Chapter 30

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I took away the bottle of suspected mercury. Its contents sting the nose with the smell of sulfur; Heaven knows what kind of poison it really is. I really ‘admire’ the Empress, though, for giving her own son mercury to take over a long period, as this kind of poison will gradually accumulate in the human body, and is typically used as a slow-acting poison. The Emperor said that he’d eaten a bit too much of it this morning, so I can tell with almost 100% certainty that the accumulated toxins had reached a critical level and flared up. I really don’t know if ancient peoples were extraordinarily lacking in medical know-how, or if the Empress wanted her son’s life.

It’s fortunate that it was detected early on. Mercury poisoning is very troublesome, as it comes with many sequelae; it has a negative affect on the stomach, respiratory system, and nervous system, and might even affect kidney function. If it had been any later, I’m afraid that the future of this dynasty would be in jeopardy.

A way to purge the mercury from the Emperor’s body must be found later. He’s still a growing little boy.

I began to get awfully busy the following days, mainly due to the fact General Shenwu, Shao Qing, is coming back, so the Court is the middle of preparing a victory banquet to welcome him. Apparently everyone is of the opinion to throw caution to the wind, as gaining such a great victory should be celebrated without restraint; doing that would just to so happen to boost the morale of the military and the citizens and would be a good opportunity to broadcast the prestige of the nation. Even the Minister of Rites Gu Yunzhi’s opposing party is awfully busy.

As I was preoccupied, I thought of the custom of ancient Rome where when their generals emerged victorious, they set up a triumphal arch for their return ceremony. Isn’t this just that?

As the Emperor was “a little bit sick”, morning court was temporarily suspended. There was still the daily need for all of the major Ministers to handle memorials to the throne together and coordinate governmental affairs between the six departments, but no matter that, I at least didn’t need to wake up just before dawn to hurry to the palace for court. That’s no way for someone to live.

In this warming-up-yet-still-cold period of time, it’s chilly in the early morning. Retreating further under the warm covers and listening to what I’m not sure is an oriole or some other bird twittering outside in the thin morning mist – this is truly a greatly enjoyable moment in my lifetime. The only annoying thing is that weirdo Yao Jinzi, who gets up at an even earlier time to practice his martial arts, then comes back into the bed, the cold air brought in from him lifting the blanket up often freezing me awake.

Thankfully, his body is always very warm.

In fact, sleeping in his arms is rather comfortable, but it’s a shame that he regularly makes me unable to sleep. Hey, he’s a greedy young man.

But thinking about Jinzi isn’t super easy. His martial arts training, for instance – how much time and energy did he spend on that? How can he get up so early every day, whether rain or shine, so easily, when I regard that as a form of torture? Everyone says that he has a great natural gift, when in reality there’s no way a lack of hard work could give results.

The little Emperor is now clinging to me extremely tightly; I’m receiving more welcome than Jinzi is. Now that I think about it, was him liking to learn martial arts with Jinzi because he wanted to learn stuff to protect himself with as soon as possible? Poor kid.

Whether that’s really how it is or not, it’ll at least give me more mental balance. I just think of it as if Jinzi and I have a child – the child favoring the dad more than the mom would make me heartsick. In this life, I can’t have my own kids – I’m not too sorry about that. Even if I found a woman to have one with, it would be Zhang Qinglian’s bloodline that gets passed down, and it wouldn’t feel like my own child. Perhaps I’m subconsciously treating the Emperor as my own instead, y’know?

This child is very fearsome, however. I still remember the first time we met face-to-face and he’d feigned cordiality to ask me why I didn’t come to the palace more frequently, then displayed magnanimity towards me. Just thinking about how he had then been listening to his Mother Empress’s words and was secretly on guard towards me, I really have to admire such a shrewd 7-year-old child. He’s really going to grow into wise-ruler material.

Was his Mother Empress forced into death by Zhang Qinglian? Did the little Emperor know anything about it?

Ay, my head hurts.

When I went to see the little Emperor today, I brought him a very simple yet refined handmade spinning top, and he liked it immensely. He’s probably never played with a toy like this before.

