CH 66

Villainous Prince (8)

After sending his granddaughter’s young lover away as he had hoped, Wang Mian felt a huge boulder fall from his heart and for days afterwards he felt completely relaxed, walking with the wind and even eating a few more bowls of rice.

Even though he was upset that Nie Qian Yu had taken away a group of young men he had handpicked, he was able to find a new young man for his granddaughter, as there were many young men in Zhongzhou.

With great enthusiasm, Wang Mian began to look for a new young man for Song Xu Yi to meet: after all, his granddaughter had been enjoying herself greatly before, but now that Nie Qian Yu had entered the academy, it was time for Xu Yi to return to her true nature!

However, Wang Mian realizes with hindsight that his granddaughter really doesn’t seem to be interested in beautiful boys! Whenever the subject of seeing someone came up, she was disinterested, but spent her days in her few acres of land, where the noble princess didn’t mind the dirt, and worked with the tenant farmers every day, discussing food storage and improvement measures.

Her granddaughter clearly prefers to work on her acres of land than the other noblewomen who are more interested in studying cosmetics and talking about their young grooms.

Moreover, her granddaughter seemed to have her own goals.

She did not hide all the grain seeds and storage methods, and even generously gave them away to the sons of the clans who were interested in the ingredients.

What does she want to do?

Wang Mian actually vaguely realized something in his heart, but he did not think that the young Song Xu Yi would have such ambitions beyond the ordinary people.

However soon Song Xu Yi confirmed his suspicions——

Song Xu Yi directly approached Wang Mian: “Grandfather, next year’s spring planting, when planting the sorghum, do you want to try a set of potatoes?”

Wang Mian’s eyes are complicated as he stares at his granddaughter, who is white and soft: her hair is a bit messy and the hem of her skirt is still stained with mud, and she doesn’t look like a lady, but her granddaughter doesn’t seem to notice Wang Mian’s troubled mood and is still trying to convince him: “I tried this season with the tenant farmers to plant two rows of sorghum and four rows of potatoes to maximize the yield. The two acres of land can feed more than one person a year…”

“Why are you doing this?”

“My Wang family is not short of a bite to eat,” Wang Mian sighed, brushed away the leaves stained on Song Xu Yi’s head and said with a straight face, “Xu Yi, you were born with a noble royal bloodline, you only need to live high and happy, these matters do not need you to worry about… “

These matters should have been done by boys, and even most of them may not be able to do it, Xu Yi simply does not need to get involved, moreover, certain people are not necessarily happy to see Song Xu Yi become capable…

“But I want to,” Song Xu Yi was still smiling, seemingly not picking up on the subtext of Wang Mian’s words. She knew she couldn’t get through to a feudal patriarch like her grandfather, so she just laughed and said, “I just really like farming and food, and doing these things makes me happy…”

What noblewoman would like land that smelled bad and was infested with bugs?

Wang Mian pursed up his lips, knowing in his heart that this was Song Xu Yi’s excuse, but did not expose it. He looked at his granddaughter seriously: she still looked white and lovely, and after dressing up, she was still a beautiful and noble girl, who could have imagined that she would like such an inferior job as farming and cooking…

But his granddaughter is different from the rest of the noble girls, her eyes have a vigorous, striking light, that gaze is extremely pure, like a cold plum frozen by the wind and frost, appearing transparent and delicate because of the experience.

Those intrigues and schemes in the imperial court were instantly invisible before Song Xu Yi’s beautiful eyes.

Although he is old, he can still protect her for a few years…

The compassion for Song Xu Yi eventually prevailed, and with the thought of making his granddaughter happy, Wang Mian sighed and waved his hand, “Just! If you want to do it, do it…”

Wang Mian ordered some of the tenant farmers to follow Song Xu Yi’s instructions, and increased the rewards. In the past, the Wang family’s share of the grain output was 30 to 70, with the family taking 70 percent and the tenant farmers taking 30 percent, which was already a generous treatment for the family. However, this time Wang Mian gave more to the tenant farmers: if the fields were planted in sets, the output of both sorghum and potatoes would be 50 / 50.

A great reward will be given to a brave man.

Tempted by the profit, many of the tenant farmers who grew sorghum got involved and began to learn how to plant potatoes in sets.

This is where Song Xu Yi’s previously trained tenant farmers came in handy, teaching the representatives sent over in detail how to store and grow potatoes, who in turn went back to promote and teach the rest of the tenant farmers…

At the beginning, only a small number of the Wang family’s tenant farmers planted in the fields. After all, the harvest in the fields was the tenant farmers’ sky, so they did not dare to put their eggs in one basket and only tried planting in a few acres of land.

