Chapter 165 – Conversation
In the pavilion beside Ming Mountain Lake, a ghastly cold wind blew through, so frigid that it chilled the bones.
Yu Tang wrapped her cloak more securely around her and shivered as she asked Pei Yan, “Why do we have to come here to talk? Can’t we find a heated pavilion or something?”
Pei Yan didn’t respond but only glanced at Yu Tang’s cloak.
With coat made of plain silk material and grey squirrel fur lining, it was no wonder she would feel cold.
During this season, one should be wearing coats with fox or mink fur lining and with wool or shu brocade.
Now that Yu family came into some wealth, how could they not spare some funds to make a better cloak for Lady Yu.
Pei Yan frowned.
Yu Tang was confused by his displeasure.
She followed his gaze to her cloak.
She instantly furrowed her brows.
This Pei Yan, why does he always stare at her clothing every time?
It wasn’t like she was a young lady of the Pei Family who had many social engagements and had to wear different clothing every time she had one. This cloak was bought with her mother’s dowry, the fur was well-preserved, the plain cloak was embroidered with a cluster of orchids in one corner, the embroidery was fine, and the colour was light and elegant. It was a well-made piece that could be worn for a long time and suitable for all occasions.
Why is he always unhappy with her clothing choices?
Yu Tang scoffed internally, determined not to let Pei Yan off the hook.
Just as another gust of cold wind blew over, setting a frigid chill in the air, she simply wrapped her cloak tighter, saying prickly, “Even a covered lakeside pavilion would be a better alternative than this! Standing here like this, people will be frozen into popsicles.”
Was his chosen venue so terrible?
Pei Yan explained, “This was the closest place to the plum grove.”
It can’t be helped then.
Considering that Grand Madam was still enjoying the plums-blossoms in the Plum Grove, Yu Tang decided to keep their conversation short even if she had many things to say.
She asked, “Is there a reason why you’re looking for me?”
Pei Yan originally wanted to ask her directly about her family affairs, but Yu Tang’s earlier complaints made Pei Yan feel a little uncomfortable that he didn’t arrange things properly, so he first brought up Li Duan’s family affairs – in his heart, he subconsciously felt that Yu Tang should be very happy if she knew that Li Duan was in trouble with the law.
“You mentioned the Li family’s matter to me the other time, and I made a point of investigating it.” Pei Yan quietly murmured, “It’s really as you said. Li Yi’s hands weren’t clean when he was governor in Rizhao.” Speaking of this, he pursed the corners of his lips into a thin line.
Thousands of people coveted wealth that came with becoming an official.
This was the reason why many people stepped into that career path in the first place.
Pei Yan understood, but he did not agree with it.
Thus, when he knew about Li Yi’s misdemeanours in Rizhao, he was furious.
There was a bottom line for everything, and crossing that line was revolting.
He wrote a letter about Li Yi’s case to one of his contemporaries who was an imperial official in the Capital’s Inspectorate, who was ambitious and had always wanted to leave his name in history as a capable prosecutor.
He would definitely teach Li Yi a good lesson.
Yu Tang was elated.
This meant that the victim’s family would be able to clear their name soon.
She couldn’t help but ask, “Then, what are you going to do?”
Pei Yan saw her eyes glint with a light that was as bright as the summer rays that he was accustomed to, and secretly nodded in satisfaction, but his face was still expressionless, and said, “Didn’t their family want to move to Hangzhou City? Then it’s better for them to simply relocate there.”
Yu Tang was taken aback.
Usually this kind of family that moved out and never returned were the ones that no longer owned any local properties.
In other words, Pei Yan wanted to force the Li family to sell off their ancestral properties, if not all, then most of them.
She thought of all those ancestral properties sold by the Yu family in her previous life, and suddenly felt that the Li family’s retribution in this life was slowly arriving by means of Pei Yan’s unintentional intervention.
“Thank you, Third Master! ” she mumbled, as the corners of her eyes glistened with moisture.
Pei Yan looked at her with puzzlement in his eyes.
