Ever since that day they’d left the Northern Five Houses and run into that nursemaid outside Zhongcui Palace’s gate, Yin Cheng and Zhao Xiaojin hadn’t gone out again.
Their daily routine had become extremely simple.
At dawn, one would get up to check on the sprouts, the other would get up to drink a health tonic, a little later they’d eat, then sit at the writing desk to write and draw for the rest of the morning. After a nap, they’d eat again, then take a stroll in the courtyard to help digest their food, before returning once more to the desk.
Although Yin Cheng had spent long years bedridden with illness, now that his health was visibly improving day by day, he still needed to keep up with his studies. If his father ever quizzed him and he couldn’t answer a thing, that would never do.
As for his secondary consort, these past few days she’d been unusually quiet, absorbed in teaching herself to paint. Her handwriting still wasn’t smooth, and yet she’d already set her sights on practicing painting technique. Still, credit where it’s due, at least every brushstroke was clearly visible now, even if it was impossible to tell what she was actually drawing.
What Zhao Xiaojin was drawing, of course, was an oil lamp.
The little monk had been staying up later and later these nights, reading by candlelight and spending long stretches writing characters. She wanted to move the candle further away, but the farther it went, the dimmer the light got.
Wang Xiaohai stayed by his side the whole time, making sure the candle stayed lit while also staying safe. But even though a fresh layer of paper had been pasted over the wooden window lattice, the occasional draft from outside still found its way in somehow, sending the candlelight flickering.
Zhao Xiaojin had stayed up with him the first few nights, but seeing that she couldn’t get up the next day, she’d stopped keeping it up.
Still, her resolve to build an oil lamp hadn’t wavered, if anything, she was even more determined now to actually produce glass. All that paper on the wooden windows needed replacing too, swapped out for glass, brighter, and windproof besides.
She’d learned from the little monk that all the furnishings in this room came from a place called the Imperial Workshop. So, could that workshop possibly find a way to produce glass as well?
She could explain what she knew: it started as a slightly yellowish sand, which turned white after processing, and then, with extremely high heat, could be melted into glass. Of course, whatever came out at first surely wouldn’t be as clear as the glass she’d seen before. There were plenty of steps in between she wasn’t aware of.
“I’d like to have something made.” Zhao Xiaojin brought it up suddenly one day while strolling through the courtyard.
“What would you like?” Yin Cheng didn’t think anything of it.
Ever since his secondary consort had arrived, she’d never actually asked for anything. Even the clothes on her back and the ornaments she wore had all been sent over by his mother, assorted blessing-and-longevity trinkets, changing in style almost daily.
“That crystal cup in the room, I’d like a clear one.” That was the first time Zhao Xiaojin had seen anything resembling glass, it had apparently been put away before, so she’d never noticed it.
“A crystal cup?” Yin Cheng thought about it, that cup had been brought back by his Ninth Brother from outside. He’d said it looked nice and wanted to show it to him.
“Yes, that one. But it’s yellow. What I want is for this cup to sit between us, and I can still see you through it, and you can still see me too.” Zhao Xiaojin gave an example, mimicking holding an imaginary glass cup up between herself and the little monk.
Yin Cheng watched his earnest secondary consort across from him, he had no way of conjuring up such a thing purely from her description. But since his secondary consort had said it, she must have seen such a thing somewhere before. The south really did have no shortage of fine things.
Thinking about it, he found himself a little envious of his secondary consort. As a prince, despite having grown up in the palace, he’d never really gotten to see much of the world himself. The farthest he’d ever traveled was to the pox-avoidance quarters outside the palace, nowhere near as much as his secondary consort had apparently seen.
“I’ve never seen what you’re describing. Wang Xiaohai, do you know of it?” There didn’t seem to be anything like that in the palace.
“Reporting to the Young Master, Xiaohai has never seen such a thing either.” Wang Xiaohai stepped forward. “But I have heard of something, apparently, when someone reads for many years and their eyes start failing to make out the characters on the page, they tie on something called ‘aidai,’ and afterward they can see clearly again.”
