Chapter 886: The Lantern Festival Market

Beijing’s Lantern Festival Market originated from an imperial order issued by Emperor Yongle, Zhu Di. Initially, it was held from the eighth to the eighteenth day of the first lunar month, with the fifteenth day being the main festival day. During this time, officials were granted leave, curfews were lifted, banquets were held in the imperial palace, fireworks were set off, and shops throughout the city also displayed lanterns. The market was first located in front of Wufeng Tower and was later moved outside Donghua Gate at the beginning of the Xuande era. A two-li-long street was filled with lanterns every year during the Lantern Festival, causing the original names of the alleys to be gradually forgotten. Most people in the capital simply referred to this alley as the Lantern Festival Alley.

Since there had been unrest in the capital recently, many people thought that the leave and lantern displays might be canceled. Thus, when the emperor ordered extra leave and lanterns to be displayed throughout the city, it brought great joy to everyone. Starting from the eighth day of the first lunar month, the city was illuminated by dazzling lanterns, and the market was crowded every day. It was said that countless shoes were trampled during morning cleanups, and small items like handkerchiefs, rings, and fan pendants also allowed some people to make a little money.

As night fell, the daytime market transformed, but the number of pedestrians and vehicles did not decrease at all, as every shop displayed various kinds of lanterns. Larger shops usually hung colorful lanterns made of silk or colored glass beads, while those with fewer resources used wheat straw or reed. Along the two-li-long street, colorful lanterns shone brightly, crowds flowed continuously, and there were also drum music, fireworks, and acrobatic performances.

At that moment, a street performance with drums and gongs was surrounded by a crowd. The burly man at the center was still bare-chested in the cold, holding a blazing torch from which flames emerged with each breath, drawing continuous applause from the onlookers. A woman nearby performed various acrobatics on ropes tied between tall wooden poles, earning more applause. When the performance ended and an old man came to ask for money, most people, aside from a few who just wanted to watch for free, threw a copper coin up to him.

When the old man reached the center, he saw a seven- or eight-year-old child excitedly shouting at him. He quickly squatted down, and sure enough, the child handed him a handful of copper coins—no fewer than a dozen. Overjoyed, the old man thanked them repeatedly before collecting the money. After he left, a young man next to the child snapped his head impatiently.

“It’s natural to want to give more when you’re happy to see it, but you also need to consider what you’re giving as a reward. If I hadn’t watched, you would have given away the whole string, and who knows how many people would have been eyeing it then. Didn’t you and Tianci investigate current prices? What can a small string worth fifty coins buy? I don’t need to teach you that!”
“Dad, I was just too engrossed!” Jingguan chuckled, then pulled at Zhang Yue’s sleeve and pleaded, “Please don’t tell Mom, or I’ll get scolded again!”
“You deserve it for saying your mom wastes paper last time.”
Zhang Yue tapped the kid’s head lightly with his finger before leading Sannan outside. When they reached the street, he suddenly realized their large carriage was gone, which shocked him greatly. As he searched around, he finally saw Niugan rushing over with a worried expression.
“Young master, the young mistress and the others have gone to solve riddles.”
The Lantern Festival is held every year, with lanterns and dragon dances everywhere, but the most attractive activity is undoubtedly solving riddles. In the busiest part of the market, several adjacent restaurants had posted hundreds of riddles, with a piece of jewelry as the prize for each correct answer, drawing a huge crowd.
Many young women who usually stayed at home also came out, pushing through the crowd and sometimes getting taken advantage of, but for the chance to get new jewelry, they forgot all their shyness and grace. Some even urged their lovers to solve the riddles, and soon many people were competing for the colored paper with the riddles on it.
When Zhang Yue arrived at the largest restaurant in the center with Jingguan and Sannan, he saw a scene of excitement among countless people. Dazed, he looked around before finally spotting their carriage, unadorned with any decorations. Du Wan and Hupo Qiuhen were standing there, looking at a stack of colored paper, while several guards were scattered around, watching the surroundings. Before he could ask anything, he suddenly saw someone pushing through the crowd, holding a bunch of riddle papers—it was Peng Shisan. Peng Shisan rushed over eagerly and, without saying a word, stuffed all the papers into his hands.
“Young Master Yue, I need your help. I can only look at these riddles; I can’t solve them. If I don’t get any prizes, my wife will scold me to death!”

Zhang Yue stared in astonishment at the stack of riddles that had been forced into his hands. Just as he wanted to object, a voice called out from behind him. Turning around, he saw Qiu Hen waving at him with a smile, so he simply walked over. There, Du Wanhu Bo was studying several riddles intently, while Ling Xi stood beside her, frowning and pointing here and there.

“Young master! You’ve come just in time. Please help us guess them. Although we don’t really crave that jewelry, at least it can bring good luck. Since Brother Peng has grabbed so many riddles, let’s all work together to divide them later as a festive treat. It’s better than buying anything—much more festive!”

“Right, right! Dad, I want some too!”

