Headmaster Xu stood at the foot of the steps. Seeing someone approaching along the bluestone path, dressed in a dark blue scholar’s robe and wearing a soft black cap, walking with measured dignity, he recognized him as Instructor Liu of the prefectural school.
“Instructor Liu, you’ve come from so far away. I should have gone out to welcome you,” Headmaster Xu said with a smile, cupping his hands in greeting. He wore a somewhat worn, loose-sleeved Daoist robe, and his hair and beard were completely white.
“Master Xu is too modest. It was this junior who took the liberty of disturbing you.”
The two walked side by side into the courtyard. The flowers and trees lining the path were arranged with a pleasing, unstudied grace. Instructor Liu could not help sighing. “Every time I enter the academy, I feel the atmosphere here is so clear and serene. The plants flourish, the sound of reading fills the air—it is enough to calm the heart and mind.”
Headmaster Xu shook his head with a light laugh. “It is nothing more than my being too lazy to prune them, leaving them to grow as they please. Much like the students here—none of them have much regard for rules. I hope you won’t find it amusing, Instructor.”
Since the founding of the dynasty, learning and education had flourished. In addition to the central schools and local government schools established by the court, private academies and village schools could be found throughout the land.
Canglang Academy had earned a fine reputation in the Huzhou region largely through Headmaster Xu’s years of careful stewardship. In his youth, he had served as an official at court, then retired and returned to his native home to devote himself to scholarship. Though now nearing seventy, he remained hale and vigorous, and enjoyed considerable esteem among the learned.
Unlike the strictly regulated government schools in the prefectures and counties, academies had always opened their doors to all who sought knowledge. Regardless of humble or noble birth, or whether they came from near or far, anyone who passed the academy’s assessment could enter to attend lectures and pursue learning. Naturally, their rules were also far more relaxed than those of government schools.
As they spoke, the two arrived at the guest hall and took their seats.
Instructor Liu took a sip of tea and praised it. “The tea at Master Xu’s academy is always so pure and mellow.”
Headmaster Xu smiled and stroked his beard. “It is only an ordinary brew. I’m glad you do not find it wanting. The weather is cold today. Did your journey here go smoothly?”
“It did.” Instructor Liu set down his teacup. “It is only that I have been thinking of the Canglang Lecture Gathering your academy will hold in the middle of the month, and my feet seemed to carry me here all the faster.”
“You flatter us, Instructor. It is merely an ordinary exchange among teachers and students,” Headmaster Xu replied with a smile.
Instructor Liu waved a hand. “Who in Huzhou has not heard that Canglang Academy is steeped in a pure scholarly tradition, with students who are both clever and diligent? I have also heard that for this gathering, not only will gifted scholars converge, but Master Jianshan, who has long kept himself apart from worldly affairs, will attend as well. Such an occasion is truly rare.”
He paused, then continued earnestly, “That is why I have come today to make a shameless request and ask Master Xu to show us some leniency. Would you permit several outstanding students from the prefectural school, all eager to pursue learning, to attend the gathering and listen to the lectures? It would give them a chance to witness the true atmosphere of scholarship and broaden their horizons.”
“The fact that Master Jianshan is willing to spare the time to come is a blessing for the academy,” Headmaster Xu said warmly, stroking his beard. “The pursuit of learning should never be closed off by academic boundaries. If students from the prefectural school wish to attend, this old man will welcome them.”
A pleased smile spread across Instructor Liu’s face. He rose and cupped his hands. “Master Xu’s broad-mindedness is deeply appreciated. This opportunity will be an extraordinary one for the students of the prefectural school. Allow me to thank you on their behalf.”
With that, he lifted his teacup and took a sip.
“You are too gracious, Instructor,” Headmaster Xu replied.
“It is Master Xu who is generous.” Instructor Liu set down his teacup, and his gaze happened to fall upon the porcelain dish beside him. Several pastries lay inside, their color a delicate green, their texture fine and even, their small, elegant shapes quite unlike the ordinary cakes sold in the marketplace. He could not help praising them. “Even the pastries served to guests at your academy are so distinctive. They possess the same air as the academy itself—refined, pure, and far from vulgar.”
