99 4.17

When Ye Cheng came back he was greeted to the sweet smell of baking. 

Tang Muxin was in the kitchen carefully pulling out some lopsided looking fao gao (prosperity cakes) under the bright eyes of all the animals in his home. Ignoring Xiao Shua the cat and Da Shen the dog who lived in the house full time, even the visiting ravens and pigeons he occasionally fed had all come to sit outside the only kitchen window to stare at Tang Muxin's cooking efforts.

When Ye Cheng entered the kitchen, numerous pairs of eyes turned toward him.

Ye Cheng: '...' 

Even though these were all his fur babies it was really quite discomforting. 

Tang Muxin, either unaware or purposely ignorant of the hungry gazes, takes her time to put the steaming hot cakes onto the nearby table. She lightly frowns in dissatisfaction. 

Baking is quite difficult in this era, usually things will be roasted, fried, deep fried or boiled. It's difficult to produce desserts like cake which require even heating. Even steamed cakes were not as easy. 

As a bit of a perfectionist, it definitely irritates her to see such unrefined dessert made by her hand. Dessert making is like chemistry and pharmaceuticals. And as an assassin slash spy slash doctor, she hasn't failed any of those subjects since she was a little girl. 

This imperfect fao gao became even less pleasing to the eye as she recalls the bitter memories of being punished by her trainers and handler for failing to uphold the expected standard. 

Too lopsided.

There are parts that are too burnt and parts that are too soggy. 

The cake looked too dense, not soft at all. 

Evaluation: No need to taste. Failure. A complete failure. 

Have to redo it a hundred times until it reaches satisfaction. Then have to do it a hundred times more. 

Even after death, her left hand trembles ever so slightly.

Seeing Ye Cheng enter, her anxiety increases. Of course, as someone who has gone through the muddy waters of the underworld, her expression doesn't show her inner feelings, only coldness and more coldness. However her left hand shook a little harder. 

"This- this isn't good, I'll redo-" She starts but immediately stops herself. Right. This wasn't modern times where flour and such were common commodities. Right now it is ancient rural times where the life of the lower class is filled with poverty and famine. Even wasting a single chicken bone can be considered something to be beaten and scolded for. 

As expected, Ye Cheng frowns, "Redo? Why redo?" 

Tang Muxin lowers her head, unsure how to answer. On one hand the cakes were failures and to say so would be telling Ye Cheng that she had wasted food. But if she offers him such ugly things to eat would he not be offended to death? 

Ye Cheng frown deepens as he noticed the strange reaction of the once noble girl. Where was her usual arrogance and pride? Even though she has changed that didn't completely sweep away her pride, merely changed it into something more dignified and restrained. However, just an ugly looking cake and suddenly she becomes meeker than an unfavored concubine in front of the patriarch. 

He felt a little distressed inside. The loss of status and wealth, he has never experienced but he's very aware reality is cruel. For those who dined in heaven, there's nothing worse being forced to fall and beg in hell. 

He had been thinking Tang Muxin was taking it all surprisingly well but maybe she was just hiding it and ignoring the reality. Seeing that she can't even bake some cakes the truth about her lack of ability must have suddenly hit her hard.

This sort of scene he has heard about from many storytellers during his travels recently. Dogblood is the big trend nowadays that can attract an audience so may storytellers will use many themes related to fallen nobility, family hatred, forbidden love, secret identity, revenge etc. 

The fallen vicious noble believes they can make a comeback but realizes after falling that without servants and status that they are nothing but roaches in a garbage pit. Even the simplest task of cleaning and cooking they can not do. It is like they are living in a completely different world. One where they are wastes who can only be scorned by others. This harsh bitter fruit they are forced to eat is too much for their noble pride and they hang themselves in despair. 

Ye Cheng, whose mind is filled with all sorts of dog blood: !!!

Even if he once wished she would die by a thousand cuts, his attitude toward life is strong and his courage toward death was weaker than a baby chicken. Ye Cheng couldn't bear to see the girl walk step by step towards suicide when she was right in front of him.

