Great Tang Idyll Volume 02 Chapter 03
Thank you to Jesse for commissioning chapters 02, 03 and 04!
Volume 02 Chapter 03: Building A Swimming Pool And Discussing The Comers
“Jade that is not carved cannot become an ornament.
People that do not study cannot understand righteousness. ... The three rules
of interpersonal interactions: The ruler and the subordinates must be mutually
just1... "
A man and a woman continued to walk in the uncomfortably
silent environment. They suddenly heard a voice coming from the front, and when
they listened more closely, they heard a few children talking amongst themselves.
When they walked forward to get closer, they could clearly hear what these
little children were talking about.
The two stood there in place to listened to them, and there were shocked and surprised the more they heard. What was going on? They were reciting three words at a time. It sounded catchy and it seemed to be very meaningful. This must have been the school that the little kneeling child was talking about.
"Where did they find this teacher from?
Why does the lesson material sound so unfamiliar?" The woman listened for
a while. Although it seemed like she was muttering to herself, at the same time
it also seemed like she was questioning the man beside her.
"I've never heard of it before too. This
Manor is so different from other places. Everything here is so confusing. There
should be people on the manor right now, but look, not even a dog can be
spotted."
The man also didn't understand what he was
facing. It seemed that this place was not a Manor, but a place that could devour
people at any moment. It was mysterious, and even the children were different
from other places.
Naturally, they didn't know that someone
had already spread the news of their arrival, and everyone on the Manor was
told to go home. If observed carefully, it can see be that there some of the larger
tools that were not easy to carry were left in the field.
The text that those children recited was the Three Character Classic. Zhang Xiao’bao doesn’t know this text, but Wang Juan remembers it clearly. Two days ago, she changed some of the text’s contents and sent it to the school for the teachers to have a look. When the teachers saw it, they were mind-blown. Although the text was easy to memorize, it was very informative. Within the text, there was a lot of things for the children to learn. Even people with a Xiu’cai degree would have benefited a lot from reading this text.
The two teachers who failed the imperial
examinations wanted to know who wrote this text, but no matter how they asked,
the people who came to send the Three Character Classics said that they
didn’t know. This made them feel angry, but also admiration. The only thing they
could do was to analyze the text and then teach it to the little children on the
Manor.
*
In the courtyard of the Master Household, Zhang
Xiao’bao and Wang Juan were instructing people to build a swimming pool for the
two of them. It was five meters wide and
ten meters long. First, they got people to dig out a pit that had to be shallow
since their family objected to it being deep. However, it wasn’t too shallow
since it was about one meter deep. The bottom of the pit was covered with sand,
and then filled with water such that the water level reached their necks.
"Xiao’bao, you have conned so many
peoples before, have you never encountered a time when you had to make cement?"
Wang Juan stood beside the construction site, watching the people digging and
leveling the surrounding pool wall. She felt that it would be better to use
cement so she asked Zhang Xiao’bao without even turning to look at him.
"I think you need to heat stones with
some limestone or something. Then you continue to heat it until it becomes
cement. Why do want to use cement? If you really want to have a better swimming
pool, just use large pieces of bluestone. When we make more money, we will use
marble."
Zhang Xiao’bao said a few things, but he
still didn't say exactly how cement was made. He changed the direction of the
conversation so that Wang Juan would think about using natural stone.
In response to this answer, Wang Juan laughed. "Just say you can't make it if you don’t how. Why bother mentioning using bluestone or marble? It doesn't need to be so extravagant. Having a place like this better is than that small river. After we fill it with water, we can let the water heat up under the sun. This way, we don’t have waste firewood.
"I don’t know how because I didn’t have
a chance to learn. I’m not ashamed of that. They will probably be done digging
the pit before noon, and the sand can probably be filled in the afternoon. This
will be our place to exercise until the weather turns cold."
Zhang Xiao’bao didn't care whether or not he
could make cement. Cement seemed to be made by heating a bunch of materials together.
In the future when he had more excess money, he could just find someone to try heating random combinations of materials,
and eventually, there will come a day when cement is made.
Like Zhang Xiao’bao, Wang Juan didn’t care
much about cement. She was satisfied if there was a pool where she could swim
in. She watched those working people’s sweat drip like falling rain and said, “There
are still a lot of bones in our warehouse that have been frozen for three
months. Give the workers some bones to nibble on during lunch; this would make them ecstatic.
Have you thought about how to deal with the two people who came to the Manor?"
After Wang Juan finished talking about lunch,
she talked about an important matter. Those two people were too stupid since they
asked about things so blatantly. If they were spies, they might actually succeed
because who would believe that a spy would be that stupid?
"Nope. They can collect as much information
as they want. They must have been sent by the person surnamed Yao. They have been
wandering around for nearly four hours. They were here early in the morning; I wonder
if they’re hungry?"
Zhang Xiao’bao analyzed what the person who
came here two hours ago said, and felt that the man and the woman were sent from
there. It was not like he was allowed to make the two people disappear off the
face of earth, so he could only allow matters to follow its natural course. All
that can be arranged were arranged already. Even a little child was that cautious
already, let alone the adult residents.
"Since you are not worried, then let’s just leave them alone. It doesn’t seem like we can swim today. Maybe the water will be warm by tomorrow afternoon. The volume is too great; if we let people boil the water, then we need to boil at least one-third of the pool’s volume. Calculate how much water would be needed."
Wang Juan felt a bit impatient waiting so
she tried to kill time by chatting with Zhang Xiao’bao's and then she gave
Zhang Xiao’bao an arithmetic problem.