He didn’t say anything much, so why was Lady Yu so emotional and grateful all of a sudden? Could it be that Lady Yu hated the Li family so much that she was happy as long as the Li family was suffering?
Pei Yan could not comprehend.
Yu Tang didn’t intend to explain as she hastily replied, ”I was just thinking about the rest of the Li family’s hundred and fifty acres of land. That land was one of the best land in Lin’an City, that not even money can buy. It’s so hard waiting for the Li family’s demise already, so how can I resist such a great temptation?”
She said it in jest, with sheer joy in her eyes that didn’t have anything to do with past grudges and feuds.
It was a pure unadulterated expression of joy.
Pei Yan froze, and his voice couldn’t help but lighten up as well, replying, “Well, what if my family also wants that one hundred and fifty acres of land?”
Yu Tang was extremely surprised.
To the best of her knowledge, Pei Yan wasn’t a person who spoke lightly or joked around.
Yet in this moment, he was asking her for the one hundred and fifty acres of the Li family’s land.
Knowing that his words were probably meant as a joke, Yu Tang couldn’t help but feel a sense of delight.
She replied, ”Of course I’ll give it to your family! It’s better to enjoy the cool shade under a big tree! If I tag along with you, at least I wouldn’t have to worry about the irrigation system for watering the fields in the future.”
Thinking of it this way, it really does make sense!
In a rare moment, Pei Yan broke into a smile and said, “Why don’t we go to the nearby pavilion to talk further?”
Across the lake, on the opposite side of the pavilion was the covered lakeside pavilion that was surrounded by a beautiful lake.
Yu Tang assumed that Pei Yan had only came to tell her of this, and thus shook her head repeatedly, saying, “Forget it, this place is good enough. Grand Madam is still waiting for me to return.”
Pei Yan saw that she was back to her normal self, and his mood slowly calmed down along with her, and then brought up the actual purpose of his visit, saying “You sent a letter in the morning and then your family sent someone over in the afternoon again to deliver a letter again. Is there some kind of trouble at home?”
Yu Tang felt that Pei Yan had seen all of her most humiliating and wretched moments, so there was nothing she that couldn’t tell him.
She then told Pei Yan about asking Gentleman Zhang to draw patterns for her family.
Pei Yan was very surprised and examined Yu Tang several times.
Yu Tang nervously asked, “What’s wrong?”
In her heart, she was anxious if she had done something wrong and repeatedly thought over what she had done.
Who knew that Pei Yan would reply saying, “I didn’t expect you to have such good business acumen. Have you considered doing inlays as well?”
Nowadays the most expensive furniture were the ones with inlaid gold or silver patterns. Red lacquered ones like theirs were normally small pieces and may even last a lifetime, so some families didn’t necessarily have to buy them even when getting married.
Furniture was different.
Everyone needed them in their homes.
But still the black lacquered furniture was higher in demand.
It was evident that Pei Yan was not always right.
Yu Tang refused politely, smiled and said, “Our family’s traditional craft is our red lacquer, if we switch to doing inlays, it’s the equivalent of throwing away our heritage and losing the former crafts, which is not cost-effective.”
The Pei family had many businesses, but most of them were managed by the respective supervisors. At most, he would only make some suggestions and take a look at the accounts. He was rather inexperienced about such matters.
“It’s only a suggestion.” He continued, “Recently, someone asked me to take over a workshop that made inlays, and I’m still deliberating over it, so I thought I’d first ask your family if they needed it.”
Yu Tang was startled.
If it’s a simple workshop for making inlays, then it can be used for so many things!
As long as the person in charge is competent, it’s a rather lucrative business.
This really echoed the old saying of “the rich getting richer”.
However, she was also a little curious about the people would sell such a workshop.