Ignoring the heat of the small cakes, Ye Cheng reaches out to snatch one and takes a big bite out of it. 

Immediately he opens his mouth, 'Ah, ah, ah!' 

Fuck, too hot!

Tang Muxin, wide-eyed and shocked, was not completely offline and quickly ran out and came back with a cup of water which Ye Cheng took gratefully. "You-" She trails off, unsure what to say.

Ye Cheng swallows the water and begins to chew the now mushy bite of cake. Once finished he smiles widely at the girl, bright and sunny and comfortingly warm, "It's delicious." He croaks out before coughing violently.

Tang Muxin: '…' Are you sure about that?

Seeing her doubt, Ye Cheng forces himself to stop coughing. "I'm serious ah, look,"

Tang Muxin turns around to see that all the animals have jumped onto the tray of baked goods, eating them happily. 

Even Da Gong, the cocky cock was pecking at it with enthusiasm.

'It really is good ah,' Jin Bao comments the moment they make eye contact. With his deep handsome voice seriously praising her, even if he was saying the sky is chocolate she would feel inclined to agree. 

Seeing the warm scene of a good looking man and a bunch of cute animals all ravenously eating her ugly cake, Tang Muxin felt moved. Even though it wasn't enough to completely rid herself of the ghosts of her childhood, it was enough to remind her that this was a new life with a new identity. She doesn't have to be perfect to be appreciated. 

Tang Muxin snatches a piece of the cake and unhesitatingly puts it into her mouth.

A bit gooey.

A bit burnt.

A little bitter.

But very sweet.

Very warm.

...

The trip had to be delayed another day due to stomach illness. 

Apparently the power of love can't win against the power of salmonella. 

"I'm so sorry..." Tang Muxin, who had only eaten a small bite was the one most affected. Ye Cheng had some problems but as a healthy villager constantly travelling and raised in the rural countryside, his immunity and resistance to bacteria is much stronger than a spoilt noble girl who barely left the clean family household.

Surprisingly, none of the animals had gotten ill. In fact, due to the innate spiritual energy, the animals had actually become a bit more energetic. Jia Hyson and Da Gong however, who were used to consuming pure spiritual energy were of course less affected. The pair decided to be good pets and spent the day rounding up the other animals to inform everyone about the delays.

Only a few animals like Xiao Shua and Da Shen were coming along, such as a fat rat known as Little Fatty, a rice paddy snake named Little Paddy and a rabbit called… Little Rabbit. 

Ye Cheng wasn't the best at names and he had too many animal friends that come and go resulting in these half-assed titles. 

The other animals were originally strays who stayed around for the free shelter and occasional meal. Though they liked Ye Cheng a lot, it was because they liked him they were unwilling to burden him on his journey. There was only one cart and one horse after all. 

Hearing they had one more day left, the other animals were very cheered up and immediately rushed into the house to sell meng and hope Ye Cheng will understand their gratitude by letting him touch and rub and play however he sees fit. Usually they would never demean themselves unless needed, especially the reptiles and birds who disliked being touched. 

Jia Hyson and Da Gong watched, bemused. 

"Ye Cheng… very nice." Jia Hyson comments mildly.

"Cluck."

[Of course.] 

…

The first village, Small Snail Village they arrived at was just in the neighboring area, a day's trip at most. Ye Cheng was the most familiar with this village and almost always comes to it first at the start of any big trip. 

Little Leaf village was more of a farming village, and produces basic but important produce such as fruit and grains and meat. However Small Snail village specializes in handicrafts and silk making. Even though it's very crude and unrefined compared to the big city stuff, to the other villages of similar status these handicrafts can sell well. Not to mention the raw silk can fetch good prices even in the city. 

After all, this sort of natural free range countryside product is considered very charming no matter the era. 

Jia Hyson and Tang Muxin listens carefully to Ye Cheng's basic introduction to Small Snail village. Given Ye Cheng's chatty nature, the man was actually a very good lecturer albeit a long winded one. Even though it was just a rundown on Small Snail village, Ye Cheng will also go onto tangents about pricing, silkworm rearing and the relationships between the other villages. Even though it was a bit hard to bear for a prolonged period of time, there was no doubt there was great educational value.

