Chapter 137
C137 – Smart
Tang Yue sat in the study room for an entire afternoon. When the sky turned dark and he noticed that his vision was starting to blur, he realized that time had passed.
“Someone come…”
He, who was guarding outside the door, pushed the door open and entered. Seeing that the room was dim, he hurriedly lit an oil lamp.
He was secretly annoyed. If Ke Zaifou had been here, he would have definitely lit the lamp at the best time. However, because he did not have any experience, he had completely forgotten about this matter.
“Don’t be busy. Has His Highness not returned yet?” Tang Yue rubbed his sore eyes and asked.
He went to pour some more tea and said, “young master, His Highness has left the city. He said he won’t be able to come back tonight.”
“Huh? When did this happen?” Tang Yue was surprised.
“The butler told me not to disturb you,” the man said. “I will wait until you are out of the house.”
Tang Yue nodded in understanding. He packed up the things on the desk and got up to stretch. “Did you hear why His Highness left the city?”
“No. If you want to know, ask someone to ask.” In the Crown Prince’s Palace, only Crown Princess had the right to ask where His Highness went.
Tang Yue stopped him, “Let’s have dinner first. Since he has something urgent to do, let’s wait.”
Thinking that he was still eating alone at night, Tang Yue had no appetite. No matter how delicious the mountain delicacies were, they could not bear to eat one person at a time.
He asked the butler to call Zhang Chun over. Usually, Crown Prince Zhao didn’t like them being too close. He would always find various reasons to send Zhang Chun away. Now that he was alone at home, it was up to him to decide who he wanted to eat with.
Not long after, Zhang Chun rushed over. He was still wearing a short jacket. Sweat covered his forehead as he entered the door. Seeing that the master wasn’t here, he immediately poured a cup of tea and drank it in one gulp.
“Ha… Brother, you are the most loyal. I am almost driven crazy!”
“You went to practice martial arts?” Tang Yue looked at his disguise and guessed.
“That’s right. Wang has been very busy recently, so he found another master to teach me temporarily. He really does not let me rest for a moment!”
“Isn’t that very good? Three feet of ice is not a day of cold. Practicing martial arts is the most important thing!”
“Heh, these words are easy to say. If I really let you train for half a day without resting, you probably would have rebelled long ago.”
Tang Yue thought about it and agreed. He was not a sports master and did not have a strong competitive heart. He only thought about martial arts in his heart. He definitely did not have the perseverance to train well.
“Then do you want to take a shower and change clothes before coming to eat?” In this kind of weather, one cold and one hot could easily catch cold.
“Don’t, laozi is so hungry that my chest is pressed against my back… touch, is it deflated?” Zhang Chun lifted up the hem of his clothes and let Tang Yue touch his belly.
Tang Yue shook his head with a smile. He asked people to serve the food and stopped nagging at him.
Zhang Chun was not a bad person. However, he definitely had a lot of bad habits. Luckily, Tang Yue didn’t dislike him. He had seen many wealthy businessmen who liked to put on airs. Instead, he liked people who spoke casually.
Ever since Tang Yue married into the Crown Prince’s Palace, he did not allow people to split the table for meals. Instead, he set up a round table in the hall and sat with Crown Prince Zhao to eat.
Although it seemed strange to outsiders, Crown Prince Zhao felt that it was good to be able to eat the same dish as Tang Yue. He could even help Tang Yue pick up a dish from time to time, which made the meal much more enjoyable.
Zhang Chun was also used to this kind of eating method. Although it was very enjoyable to eat one table per person, he felt that it was not good to have a bit of earth energy. It was not conducive to the relationship and development at all.
The two finished their meal and walked around the yard. Then, they started to play chess. Tang Yue was the winner of all the games. Zhang Chun was so angry that he kept beating himself up. “What a talented student, hmph…”
Tang Yue threw away his chess piece and asked him. “Zhang Chun, do you know how paper was made?”
Zhang Chun raised his head to look at him. His eyes gradually lit up as he slapped the table and stood up. “That’s right. Why didn’t I think of that? We can make paper! These are four great inventions! If we make paper, our names will be in the annals of history!”
Tang Yue rolled his eyes. “You have to know how to do that!”
“Hey, don’t look down on people. Although our culture is not high, ‘But this one does!’
Tang Yue looked at him suspiciously. How could he? However, seeing the confident look on the other party’s face, he patted his chest and promised, “Wait, I will write down the formula.”
“Wait… How do you know?”
Zhang Chun said with a sly smile, “It’s all thanks to the boss chasing me away when I was carrying the dishes in the restaurant. I was out on the streets and had no food, so I went to work in a factory. Coincidentally, I went to the paper factory and coincidentally went to the raw materials department.”
Tang Yue thought to himself, Tang Yue thought to himself, “Could it be that the recipe is something that any random employee can know about?
Zhang Chun saw through his confusion and explained, “Don’t think too much about it. I went in to be a porter. I used to be an engineer. I gave one of the rooms to me when I was poor. I learned a lot after I got familiar with it.”
In fact, he almost got into a proper department with this level of relationship and left the laborer’s job. Unfortunately, he offended the senior management. He felt bored and fired the boss.
He had done too many jobs in his previous life. The only thing that was really useful was probably this experience.
Tang Yue brought him to the study room and spread out a clean sheepskin. He arranged the charcoal pen and asked Zhang Chun to tell him that he had written it.
Although Zhang Chun had learned writing for a period of time, However, he did not study it seriously, and the number of words he knew was limited. It was even more difficult to write.
The handwriting in this era was complicated. It was like a small seal script. It was very difficult to write. Tang Yue could only write the words so that people could recognize them.