Pei Yan didn’t hide it from her and said, “It’s the Song family’s.” He also further explained, “Didn’t their family partner up with the Peng and Wu families in the ship-building business? The Peng family, needless to say, is already doing well in the shipbuilding business, and the Wu family was originally an extremely wealthy family that went from being commoners to joining the upper-class. The cost of shipbuilding is great, so how can the Song Family compete with those two families? I wonder if this was a trap set by the Peng and the Wu family by joining forces to force the Song family out of the game. The Song family is now in a precarious position, so they had to quietly sell off some of their properties to bail themselves out.” Speaking of this, it seemed as though he thought of something as he hummed, and added: “I recall that red lacquer needs several coats of oil paint. The Song family seems to also have an oil-paint workshop,……,”
However, their family didn’t need an oil paint workshop to supply them with paint!
Most importantly, their family had no one left to manage the running of these businesses.
If they got help from outsiders, they wouldn’t be able to make much profit in the end either.
This was YuTang’s personal experience garnered from her previous life.
Once again, she politely rejected his suggestion, thinking that if she continued to discuss with Pei Yan like this, he might even come up with more shocking ideas, so she quickly changed the subject, saying, “Do you plan to take over the Song family’s businesses? Which one of theirs is the most lucrative?”
“Textile.” Pei Yan replied. He did not respond to the question as to whether he wanted to take over the Song family’s businesses, instead, saying, “However, the textile business is too troublesome, and if the cloths were not chosen as imperial tributes, people would feel that your materials are not good enough. Even if you were selected as a supplier to the imperial court, you would need to have someone to deal with the people in the twenty-four imperial magistracies as well…” Speaking of this, he suddenly stopped mid-sentence, and fell into a daze.
Yu Tang did not understand why.
Pei Yan asked her, “Are you familiar with Jiang Chao?”
Jiang Chao had lived in their house for a period of them, so of course she knew him. But judging from Pei Yan’s words, it was clear that he was referring to whether or not she knew Jiang Chao as a person.
Yu Tang said thoughtfully, “He should be decent. I’ve heard my father talk about him many times.”
Pei Yan nodded, and asked out of the blue about something else entirely, “Is it true that you’re on the lookout for some good drawings for your store?”
“It seems to the case for now.” Yu Tang said reservedly, “Sometimes in business, you have to learn as you go.”
Pei Yan then asked, “Is Gentleman Zhang’s paintings really that good?”
Yu Tang laughed, “I am not well-informed on this, but as far as I can see, Gentleman Zhang’s paintings do stand out.”
Pei Yan nodded and remarked, “Alright! It’s good that nothing is amiss at home. I requested you to accompany my mother, so I can’t have you worrying over matters at home. If there’s anything you need help with, just tell the servants and they will inform me, and I’ll do my best to help.”
Yu Tang expressed her appreciation.
Both of them then went their separate ways.
Yu Tang needless to say, went straight back to the Plum-blossom Grove.
Only at this moment, the poetry recital in the Plum-blossom Grove had ended, and everyone was about to head over to Grand Madam’s residence.
As soon as Gu Xi saw her, she smiled and commented, ”It’s really better to come in the nick of time rather than early. We’ve only just decided to have lamb hotpot in the evening, so you’ve returned at the right time. Lady Yu must be blessed.”
“Didn’t we already decide we’d be eating grilled meat in the evening?” Yu Tang was surprised.
Why did they change their minds?
Fourth Miss blushed and stammered, “Lady Gu’s poem was judged to be first, and Third Sister was second. Lady Gu said she was the oldest and so she asked Third Sister to decide instead. Third sister said that barbecued meat is heaty and it’s not good to eat it at night, so she switched to hotpot.”
It wasn’t at all unusual to have Gu Xi’s poem to be rated first place.
But thereafter, it seemed that there was a change after her departure.
She was fine with whatever food they had and so she replied, “That’s fine. If it’s still snowing tomorrow, we can grill some meat then.”
Yu Tang’s words resonated with Fourth and Fifth Miss.
The two nodded their heads in unison, and the whole group chatted and laughed as they flocked around Grand madam and headed to the main courtyard.
On the way, several times, Gu Xi wanted to ask Yu Tang, “Don’t you care about how well your poem did?” but she held her tongue.