"-so, in short, we shall stay for a few days here." Ye Cheng finally stops his tirade, licking his dry lips. "You will accompany me around and I'll show you how I do business. Mainly it will just be talking with my supplier and going to the market stalls to sell what we can sell from Little Leaf. When we're free we will also visit the stalls to buy things to sell in other places."

To be honest, the job is a bit unscrupulous. Buying at low prices and selling for high and there are few vendors who are not happy with merchants who gain profit over their work. However, there is not much they can do. Unless they were willing to travel and sell like the merchants, they can only sit around and be indignant. However, if they recognise merchants they may be more stubborn and raise prices to make things more difficult. 

Ye Cheng however has managed to avoid the worst of the attitude by virtue of being so friendly. Merchants need not only a good eye, and quick thinking but also a sweet mouth. These three main skills are not only important for his job but also will help in life and so Ye Cheng intends to teach Tang Muxin these skills. If she wishes to leave, at least he will do his best to make sure no wolf by the roadside will eat her up so easy once alone.

Listening to his plan, Tang Muxin nods obediently, feeling that Ye Cheng was indeed quite far-sighted. If she was the real Tang Muxin of this world, this sort of method would have also been quite beneficial for her as well.

Unlike the original though, she didn't think she would take too long before she could start helping out and paying Ye Cheng back for his kindness,

Tang Muxin had a good eye, strong intuition and a knack for precision, observation and finding discrepancies. Not to mention she had learnt to distinguish micro expressions and is able to more or less accurately determine whether a person is lying or not. She felt confident that once Ye Cheng showed her around after a few days, she would definitely be able to have a decent grasp in determining the quality of silk cloth and handicrafts. 

Ye Cheng who still had a long lasting to the point of scarring impression of the original inhabitant, the lazy idiot Tang Muxin, deliberately kept silent upon seeing the faint confidence flash in those eyes. 

Even though he has the urge to scorn her overconfidence, after all his old hatred is still stuck in his heart and he had his own pride as a merchant that refuses to be belittled, he did not want to break this arrogance either. 

He still remembered her reaction with her first attempt at baking. That devastated lost look she tried to repress, and the way her hands tremble as if trying to hold back her emotions. This sort of reaction made it clear to him that she was at least trying to re-mold herself into a better person but Ye Cheng still couldn't help but doubt. After all, it's only been a few days at most. Anyone can change their actions for a few days but it's much harder to keep it up for a lifetime.

Aiyah, forget it, don't belittle her. This little girl will understand the true hardships of the world soon enough. There are many old shrews out there that take great effort to swindle just a few extra coppers from them and even he, who has been working for a few years now, still makes mistakes and loses profit. 

Ye Cheng felt like he suddenly had to raise a big bear child. The bear child was dumb and arrogant but recently he finds the child is actually a little soft and sensitive. The type who will announce they wish to be the top scholar in the imperial examinations but the moment they fail a test they feel upset and might even want to completely give up the dream and not study anymore. In short. Very difficult to teach. 

With some thought he makes a plan. He has chatted a lot with aunties and they like to talk about the children they've raised. Even though Ye Cheng doesn't have much practical experience, his theoretical was much much greater than most men. 

This sort of temperamental child, the type who becomes more arrogant when praised and yet loses all motivation after a loss, one has to of course be more careful with raising. Afterwards when she makes a small mistake he will make sure to scold her so she becomes more cautious and then coax her with some funny stories of his own mistakes to make her feel better. Maybe even buy her some sweets.

Ye Cheng felt very smart. 

Unfortunately, reality was cruel and three days later Ye Cheng watched Tang Muxin bargain with a vendor expressionlessly. His face for the last few days felt like it had been slapped repeatedly.

His plan, he felt was very good. Ye Cheng was assured that once Tang Muxin made her first mistake he can swoop in to humble her and then help her understand what went wrong. Classic stick then carrot approach. There seemed to be nothing wrong with his idea.