Headmaster Xu glanced down. The pastries in the dish were unfamiliar and were not among the academy’s usual provisions. “Their color is indeed fresh and pleasing. Perhaps the steward recently found them somewhere. I have not tasted them myself, so I cannot say how they are.”
As he spoke, he picked up a piece and put it in his mouth. The pastry was delicate and tender, with a mild sweetness. There was a faint, clean freshness like that of vegetable juice, and it was not cloying in the slightest. The flavor was indeed excellent.
Instructor Liu tried one as well and praised it repeatedly. “The heat and sweetness are both just right—sweet without being vulgar, light yet full of flavor. Paired with this tea, it is much like the learning cultivated at this academy: pure, balanced, upright, and lingering on the palate.”
Headmaster Xu smiled. “It is only a taste of the countryside. If it goes well with a cup of tea, then it has served its purpose.”
At that moment, the faint sounds of footsteps and conversation drifted in from outside. The midday break had likely begun, and Instructor Liu rose to take his leave. Headmaster Xu accompanied him to the academy gate, then slowly turned back. As he passed the guest hall, he saw the steward leading two young attendants in clearing away the tea things. He paused, then stepped inside.
Headmaster Xu’s gaze fell upon the porcelain dish that had held the pastries. It was now completely empty.
Remembering their delicate flavor, which had suited the academy perfectly, he said to the steward, “Those pastries were quite to my taste. Their shape and color were simple and elegant as well. We should prepare some to serve with tea during the gathering in the middle of the month. I imagine Jianshan will enjoy them too.”
The steward hurriedly nodded. “Yes, Headmaster. I’ll see to it at once. Only, which shop in the city makes them? If you would tell me, I can send someone to place an order early.”
Headmaster Xu froze. “I did not prepare them.”
The steward was stunned as well. “But I took them from the tea shelf myself. I assumed you had set them aside especially for your honored guest…”
The moment Headmaster Xu heard the words “tea shelf,” he understood, and his heart sank. The voices of the students outside were growing louder. Without saying another word, he turned and hurried toward Mingde Studio.
When he reached the covered walkway, he spotted Tigerhead in the distance, hopping his way into the studio. Headmaster Xu slowed his pace and followed behind. He watched as Tigerhead went straight to the tea shelf as though he knew the place by heart, standing on tiptoe and looking this way and that.
After searching for a while, Tigerhead suddenly cried out, his voice full of disbelief. “My cakes are gone! Who ate my cakes?!”
He turned his head and saw Headmaster Xu standing by the doorway. Pouting, he stomped over and demanded, “Headmaster, was it you who ate my cakes?”
Headmaster Xu’s expression stiffened. He gave a light cough. “Linzhou, mind your manners. How can you suspect your teacher without evidence?”
Tigerhead came closer, his little brows drawn together as he looked up at him. “Then where did my cakes go?”
Headmaster Xu felt a little guilty. “Instructor Liu came to visit just now. The steward mistook them for refreshments for our guest and took them away.”
Tigerhead planted both hands on his hips, his voice rising several notches. “I knew it! Headmaster, you must have tasted them and found them delicious, so you ate every last one and didn’t leave me even a single piece. I hid those so carefully! How could you—how could you not even leave me a scrap of the wrapping paper?”
“It was a misunderstanding, truly a misunderstanding. The pastries were indeed delicious—we have a discerning Tigerhead here. The headmaster was careless this time. Now, where did you buy them? I’ll buy you twice as many to make it up to you. How does that sound?”
Tigerhead pouted and began muttering nonstop. “Sister Lin made those cakes. I got up before dawn today and walked all over the morning market before I finally found her stall. It took me forever just to buy two pieces. Then I ran all the way here and nearly arrived late, and Master Chen scolded me for it. But if I go now, she’ll already have sold out. Today—today I really won’t get to eat them again…”
He had originally intended to make himself sound pitiful. But the more he spoke, the more he began to feel that he truly was terribly unfortunate, and his head drooped along with his spirits.