Chapter 165 – Conversation
In the pavilion beside Ming Mountain Lake, a ghastly cold wind blew through, so frigid that it chilled the bones.
Yu Tang wrapped her cloak more securely around her and shivered as she asked Pei Yan, “Why do we have to come here to talk? Can’t we find a heated pavilion or something?”
Pei Yan didn’t respond but only glanced at Yu Tang’s cloak.
With coat made of plain silk material and grey squirrel fur lining, it was no wonder she would feel cold.
During this season, one should be wearing coats with fox or mink fur lining and with wool or shu brocade.
Now that Yu family came into some wealth, how could they not spare some funds to make a better cloak for Lady Yu.
Pei Yan frowned.
Yu Tang was confused by his displeasure.
She followed his gaze to her cloak.
She instantly furrowed her brows.
This Pei Yan, why does he always stare at her clothing every time?
It wasn’t like she was a young lady of the Pei Family who had many social engagements and had to wear different clothing every time she had one. This cloak was bought with her mother’s dowry, the fur was well-preserved, the plain cloak was embroidered with a cluster of orchids in one corner, the embroidery was fine, and the colour was light and elegant. It was a well-made piece that could be worn for a long time and suitable for all occasions.
Why is he always unhappy with her clothing choices?
Yu Tang scoffed internally, determined not to let Pei Yan off the hook.
Just as another gust of cold wind blew over, setting a frigid chill in the air, she simply wrapped her cloak tighter, saying prickly, “Even a covered lakeside pavilion would be a better alternative than this! Standing here like this, people will be frozen into popsicles.”
Was his chosen venue so terrible?
Pei Yan explained, “This was the closest place to the plum grove.”
It can’t be helped then.
Considering that Grand Madam was still enjoying the plums-blossoms in the Plum Grove, Yu Tang decided to keep their conversation short even if she had many things to say.
She asked, “Is there a reason why you’re looking for me?”
Pei Yan originally wanted to ask her directly about her family affairs, but Yu Tang’s earlier complaints made Pei Yan feel a little uncomfortable that he didn’t arrange things properly, so he first brought up Li Duan’s family affairs – in his heart, he subconsciously felt that Yu Tang should be very happy if she knew that Li Duan was in trouble with the law.
“You mentioned the Li family’s matter to me the other time, and I made a point of investigating it.” Pei Yan quietly murmured, “It’s really as you said. Li Yi’s hands weren’t clean when he was governor in Rizhao.” Speaking of this, he pursed the corners of his lips into a thin line.
Thousands of people coveted wealth that came with becoming an official.
This was the reason why many people stepped into that career path in the first place.
Pei Yan understood, but he did not agree with it.
Thus, when he knew about Li Yi’s misdemeanours in Rizhao, he was furious.
There was a bottom line for everything, and crossing that line was revolting.
He wrote a letter about Li Yi’s case to one of his contemporaries who was an imperial official in the Capital’s Inspectorate, who was ambitious and had always wanted to leave his name in history as a capable prosecutor.
He would definitely teach Li Yi a good lesson.
Yu Tang was elated.
This meant that the victim’s family would be able to clear their name soon.
She couldn’t help but ask, “Then, what are you going to do?”
Pei Yan saw her eyes glint with a light that was as bright as the summer rays that he was accustomed to, and secretly nodded in satisfaction, but his face was still expressionless, and said, “Didn’t their family want to move to Hangzhou City? Then it’s better for them to simply relocate there.”
Yu Tang was taken aback.
Usually this kind of family that moved out and never returned were the ones that no longer owned any local properties.
In other words, Pei Yan wanted to force the Li family to sell off their ancestral properties, if not all, then most of them.
She thought of all those ancestral properties sold by the Yu family in her previous life, and suddenly felt that the Li family’s retribution in this life was slowly arriving by means of Pei Yan’s unintentional intervention.
“Thank you, Third Master! ” she mumbled, as the corners of her eyes glistened with moisture.
Pei Yan looked at her with puzzlement in his eyes.
