He drew Lu Yang into his mind—and into his heart.
It was his first time trying this kind of composition. He was not entirely satisfied; it did not feel “transparent” enough.
But the meaning was clear at a glance: in his mind and in his heart, there was only his Jingzhi.
Xie Yan had a seal now. He stamped it onto the drawing.
“Jingzhi, can you tell what it means like this?”
Lu Yang picked up the painting to look at it, the flush on his face deepening.
Seeing that, Xie Yan felt an itch in his chest. He stood up, stepped to Lu Yang’s side, bent down, and kissed his cheek.
Lu Yang turned his head to glance at him—and was kissed on the lips.
“You behaved well today,” Lu Yang said. “I’ll let you kiss me a little more.”
Before dinner, the young couple stayed in the room, lingering in quiet affection.
Lu Yang liked the painting very much and wanted to have it mounted.
He left it out to dry for the night. Tomorrow, once Xie Yan had time, he would take care of it.
Feigning reluctance, Lu Yang said, “You have to study and do your assignments—how would you have time for this? I’ll ask my godfather to mount it for me, or maybe Brother Xiaoshui. No need for you.”
Xie Yan, having picked up some rough speech from the Cui household, replied bluntly, “You’re full and already denying what you owe.”
Lu Yang answered just as smoothly, “Why don’t you say I pull my pants up and deny the person too?”
When it came to being crude, Lu Yang was no less so.
Xie Yan reached out to touch his belt, originally intending to tease him, but then he remembered that Lu Yang kept banknotes tucked inside it. Thinking about their recent expenses, his expression turned bitter.
“Jingzhi, has your ‘gold’ belt turned into a ‘silver’ one?”
Lu Yang almost failed to respond in time. He laughed. “When did I ever have a gold belt? We don’t even have a thousand taels to our name—I’ve always had a silver belt. When we’re rolling in wealth someday, then I’ll have a gold one.”
“What if we had twenty thousand strings of cash?” Xie Yan asked.
“Then I’d get Mother a gold belt too.”
Xie Yan choked on that, but it made sense. “What about thirty thousand?”
“Then I’d rotate between them.”
He kept going—forty thousand, fifty thousand, all the way to a hundred thousand, a million—and Lu Yang still refused to give him even one gold belt.
Xie Yan felt utterly wronged.
“Jingzhi, why won’t you give me one?”
“Because everything you have is mine,” Lu Yang said. “And everything I have is still mine.”
Xie Yan could not keep a straight face for more than two steps before laughing. He truly loved Lu Yang’s domineering side.
But he said, “You’re too stingy with me. I wanted to buy you a big pearl—but I don’t have the money.”
Lu Yang did not care for pearls, but Xie Yan wanted to buy one for him.
“I asked my master about pearls recently,” Xie Yan said. “He had the steward take me to the storeroom to look at some fine jewelry—things you wouldn’t find in shops. Beautiful, delicate pieces. I want to make you a neck ring, with a large pearl in the center—either strung or set, depending on what the craftsman suggests. It should be gold. I already have an idea for the design—I’ll draw it later. Your younger brother has gold bracelets, but you don’t. I want to make you a big ‘bracelet’—for your neck. I’m too poor right now, though. One day, give me a bit more silver, and I’ll get you something nice.”
It sounded expensive. Lu Yang felt touched but still refused.
“I’m busy all the time—I don’t have the hands free for jewelry.”
“I thought of that,” Xie Yan said. “That’s why I want to get you a neck ring. It won’t get in your way.”
Lu Yang thought for a moment. “Did you forget? I already wear a safety pendant on my neck. I don’t need another.”
Xie Yan had thought of that too. He smiled. “The pendant goes under your clothes. The neck ring goes outside. They won’t interfere.”
“…You should be studying,” Lu Yang said. “What kind of nonsense are you thinking about?”
Xie Yan had grown used to this kind of exchange. Without even thinking, he replied, “I’m thinking about you.”
Lu Yang seized on that immediately. “Oh? So I’m nonsense now?”
Xie Yan: !!