"Are you that bored? Do I even need
to calculate it? It's about 0.85 meters high, 10 meters long, and 5 meters
wide. With water, it should be forty-two tons. If we take into the account the
amount of water seeping through the gaps in the sand, then we need 45 to 48
tons. Do you think we're too tall?"
Zhang Xiao’bao was quite proficient at working
with numbers. After all, he needed to be able to count money so he had to learn
a few things about mathematics.
"We’re not that tall. We’re more than
two years old already. Your parents and my parents are not short. Our grandparents
aren’t short too. We usually exercise our body and plan out our meals, so we’re
slightly stronger than normal children. That’s normal."
Wang Juan compared themselves to other
children and realized that she and Zhang Xiao’bao were a few centimeters taller
and a little bit heavier. The difference was not that significant. After all, they
didn’t exercise to the point of harming their own body just for the sake of increasing
their strength.
"Will you look like a bodybuilder in
the future?" Zhang Xiao’bao asked jokingly.
"I’m not going to talk to you anymore. You’re just pretending to be confused. Didn’t you see what I looked like before? When I went to catch you that day, I was wearing a skirt. I wonder how many people felt sorry for me when the explosion happened." Wang Juan began to laugh as she talked.
"That’s good then. You need to work
hard to grow to look like that. Then, whenever I have free time, I’ll bring you
out to show off to people. I’ll go beat up anyone that finds you pretty and want
to take you for themselves. That’s considered as legal self-defence, right?"
Of course Zhang Xiao’bao remembered what
Wang Juan looked like at that time. To prevent people from finding out about
her, she put on makeup and wore a miniskirt. It was a pity that he was about to
die so he didn’t think much. Now that he recalled, her physique was really good.
Normal people cannot even fathom how much explosive power was contained in that
body.
"What are you smiling about? You look
like a creep right now. You’re thinking about dirty things at such a young age.
There is no such thing as a good man. Well, except for my relatives. I’m not
going to sleep next to you tonight, you creep."
Wang Juan was angered by Zhang Xiao’bao's expression.
"I'm a creep? Who threatened me back
then? And how was I threatened? I don't know about other men, but the deputy
chief at your office has two sugar babies. When three million dollars was sent,
I knew who was going to capture me. Surprisingly, you’re only worth three
million. A female soldier who can stand up for the motherland and risk her life
to perform missions has a price of three million."
"So, it was him. I knew that something
was wrong with him. Don't talk to me like that. What three million? That’s not
true."
In this moment, Wang Juan finally knew who
had betrayed her. She clenched her little fist and she really wished she could
go back and immediately beat the man until he passes out.
"Not just three million. In my heart, real
soldiers like you are priceless. I have never used money to gauge your worth. That
three million was the value of your deputy chief’s reputation and dignity.
Don't worry, I died. People like this will eventually encounter karma. Your
deputy chief will die of a cold or a minor illness."
Zhang Xiao’bao had never dared to disrespect
someone like Wang Juan, and he regretted making this joke when he saw how Wang
Juan reacted.
"Ahh. I have no idea if you abide to laws,
but whatever you do can be explained with morals. Let’s not talk about that anymore;
it’s history already. We can't swim in the afternoon, so where should we go
play after dinner?"
Wang Juan calmed down after hearing Zhang
Xiao’bao's words.
Zhang Xiao’bao didn't know where to go. They
had entered a bottleneck period in terms of exercises. They could not continue
to increase the amount of training they do, or else they might hurt their bodies.
Witnessing Zhang Xiao’bao's silence, Wang Juan suggested, "Let’s go up the mountain. I have never been at the top of mountain ever since I got here."
"No. Let's go to the field and take a
look at the toads. If the two of us want to go up the mountain, then a lot of
people will come along. This will attract other people’s attention2 and
waste manpower." Zhang Xiao’bao quickly rejected Wang Juan’s proposal which
involved bothering other servants in the courtyard.
Wang Juan thought about it for a while and
sighed helplessly. One’s status pre-determined a lot of things. She and Zhang
Xiao’bao also had to take into considerations of others, otherwise they would have
not built a swimming pool. Things like swimming in the small river should never
be done in the future.
It was good to go look at the fields too.
When Wang Juan thought of this, she pulled Zhang Xiao’bao to their room to go eat. The earlier they ate, the earlier they can depart. She said to Zhang Xiao’bao,
"Those two people should be hungry too, right? Should we feed them? "
"Yes. Tell the restaurant right now
that when they see a man and woman ordering food, recommend to them the most expensive dishes and tell them that
the cheaper dishes are all sold out." Zhang Xiao’bao replied.
Translator’s Notes
1. These are a few lines taken from a
Chinese classic text called Three Character Classic （三字经）. This was written in the Song
Dynasty which is the dynasty that comes after the Tang Dynasty. This would
explain why no one else has heard of the text before in the novel.
The original text was written
in triplets of characters so that it was easy for children to memorize. However
it would be impossible to have its translation be in triplets of words, so I provided
a more lengthy explanation of the lines.
2. attract other people’s attention 打草惊蛇
The literal meaning is “hit grass and startle the hidden snake”. It means to act rashly and alert the enemies.
Thank you for the chapter :).
ReplyDeleteLol I wonder if they will make the two pay for their dishes after tricking them :p.
Lmao, since they are a wealthy official, ZX and WJ struck rich by recommending them expensive menu haha
ReplyDeleteI'll try to get out the other commissioned chapter (c4) as soon as possible!
ReplyDelete