Chapter 91: The Zhang Family Wins Hearts; the Crown Prince Comes to Welcome Him

“Whether Kong Na hates me does not matter. How many years do I have left to live? Why quarrel with a child? So long as he does not hate you, that is enough...

That old fossil, Kong Kegian, will eventually have to return to Qufu. Keeping that wretched old man in Yingtian Prefecture only makes him miserable and annoys me as well. Once Dadu falls and his heart is completely dead, I will do you a favor. You may plead on his behalf and send Kong Kegian back to Qufu.

For now, win over Kong Na first. In the future, he will surely be grateful beyond measure.”

“Father!”

At those words, Crown Prince Zhu Biao shuddered all over. He now understood exactly what Zhu Yuanzhang had arranged.

Bringing Kong Na to the capital, taming him, and drawing this future Hereditary Sage Duke to their side—that was the political legacy Zhu Yuanzhang was leaving to Zhu Biao.

Perhaps ever since Zhu Yuanzhang deliberately left Kong Kegian behind, he had already been laying the groundwork for his son.

Zhu Biao was so moved that for a moment he did not know what to say. He lowered his head and took a deep breath, forcing down the torrent of emotion rising in him.

After discovering that Zhu Yuanzhang might have guessed he would die, he had once wondered whether his father, faced with an irreversible fate, would leave behind a means of protection.

But now, rather than preserve his own purity, his father was willing to compromise himself just to pave the way ahead...

“Your son thanks Father Emperor. Your grace is as weighty as a mountain, and I only fear I shall fail to live up to your expectations!”

“Get lost!”

Zhu Yuanzhang casually seized a memorial and threw it at Zhu Biao.

Zhu Biao could not dodge in time. The sharp corner of the memorial struck him, and he cried out in pain.

“Aah!”

He looked up, tears welling at the corners of his eyes. No one knew whether it was from the pain or from something else.

“I’m not dead yet, so stop putting on a performance for yourself there. Study properly, cultivate yourself, and help me keep this family in order. Don’t get sentimental in front of me.

I do not want to see you today. Tomorrow, remember to handle the matters I assigned you!”

Zhu Biao was laughing and crying at once as the emperor drove him out of the imperial study.

After the crown prince left, the emperor’s smile froze on his face.

“Has destiny changed?

My dear, you once said that the future should be taken as a mirror. But if what I see in the future is not what I desire, how am I to live with myself?

To glimpse the workings of heaven is also to bear its weight. I only hope this fate can truly be altered.”

The emperor let out a long sigh, his expression desolate, but he quickly pulled himself together and began reviewing memorials.

The next morning.

A roadside tea shop saw a carriage slowly come to a stop.

The curtain was drawn back, and a youth stepped down. He wore a robe of blue and had a graceful bearing, though the friction of cloth against skin as he alighted still made him a little uncomfortable.

The youth frowned slightly but said nothing.

“Master, the old lord instructed that the emperor of Yingtian Prefecture values frugality. You should not wear the clothes you used to wear there!

These are already the finest fabrics this humble servant could find. Please bear with it and do your best to leave that emperor a good impression!”

Beside the youth stood an old servant. After hearing him out, the boy’s face showed a trace of melancholy.

The Kong family was now traveling to the capital to pay respects to the emperor, and even their clothing had to be chosen with care?

The wealth and splendor of the past eighty years seemed as fleeting as a passing cloud.

And the instigator of it all was the emperor of Yingtian Prefecture?

When his father and grandfather had gone to the audience, only his father had returned in a daze, and from that day on the Kong family seemed to have fallen under a different sky.

His father’s temperament had changed completely. He had become cautious and guarded, no longer the confident and spirited man he had once been in the previous dynasty.

His grandfather was still in the capital...

The youth was naturally Kong Na, the fifty-sixth-generation descendant of Confucius, the direct heir of the Kong family, and the future Hereditary Sage Duke.

Yet the dazzling honors that had once adorned him now seemed to have become shackles, binding him tightly.