However the premise was that Tang Muxin had to make a mistake first.

Yet, not only did she manage to pick up things almost abnormally fast, her ability to recognise the worth of objects seemed to be much better than his own! Tang Muxin had even pointed out a problem with a vase he was going to buy for an expensive price! 

Is this what they call a genius?

Ye Cheng had to take a few minutes alone to swallow the envy and resentment in his heart. After all, he had suffered a lot when he first started out as a merchant, and had experienced a lot of trial and error before he finally picked it up.

If you didn't have stable suppliers, this sort of job was a bit like gambling and required luck to succeed. If you buy something and can't sell it, then you lose money and have wasted the space and energy needed to carry it around. But occasionally you can hit it big by finding a treasure in trash and earning an amazing profit with almost no cost. Unfortunately, most people will have experienced the former far more than the latter, and generally will only earn a small amount of money overall.

Ye Cheng had quite a few suppliers due to his network but they weren't stable. Lately there have been droughts and bandits, making it difficult for many businesses to produce a lot. This in turn makes their prices higher and more people are turned off by the raise causing less things being bought and the owners unwilling to produce more items due to cost. It's a vicious cycle so he's been relying a lot on the 'gambling' method, finding hidden gems from the stalls to try sell in the bigger more prosperous places closer to the city. 

His luck isn't bad and his eyes are pretty good, honed from years of hard work and experience. He had even bowed his head to many older merchants in order to learn more about the ins and outs of the job and struggled a lot to learn to read a little since he's aware literacy is very valued. So even without the suppliers his pockets were still full enough to pay for small luxuries such as fruits. 

But Tang Muxin who the entire village looked down on, who was lazy and couldn't recount the three obediences and four virtues of a woman if she tried, had managed to come out after three days learning some things in Small Snail village, and had managed to not only grasp the fundamentals easily but also found various hidden treasures such as a 200 year old ginseng, a spool of high quality silk thread that was almost translucent, and a rock that actually contained pure f*cking Imperial Jade.

This can't even be called genius anymore, it's more like the incarnation of the saying 'Peng Niao flies ten thousand miles*'.

*Emergence of great talent. The Peng Niao is a mythical bird of huge size and power that could fly huge distance with little effort. Said of someone of immense potential.

After a few minutes of feeling spiteful and envious, Ye Cheng calmed down and looked at the bright side. He was not the type of person to fail to see the great Taishan mountain**, and no matter how he feels about Tang Muxin he would not push that negativity onto her. 

**Arrogant or ignorant to true talents

In fact, wasn't he also reaping the benefits as her master? Even splitting it 50-50 the profit made is enough to feed Da Gong the highest quality mix of grains and vegetables for half a year. 

This wasn't a question of his own lacking abilities, the fact it was he who helped uncover such talent in Tang Muxin might be the best example of how well astute he was! 

If Tang Muxin is Peng Niao, then he is Bo Le the horse expert***. 

***A person of good judgment. Someone who can quickly appreciate skill. The idiom refers to Bo Le from the Warring States period who was an acclaimed judge of horses. It is said that he came upon an old horse trudging along. Only Bo Le could see that this was once a great horse of strength and stamina.

After sorting out his mental state, Ye Cheng came back and sincerely praised Tang Muxin.

Tang Muxin was surprised. She had sensed that Ye Cheng's mood had become a bit gloomy today and was familiar with this sort of thing. After all, she had always been abnormally talented and intelligent. It would be strange if she had never experienced the poison-tipped daggers of jealousy before. 

But Ye Cheng had only gone away for a short while and had come back to his sunny optimistic self. The praise in his words no longer had even a shadow of forced happiness and fakery. 

She had seen many people who had drowned in their jealousy, unable to escape from this unfairness and their obsession of closing a gap they couldn't reach, however Ye Cheng had done it so easily.

Was his mental fortitude and attitude so good?

She felt a bit jealous ah.

But more than that, she felt extremely happy.

This man, she will acknowledge him as her good brother for life!