“I’ve heard of that too, the missionaries at Father’s court seem to have something like it, though it’s not called ‘aidai.’ They call it some kind of ‘mirror’ or ‘lens,’ I think.” He’d heard the term once and forgotten it since.
“Might it be called ‘eyeglasses’?” Zhao Xiaojin wasn’t sure what the term would be in this era, but it really was made of glass too. If that were the case, then her oil lamp had a real chance of being made.
“Eyeglasses? That would make sense. So, the cup you want, is it something similar to that?” Yin Cheng couldn’t quite picture it, he’d never actually seen either item, so he couldn’t figure out how a cup could have anything to do with a mirror worn on one’s head. Could you even see through one?
“Yes, they’re both made from the same kind of sand. Whoever knows how to make eyeglasses surely knows how to melt sand into glass.” So, if she could just find someone who knew how to make eyeglasses, her oil lamp would already be more than halfway done.
His secondary consort seemed to trust him a bit too much, he had no idea where he’d even begin looking for such a person.
Yin Cheng thought it over, but didn’t say so out loud. This was the first time she’d ever asked for something, he had to find some way to make it happen, no matter what. If all else failed, once his Ninth Brother returned to the palace, he’d go ask him next door.
But before he even had the chance to ask his neighbor, Wang Xiaohai brought good news of his own.
“Young Master, this servant did a little digging, and it turns out eyeglasses can actually be found right here in the capital.” He relayed what he’d learned.
“Apparently eyeglasses first became popular in the Suzhou-Hangzhou region. Twenty or thirty years ago, there was a man named Sun Yunqiu who developed some kind of technique, and after that the price of eyeglasses dropped considerably, ordinary folk could buy a pair for just five or six qian. Even here in the capital now, there are shops that specialize in fitting eyeglasses.”
Yin Cheng had quietly sent Wang Xiaohai to investigate this on his own, without telling Zhao Xiaojin. Now, taking advantage of her having gone off to check on her green sprouts, the two of them hurried to discuss it.
“It wouldn’t do to go looking for craftsmen outside the palace to make the cup my secondary consort wants, too much back and forth, too inconvenient. It’s been a while since the furnishings in my rooms were last changed anyway. While we’re at it, let’s just have the Imperial Household Department replace everything at once.” Every prince’s rooms were allotted a fixed set of furnishings.
He’d spent so much time bedridden before that he’d never cared about any of this. Now that his health had greatly improved, wanting to change up the furnishings was entirely reasonable. Slipping in one extra cup among it all was hardly worth mentioning.
Zhao Xiaojin didn’t expect things to move along quite this smoothly, though truth be told, both of them still had something weighing on their minds.
Yin Cheng had originally assumed his secondary consort simply wanted a cup, while Zhao Xiaojin’s actual goal was to build an oil lamp, so their explanations wouldn’t quite line up. And when the people from the Imperial Household Department eventually arrived, it would still fall to the Eleventh Prince to speak on her behalf.
So this matter needed to be sorted out clearly first.
Zhao Xiaojin brought out the drawing she’d spent days sketching and placed it in front of the little monk.
“When I said ‘cup’ before, it was because I hadn’t seen any glass around here, and I was worried it couldn’t actually be made.” Who would have thought eyeglasses were already this common here.
Yin Cheng looked at the drawing before him, sketched stroke by stroke by her own hand, no real technique to it, hardly what you’d call a proper painting. But his secondary consort, still a rank beginner with a brush, must have gone through who knew how much paper to produce something this clean, free of stray ink marks.
No wonder the cut paper on the desk had been going through so quickly, this was where it had all gone.
The object on this paper was, once again, something he’d never seen before. Something that looked like it could be carried by hand, resembling a lantern at first glance, except it had a base.
“What is this?”
“This is a kind of lamp, one that burns oil.” Zhao Xiaojin pointed to the oil lamp in the drawing, which was at least somewhat clear.
“This is the base, and there’s an opening on the base where you pour the oil in. This clear part is the lamp chimney, it needs to be made from the same glass used for eyeglasses. In the middle is the wick. When you use it, you lift the glass chimney up, light it, then lower the chimney back down, and after that you don’t need to worry about wind blowing it or flickering the light. There’s also a small switch here that controls how bright or dim the flame is, turn the switch to make it brighter. And this is the handle, so you can carry it around easily wherever you go.”