Zhang Chun recalled for a while and then told Tang Yue the formula. After Tang Yue finished writing it, he looked at it and found that the process was similar to what he had imagined. However, modern paper-making technology was definitely more advanced. It relied more on mechanics. Many of the techniques could not be developed in this era, so the quality was definitely not as modern.
He organized a more reliable paper making technique and folded the sheepskin into his pocket. He was prepared to give Crown Prince Zhao a surprise as soon as he returned.
“I should have asked you if I knew,” Crown Prince Zhao said. “I’ve been thinking about it for so long.” The main thing was that Crown Prince Zhao had been studying it for many days. It was a sin!
Zhang Chun brushed his hair and said cooly, “Who asked you to not tell me what you want to do? As the saying goes, three skin-makers are better than Zhuge Liang. One of us and half of Zhuge Liang are almost the same.”
“Okay, I will ask you next time.” Tang Yue was very happy and relaxed.
Tang Yue did not sleep well this night. His eyelids kept twitching. He felt that it was because he had slept too much. Maybe it was because the fire in the house was burning too hard.
Tang Yue did not want to get up again until dawn. The blanket was too warm, and it made him drowsy. He came in and added some charcoal, but did not wake him up when he saw that Tang Yue was asleep.
When Tang Yue woke up, the sun was high in the sky and the sun was high in the sky. The snow around him was melting bit by bit.
“It’s a sunny day!” Tang Yue was suddenly energized. He put on his clothes, opened the door, and walked out. The cold air entered his lungs from his nose, and he became even more energized.
He was preparing to go to the kitchen to make some food. It had been a long time since he made food. Today, he suddenly wanted to eat hotpot. He had not eaten hotpot since he came here.
It was just nice to wait for Crown Prince Zhao to come back and eat together.
He drew a charcoal hotpot for the blacksmith. He would use it next time. Today, he could only use a small stove and a small pot.
The preparation of the ingredients was just a matter of words. There was lamb for lamb, mushrooms for mushrooms, bone soup for bones, and the only thing lacking was chili.
Without spicy hot pot… Thinking about it, it really wasn’t satisfying.
The ingredients were all prepared and served to the table. Tang Yue also moved the stove to the center of the table. There was a small soup pot on top of it. The bone soup in the soup pot was very strong. The milky white soup emitted a fragrance.
The cook in the Crown Prince’s Palace stared at the food on the table. He did not know what Crown Princess was trying to do.
However, Crown Princess was definitely the Culinary God. Every time she cooked something, it was something that they had never seen before and it was absolutely delicious.
Someone boldly asked, “young master, how do you want to eat this? “You said we would help you make it.”
Tang Yue did not want to hide it. He told them, “No need to help. This is called hotpot. It is cooked while eating. You just need to put the food you want into the pot and cook it. It is very simple.”
“This… can something cooked like this be delicious?”
Tang Yue nodded. Of course it was delicious. It was so delicious that he had to eat it many times during the beginning of summer, autumn, and winter.
However, he seemed to have forgotten something… Tang Yue asked someone to wait for Crown Prince Zhao at the door. He threw some food that was harder to cook into the pot and boiled it. Only when he cooked it did he remember that the most important sauce had not been mixed yet.
He rushed to the kitchen and used the existing seasoning and a few servings of sauce to bring it to the table.
The condiments in the kitchen were already quite complete. There was sesame oil, sesame oil, soy sauce, vinegar and so on. If he could get some chili, it would be perfect.
When the water in the pot boiled a few times and there was no news from the door, Tang Yue became a little anxious.
He called the butler in and asked, “Did His Highness say when he would be back yesterday?”
The butler shook his head, “No, but according to the situation outside the city, I’m afraid he won’t be able to make it back in time.”
“What’s the situation outside the city?” Tang Yue thought that there were only residents whose houses had been crushed by the snow. Crown Prince Zhao was ordered to calm the people and provide relief.
The butler hesitated for a moment. He frowned and said worriedly, “There was news this morning. It said… that there was a plague outside the city. This old servant took the initiative to send people to look for His Highness.”
“Plague? Did many people die outside the city?” Logically speaking, in such a snowy day, even if someone had just died, there shouldn’t be a plague spreading so quickly.
At such an extremely low temperature, the spread of the virus would also be hindered.
“After His Highness’s wedding, the Imperial Court set up a few refugee settlements outside the city. Every day, rich merchants of the world would take turns distributing rice porridge to barely survive this winter. Who would have thought that the rain and snow the day before would be too heavy, and the refugee settlements would collapse and crush many refugees? I’m afraid that the plague came from there.”
Tang Yue’s expression was solemn. In this era, he was really afraid of this infectious disease. A large number of people died. Without the antidote, he could only isolate the patients one by one, and kill them one after another. Other people could only watch in despair. There was nothing they could do.
“No, I have to go and take a look.” Tang Yue could not care about the food on the table anymore. He went back to his room and changed into thick clothes. He checked the medicine box that he had not used for a long time and then went out without stopping.
“Young master… young master… No… You can’t go… it’s too dangerous!” The housekeeper tried to stop him. Tang Yue said calmly, “Housekeeper, don’t forget that I am a doctor. There is no doctor who is afraid of this kind of danger.”
He had to personally understand the situation. According to the time, even if there was a plague, it was just the beginning. There should not be many people who were infected, and epidemic prevention was the most important thing.
The butler was unable to do so, so he could only arrange a hundred guards to accompany him. Tang Yue didn’t want to trouble everyone, but he thought that if it was really a plague, he would need a large number of people to help him, so he let them go.