I’ve since instructed Eunuch Wang to replace the curtains and mattress in the Emperor’s chambers with new ones, and also to place a few pots of greenery and a few bits of decoration. They add a lot of liveliness, and it looks much better, too. As for the attendants, I also commanded him to switch them out. Among the replacements are that young eunuch who I’d spoken up for after he’d spilled tea, and the intelligent eunuch who had stood at the door as was selectively blind to us. I personally saw to the selection of the maids – they at least look to be kind and sincere, though I’m not sure if they’ll be diligent.

The Emperor is still unwell, having a bit of intestinal troubles today. I stayed with him for a while, coaxing him to sleep before I returned home.

Today is the earliest I’ve ever been able to come home in this life, as it’s still only 3 or 5 pm. I decide that I shouldn’t burn daylight, and begin a huge project that I’d been wanting to do but hadn’t had time to: to get a firm grasp on the financial state of this residence.

The sheer size of this undertaking would surely make even secretaries of the Ministry of Revenue like Liu Chunxi shrink back in terror. For full understanding, please refer to the mundane daily affairs of Wang Xifeng in Dream of the Red Chamber and how hard it was to reform Tanchun. Though Zhang Qinglian is only new money, the Zhang Residence isn’t deep-rooted like the Rong and Ning ones, and it lacks the familial complication of an old family, the number of staff and the magnitude of its many affairs aren’t any lesser.

Furthermore, the account books of antiquity are recorded like a stream of water; there’s no debit or credit or even a balance sheet, so I can only go through it slowly.

It’s almost impossible for me to peruse it all in one afternoon. I can only take a look at the income and expenses from all of last year.

Between my farmsteads and fiefdoms for the year, the income was only a bit more than 40,000 liang total. The everyday expenses of the Residence are 20,000-something. Zhang Qinglian’s spendings on social interactions are also a large amount; for the Liuyang princess’s birthday, he’d bought her a string of Southern pearls for 4,000. In any case, this guy seems like he doesn’t know the first thing about money, using it a wanton and wasteful manner – for example, he insisted upon getting four piebald horses to pull his carriage, and spend 67,000 liang for all of them.

Those Jianghu people headed by Tian Chun and Zhu Xianxi also cost a pretty penny. The two of them cost 800 liang a month each while the others are a bit less, at 50, 100, 300, resulting in between 50-60,000 liang a year. With that kind of generous pay, it’s little wonder that these people look after Zhang Qinglian’s home despite having the statuses of martial arts experts.

In this fashion, I’m much, much less of a spendthrift.

In these two months where it’d switched over to me, the expenses really were a lot less. There were scarcely any added expenditures, as I hadn’t even bought a single piece of new clothing for myself, so the daily spending for all of this last month was less than 2,000, and combined with those home-protectors it was 5,000.

The Residence houses a hundred-odd maids, domestics, and boy servants. The majority of them are indentured and bought outright, but even so, the little costs of their upkeep and others’ salaries adds up over the month, totalling from 200 – 500 liang, with somewhat senior maids costing one liang. The chef and bookkeeper’s monthly salaries are 10 liang, and Luo Yaozu now rakes in 12 each month, which is seen as a high salary according to this place’s precedent. I had explained to Jinfeng that he’d have a 20 liang monthly allowance, and he didn’t want it. Hmph, he’ll eat my food and wear my clothes and live in my house and respect the teacher I gave him, so what’s this high-and-mighty act? Unpleasant brat.

What’s odd is that Jinzi has never withdrawn a single coin from the accounts office. Does he have his own money? Aren’t his family’s assets gone?

I know that Zhang Qinglian’s proper income is what’s on the books, so the embezzlement and bribery money must not be in the same chunk. He must have some specialized little account book for it, but I don’t know where it would be.

I thereupon once again begin to conduct a wide-scale blanket investigation of the bedroom and study room for hidden compartments, and I won’t believe that there isn’t one! The Emperor had one in his headboard!

When Jinzi pushed the door open, I was yet again crawling on the ground and knocking on bricks. He saw my appearance and stared, a strange light showing in his eyes that might possibly be called amusement. “What are you doing this again for?”

I get up, stretching my back as I talk. “Looking for a ledger.”

“A ledger?”

“Yeah, for who’s sent me what up until now. I should have written it down, right?”

He looked at me funny. “You’d previously been putting them wherever. Where would you think of writing them down?”

