When Zhang Xiaobao said those words, many thoughts formed within his mind in that moment. Seeing Yingtao’s puzzled look, he said: “If it’s solely free-range, the growth will be slow. I must acc.u.mulate within a short time a large amount of money to do stuff. How about this, you listen to me speak. You return to find several servants. Have them gather up the rotten rice straws or wheat stalks.
Especially the firewood piles other people of the manor use for burning. The weather’s just right. It even rained before. Those firewood piles underneath must all be sodden. They’ll have to flip and dry them. So you’ll use money to get them. Give some spare money;1 that stuff isn’t worth much money. You judge how much to give. Collect it all and transport it to the worst of the lands lying fallow behind my house. Use dirt to bury it.
Then, go and find people to catch earthworms—unh, they’re called night crawlers.2 Throw them in there to raise. Also, put some dung droppings in there, too. Once it’s almost night time—you yourself can do it or finding others to do it is fine—pick up the foul fish and shrimp that’s been discarded by people at the market fair. If there are river snails or whatever, that’s even better. Take it all back here and find an empty spot to air dry.”
“Little Mister, what do you [honorific] want to do? Those fish or whatever are already inedible.” Yingtao was muddled. She felt that this Little Mister’s thinking really couldn’t be regarded with an ordinary perspective.
“How dumb, ~ne. Before, didn’t I speak of raising chickens? Of course, it’s to have these things ground into powder to feed the chickens. That way, our family’s chickens will grow the fastest, lay the most eggs, and won’t even have soft-sh.e.l.led eggs appear.” Zhang Xiaobao discovered that the most painful thing in life was when you are speaking but others had no way of understanding. If this was his own subordinates from before, he would definitely die from anger. Why couldn’t they crack it3 themselves, ~ne?
“Oh, I understand. Little Mister, you [honorific] are really almighty. Though I don’t know if this will be fine or not but whatever you [honorific] say, I just feel like it is right. At that time, we’ll sell the chicken eggs. If the chickens don’t lay eggs, we can still sell the chickens. Stuff that’s picked up doesn’t cost money—it’s a no-cost business, ~ah.” Yingtao felt like she had thought it through herself.
Zhang Xiaobao raised his hand to smack his forehead with the discovery that if he really had Yingtao lead on her own,4 she was still too far off. Fortunately, he didn’t directly gripe at Yingtao. He felt that it was he himself who hadn’t brought up his subordinates well and could only patiently groom them slowly so he said to Yingtao: “My family won’t sell chicken eggs. Those chicken eggs, I am keeping to make cakes, ~ne. Otherwise, if you go buy chicken eggs, you already lose a sum of money during the process of the purchase. If we keep this portion of the profit for ourselves, wouldn’t that be better? That item that I had Erniu’s family produce can make cakes—talking about it with you, you won’t understand. Learn it bit by bit.”
“Yes, Little Mister is surely a devil spirit.5 No, the reincarnation of a celestial sage—that’s what everyone is saying.” Yingtao said a bootlicking sentence.6
That caused Zhang Xiaobao to start worrying at once. So he himself and w.a.n.g Juan had already caught the notice of others and rumors of devil spirits reincarnating had already spread out—who was it? Was it on purpose or without intent? This one day, ~ah! Doing a bit of stuff even required a cover up, needing to waste quite a bit of attention. How much money could be earned with this energy? This matter must be investigated thoroughly and moreover, a means to seal the leak thought of.
The reasoning behind the prominent rafters rotting first7 anyone should know. What to do, ~ne? Might as well seek out Mother to discuss this. Anyone could harm him but his own mother wouldn’t harm him. Of course, the Wu Meiniang8 that had already died being an exception—that was a genuine devil spirit, ~ne.9
“Little Mister, just this? Is there anything else? ” Yingtao, seeing that Little Mister was silent at this moment, was a bit afraid. Little Mister’s face was powerfully overcast. An adult made this expression to let others know that he was angry; a child making this expression was a bit too piercing, especially those eyes of the child—just meeting their gaze would basically cause insecurity. They really were too pure, too devoid.
“There is. There’s still something. I want to ask now. From whose mouth did you hear about us being monsters or devil spirits?” At this time, Zhang Xiaobao didn’t have any smile at all. Usually, he would use a baby’s expression and a child’s smile when speaking to others.
“Little Mister, what is it? It, it was Xiaoqi—the Xiaoqi10 who chops firewood behind the kitchen. He said, he said when he was carrying firewood, he heard the words that Master spoke in the backyard11 saying that Little Mister was a monster.” Yingtao was scared.
“Xiaoqi? How long has been working in my house, what did he do before?” Zhang Xiaobao didn’t think that the source of this matter was actually due to his own father. He naturally couldn’t upbraid Father. Father must have been speaking to Mother at the time. That Xiaoqi, how could his ears be so sharp? His mouth was that faulty?
He and w.a.n.g Juan were already doing their best to be careful lest other people would know too many things by having Erniu seal his mouth like a jar,12 letting Yingtao keep it secret, and handing over business for others to do. Mother was intelligent so she found out. That was nothing. Anybody else finding out—that would be troublesome. A tree apart from the forest, the wind surely will destroy it; a shoal higher than the sh.o.r.e, the waves surely will disturb it.13 He himself being a swindler, the most important thing was to hide. A swindler being captured, was there a need to describe what consequences there would be? He didn’t even consider that the problem would come from the inside.
When thinking on this, Zhang Xiaobao could only sigh. After all, this house hadn’t been built by his own hands. The personnel quality varied too greatly. Before him, the only matter to be accomplished was to figure out Xiaoqi, this person. If it was a campaign of deliberate intent, then there was only a single result—death. Without intent, then he’d need to think of a way to organize the manor. This was aggravating, ~ah. Using these people, even if it wasn’t like directing your own arms, but they still shouldn’t constantly create trouble for him.