“Let us have some tea and a few pastries. In another hour we will reach Yingtian. When the time comes, Master should first see the emperor, and only then go to see the old lord!”

The person beside Kong Na was the Kong family’s loyal old servant, the man Kong Xixue had arranged to come to Yingtian to care for Kong Kegian. Kong Na recalled his father’s instructions before departure and understood his current position.

He climbed down from the carriage and walked straight toward the tea stall.

“Esteemed guest, please sit!”

Seeing Kong Na and the others dismount, the tea stall owner hurried over to greet them.

At the moment there were not many traveling merchants passing by, though a group of people had gathered in a corner of the teahouse.

The owner first poured two bowls of tea for them. Kong Na took a sip and frowned.

“Boss, do you have any other tea?”

“Forgive me, honored guest. My shop serves only passing merchants. It is a small business, and I did not prepare any other kind. Is it not to your taste?”

How could Kong Na be used to the inferior tea in such a place?

But after the long journey by carriage, he had already finished his dry rations and was rather hungry.

“Forget it. Bring me some water instead.”

“Would you like cold water, or boiled water? This little shop also serves boiled water, for only one coin!”

“Boiled water?”

Kong Na had never seen boiled water sold as a commodity.

Wasn’t water that had been boiled normally used to brew tea?

“Ah, so the honored guest does not know,” the tea shop owner said. “The Supreme Lord Lao said that within water there are many invisible worms that harm the body and shorten one’s life. Thus, by the emperor’s heavenly grace, the common people are encouraged to drink boiled water.

Of course, we common folk are lowly creatures. How could we ordinarily afford boiled water? We can barely bear to heat even our meals. Drinking boiled water is the business of the lords.

But lately the true masters from Dragon-Tiger Mountain, by imperial command, have been relieving suffering and dispelling calamity in Yangzhou City. The Supreme Scripture of the Wonderful Method for Speaking of the Microscopic World has become wildly popular in Yangzhou, and from there it has spread throughout the realm with the traveling merchants! Since those merchants wanted boiled water, we followed suit and began selling it.

By the way, young master, do you know what wondrous method the true masters have passed down?”

The tea shop owner was a talkative man. Seeing him act mysterious and bringing up Dragon-Tiger Mountain, Kong Na felt displeased.

But it must be said: gossip is human nature. Though he disliked it, he still very much wanted to hear more.

“Good heavens! The method transmitted by the Heavenly Masters of Dragon-Tiger Mountain is said to keep a person from ever contracting the Heavenly Pox. What an immense blessing!”

As the owner spoke, his expression was still highly animated.

Kong Na and the old servant were likewise moved.

Who in all of China did not know of the Heavenly Pox?

Through the ages, how many people had fallen to that illness? From emperors and princes to peddlers and laborers, if you had never suffered it, you could hardly be said to have truly stood your ground in the human world.

Under Zhang Yi’s mass-publicity campaign, word of the Supreme Scripture of the Wonderful Method for Speaking of the Microscopic World had long since spread throughout all of Jiangnan and parts of the north. But the Kong family, lofty and aloof, had never heard of these matters.

Or rather, they did not want to hear anything about Dragon-Tiger Mountain. Bad luck.

In truth, Kong Xixue knew that Old Zhang had indeed passed down this method, but he had refused to mention it even after returning home.

So when Kong Na heard it now, it was as though he were listening to a book from the heavens.

Still, if there truly were a way to banish the Heavenly Pox forever, who would not be tempted? For instance, Kong Na himself had never suffered it, so in theory he could be taken at any moment by the King of Hell, who might simply come to reclaim his life.

“Really?”

“Of course it’s true. My own maternal uncle’s second elder brother went to Yangzhou, and it is absolutely true...

Let me tell you, on the day the true masters transmitted the method in Yangzhou, a great turtle appeared on the river. The people ran about telling one another, saying that our emperor must be the reincarnation of the Dark Warrior, and that this method for warding off the Heavenly Pox was passed down only because the Supreme Lord Lao remembered that His Majesty had once worked alongside him in heaven...