I went stiff in an instant, my head full of incredulity. This guy, Zhang Qinglian… is really wanton and disorganized. How can such a man exist?

Is there really no secret compartment? I start to flip through all the books on the bookshelf and overturn the decorations. A great many books and TV shows have private rooms hidden behind bookcases.

Jinzi is standing by idly as I’m bustling about, his expression highly resembling one of mockery, which pisses me off and makes me want to find it at all costs.

I did find something in the end, but it wasn’t a trick panel or secret room – it was a thick book with a hollowed-out middle. The difficulty of its contents is very low.

Opening it, the first thing that hit my eyes was a fat, folded-up stack of banknotes. I’m immediately overjoyed at this sight, and from a rough once-over, I can tell that there’s likely 500,000 – 600,000 liang there. Well, well, well, with this kind of coin, he really deserves to be known as a majorly treacherous minister. No wonder he throws money everywhere like this.

I take out the 200,000 liang worth of banknotes that I’d acquired from several different bribes these days (the difficulty of my contents are even lower), put them with these new notes, and return them to the hollow in the book. Turning my head, I discovered the Jinzi was leisurely leaning against the door frame, face indifferent, though his eyes held a bit of smiling and teasing glint as he watched me.

I was a little abashed. A blooming smile spread out on my face, and I said, “Jinzi, if you want to take this money here for your own use, go ahead.” He’s not a money-grubber anyways, so I’m happy to do this favor.

Jinzi huffed from his nose. I don’t know what that means, but it doesn’t look like he’s offended.

That puts me at a bit of unease. What should I do if he suddenly has some bizarre urgent need for something and takes it all at once? I really want to add the sentence “it would be best not to exceed 100,000 liang”, but thinking it over three times in my head, I decide to endure it for the sake of maintaining my image.

Just as I was wanting to close the book, I discovered another thing between the pages. Opening it there, I see that there’s two thin booklets and a very crude hairpin made of chasteberry wood. I curiously took the last thing out to take a closer look at it. It’s just a pin used by men to hold their hair up, of the cheapest and most common sort used by the poorest of people. Why would Zhang Qinglian hoard this away like some kind of rare treasure?

Does it have some sentimental value?

The first of the two previously-mentioned booklets contains peculiar characters that I completely fail to recognize. The second one is in clerical script, with three words written on the cover: Jade Spider Arts.

I’m ecstatic, this is great! Training with this, I can find a way to restore my martial arts, and having that would make my life lot easier. Even if this wuxia-addicted modern human has only seen martial arts in books and movies, it’s still invaluable!

Right I was about to open it and take a look, a sudden gust of air blew past my face, and then I saw Jinzi, who had originally been at the doorway, had come over who-knows-when and snatched the two booklets out of my hand.

“Jinzi?” I stare blankly. “Don’t kid around, give those back!”

His face was cold as he had no intention of doing so. Anxious, I reach forward to grab them.

He slightly sidestepped me, raised his hand, and in an instant – probably with the use of internal power – turns the two books into puffs of ash.

I’m stunned on the spot.

A freezing fury rushes forth from my chest. “Why? Why won’t you let me regain my martial arts? I wouldn’t be a match for you even if I did! You could still easily kill me even three years later!”

“You don’t need to have martial arts when I’m here,” he said coldly.

His words stuff my chest up with pains. My face also grows cold. “When did what I need and didn’t need become yours to decide?”

I angrily turned to leave, but a sudden force stopped me. Jinzi had roughly pulled me into his arms and was hugging me from behind tightly enough to be suffocating. He bowed his head to search for my lips with his own, kissing me frantically, then using those fierce and passionate kisses to burn the skin of my neck.

“Your life is mine.” He says this overused line of cheesy dialogue right into my ear in a low, husky voice, his warm breath blowing against the back of my neck.

Though my desire had risen, ire made me cold and indifferent. I used every ounce of strength I had in my body to firmly push him away. He hadn’t applied any internal force, so he actually was pushed away by me, taking a step backwards.

I coldly huffed. “That’s only after three years.” I turned my back and left.

Him an I were engaged in a cold war in the days that followed, until Shao Qing came back.

How to be Yao Jinzi:

1. Destroy your wife’s martial arts manual

2. Yandere-flirt with said wife directly after said destruction

3. Get kicked out of bed

4. GGWP