here?”
“Is it good here?” Feng Huan suddenly turned around, pointing at the wooden building: “No tall houses, no soft beds, no edible food, no little tunes or word puzzles, pot-throwing, kite-flying, mahjong, pai gow, dice games, cricket fighting, cock fighting, opera, variety shows, music, chess, calligraphy, painting, wine, poetry, flowers… none of that exists, and that would be fine, but upstairs live people, downstairs live pigs, and the pigs are more noble than me—I, a marquis’s son, have to personally serve them! Cow dung and mud all over the field ridges, dried grass and rags throughout the house. The food is either cold or raw, and poisonous creatures and insects are everywhere. Long-legged bugs crawl all over the walls. If you don’t knock your shoes in the morning, there are enough centipedes to use as shoe insoles. At night you have to listen to sows snoring…” He spoke tearfully, spreading his hands for A’Ji to see: “Look at my hands, look! Just a few days here and already a layer of calluses! My hands used to be nourished with sheep’s milk! Look what kind of life I’m living now!”
A’Ji looked at the thin layer of calluses on his hands, then slowly spread out her own hands: “Your hands are much more tender than mine.”
“So what if they are? You’re from here, you’re used to it, you don’t think it’s hard. But you have no right to force me to stay here!”
A’Ji looked at him and slowly nodded: “Oh, so you don’t want to stay here. But that night you clearly said…”
Feng Huan’s face reddened: “That was an expedient! An expedient!”
“But I already…” A’Ji suddenly stopped mid-sentence, lowering her eyes for a long moment before looking up with a smile: “Then stay and finish the Crystal Three Spring Cake before you go. I’ve been thinking about it for a long time and worked on it all morning. I should be able to make it.”
“No, you can’t make it.” Feng Huan said coldly: “Have you ever eaten crystal cake? Do you know how to make it? Do you know this thing must use the finest peach blossom flour from Zhong Zhou, walnuts from Jiusui Wanning Mountain, lotus seeds from Emerald Lake, the best osmanthus from the third autumn ground into powder, with Gan Zhou oranges cut into strips and sugar-pickled, nine-steamed and nine-dried tangerine peel and plums with secret spice recipes, the cream on top needs to ferment overnight and can be peeled into nine layers, the crystal part uses boiled sea stone flower, poured with Cheng Zhou hundred-flower honey, and pressed with three different forms of peach blossoms… Your Crystal Three Spring Cake can probably peel into several layers of snake skin, pour in three catties of centipede powder, and be pressed with A Da and A Er’s tail prints?”
All around fell silent—even the poisonous snakes coiled up their tails.
After Feng Huan finished this speech in one breath, he realized he had gone too far and felt slightly regretful. Looking down, he saw a house centipede crawling over his mud-covered bare toes. His whole body shuddered, and he immediately swallowed back the gentle words that were about to come out, lifting his head with a huff.
A’Ji hadn’t spoken the whole time, looking down at the dough stuck to her hands. The flour wasn’t white and had nothing to do with peach blossoms, but it shone with a faint golden color. Only she knew what ingredients were in it—things that might not be refined or delicious, but were certainly ten thousand times more precious than what Feng Huan had described. But Feng Huan was right—though she thought it was good, he didn’t like it. If he didn’t like it, then it wasn’t worth anything at all.
Suddenly Little Master A Chong jumped out from beside them, his small face red with anger as he glared fiercely at Feng Huan: “Bullying A’Ji! You dare bully A’Ji—I’ll have Little Red, Little Green, Little Yellow, and Little White bite you to death bit by bit!”
Feng Huan immediately darted behind Murong Yi, still stubbornly saying: “Even if you kill me, I’m still leaving!”
Murong Yi tilted his head slightly, smiling as he blew gently on Feng Huan’s neck, making him shiver all over. Murong Yi whispered softly in his ear: “Think it through, okay? You and I are different. Everything I love is outside the mountain, but you might lose a great deal if you turn around and leave.”
“What’s different! Everything I love is also outside the mountain!”
Murong Yi stopped talking, wearing an expression of watching a good show.