No one could have imagined that, despite the reduction in sorghum planting, sorghum yields were not much lower than in previous years, so that an acre of land had an extra increase in potatoes out of thin air!

……

In an instant, all the tenant farmers were in an uproar! Not only did the Wang Clan practise this method of cultivation, the rest of the clans also sent experienced tenant farmers to seek advice from the Wang Clan…

Wang Mian did not expect that his initiative to coax his granddaughter would lead to such a great impact.

However, it was already too late to backtrack, and as word of the planting method spread, Song Xu Yi’s reputation spread.

As Zhongzhou was a long way from Lidu and was the Wang Clan’s stronghold, rumours of Song Xu Yi’s arrogance and domineering behaviour and the robbery of men did not reach Zhongzhou, where the people only knew that the princess from the capital had brought a new kind of grain that greatly improved the output of the land and enabled the poor farmers to eat more…

That year, for the first time in winter, the tenant farmers who had adopted the practice of planting sets had food for the winter.

In Zhongzhou, when the princess from Huadu was mentioned, everyone was full of praise, and some villages even privately built temples for Song Xu Yi. Those families who had heard of Song Xu Yi’s bad reputation in Huadu, after seeing some of Song Xu Yi’s initiatives, unanimously believed that Song Xu Yi’s bad reputation was a deliberate attempt by the Emperor to tarnish the reputation of the clans, and the desire of the clans to join forces was unprecedented, with youths running to the Wang Clan every day with the sole intention of meeting Song Xu Yi.

Wang Mian was extremely happy, however Song Xu Yi had little energy at all to meet these young elites, having found new sources of food she began to think of ways to improve farming tools, applying the principle of the ‘curved plough’ to improve ploughing tools, and learning to make rice beds, buckets and fan rice carts for threshing rice, greatly improving The efficiency of crop cultivation…

Song Xu Yi was still the same——once she was determined to do something she would do it wholeheartedly, her whole being was almost completely devoted to the fields, and there was nothing Wang Mian could do to stop her.

Wang Mian wanted to persuade Song Xu Yi not to indulge in farming like this and to see more of the young men who came to her, but his subordinates and family advised him not to disturb Song Xu Yi’s research——after all, the Wang family had profited greatly from Song Xu Yi’s discoveries and inventions, and there were several other families among the clans who had formed a rope and were vaguely at odds with the Wang family. After the emergence of Song Xu Yi, the Wang family’s prestige and strength have both risen significantly, and the voices of those who opposed the Wang family have gradually disappeared, leaving the Wang family far ahead of the other families.

When Wang Mian looked at Song Xu Yi’s face as she took the initiative to cut off all peach blossoms, he was inwardly saddened and suddenly thought of Nie Qian Yu: if Nie Qian Yu was still with her granddaughter, would she not be so obsessed with farming?

Unfortunately, Wang Mian thought that Nie Qian Yu would never come back to cater to his granddaughter.

Wang Mian thought that he knew men, and that anyone who entered the Bai Qiao Academy would be coveted by all the families, and that it was more natural to be the guest of honour of a family than to be the subservient sidekick of the princess.

Nie Qian Yu had been at Bai Qiao Academy for a long time, but had only sent a letter to report his safety and explain his situation at the academy, and had not heard from him since.

After all, Song Xu Yi knew that Nie Qian Yu had his own ambitions and that he must have been extremely busy since he had just enrolled, so Song Xu Yi didn’t think to contact Nie Qian Yu, while Wang Mian thought that Nie Qian Yu must have been a little wolf.

No one knew that since the day Nie Qian Yu left, two brightly coloured birds had been resting on the roof of Song Xu Yi’s room all year round. Every few days, only one of the two birds would remain, and the remaining one would fly over the mountains to tell Nie Qian Yu all about Song Xu Yi and even the entire Wang family…

Because Song Xu Yi was immersed in improving the lives of the peasants, Song Xu Yi’s return to Huadu was once again delayed, and Song Xu Yi stayed in Zhongzhou until the deadline for Huadu.

With the arrival of the New Year’s Day, Nie Qian Yu in the Bai Qiao Academy also took a half-month break.

At the Wang family.

Nie Qian Yu has grown taller and thinner, and his androgynous beauty has intensified, but he is still as silent as ever.

But none of the beautiful boys he had brought into the mountain, the ones Wang Mian had carefully chosen, had returned.