Zhang Yi had invented all sorts of little stories, and rumors had already spread everywhere.

“We ordinary folk even hire someone to recite the Supreme Scripture of the Wonderful Method for Speaking of the Microscopic World day and night, just hoping that one day His Majesty will make the inoculation method public...”

Kong Na grew somewhat unhappy hearing the proprietor mention Dragon-Tiger Mountain with every other sentence.

“Who knows whether that scripture of his is not just made up? Those Daoists are always flattering the powerful and bringing chaos upon rulers!”

The moment his words fell, the small tea shop became silent.

“A shabby scholar like you, and you dare lecture the world?”

“Exactly. What do you know? If the Heavenly Masters of Dragon-Tiger Mountain have done nothing, then what have you done?”

In a war of words, how could Kong Na possibly be a match for these people of the lower ranks? He was immediately left dumbfounded. Young men are thin-skinned, and at once his face turned red to the ears.

“Get out, get out. I do not want your business. Leave!”

Even the tea shop owner, who had been all smiles before, now drove Kong Na out.

Kong Na and his servant had not managed to eat anything and were left hungry, but they could only continue on their journey.

“Why is it that the reputation of those Daoists from Dragon-Tiger Mountain is even higher than my Kong family’s?”

After climbing back into the carriage, Kong Na’s expression twisted. He was unwilling, and he could not accept it.

If the people being praised by the common folk were someone else, Kong Na would not have been so angry.

But it was the Zhang family, a clan that stood shoulder to shoulder with the Kong family. The better the Zhang family fared, the more it exposed the Kong family’s decline.

Master and servant continued onward, and at last the city gate of Yingtian came into view in the distance.

The coachman had initially intended to speed up, but a group of people caught his attention.

“Is the one there perhaps Young Master Kong Na of the Kong family from Qufu?”

The newcomers wore official garb. Kong Na did not recognize them, but at a glance he could tell they were military men.

“I am indeed Kong Na. May I ask what business this official has with me?”

Kong Na leaned out of the carriage and called to the officer. The man replied:

“My lord the crown prince has been waiting a long time!”

“The crown prince?”

For a moment Kong Na did not react, and only then did he realize that the person waiting here was the heir apparent himself.

To think that Crown Prince Zhu Biao had come to wait outside the city for him—Kong Na was flattered beyond measure. He hurried out of the carriage and was about to kneel before the other vehicle when a youthful yet dignified voice came from within:

“This palace does not wish to disturb the common people. Young Master Kong, come aboard and let us talk!”

Only then did Kong Na notice that the crown prince’s carriage was plain and unremarkable, and that apart from the guards protecting it, there was no display at all.

The Zhu family’s manner in Yingtian Prefecture seemed somewhat different from that of the nobility of the Yuan.

A faint thought of this kind arose in Kong Na’s young mind.

He obeyed the crown prince’s command and, under the guidance of a servant, boarded the carriage.

Inside sat a youth in a dragon-patterned ceremonial robe, bright and full of energy.

He could not be called overwhelmingly handsome, but he was certainly of noble and proper bearing. Most important of all, though he was only thirteen or fourteen years old, he already carried a trace of dignity that his peers did not possess.

Seeing Kong Na, Zhu Biao laughed.

“I heard that Brother Kong had come to the capital, and worried that you might not know the way, so this palace specially came here to wait for you!”

Hearing this, Kong Na hurriedly lowered himself.

“Your Highness, this commoner is terrified!

Your Highness is of priceless stature, yet you have waited here for me. This commoner deserves ten thousand deaths!”

“Get up. We are going somewhere first.”

Zhu Biao smiled warmly, and Kong Na felt as though he were bathed in spring wind.

“Are we going to pay our respects to His Majesty?”

“No.”

Zhu Biao flatly rejected Kong Na’s guess and instructed the servant to set out.

The end.