He didn’t say anything much, so why was Lady Yu so emotional and grateful all of a sudden? Could it be that Lady Yu hated the Li family so much that she was happy as long as the Li family was suffering?
Pei Yan could not comprehend.
Yu Tang didn’t intend to explain as she hastily replied, ”I was just thinking about the rest of the Li family’s hundred and fifty acres of land. That land was one of the best land in Lin’an City, that not even money can buy. It’s so hard waiting for the Li family’s demise already, so how can I resist such a great temptation?”
She said it in jest, with sheer joy in her eyes that didn’t have anything to do with past grudges and feuds.
It was a pure unadulterated expression of joy.
Pei Yan froze, and his voice couldn’t help but lighten up as well, replying, “Well, what if my family also wants that one hundred and fifty acres of land?”
Yu Tang was extremely surprised.
To the best of her knowledge, Pei Yan wasn’t a person who spoke lightly or joked around.
Yet in this moment, he was asking her for the one hundred and fifty acres of the Li family’s land.
Knowing that his words were probably meant as a joke, Yu Tang couldn’t help but feel a sense of delight.
She replied, ”Of course I’ll give it to your family! It’s better to enjoy the cool shade under a big tree! If I tag along with you, at least I wouldn’t have to worry about the irrigation system for watering the fields in the future.”
Thinking of it this way, it really does make sense!
In a rare moment, Pei Yan broke into a smile and said, “Why don’t we go to the nearby pavilion to talk further?”
Across the lake, on the opposite side of the pavilion was the covered lakeside pavilion that was surrounded by a beautiful lake.
Yu Tang assumed that Pei Yan had only came to tell her of this, and thus shook her head repeatedly, saying, “Forget it, this place is good enough. Grand Madam is still waiting for me to return.”
Pei Yan saw that she was back to her normal self, and his mood slowly calmed down along with her, and then brought up the actual purpose of his visit, saying “You sent a letter in the morning and then your family sent someone over in the afternoon again to deliver a letter again. Is there some kind of trouble at home?”
Yu Tang felt that Pei Yan had seen all of her most humiliating and wretched moments, so there was nothing she that couldn’t tell him.
She then told Pei Yan about asking Gentleman Zhang to draw patterns for her family.
Pei Yan was very surprised and examined Yu Tang several times.
Yu Tang nervously asked, “What’s wrong?”
In her heart, she was anxious if she had done something wrong and repeatedly thought over what she had done.
Who knew that Pei Yan would reply saying, “I didn’t expect you to have such good business acumen. Have you considered doing inlays as well?”
Nowadays the most expensive furniture were the ones with inlaid gold or silver patterns. Red lacquered ones like theirs were normally small pieces and may even last a lifetime, so some families didn’t necessarily have to buy them even when getting married.
Furniture was different.
Everyone needed them in their homes.
But still the black lacquered furniture was higher in demand.
It was evident that Pei Yan was not always right.
Yu Tang refused politely, smiled and said, “Our family’s traditional craft is our red lacquer, if we switch to doing inlays, it’s the equivalent of throwing away our heritage and losing the former crafts, which is not cost-effective.”
The Pei family had many businesses, but most of them were managed by the respective supervisors. At most, he would only make some suggestions and take a look at the accounts. He was rather inexperienced about such matters.
“It’s only a suggestion.” He continued, “Recently, someone asked me to take over a workshop that made inlays, and I’m still deliberating over it, so I thought I’d first ask your family if they needed it.”
Yu Tang was startled.
If it’s a simple workshop for making inlays, then it can be used for so many things!
As long as the person in charge is competent, it’s a rather lucrative business.
This really echoed the old saying of “the rich getting richer”.
However, she was also a little curious about the people would sell such a workshop.
