Chapter Eighty-Five: Traveling in Splendor by Night

It was already late at night, and Seven Brother’s noodle shop was bustling with activity. Old Gou and the tanner had bought a huge vat of wine from the inn on the road, and instead of pouring it into bowls, they broke off a bundle of reeds by the riverbank, clipped off both ends, and stuck them into the vat. Anyone who wanted a drink just lay down and sucked through the reed tube.

Four or five children each held a meat bone and gnawed at it with fierce concentration. Widow Guo, who lived in the shop, flitted among them like a butterfly, chatting with one man, then draping herself over another man’s shoulder, trying to entice him into marrying her.

In front of Tie Xinyuan sat a big handful of scallions, which he was peeling with great effort. Wang Rouhua had tied on an apron and was smiling as she watched the crowd in the front room making a racket. At the same time, she briskly beat the eggs in a bowl with her chopsticks. Once the oil in the wok was hot, she poured in the egg mixture. As soon as it began to set, she tipped in a large ladle of white rice, added a handful of chopped scallions, and began stirring furiously, her movements practiced and deft.

Tie Xinyuan pulled out a washed carrot and handed it to his mother. “You forgot the carrot.”

Wang Rouhua laughed. “Silly child, carrots are expensive. We sell a bowl of fried rice for only ten coppers. Why put carrots in it? I think it tastes even better without them.”

“I like carrots. If you think carrots waste money, why not leave out the eggs too?”

Wang Rouhua smiled. “Your mother has tried it. If I don’t use eggs at all, the rice has no flavor. It seems this dish’s main ingredient is really egg. If you like carrots, then eat them yourself. The fried rice your mother makes is for selling. If we save a little here and there, our family earns a little more.”

At that point, Tie Xinyuan had nothing left to do but give her a thumbs-up. Seeing how cheerful she was, he took four gemstones from his chest and handed them to her. “This is what your son earned.”

Wang Rouhua snatched the gems from his hand in one swift motion. Avoiding the people in the dining room, she held them one by one up to the lamplight and said in annoyance, “Who did you cheat this time?”

Seeing his mother let go of him, Tie Xinyuan had no choice but to step forward and keep cooking. He said angrily, “I told you, this is wages. I helped the princess make a suit of armor. This is payment!”

At the word princess, Wang Rouhua’s eyes instantly curved with delight. Covering her mouth, she giggled. “Since you tricked them out of the princess’s pocket, Mother will keep them for you.”

That night, Tie Xinyuan and Wang Rouhua cooked who knew how many bowls of egg fried rice. In any case, by the time it was nearly the third watch, the neighbors had all gone home drunkenly, burping and clutching their bellies.

Old Gou swayed on his feet, belching as he vowed that once the shop opened, he would come every day for a bowl of egg fried rice. The stuff was simply too delicious.

When Tie Xinyuan got home, he lay on the bed and slowly reviewed everything that had happened that day from beginning to end. Finding nothing amiss, he blew out the oil lamp and went to sleep.

When he woke in the morning, he found many furry things sleeping in his quilt. Reaching in, Tie Xinyuan pulled out a plump little yellow dog from between his legs. The little thing seemed most displeased at being dragged out of a warm place. It wagged its tail hard and made soft, pitiful cries.

Tie Xinyuan casually tossed the puppy aside and reached back into the bedding to keep pulling. After seven tries, he finally dragged out the fox by its topknot of fur.

He smacked the fox on the head, warning it not to crawl into his bed again. Only after the fox lowered its head in surrender and wagged its tail did he let it off.

Because of that commotion, Tie Xinyuan was no longer sleepy. When he got up, he saw that his mother had already gone out early. He heated up the leftovers she had left in a steamer and ate them.

When he went out, neither the fox nor even the puppy were in sight. Looking back at the basket in the corner by the wall, he found that basket gone as well; it must have been hooked away by the little princess.

As soon as he looked up, he saw the little princess’s small face, red from the cold. He smiled. “Any new amusements today?”

It did not matter whether Tie Xinyuan asked or not. The moment he did, the little princess burst into wild laughter, pointing toward the West Water Gate. “Early this morning, Uncle Chief Justice went into the palace to complain to my imperial father that he was bullied by a bunch of pigs... Hahaha, it nearly killed me.”

Tie Xinyuan smiled. “I was at the tall building last night and nearly got trampled to death by that same bunch of pigs! Your Uncle Chief Justice was right about one thing: he really was bullied by pigs.”

The little princess widened her eyes. “Aren’t pigs supposed to be stupid? How could they bully people?”

Tie Xinyuan gave a wry smile. “A few hundred fat pigs together can bully anyone. The tall building was very dangerous last night, and in the end it even collapsed. I heard at least six people died.”

The little princess’s eyes widened even more, fear filling her face. “Your family should stop eating pork from now on. Why not switch to mutton instead?”

“No. From now on I’ll have to eat wolves instead. If a pack of pigs can scare me, then someday I won’t have anything left to eat.”

“Wolves bite people...”

Tie Xinyuan tapped his white teeth and said, “I’m even scarier when I eat meat. With one snap, I can bite through a wolf’s leg!”

