"Today is the year of the Rat, the month of the... whatever the mess of the lunar calendar is. In my old life I'd have been utterly lost, but thankfully I inherited the original owner's memories.
By my reckoning, it should be a rat year, roughly October the 18th. Mm, I've decided to start keeping a diary. I'm hardly the sort of strait-laced fellow to object.
My second uncle was right: I need to change the way I live.
This dung-heap of a society—climbing too high is no guarantee of good fortune. Officials whose houses were searched and seized were ten a penny in the old days. So what sort of man lives the sweetest life? I've been studying it, and the answer is the middle class.
Better off than the common folk, yet never touching the high-stakes struggles at the top. Let the occasional small loss slide. That's the class that lives most comfortably.
Also: today I found a qian of silver at the market."
"October 19th, overcast. I have to get rich. In this world nothing is more dependable than gold, though merchants have no standing at all—I suppose every gain comes with a loss. I'm thinking of resigning in a few days, no longer serving as a fast-hand in the yamen. Two taels and a stone of rice a month—at this rate, when will I ever get to bed a courtesan queen at the Bureau of Music?"
"October 20th, overcast. I won't rush to resign. I'll get a business going first and hand in my notice after. Today I saw some colleagues taking an arrest warrant to shake down a merchant, and it didn't sit well with me. But I know this is just how the world works. Hah, the me of my past life would have burned with righteous fire and shouted it down. Life has worn down my edges. When you can change nothing, learn to keep silent.
Also: today I found a qian of silver at the yamen."
"October 21st, clear skies. Today Warden Wang took me to a pleasure house. My impression of the place has changed—it's a spot for listening to songs and opera, and for the mingling of body and soul. I'm still in the Essence Refining realm, so I can't break my chastity. Utterly dejected.
I looked around for ages and not one woman there was prettier than Aunt. Aunt is that sort of beauty—plump, gorgeous, carrying her own dignity, a proper married woman. The women of the pleasure house are too flippant, too heavy with the air of the flesh trade.
Looking at it that way, Cousin Lingyue and Aunt really do hold up their looks.
Then, at the pleasure house, I found a qian of silver—just enough to cover the songs and the food. Have I been blessed with freakish luck lately?"
"October 22nd. Listening to songs at the pleasure house."
"October 23rd. Listening to songs at the pleasure house."
"October 24th. Listening to songs at the pleasure house. Warden Wang asked why I look so happy. Because getting things for free makes me happy."
"October 25th. Xu Qian, Xu Qian, how can you fall this low? This can't go on. Have you forgotten your goal? Set a small goal first—earn a hundred million."
"October 26th. Listening to songs at the pleasure house."
"October 27th. Listening to songs at the pleasure house. Didn't find any silver today; I actually had to pay a qian for the company of a girl. Pah. A filthy, smoky place. Never coming back."
"October 28th. This world has gunpowder, and it has firearms. Soapberries, too—and they work remarkably well. So much for my soap plan. I hate alchemists. Oh, right—glass!
I could melt glass. Glass is a fine thing; these ancient people have surely never seen it."
"October 29th. Oh, glass exists already too. I'll have to find another road. Today, at home, I found my second uncle's private savings. One qian of silver."
"October 30th. Listening to songs at the pleasure house."
"October 31st. I've stumbled on another money-making plan today: improving paper. The culture of Great Feng is thriving; if I can make better paper, I'll rake in gold by the day, eat the finest food, and bed the fairest courtesan queen.
Let me think. The process of making paper is (the whole passage struck through).
Very well, forget such trifles as paper. I have a better idea: making cement.
I know the ingredients of cement—calcium carbonate, silicon dioxide, aluminum oxide, ferric oxide—mixed to specific physical and chemical standards. Mm, found a qian of silver at the market today.
??? What's going on? The frequency with which I keep finding silver is getting alarming. This unsettles me."
"November 2nd. The cement plan failed. Book knowledge and hands-on skill are two different things. Bloody hell, truer words were never spoken."
"November 3rd. These past days I've burned through all my savings. I asked my second uncle for a loan, but the stingy devil has no money either. When Xu Xinnian found out, he first expressed his contempt, then mocked me, and finally handed over five taels. For all his sharp tongue and tsundere ways, my cousin isn't half bad after all. 'Were I not born in this world, Great Feng would languish in eternal darkness,' I shot back at him. Red-faced, Xu Xinnian flicked his sleeves and stormed off.
Second brother, if we weren't sworn brothers, I'd make you my leading lady."
"November 5th. Today I went with the yamen constables to a teahouse to goof off and heard, for the first time, a storyteller spin a tale. It suddenly occurred to me that if I wrote out the wuxia novels of my past life, the Four Great Classics, all the web fiction I knew, I could make money lying down. What a clever devil I am.
Saw another qian of silver today. That's tomorrow's pleasure-house money sorted."
"November 7th. I was such a naive fool. A single novel runs to hundreds of thousands, even millions, of words—am I supposed to write that out with a brush? Mm, I could make charcoal pencils. But... but I can't remember the plots of the novels!
Almost a month since my transmigration, and I've accomplished nothing. Argh, I'm going to crack apart."
"November 8th. Rainy, matching my mood. I understand a little of everything, it seems, but when it actually comes time to turn any of it into silver—to build something from nothing—I find I fall dreadfully short. Now I truly grasp the failure of a test-driven education.
Today I chatted with my second uncle, heard him talk at length about officialdom, added my own observations as a fast-hand in the yamen, and it suddenly hit me that this world is far worse than I imagined. Corrupt officials run wild and unchecked; a petty grafter passes for a good officer, and an honest one is rarer than a virgin in a pleasure house."
"November 9th, partly cloudy. Why hasn't Miss Caiwei from the Directorate of Celestials come looking for me yet? Doesn't she want the legendary alchemical secrets? That girl's face is no worse than Cousin Lingyue's—a charming, perky oval face with big, lovely eyes. With my perfectly honed skill at flirtation, who knows, I might win her over. Whether she's the disciple of the Chief Astronomer hardly matters. The real point is this: in this cold, cold society, I long for love.
Come find me soon. I don't want to keep grinding."
"November 10th. I still can't let the novel plan rest, so I told my two little sisters the broad outline of Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai. The story was rough—I've forgotten so many details. When I finished, Cousin Lingyue's eyes went red, but Lingyin didn't cry, so I punched her and she cried. I figure a girl of her age should be able to take a punch."
"November 11th. Drinking with Recorder Li tonight, faintly tipsy, he said the Consort of Prince Zhenbei is the foremost beauty of the court. I asked him just how beautiful she is. He couldn't describe it, because Recorder Li himself had only heard it from the Magistrate.
On the way home after work, I quietly asked my second uncle. His face took on the strangest look as he strained his meager vocabulary to describe the Consort's beauty. I distilled it to the essence: whoa. Life-giving assets.
It's piqued a flicker of interest and expectation in me toward the Consort."
"November 12th. To this very day, I've accomplished nothing. I've let down my country, and let down all the other transmigrators."
"November 13th. It's been a full month since I came to this world. The salary came through, and I've decided to work properly, taking my time with the merchant business."
"November 14th. Listening to songs at the pleasure house."