Zhao Xiaojin explained everything she knew about her own drawing. But the little monk, had he not understood any of it? Why was he just staring at the drawing without saying a word?
Yin Cheng had, in fact, understood everything. His secondary consort had explained it all using the simplest, plainest words, and with the drawing to help besides, what was there for him not to understand? He simply didn’t expect that, over nothing more than a flickering candle bothering her eyes, she’d go to the trouble of designing an entire proper lamp, just to guard against the occasional draft.
Ever since he’d been old enough to understand anything, he’d spent most of his time lying in bed, he hadn’t even gotten to see much of his own mother. The princes in the palace were all raised by other consorts from infancy, only moving to their current residences once they turned six.
Over the years, he’d received plenty of gifts, blessings for good fortune, wishes for long life, that sort of thing, mostly. No one ever considered whether he actually wanted them, the giving itself was simply a show of goodwill.
Time and again, he’d woken up on the very day he first saw his secondary consort, and though he’d never understood why before, now he was beginning to have some sense of it.
Perhaps this was heaven’s arrangement all along, bringing this little girl into his life, so that he’d stop sinking hopelessly into darkness. His body grew stronger, day by day, flesh slowly returning to his frame, and even his once-colorless, barely-visible brows were starting to take on some real shape.
If this weren’t all because of his secondary consort, he wouldn’t believe it.
Though, of course, at the very beginning, he hadn’t believed it at all.
Yin Cheng slowly rolled up the drawing in his hands. “I’ll keep this. When the people from the Imperial Household Department arrive, I’ll have them make it properly.” A gesture like this from his secondary consort deserved to be taken seriously.
“That’s good, then.” As long as he’d understood.
Zhao Xiaojin didn’t think much more of it, and simply left the drawing with the little monk.
“Oh, also, if you manage to produce glass, could you have them make some extra? I’d like to replace the paper pasted on the windows with glass panes instead.” That way, they wouldn’t have to worry about wind, and the room would be brighter during the day too.
“Once it’s made, I’ll have them replace it.” At this point, whatever his secondary consort wanted, he found himself willing to agree to almost anything.
But the moment the Imperial Household Department people showed up, they nearly wept.
The Eleventh Prince’s Northern Five Houses had always been the quietest, least demanding household among all the palace masters. But this time, no one dared make that assumption anymore.
At first, everything had gone smoothly enough, back and forth, the Eleventh Prince simply nodding along as the furnishings were confirmed one by one, no problems at all.
But then, out of nowhere, out came a drawing. And as if that weren’t enough, the Eleventh Prince personally launched into a full explanation of it.
What oil? What chimney? What was he even talking about?
“Eleventh Prince, this humble servant is a bit slow, could you explain more slowly?” If he didn’t speak up now, he’d surely be in for a beating once he got back.
It should be said, anyone who made it into the Imperial Workshop of the Household Department had real skill to their name. Someone lacking ability, someone whose mind couldn’t keep up, wouldn’t last there, even those who got in only ever seemed to end up on the receiving end of a beating. Which was exactly why people had taken to jokingly calling the Workshop the “Beat-the-Dimwits Department”, not entirely without reason.
“Fine, I’ll say it again, and this time don’t miss a word of it.” Yin Cheng, in high spirits, and eager to see his secondary consort’s idea rendered as perfectly as possible, showed not a hint of impatience.
He explained it all carefully once more, making a particular point of highlighting every detail his secondary consort had asked him to pay attention to.
“There’s no rush on this lamp. Have your Workshop work out the glass first, and once you have something to show, bring it here for me to see.” Better than risking his secondary consort’s disappointment and having to start all over again.
The visitor could no longer afford to worry about anything else, he pulled out the paper and brush he always carried and jotted down every last item, one by one.
Following what the Eleventh Prince had described, they’d first need to source glass suitable for eyeglasses, and also build the tools needed to blow glass into shape. Each item on that list alone would take no small effort.
In front of the prince, he nodded along dutifully. The moment he stepped outside, though, his face fell completely.