Crimson Cloud Estate was one of the Wang Family's estates.
Wang Gang gazed at the stretches of rice paddies, spread toward the distance like a golden carpet, with a few persimmon trees dotted among them as though hung with red lanterns.
The paddies were full of stubble left after the recent rice harvest, and several children were setting fire to the fields. Now and then, someone caught a fish in the ditch alongside them and whooped with delight.
"Young master, the late rice has just been harvested. The tenant farmers are all threshing at the threshing ground," his attendant explained beside him.
Wang Gang nodded and walked along the road. The scenery around him was lovely, the air was filled with the fresh fragrance of grain, and faint sounds of delighted laughter reached his ears.
If one ignored their clothing, one would surely have thought this was a paradise secluded from the world.
"Stop!"
Wang Gang shouted at the fat man in tattered clothes not far away.
The fat man, who had been about to duck out of sight, stiffened all over. He slowly turned around and offered a bitter smile. "Young master..."
Wang Gang beckoned him over and asked, "Wang Cai, how has life here been treating you?"
This fat man was none other than Wang Cai, the former manager of the Splendid Brocade Workshop. He was still just as fat, but much darker, and the skin exposed through his ragged clothes was covered with fine cuts left by the rush to harvest the rice.
"Not as well as before, of course!" Wang Cai forced a smile. "But at least life is steady. I get enough to eat every day!"
Wang Gang looked him over. "Why are you wearing this? Why not dress a little more neatly?"
"I'm doing farmwork! Fine clothes would only get ruined! A cut on the body doesn't matter-it'll heal!" Wang Cai said with a smile. "I'm already better off than most. Many of these tenant farmers work naked for fear of damaging their clothes!"
"You've adapted quickly enough!" Wang Gang said as he walked on. "People mustn't forget their roots. Sometimes, after hearing too much flattery, they forget what they were originally like!"
"Young master, I..."
Wang Gang raised a hand to interrupt him. "I wasn't talking about you! Show me around!"
"All right..."
With Wang Cai leading the way, the group strolled around the estate. When people stopped to pay their respects, Wang Gang waved them off and told them to carry on with their work.
After walking through more than half the estate, Wang Gang said, "Wang Cai, what do you think of me setting up a winery here to make wine?"
"You can't, young master!" Wang Cai hastily shook his head. "Our Great Song doesn't allow private winemaking. A little for your own drinking is no trouble, but setting up a winery would certainly bring the wine inspectors down on us..."
"We won't be making our own wine. I'll buy wine from the licensed wine houses and the wine bureau."
Wang Cai was puzzled. If they bought wine, they could simply sell it. Why build a winery?
Noticing Wang Cai's confusion, Wang Gang chuckled. "I didn't explain clearly. We'll buy spoiled wine, process it, then sell it. The winery will be used for the processing!"
"Ah! Won't it make people sick?"
"No. It'll just become strong liquor!"
The strong liquor at the Drunken Immortal Tower was distilled from spoiled wine that had been about to be thrown away. This was merely trying an ox-cleaving blade on a small task; after all, the Drunken Immortal Tower only had so much spoiled wine.
When he left the city, he had already sent Wang Yi to contact the wine bureau and licensed wine houses to purchase spoiled wine. Distilling on this scale was unsuitable for the city. It would attract too much attention!
He had come to the estate this time to find a place to distill liquor, which would also give these tenant farmers some extra income.
"If it's strong liquor, wealthy households probably won't be accustomed to drinking it, but we can sell it to the poor. Spoiled wine costs next to nothing anyway!"
Wang Gang nodded. Leaving Wang Cai's character aside, his knowledge and abilities were quite good.
The two continued walking and talking. Suddenly, a stench drifted over. Wang Gang frowned and looked toward it. It came from a pigpen, where four black pigs weighing over a hundred jin each were frolicking.
"You raise pigs here too?" Wang Gang asked in surprise. In this era, anyone with even a little money would not eat pork, and wealthy families regarded it as lowly meat.
This was not because pigs were stupid or filthy. It was purely because people at this time did not castrate them, leaving the pork with a strong, rank odor that made it hard to swallow.
"Everyone on the estate pooled their money to raise them. They're planning to divide them up at New Year so they can have some meat!"