The little princess clenched her tiny fist, full of admiration. “Brother Yuan is amazing. I can’t do that. Last time I ate fish, a bone got stuck...”

“From now on, if you ever have things like bear paws, you can give them to me to eat. I’ll let you see what I’m capable of.”

“Really? Really? The imperial consort’s little kitchen seems to have some bear paws...”

After settling the day for bear paws, Tie Xinyuan left satisfied. The people in Bamboo Basket Lane must have been waiting nearly out of their minds.

That glorious matter of pigs charging the tall building had been so thrilling; if he didn’t call Little Craftsman over, that fellow would surely be very unhappy. Born to do mischief, he was.

When he pushed open the door, several girls were sitting in the sunlight doing embroidery, while from the upper floor came the clear sound of reading aloud. Among the girls was a little maid with a long braid, who seemed not to be especially polite toward him. Only after looking closely at her face did he remember she was Su Mei’s servant girl.

“Rakehell!” the girl called out.

Tie Xinyuan nodded, accepting the title. He had just spent a long while staring closely at her face; being called a rakehell was only fair.

“Since the time when Cang Jie created writing and the wind and rain rose in fury, and ghosts and gods wept through the night, we have possessed these priceless characters. Writing is the crystallization of our ancestors’ wisdom, and it is also a weapon by which the sages open the people’s minds.

“Before you truly begin studying characters, I want you to understand where writing came from. Only when we cherish writing from the depths of our hearts can we carry forward the learning of the sages of old and pass down the hard-won legacy of our ancestors from generation to generation, so that our descendants will not fall into ignorance...”

Su Mei’s voice was very pleasant. Tie Xinyuan listened for a while, then went to look for Little Craftsman. That fellow generally disliked school. He had his own method for recording all sorts of skills, and the walls of the carpentry workshop were covered with all manner of strange symbols he had written down.

The chaos was forbidden to anyone else, and nobody was allowed to smear over it. Once, Water Pearl accidentally dirtied one of his walls, and he beat him badly for it. From then on, none of the brothers dared enter and leave his workshop lightly.

Today he was not doing carpentry. Instead, he was using three rotating iron shafts to roll sheet-metal tubes. The floor was already covered with metal tubes, and no one knew where he had found so much iron sheeting.

“Where did you get all this metal?”

“I made it myself. Didn’t you once say making sheet metal was actually the same principle as your mother making noodles? I tried it. Solid iron blocks are too hard and won’t press, so I melted them down into water, poured the molten iron onto stone slabs, and rolled it flat with a millstone into thick cakes. The thickness isn’t very even, and it’s still brittle as can be, so it needs to be annealed, then have a smith hammer it into sheet metal. But even so, it saves a lot of trouble.”

“You rolled molten iron with a stone mill?”

“That’s right. The biggest mill from the Three-Peel family. But after making just this much sheet metal, I ruined their mill. The stone flaked and shattered badly, so I’ll need a stonemason to chisel and polish it flat again. I already bought that millstone and plan to install it in the back courtyard. What do you think?”

Tie Xinyuan could not imagine how Little Craftsman had managed to use a stone mill to grind down molten iron and turn it into sheet metal in the end. But if this fellow said he could do it, then he really could.

At the very least, the pile of sheet-metal tubes before him proved it.

In the Great Song, getting a decent piece of sheet metal was easy enough. The iron sheets Tie Xinyuan had seen were all hammered out one strike at a time by blacksmiths, full of dents and pits and hardly fit to look at.

Little Craftsman’s sheet metal looked far more regular. After being rolled into tubes, it was at least quite like the sheet-metal chimneys of later ages.

“It was a chimney to begin with. Ever since that woman from the Su family came, she’s been a nuisance. She didn’t do a thing and already had me running errands. First she wanted furnaces and refined coal. Then she wanted chimneys, and not just a little bit either—three full sets of furnaces, plus fourteen zhang of chimney pipe. I don’t know how big their house is, but does she need that many iron pipes as bellows tubes?”

Tie Xinyuan curled his lip. “That woman is upstairs teaching your younger brother to read. If you’ve got the guts, go up there and scold her. Why show off in front of me?”

Little Craftsman glanced up toward the upper floor and said no more. He picked up a sheet-metal tube that had already been rolled but not yet riveted shut, set it upon a thick iron rod with a heavy layer of cowhide padding, and began hammering away with dinging and clanging sounds, though he dared not make too much noise for fear of disturbing the reading upstairs.

“I thought you’d ask me about the tall building.”

Little Craftsman set down the wooden mallet. “No matter how exciting it was, it was your fun. I wasn’t involved from start to finish, so what excitement is there for me? From now on, the things you do yourself, tell me about them less.”

“But if I don’t tell you, I feel pent up inside.”

“Then choke to death from it...” Little Craftsman lifted the mallet again and resumed hammering the sheet metal. Unconsciously, his strength grew a little heavier, and from upstairs Su Mei’s angry shout came at once: “Keep it down!” At the same time, an empty cup was thrown down from above.

Seeing the porcelain shards shattered all over the courtyard, Little Craftsman’s face twitched twice. In the end, he still restrained his foul temper, dropped the mallet, and dragged Tie Xinyuan along to see how Yang Huaiyu was being tormented.

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