Headmaster Xu looked at his little pouty face, feeling both amused and exasperated. "Tigerhead, what happened today was truly the oversight of this headmaster and the steward. How about this? Tomorrow, I will personally take you to the morning market, find your Sister Lin, and place a new order for some pastries, all set aside just for you. Does that sound agreeable?"
"Then I want four pieces?" Tigerhead jerked his head up, holding out four fingers, then thought for a moment, "And if I'm late tomorrow, you have to explain the reason to the master."
"Four pieces now..." Headmaster Xu stroked his beard, pretending to ponder as if weighing a most momentous decision. After a long while, he nodded with what looked like great difficulty. "Fine, fine, I'll grant you that. If we get them tomorrow, I won't touch a single one of yours, I promise."
Only after Headmaster Xu had made this series of generous concessions did Tigerhead reluctantly bob his little head, signaling his agreement.
Down in Qingshui Lane, Lin Wu returned to her small courtyard, her bamboo basket now empty and a folding stool in hand.
Her business that day had gone smoothly. In roughly an hour's time, all the pastries had sold out. On her way back, remembering she needed to write a reply, she detoured to a stationery shop to buy some paper and ink brushes.
Paper was cheap enough, but the price of brushes varied wildly. The cheapest chicken-feather brushes cost only three coins apiece, but they were limp and nearly useless. A slightly better mixed-hair brush went for ten coins, yet it still wrote with harsh, scratchy strokes. A proper brush fit for writing large characters cost a full hundred coins.
Lin Wu thought it over carefully before picking out that hundred-coin brush. As she handed over the money, she kept reassuring herself that a brush was something to be used for a long time. Those inferior cheap ones would go bald or fall apart after just a few lines of writing, which was a waste of money anyway. It made far more sense to buy one that would last.
With the brush bought, she still needed ink. The price of ink was even more disparate. An ink cake crafted by a famous artisan could be worth dozens of strings of coins, which she did not even dare to consider. Ordinary pine soot ink was perfectly good, priced at a hundred coins a cake, though she could find a more modest one for fifty coins. After weighing her purse, Lin Wu chose the fifty-coin ink cake. Then she picked up a plain stone ink slab, which cost her another fifty coins.
Lin Wu did a quick tally: the brush was a hundred, the ink fifty, the ink slab fifty. Two hundred coins in total, more or less what she had made selling all her emerald pastries that day. Another day where her earnings fell short of her new expenses.
Back home, she put all her new purchases away, then washed and hung up her bamboo basket and pastry cloths to dry. After that, she headed to the kitchen and took out the ingredients she had bought at the morning market. Many farmers from the outskirts came to the morning market to sell vegetables they had grown themselves, which were cheaper and fresher than the ones sold in shops, so she had picked out a few kinds to bring home.
She took out a block of tofu and a handful of Chinese cabbage. Tofu was cheap, always less expensive than eggs, only two coins a block. She decided to make braised tofu with cabbage for noon: fry the tofu until the edges turned lightly golden, then add the cabbage, seasonings, and a splash of water, and let everything simmer for a little while. Served with thin bean porridge, it was a simple meal that tasted wonderfully warm.
Most ordinary families at the time ate only two meals a day, but those a little better off had already gotten used to three. Lin Wu was in the habit of having a small bite at midday, so that her late afternoon meal could be prepared later.
Lin Jing sat obediently under the stove, helping add firewood to the flame. He could smell the delicious cooking, and every so often he would crane his neck to peek at the pot.
When the food was set on the table, he picked up his little wooden bowl, scooped up a piece of tofu that had soaked up all the savory broth with his spoon, blew on it carefully, and then popped it into his mouth. His eyes crinkled shut in pure satisfaction. "The tofu smells so good, and the cabbage is tasty too."
"It's extra delicious because A Jing added the firewood just right," Lin Wu said with a laugh.
"It's extra delicious because A Wu made it," Lin Jing parroted back. The moment he said it, he thought it was funny and giggled softly. "I love the meals A Wu makes the most."
After finishing their midday meal, Lin Wu stretched lazily, and spotted Lin Jing off to the side, bent over sorting the small bag of copper coins. She walked over and saw that the little boy had carefully divided all the coins into several small neat piles.