"Very good! It's just..."
"Who are you? What are you doing?"
Before Wang Gang could finish, a woman's booming voice interrupted him. He looked up to see a burly woman hurrying toward them.
"Insolence! This is the young master of the estate's owners!" Wang Cai barked. "Pay your respects!"
The woman stopped short, terror appearing on her face, and moved to kneel and kowtow.
Wang Gang hurriedly stopped her and said with a smile, "You were only worried about the pigs you raised. I can't blame you. Get up!"
The woman did not dare. She looked toward Wang Cai and only rose after he nodded, apologizing over and over.
Wang Cai explained with a smile, "She's the wife of Wang Er, one of the tenant farmers. A foolish village woman who offended you, young master."
"I just told you not to forget your roots, and you've already forgotten!" Wang Gang said with a smile. "Go back a few hundred years, and we might even have been one family!"
The woman waved her hands repeatedly, saying she would not dare presume.
Wang Gang dropped the subject. Distinctions of rank were very strict in this era. Instead, he pointed at the pigs and smiled. "Big sister, you've raised these pigs well!"
"I've no skills... the villagers asked me to raise them... so I just do my best..." The woman's face stiffened. Someone up in the heavens like him called me big sister! In her trepidation, she began to stammer.
"Doing your best is good enough!" Wang Gang remarked, then looked at Wang Cai. "How about I give your estate a way to make money?"
"You jest, young master! The whole estate is yours. Just give the word!"
"You can't put it that way. This has nothing to do with farming. It'll take extra work from you!"
Wang Gang said, "Go buy some piglets. I'll cover whatever they cost. Once they're grown, sell them straight to the Drunken Immortal Tower, and we'll split the earnings fifty-fifty. How does that sound?"
"Ah! That works!" the woman exclaimed in delighted surprise. "It's only a bit more work. We farming folk fear nothing less than putting in hard work!"
Wang Cai cautioned, "Young master, pork has no place at a fine table. Even if the Drunken Immortal Tower buys it, there's no way to sell it!"
Wang Gang smiled. "That brings me to my condition. Once you buy these piglets, they must all be castrated!"
"Why's that?" Seeing how approachable Wang Gang was, the woman gathered her courage to ask.
"Think about it. Once a pig is castrated, it won't have those urges anymore. It'll settle down and put on fat instead of making trouble. More importantly, it won't have that smell!"
The woman nodded repeatedly, growing excited. She was just about to speak when Wang Cai shot her a fierce glare, frightening her into swallowing the dirty remark on the tip of her tongue.
Wang Cai knew these old women's habits all too well. They loved using dirty jokes to tease unmarried girls and young wives. One look at her expression had told him she was about to make a bawdy remark.
Wang Gang acted as though he had seen nothing and turned to his attendant. "Wang An, coordinate this with the estate. Draw from the household funds whenever you need money."
"Yes," Wang An answered.
"If you raise the pigs well, we can work together on chickens, ducks, and the like afterward."
"Young master, you're so merciful! I'll stake my life on raising them well!" The woman pressed her palms together, worshipping Wang Gang as though he were a bodhisattva.
"Don't stake your life on it. It's not worth that!" Wang Gang walked on with a smile, pointing at the fields as he said:
"Don't leave these crop-rotation fields and idle plots lying barren either. Plant beans to enrich the soil. It'll be something of a harvest, at least."
"Beans can enrich the soil?"
"Wang An, find a few farming books to read later, then pass them on." These farming methods did exist at the time; they simply were not widespread enough.
"Yes!"
Having finished discussing the pig raising, Wang Gang continued along the field ridge, with Wang Cai hurrying after him.
Meanwhile, on a small hill not far away, Li Qingluo and her two maids were watching from the shade of the trees.
He can chat and laugh even with a village woman, yet he only meets me with scowls and cold looks. An indescribable sour ache welled up in Li Qingluo's heart.
Rui'er watched Wang Gang recede into the distance, then looked at Li Qingluo and sighed inwardly. Young master is clearly such a good man. Why did things have to turn out this way between him and Sister? If only that night... if only there had been no Prince Duan!
"Sister, are we still going to see young master?" Ping'er asked timidly.
"Let's go back!" Li Qingluo turned and left.