"There used to be flowers, but after my father and my step-grandmother split the household, she not only took everything she thought should belong to her, she even pulled up all the flowers in the back garden. My parents couldn't be bothered to tend it, so no one ever planted flowers there again."
The bad blood between the Old Princess Consort of Beiping and the current Prince of Beiping became common knowledge the day after the previous prince died.
The main reason was that, in the mourning hall, before the Wenren clan elders, the Old Princess Consort demanded that Wenren Qiao voluntarily surrender his title. She believed her outstanding second son was better suited to be the Prince of Beiping.
In the past, Wenren Qiao had done whatever the Old Princess Consort told him to do, but that day, she encountered his defiance for the first time.
The two fought bitterly in the late Prince of Beiping's mourning hall. Since Wenren Qiao's reputation was already nothing to boast about, he let loose a torrent of abuse and left the Old Princess Consort so furious she could not utter a word.
Wenren Chun, the Old Princess Consort's biological son, hid among the crowd throughout the whole exchange, unwilling even to step forward and break up the fight.
He only wanted the benefits, not to drag his own reputation through the mud.
In the end, with the clan elders as witnesses, Wenren Qiao and the Old Princess Consort simply split the household, giving the greater part of the residence's assets to Wenren Chun and the Old Princess Consort.
Although Wenren Qiao received only the smaller share, his biological mother's maternal family had been wealthy merchants whose riches once eclipsed everyone else in their region.
Thus, the dowry the Liu Family's eldest madam had given her was quite substantial.
Those dowry assets had always been managed by the former princess consort's personal maid. Over the years, no matter what methods Liu Yuner tried, she had failed to swindle a single worthwhile item out of her hands.
On Vermilion Bird Street alone, Wenren Qiao owned no fewer than ten storefronts.
Liu Yuner and Wenren Chun appeared to be the winners, but the residence's actual reserves were not particularly substantial.
Though the Prince of Beiping had risen through warfare and amassed plenty of fine things while helping the Founding Emperor conquer the realm, there was a catch.
Maintaining an army cost money!
The first and second Princes of Beiping had both held military command. Only after Wenren Qiao's father inherited the title did that change: the first thing he did was surrender his command.
Back then, the Wenren family had been the only princely house outside the imperial surname exempted from Relinquishing Military Command over a Cup of Wine.
For some inexplicable reason, the Founding Emperor had a mysterious fondness for the Wenren family and treated them better than any of his other brothers-in-arms.
After Wenren Qiao's father inherited the title, he discovered that maintaining troops was far too expensive. Since he had no interest in leading soldiers into battle anyway, he promptly went off to surrender his military command, then devoted himself to taking the imperial examinations.
This old prince was quite an oddball himself. Though he had grown up in a military family, he had never liked wielding swords or staffs, preferring books instead.
Yet while he could answer fluently whenever his teacher called on him in class, every time he entered an examination hall, he either developed a headache or came down with diarrhea.
As a result, he sat the examinations five times in a row without passing even once.
After dinner, the rain that had fallen for almost an entire day finally stopped.
I took Yunjian to the residence's garden, and the moment she saw that vast stretch of weed-covered ground, she cried out that it was a criminal waste.
In modern times, a plot that size would have been enough to build a small park.
Yet the Prince of Beiping's family had simply left it sitting unused!
She immediately decided to conduct her experiment in the residence's garden. Then she sent someone back to the Yun Residence to fetch her bedding, clothes, and other belongings. Until the experiment ended, she would be staying at the Prince of Beiping's Residence.
The prince and princess consort's attitude was to let the two little girls do as they pleased, as long as they did not disturb the couple's time alone together.
If possible, they could include the little sprout in their plans too. He could hoe the ground or pull weeds; either would do.
The next day, Wenren Luoshui was shaken awake by Yunjian. Never underestimate a farmer's enthusiasm for farming.
When the emperor arrived at morning court early that day, his gaze swept over Yunjian standing among the crowd, and he was almost melted by the fervor in her eyes.
Feeling a little uncomfortable under her stare, the emperor took the initiative to ask whether Yunjian had something to say.
Yunjian immediately stepped forward to answer him.
When the emperor heard that Yunjian had discovered a food crop with a short growing cycle, a high yield per mu, and excellent satiating power, which could serve as either a staple or a vegetable, he nearly ran down from his dragon throne in excitement.
If such a staple truly existed, how many people could it save from hunger?
The Li Kingdom currently grew rice, but its yield was too low. Even ordinary rice was a luxury only the nobility could afford.
Commoners still relied mainly on cooked wheat as their staple food.
None of those present had ever heard of this crop Yunjian had discovered, called the potato.
That very day, the emperor sent two eunuchs back to the Prince of Beiping's Residence with us.
The girls had already issued instructions yesterday for the servants to turn over the soil in the back garden.
One of the eunuchs was surnamed Li, the other Zhang. Both looked to be around thirty.
Unless one examined them closely, however, the two even looked somewhat alike.
They followed Commandery Princess Luoshui and Little Lord Yun back to the residence without putting on airs or thinking themselves superior simply because they had come from the palace.
Once their rooms had been arranged and they had put away their belongings, they came to ask Yunjian when the planting would begin.
Yunjian walked to the back garden and saw that the entire vacant plot had been cleared. She glanced at the cut potatoes. There was no time to lose-they might as well start today.
The potato variety she had developed required no consideration of the seasons, even when grown outside a greenhouse.
At first, Wenren Qingluo watched from the sidelines. Wenren Luoshui spotted him out of the corner of her eye, grabbed his collar, and dragged him into the field.
"Since you're here, you might as well work with us."
With that, she flashed the little sprout a grin, then placed some cut potatoes in his hands.
The little sprout had only come to join the fun, but under his older sister's bloodline suppression, he obediently crouched down and buried himself in work.
While they worked up a storm here, Wenren Shuang, who lived next door with the second branch of the family, had run out into the heavy rain yesterday to get drenched.
Fortunately, before she fainted, she was caught by a man who was plainly handsome at first glance.
Only after waking up today did she learn that he was an older cousin from her second grandfather's family.
Wenren Qiao's father, Wenren Hongshi, had a younger brother born of the same parents, but that brother preferred commerce.
The person who had picked Wenren Shuang up in the rain yesterday was Wenren Bing, the eldest grandson of Wenren Hongshi's younger brother, Wenren Hongyu.
After waking, Wenren Shuang used her naturally helpless-looking face to tell Wenren Bing of her grievances in a soft, frail voice.
Wenren Bing was his family's eldest grandson, with a whole host of younger siblings below him. He was accustomed to being the eldest brother and always assumed that air before them.
Though whenever his younger siblings argued, he generally played the role of smoothing things over without settling anything.
Still, he believed there was not the slightest problem with the way he handled matters.
So when he saw the frail Wenren Shuang and heard her tearfully complain that her older cousin from the eldest branch, Wenren Luoshui, had bullied her, he immediately rose to go reprimand that spoiled younger cousin.
With Wenren Shuang leading the way, he passed through the garden gate connecting the two residences and entered the prince's garden.
The moment he arrived, he saw a group of people digging the garden into a complete mess.