“Little Mister, the matter you [honorific] just spoke of—what did you want me to do?” Yingtao followed up with a question.
“Oh, speaking of the main business. That, I’ll ask you. Our manor and the w.a.n.g Manor’s people, after eating the chicken eggs, where do the eggsh.e.l.ls go? After eating the chicken, where do the chicken feathers go?” Zhang Xiaobao wasn’t those people who had never seen great turbulence before after all. He wouldn’t let a single matter affect the entire plan.
“Thrown out, of course. My family’s courtyard house is also like this. Always have to throw out a bit every day.” The ‘my family’s courtyard house’ that Yingtao spoke of was Zhang Xiaobao’s family’s.
“Thrown out? It’s really thrown out? That’s to say, those wine-houses and restaurants also throw them all out? Good, that’s great. Yingtao, giving you a new mission. You find other people—you’re too busy to. Go collect those things that have been thrown out for me.” Zhang Xiaobao was that happy. These were all good playthings for creating fodder. If he didn’t understand how to create down-filled clothing and was afraid that the current clothing materials would shed the down, he could have even made down-filled clothing.
“How come it’s all rotten stuff that doesn’t need money?” Yingtao said in a low voice. Raising her head to see Little Mister was currently looking at her, she then hastily said: “All right, Little Mister, wait till I return and I’ll arrange for people to collect those things that you [honorific] spoke of. Little Mister, it’s too hot here. Let’s go under the tree shade to sit.”
“Unh, that’s fine. This plot is also my family’s? Why were trees all planted?” Zhang Xiaobao was led by Yingtao to the bottom of a big tree. Sitting on top of a piece of rock that Yingtao had used a cushion to pad it with, he asked this while pointing a finger at a plot of woods in the distance.
“In reply to Little Mister’s words, that plot is an eternal industry field14that those above had us plant trees on.”
“Oh, could it be that they have this kind of awareness now? That’s not right. I remember that this time period is deforestation to create farmlands, ~ah.” Zhang Xiaobao was a bit unclear.
Yingtao also didn’t understand exactly what Little Mister was saying. a.s.suming that Little Mister was asking about those woods, she said: “Planted in these places are mulberry15 trees—have to hand over quite a bit of silk every year.”
With this one mention, Zhang Xiaobao understood. So it wasn’t a simple grove. It required an output and it wasn’t even the product from processing wood. Then that said, he could exercise his brains when it came to the woods inside.
Zhang Xiaobao started executing the next step of the plan. The insides of his skull had nearly all turned into paste—especially that Xiaoqi, too detestable.
w.a.n.g Juan’s mission was to observe the native environment and population. Carried by Shiliu while walking around the place, they walked and walked until they reached the vicinity of the little bridge outside of the manor. Crossing this bridge was considered leaving the sphere of influence of the w.a.n.g Manor and Zhang Manor. Shiliu didn’t dare move and carrying w.a.n.g Juan, she sat down on the stool by the bridge on this side. Pointing at that stream trickling by, she said to w.a.n.g Juan: “Juan-Juan, see this water? It’s so refreshing. Wait till you’re a bit bigger and you can go down to play.”
w.a.n.g Juan could care less if the water was refreshing or not. She wanted to hear other people making small talk but the problem was that there were no other people in the surrounding area. If she chatted with Shiliu, then she might as well just go home, ~ne. Looking around in all directions, she discovered that there were several black dots where the river downstream was gentler in the distance. Raising a hand to point over there, she asked: “What is that?”
“Those are rude boys16 swimming.” Shiliu had naturally seen them. Not just the children from the two manors were playing over there; even the children belonging to some of the families that lived by the bridge were there, too. Their b.u.t.ts were bare as they fought water battles. She felt that she shouldn’t let the w.a.n.gs’ Little Miss see that.
“I want to see.” w.a.n.g Juan strained towards that direction, trying to break free from Shiliu’s embrace. Shiliu patiently offered advice but the end result didn’t need to be declared. w.a.n.g Juan was victorious. Shiliu carried w.a.n.g Juan while walking toward there.
w.a.n.g Juan prepared to look at the physical conditions of the children—do they get enough nutrition? Also, looking at the clothing placed on the banks—were the households rich? Just as they were visibly about to reach the spot, at this time, a child suddenly ran over from that side of the bridge to yell out at his other companions still in the water: “Quickly go look, ~ah! Great Philanthropist Song17 is coming.”
Upon hearing this, the children came out of the water with a “hua-la” sound. Deftly donning their clothes and regardless of which manor they were from, they all ran over towards that side.
“What philanthropist?” w.a.n.g Juan asked.
“Ai, more people got taken in. What philanthropist? It’s just a swindler. This Swindler Song is formidable, tricking so many people and yet, there are so many people who call him a philanthropist. Let’s go back. Otherwise, if he sees Juan-Juan, he’ll even trick you along with the rest. He can’t be messed with but we can still hide away.” Shiliu sighed once, a swindler with each breath, holding w.a.n.g Juan intending to leave.
If it was something else, w.a.n.g Juan really would leave. But upon hearing philanthropist and then swindler, she suddenly smiled as she said to Shiliu: “Where is there a swindler? He’s definitely a philanthropist.”
“Little Miss, he really is a swindler. You really mustn’t go over there. Upon meeting this person, I hear that there’s no one who wasn’t tricked.” Shiliu was frightened.
“Wrong, he is definitely not a swindler. With such a good place, how could there be swindlers? Go. Flag down a child that hasn’t run far. Have him return to the manor there with a greeting. Have Xiaobao carried over here. When Xiaobao gets here, you ask Xiaobao where there is a swindler—there are only good people.” w.a.n.g Juan said with certainty.