Little Lin Jing only knew simple addition and subtraction right now, and could barely count up to a hundred. Every time he did the accounts, he put every bit of knowledge he had ever learned to full use, no bit of learning went to waste, it was the very definition of applying what you learned.
That day, they had made a total of forty-eight emerald pastries. Two had been used for free samples, one had been given to Tigerhead as a gift, so forty-five were actually sold.
Thirty-two of them were sold under the "two for nine coins" deal, earning one hundred and forty-four coins in total. The remaining thirteen pastries were sold individually for five coins each, adding up to sixty-five coins.
"There are two piles of a hundred coins, and one pile of nine coins," Lin Jing showed Lin Wu his little sorted stacks.
Lin Wu stroked his small head. "A Jing counted so clearly. That adds up to two hundred and nine coins in all."
"Two hundred and nine coins!" Lin Jing repeated, his voice rising in excitement. A hundred coins was a huge sum in his mind, and here they had two hundred and nine! Back when they lived at Lingzhou Wharf, they had never made that much money in a single day.
They still had to subtract the costs, though. Lin Wu picked up a small stick and scribbled calculations on the dirt floor. Flour, sugar, spinach, red dates... plus the cost of firewood and oil paper. All in all, the cost for one steamer of pastries was roughly thirty-five coins, so two steamers came out to seventy coins total.
Doing the math that way, their actual net profit that day was one hundred and thirty-nine coins.
Lin Wu's heart lifted at the number. That was a pretty good income. After subtracting the daily rent of thirty-seven coins, the remaining money was more than enough to cover her and A Jing's daily food and other small expenses. Back when the imperial court had distributed disaster relief, the poverty relief standard had been set at twenty coins per person per day, which was enough to keep people from starving.
Of course, they didn't have to scrimp so tightly that they counted every grain of rice before cooking. With over a hundred coins left after rent, they were doing just fine.
Next, she could try making more pastries, but tea pastries weren't something everyone bought every day, so she had to think up some new varieties of snacks. No rush, take it slow, things would keep getting better.
Lost in her thoughts, she didn't notice Lin Jing had wandered over, squatted down beside her, resting his little cheek on his hand, blinking his big eyes at her. "Are we making pastries again tomorrow?"
Lin Wu turned her head and smiled softly at him. "Of course we are."
She stood up, picked out two brand new coins from the pile, and gently placed them in Lin Jing's small palm. "Here, this is A Jing's wages for today."
"Yay!" Lin Jing held the two coins up, examining them carefully against the light, then pulled his own little purse out of his clothes, tucked the coins inside, and tied the drawstring shut tightly.
After he had put his purse away, Lin Wu spread out the new stationery she had bought on the table. "We still have to write a letter to Young Master Shen today. Does A Jing have anything he wants to say to him?"
Lin Jing squeezed his little purse and answered without hesitation, "I want to say thank you to him."
He looked down at his purse, thought for a moment, then gently set it on the table and poured all the coins out. His voice was soft. "Can we send these coins to Young Master Shen too? He can use them to buy snacks for Sister Qing and Brother Jue."
He stretched out his small hand, carefully counted the dozen or so coins on the table, and added, "There's twelve coins total. Six coins for Sister Qing, and six coins for Brother Jue."
Lin Wu was taken aback, and her voice softened even more. "Of course we can, but twelve coins are heavy, they won't fit in the envelope with the letter. We can send a few coins this time, and send the rest next time, okay?"
"Alright," Lin Jing nodded. He glanced at the thin envelope, then lowered his head again, muttering softly to himself as he sorted through the copper coins, "This time, two coins for Sister Qing, and two coins for Brother Jue."
Lin Wu ruffled his hair gently. "Our A Jing is such a clever boy. Don't look down on just two coins — they can buy so many things, you know?"
She stretched out her fingers and counted one by one to explain, "One single copper coin can get you a piece of malt sugar, or a bowl of soybean milk, or a fried glutinous rice cake. If someone catches a cold, it can even buy a patch of herbal cough medicine!"
Lin Jing's eyes lit up as he listened. "Yes! Brother Jue loves candy, and Sister Qing is fond of fried rice cakes. With two coins each, they can get two different treats!"
