Inlaid With Jade - Chapter 62

Chapter 62 
Task 

This year, heavy snow fell, covering the sky and the earth silver, and the mountains were no longer green. After Qin Mei’an became pregnant, the palace also received good news: Consort Wan, who had been in the palace for many years, was finally pregnant. 
  
When Lin Wan first entered the palace, she was only sixteen. Although the Emperor deeply favored her for many years, she was childless. Now that she was pregnant with a dragon fetus, she could finally rest assured. 
  
Among the three sisters, only Lin Yu was free. She sometimes returned to the Lin Mansion to visit Qin Mei’an and asked someone to send her letters to the palace to ask about her elder sister. Wang Yueying saw her figure in the mansion now and then, like an unmarried girl. 
  
Although Wang Yueying was happy, she was worried that Lin Yu would make Li Heming unhappy, so she gave her some private advice. Unexpectedly, Lin Yu said that Li Heming asked her to visit her home more often and that she didn’t need to alienate her relatives even though she married him. After hearing this, Wang Yueying became more satisfied with Li Heming as her son-in-law.

Li Heming was off duty early sometimes, and when he went to Lin Mansion to pick up Lin Yu, Wang Yueying always asked him to stay for dinner before leaving. But compared to her younger daughter, she couldn’t help feeling sad when she thought of her elder daughter, Lin Wan, whom she rarely saw.
  
The cold winter passed quickly, and fresh buds appeared on the branches in early spring. However, Ji County in the northwest, hundreds of miles away from the capital, reported a disaster—a mild earthquake. 
  
The earthquake occurred at the end of last year. It was not severe. At least, it was unnoticed in Yingtian Prefecture, but Ji County later reported that hundreds of houses had collapsed.
  
Natural disasters are unavoidable. If a house collapses, then let it be. It was only a few hundred houses, so to appease the people, just ask the Ministry of Revenue to rebuild them. However, the problem is that more than 90% of the collapsed houses were built not long ago. 
  
A few years ago, there was a flood in Henan, and the flood destroyed half of Ji County. People from the Ministry of Works and the local county magistrate were responsible for rebuilding thousands of houses. 
  
As the saying goes, a small temple has powerful demonic winds, and a shallow pond has many turtles. In just a few years, the moss hadn’t even grown under the eaves of the new house, but it collapsed in this tiny earthquake. Most of the newly built houses collapsed, unsure what kind of rotten wood and stone were used to create them, but it involved the crime of corruption and dereliction of duties. 
  
The criminal law of the Ming Dynasty was strict. At the beginning of the earthquake, local officials feared endangering their official hats, so they concealed the news and pretended to take some spare money from their private treasury to repair the houses. A few officials concerned about the people had their way to the Emperor cut by the collusion of other officials, and they even spent all their money. Still, it wasn’t easy to protect the displaced people. 
  
Thousands of people were homeless, wrapped in ragged cloth, and huddled in hastily built huts under the ruins. Snow and wind were fierce, and in only two months, the county had hundreds of wild graves, which was horrible. But the truth was unconcealable, so when the weather warmed up in the spring, an official in Ji County finally reported the matter. Thus, several officials in the Ministry of Works were imprisoned for the matter. When the Imperial Guards interrogated them, the officials hesitated and kept silent, so Li Heming had to go to Ji County again to settle the matter. 
  
The Imperial Guards could not delay their work for a day. Li Heming entered the palace in the afternoon, received the order, and had to set off before dawn tomorrow morning. When he returned home, Lin Yu sat at the table, holding a small hammer and cracking walnuts. Next to her, she had an open account book and a cup of eight-tenths full of clear tea. It looked like she was resting after checking accounts. 
  
Lin Yu was a master at embroidery but clumsy at cracking walnuts. When she was a child, the hammer hit her hand while she was eating walnuts, causing she had blisters and was in pain for several days. Hence, she didn’t dare to crack them. Clamping them behind the door was dirty. Now, the iron walnuts were smashed and rolled around in the stone plate, but they didn’t break a crack. 
  
Li Heming walked in leisurely, took out the sword, sat down, and asked her, “Why don’t you ask someone to peel them?” 
  
Lin Yu struggled with the walnuts. After Li Heming finished speaking, she said, “Hmm,” unsure if she had heard what he had stated. 
  
Li Heming said nothing else, picked up her teacup and sipped. Lin Yu got tired of hitting them a few times, put down the small hammer, and tenderly told Li Heming, “Help me.” 

Li Heming put down the teacup, and without using the hammer, he reached out and grabbed two walnuts. He closed his palms and exerted a little force before a few crisp “cracks” sounded. 
  
He opened his hand again, and the iron walnuts broke, exposing the kernels. He stretched his hand in front of Lin Yu, and Lin Yu picked up the walnut kernels from his palm and ate them. After eating, she used a small brush to sweep the debris from his hand, picked two big walnuts from the bamboo plate on the table, and put them in his palm. 
  
Li Heming still crushed it and handed it to her. Lin Yu picked up half a kernel, put it in his mouth, and ate another piece herself. She gave him a jade plate and unceremoniously called him like a servant: “Put the kernels in it.” Then she started to look at the account book. 
  
Li Heming naturally agreed with her. He peeled walnuts for her and said, “I’m leaving the city tomorrow.” 
  
Lin Yu fiddled with the abacus: “Where are you going?” 
  
“Henan area, Ji County.” 
  
“Are you on business?” 
  
“Yes.” 
  
“How long will it take you to come back?” 
  
“I’ll be back when I’m done.” 
  
She looked at the account and asked a few questions casually. Li Heming peeled walnuts for her diligently and didn’t bother her much, but his eyes were always on the account in her hand. 
  
Before, he rarely cared for family affairs, and many shops and farms were abandoned. It was when Lin Yu took over the family that things started to improve. Li Heming also lived a life of begging for money. How much money he could beg depended on the harvest of the mansion. 
  
After he saw Lin Yu write a considerable amount of income in the account book with a smile, he slowly stretched his hand to her: “Five hundred taels.” 
  
Lin Yu said, “En?” “What five hundred taels?” 
  
Li Heming said: “Travel expenses.” 
  
As soon as he finished speaking, he saw Lin Yu frowning. Li Heming rarely interacted with officials and seldom spent money. He was considered wealthy if he had thirty or fifty taels in his pocket. Seeing Lin Yu’s face was not right, his heart skipped a beat, thinking he had asked for too much. 
  
He was worried that Lin Yu would think he was a spendthrift, so he looked at her face and said, “If you can’t give 500, 300 or 200 will do.” 
  
Lin Yu still furrowed her eyebrows, but Li Heming refused to give in and confidently said, “When a man is away from home, he should have 200 taels of silver on him.” 
  
Lin Yu sighed. She stood up, walked to the dressing table, and took a 1,000 tael bill from a stack in the small drawer. After thinking about it, fearing he would not have enough money to bribe people, she took another bill. 
  
She handed Li Heming the bills and said thoughtfully, “How can 500 taels be enough? You must spend money to bribe people when you work outside, so you must have 1,000 or 2,000 taels on you.” 
  
Li Heming raised his eyebrows and put the bills in his bosom.