Even while sitting down for dinner, he kept circling around Lu Yang, coaxing him.
Zhao Peilan was used to it by now and ignored him. Instead, she said to Lu Yang, “Dayong’s family cleared out a room to use as a study. When Manager Wang comes tomorrow, you can take him over to show the way.”
Their house was large, but Lu Yang and Xie Yan’s rooms had been combined, taking up half. The other half housed his mother, with two empty rooms left.
Originally, Lu Yang had planned to turn one into a tea room, so when friends came to discuss studies, they would not have to go in and out of the bedroom.
But once it was set up, Lu Yang ended up using it himself.
The rooms were not well soundproofed. If the adjacent room became a study, both sides would be disturbed. So they decided to move it elsewhere.
Lu Liu’s house was large but crowded, with no spare space. So they asked Luo Dayong to prepare a room.
Lu Yang agreed. He told Xie Yan to sit and eat properly, then asked, “Why hasn’t the God of Wealth come back yet?”
When Wu Pingzhi returned, he could help evaluate the almanac book and choose a style.
“I’m not sure,” Xie Yan said. “The last time we saw him in the county, he’d changed a lot—like some kind of lotus ascetic, talking about cultivating the mind. This time he went to the provincial capital to fulfill a vow—I was half worried he’d become a monk.”
Lu Yang blinked.
What kind of development was that?
“I’ll go to the prefectural academy tomorrow,” Xie Yan said, taking on the task. “Ask my classmates what they think about this almanac paper.”
Lu Yang could also ask around locally—neighbors, private schools, academies.
But he did not say that. Instead, he said, “No need. I’ll let my godfather take a look first—see the difficulty and cost before deciding.”
Xie Yan agreed.
They went to bed early.
The next day, after breakfast, Xie Yan packed up materials for mounting the painting before heading to the Cui residence for lessons.
Lu Yang attended his morning class, then took Manager Wang to Luo Dayong’s house to show him the way. After class, before lunch, he went to his godfather’s house.
It was such a short walk, yet everyone who saw him insisted on helping him along. Lu Yang felt like an old man.
Master Lu examined the design and said it was not difficult—it could be done.
He had printed almanacs before. Based on this format, they could carve a block and produce a sample within a few days.
The almanacs themselves could be carved by Lu Xiaoshui—they could start printing immediately and sell them as soon as the shop opened.
They would follow common styles, adjusting for their bookstore’s location: “Abundant Harvest” and “Success in the Imperial Examinations” first. “Prosperous Wealth” could wait.
Master Lu also introduced a method of composite printing.
For example, the title “Abundant Harvest” could be carved as a separate block, while the calendar numbers would be individual movable pieces. Once arranged correctly in a frame, they could be inked and printed.
Lu Yang’s eyes lit up. “Then the almanac book could work the same way?”
“It can,” Master Lu said.
With movable type, both cost and labor would drop significantly. Unlike other prints, once arranged, the almanac layout could remain unchanged for a full year.
The almanac book was a new idea. Having dates printed directly on each page was important. If the dates were separate, the connection would weaken.
So they kept the layout, kept the blank-faced little scholar figures, and adjusted the dates slightly.
They would first print the first month’s pages and test the response.
Lu Yang got so excited he let it slip that very night. Xie Yan found out and pulled him into the room for a long lecture. In the end, it was still Xie Yan who took the sample to the academy to ask his classmates.
The response was good. As long as the price was reasonable, they said they would buy it.
With the “God of Wealth” still absent, Lu Yang made the decision himself—based on previous print runs, they would start with eight hundred copies.
If they did not sell out, the blank spaces could be reused as scrap paper for Xie Yan—recovering some of the cost.
Preparations for the bookstore proceeded steadily.
Lu Yang also went to speak with Lu Liu about selling illustrated booklets.
Lu Liu and Li Feng had been making money from them. Before moving to the prefectural city, they had even purchased a new batch of carved blocks. Now those blocks were with their fathers, who printed them when they had time, stitched them into small booklets, and let Li Feng take them to the docks to sell whenever he was free.