Pei Yan didn’t hide it from her and said, “It’s the Song family’s.” He also further explained, “Didn’t their family partner up with the Peng and Wu families in the ship-building business? The Peng family, needless to say, is already doing well in the shipbuilding business, and the Wu family was originally an extremely wealthy family that went from being commoners to joining the upper-class. The cost of shipbuilding is great, so how can the Song Family compete with those two families? I wonder if this was a trap set by the Peng and the Wu family by joining forces to force the Song family out of the game. The Song family is now in a precarious position, so they had to quietly sell off some of their properties to bail themselves out.” Speaking of this, it seemed as though he thought of something as he hummed, and added: “I recall that red lacquer needs several coats of oil paint. The Song family seems to also have an oil-paint workshop,……,”
However, their family didn’t need an oil paint workshop to supply them with paint!
Most importantly, their family had no one left to manage the running of these businesses.
If they got help from outsiders, they wouldn’t be able to make much profit in the end either.
This was YuTang’s personal experience garnered from her previous life.
Once again, she politely rejected his suggestion, thinking that if she continued to discuss with Pei Yan like this, he might even come up with more shocking ideas, so she quickly changed the subject, saying, “Do you plan to take over the Song family’s businesses? Which one of theirs is the most lucrative?”
“Textile.” Pei Yan replied. He did not respond to the question as to whether he wanted to take over the Song family’s businesses, instead, saying, “However, the textile business is too troublesome, and if the cloths were not chosen as imperial tributes, people would feel that your materials are not good enough. Even if you were selected as a supplier to the imperial court, you would need to have someone to deal with the people in the twenty-four imperial magistracies as well…” Speaking of this, he suddenly stopped mid-sentence, and fell into a daze.
Yu Tang did not understand why.
Pei Yan asked her, “Are you familiar with Jiang Chao?”
Jiang Chao had lived in their house for a period of them, so of course she knew him. But judging from Pei Yan’s words, it was clear that he was referring to whether or not she knew Jiang Chao as a person.
Yu Tang said thoughtfully, “He should be decent. I’ve heard my father talk about him many times.”
Pei Yan nodded, and asked out of the blue about something else entirely, “Is it true that you’re on the lookout for some good drawings for your store?”
“It seems to the case for now.” Yu Tang said reservedly, “Sometimes in business, you have to learn as you go.”
Pei Yan then asked, “Is Gentleman Zhang’s paintings really that good?”
Yu Tang laughed, “I am not well-informed on this, but as far as I can see, Gentleman Zhang’s paintings do stand out.”
Pei Yan nodded and remarked, “Alright! It’s good that nothing is amiss at home. I requested you to accompany my mother, so I can’t have you worrying over matters at home. If there’s anything you need help with, just tell the servants and they will inform me, and I’ll do my best to help.”
Yu Tang expressed her appreciation.
Both of them then went their separate ways.
Yu Tang needless to say, went straight back to the Plum-blossom Grove.
Only at this moment, the poetry recital in the Plum-blossom Grove had ended, and everyone was about to head over to Grand Madam’s residence.
As soon as Gu Xi saw her, she smiled and commented, ”It’s really better to come in the nick of time rather than early. We’ve only just decided to have lamb hotpot in the evening, so you’ve returned at the right time. Lady Yu must be blessed.”
“Didn’t we already decide we’d be eating grilled meat in the evening?” Yu Tang was surprised.
Why did they change their minds?
Fourth Miss blushed and stammered, “Lady Gu’s poem was judged to be first, and Third Sister was second. Lady Gu said she was the oldest and so she asked Third Sister to decide instead. Third sister said that barbecued meat is heaty and it’s not good to eat it at night, so she switched to hotpot.”
It wasn’t at all unusual to have Gu Xi’s poem to be rated first place.
But thereafter, it seemed that there was a change after her departure.
She was fine with whatever food they had and so she replied, “That’s fine. If it’s still snowing tomorrow, we can grill some meat then.”
Yu Tang’s words resonated with Fourth and Fifth Miss.
The two nodded their heads in unison, and the whole group chatted and laughed as they flocked around Grand madam and headed to the main courtyard.
On the way, several times, Gu Xi wanted to ask Yu Tang, “Don’t you care about how well your poem did?” but she held her tongue.
