The Most Powerful Young Master of the Northern Song Dynasty

Chapter 10: You’re No Child Prodigy

After saying that, Old Chen certainly wasn’t going to waste the opened egg—he slurped it down in one gulp. After savoring the flavor for Shao Qing, he turned his head and said, “Long Legs, you can throw away those eggs you collected…” Long-Legs happened to have an egg right by his side; he tossed it straight out, smashing it on the street. Immediately, two little brats loitering nearby ran over, huddled around the blue-stone pavement to lick the egg clean, wiped their mouths with their filthy sleeves, cast a sly glance around to make sure there were no more eggs, and only then got up and ran off. What the—? Longjiao’s behavior left Wang Bang utterly exasperated, so he said, “Old Chen was just using a figure of speech—a way of speaking. Do you even understand that?” “Oh.” Long Legs raised a hand to rub the top of his head, looking somewhat embarrassed. Old Chen shook his head with a wry smile. “Call it this old man’s loose tongue—that’s what you call ‘trouble coming from the mouth.’ A perfectly good egg has been ruined. Young Master Wang, on the other hand, is well-read and well-mannered. As for these good-for-nothing fools, why can’t they ever get it through their thick skulls?” After finishing his lament, Old Chen clasped his fists toward Wang Bang and said, “Young Master, you are truly a man of great talent to come up with such an egg. Please forgive this old man’s rudeness. I’ll take your eggs—15 wen each. From now on, no matter how many you have, you can bring them here.” “It’s fine if you want to sell only my eggs, but that price isn’t fair,” Wang Bang said. Wang Bang knew full well that these were luxury goods; if he could find a buyer with stronger connections, it wouldn’t be out of the question to supply them to the imperial palace—and the profit margin would be even higher. Old Chen thought for a moment and said, “Young master, twenty wen each—not a penny more. Your eggs are mainly large and uniform in size. While they could be sold as high-end goods, even the wealthiest families are very picky. The color and quality of your eggs still fall a bit short of the mark. You know how it is—those people are even harder to deal with.” “That’s easy enough. With enough money, what quality can’t you get? If you ask for forty wen per egg, this young master will go buy fish to make fish meal, then triple the vitamin A content. Then you’ll get those top-tier eggs with that almost bright-red hue—what’s so hard about that?” “Fair enough. For these current batches, I’ll take twenty wen per egg. But if the yolk color improves even further in the future, I’ll want forty wen each,” said Wang Bang. Clang Old Chen was so startled he dropped his teacup. Licking his lips, he asked, “Are you saying you’re capable of producing large, uniform eggs in bulk—and taking the color to the next level?” “That’s right. Didn’t you know the Wang family produces child prodigies?” Wang Bang said. “……” Chen Jiaohu found this explanation simple, blunt, yet convincing. So Old Chen nodded and said, “All right. If the color is a notch better, they’re uniform in size, and the supply is stable, this old man will pay fifty wen each.” Huh, he’s offering more than I asked for—that means he’s an easy mark. This left Wang Bang feeling a bit frustrated. He figured that if he brought some lackeys along to “investigate” him, he could probably get an even higher price. But he couldn’t let his reputation take too much of a hit just for the money—his dad would beat him to death. Besides, our family doesn’t have any lackeys—my upright father can’t afford to pay that many people’s salaries. So the deal was struck. This time, he sold eight eggs for 160 wen—all genuine, full-weight copper coins minted by the government, not privately cast ones. In the Song Dynasty, private coin minting was quite common; while it was illegal, it wasn’t considered a serious offense. Privately minted coins were still usable, though sometimes, if the copper content was insufficient, their value would be lower. As he was leaving, Old Chen still looked reluctant and asked one more question: “How did you, young master, come by this secret recipe?” “You’re no child prodigy—why ask so many questions?” Wang Bang left with that eccentric remark and walked away… Holding Erya’s hand, he walked through the bustling streets of Shuzhou. Passing a sugar figurine stall, he saw a crowd of children gathered around it. The little girl also stopped in her tracks, watching with curiosity. Wang Bang said, “If you don’t give it a try, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life, right?” The little girl stared intently at the sugar figurines and said, “I think Da Bang makes a lot of sense.” “Let’s get two, then.” The little girl wolfed down one right there on the spot, but couldn’t bring herself to eat the last one, so she held it in her hand. It wasn’t that she wanted to keep it to play with. The little girl was just pretending she wanted to keep it to play with; in reality, she was taking it home for her mom to eat. Old Wang was a man with no sense of romance; after luring her mom into the house, he certainly wouldn’t take her to the night market to eat. By heaven, she wouldn’t go home without slurping down at least two bowls of that delicious rice noodles. So she sat down at a stall with the little glutton, and they each polished off two bowls of rice noodles. Then Wang Bang pulled out her little abacus, clicked it a few times on the stall, and calculated: she had 150 wen left. The abacus had only three rows of beads—it was quite tiny—a little trinket Wang Bang had made for himself during these idle days. Honestly, it was mostly for fun. Wang Bang was a human abacus himself; he certainly didn’t need a counting tool for numbers like these. Later in life, when Wang Bang practiced the abacus as a child, he could instantly calculate the answer to a four-digit by four-digit multiplication problem just by looking at the numbers. So practicing the abacus wasn’t about learning algorithms; it was merely a tool for recording numbers. The real skill lay in mental arithmetic. After Erya finished her last bite of rice noodles, Old Liao came around again. As was their usual routine, the brother and sister sat on either side of Old Liao’s broad shoulders. By the way, he bought some wine. Old Liao put on an air of someone who hadn’t acted as the “big brother” in years, striding along briskly as he remarked, “Young Master, don’t even think about bribing me with liquor. To be honest, even if you didn’t bribe me, I wouldn’t have a clue what you’ve been up to today.” “Uncle Liao, you’ve misunderstood. The liquor is for the Wang family,” Wang Bang said. “……” Old Liao pondered with a touch of frustration. Did you really have to put it that way, you rascal? If you’d just pretended to offer it as a gift of respect, and I’d refused, wouldn’t that have saved face for both of us? “By the way, Uncle Liao,” Wang Bang said. “What is it, young master?” Old Liao smiled slightly. “I feel that, overall, you make people feel very secure, but sometimes it’s inevitable that you might overlook certain details. You weren’t around the few times thieves broke into our house. Do you have any fellow disciples or the like—the kind who aren’t too expensive and are loyal?” Wang Bang asked curiously. Old Liao hesitated for a moment, a strange look crossing his face, before saying, “Young Master, you’re reading too much into this. I’ve never infiltrated a band of thieves.” “But there are,” Wang Bang said. “Truly, there aren’t any. Everything is under my control,” Old Liao said, as if staking his personal reputation on it. Wang Bang’s expression then turned peculiar, and he took out his small abacus, beginning to click it back and forth…