Seeing Jing Guan cheering along, Zhang Yue felt annoyed. Glancing back at the crowd busy guessing riddles, he noticed countless people with wrinkled clothes from being squeezed around, yet they still shouted and cheered without care. He couldn’t help but laugh silently, thinking that with so little entertainment these days, such treats were less about temptation and more about stoking people’s competitiveness. So, seeing Du Wan and the others engaged in the guessing, he chuckled and joined them to take a look at the riddles.

“Returning from treading through flowers with butterflies around one’s knees—guess a traditional Chinese medicine. There are so many such medicines; it’s almost impossible to guess!”

“Look at this one: ‘Withered flowers—guess a line from a Song poem.’ Hmm… isn’t it ‘Scattered and turned to dust’?”

“Restless mind—guess a character… What could that be…”

Seeing Ling Xi and Hu Bo already leaning in close together, unaware that Nuan Er had fallen to the ground, Zhang Yue stepped forward and coughed. All four pairs of eyes turned to him. Ling Xi even shoved the papers in her hand at him and said with a smile, “The young mistress has already guessed three or four. You take care of the rest, young master!”

Zhang Yue took the riddles and, after examining several intricately designed ones, began to rack his brains. The people who created these riddles must have studied countless Tang and Song poems and riddle collections to come up with so many puzzles, so they weren’t easy to solve. He examined each one with interest but only managed to guess a few.

“Returning from treading through flowers with butterflies around one’s knees—this is obviously Cyperus rotundus. Restless mind—guess a character… Hmm, it must be a repeated character, no doubt about it. An old image of the Kitchen God—guess a Tang poem. Got it: ‘Face covered in dust and soot.’ Falling petals—guess a name of a traditional Chinese medicine…”

“Honghua San!”

Just as Zhang Yue was talking, a man’s voice suddenly came from behind her. She turned her head in surprise and saw Xiao Wu smiling at her and winking, while pointing at a group of people beside them. There was a woman wearing a jade-colored silk jacket and a blue satin skirt, with a lotus-pink cloak over it. Her hat had been taken off, and her plain colors, combined with her natural, unadorned face, made her look especially charming—it was Ruan Shi. When she saw Ruan Shi bowing gracefully, he quickly waved his hand, immediately recognizing that beside her were her brother Ruan Qin and Li Cheng.

Li Cheng had spent five whole days at the Divine Machine Camp. Though he wasn’t likely to hold grudges, he still felt uneasy when he saw Zhang Yue. After all, she was a legitimate high-ranking official of the court, while he was merely a subject from Annam, and he was already approaching fifty, wishing only to live a peaceful life. So after Ruan Qin stepped forward to greet her, he tried his best to keep his gaze down, so as not to give the impression that he was staring at their family members. But to his utter surprise, Ruan Qin was enthusiastically helping Zhang Yue guess riddles and then chatting nonstop about the new weapons being made at the Armory Bureau, showing no signs of restraint at all.

“Ahem!” Zhang Yue didn’t want to discuss business with a man on this rare Lantern Festival, so she cleared her throat and changed the subject. “Do you brothers still live with Mr. Nanweng? Since you both are experts in firearms, that’s quite convenient. If you have time in the future, feel free to visit us—there’s so much to talk about regarding firearms that it can’t be covered in just one visit.”

Ruan Qin nodded, about to respond, but Ruan Shi pulled him aside firmly. As a woman, she naturally glanced at Du Wan and the others over there, thinking that although these ladies weren’t particularly stunning, each had her own merits. No wonder Zhang Yue remained so restrained in front of high-ranking officials. At that moment, she secretly called her brother a complete fool. After smiling and bowing, she said to Zhang Yue, “It’s rare for our cousin to have time to visit us at the lantern market. We’ll take our leave now so as not to disturb your enjoyment.”

Seeing Ruan Shi insist on pulling Ruan Qin away and noticing that Li Cheng also seemed to avoid Zhang Yue like the plague, Du Wan stepped forward. She curiously watched the three of them for a while before lightly saying, “So this is the beautiful woman from Annam?”

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but she’s certainly a smart girl.” Zhang Yue had no sense of guilt about this, so he spoke quite calmly. “Her brother, on the other hand, is a fool who listens to everything his sister says. Just now, he couldn’t even read body language. If it were just him in the Armory Office, he might have been torn to pieces by others… Ah, I only hope his brother isn’t too eager. Judging from his appearance just now, he might actually come to me to discuss firearms.”
Zhang Bu and his men kept their mouths shut, so few people in the Zhang family knew about this Annamese beauty’s story. However, those few didn’t include Qiu Hen Hu Bo and Ling Xi, so while there might not be hostility, there was certainly curiosity. After all, for a woman sent as a gift to a man’s bed to eventually use her intelligence to save her brother and settle down in the capital was already quite remarkable, let alone for a foreign woman.
Curiosity came and went quickly. When Zhang Yue shifted the topic to solving the riddles and claiming the prizes, everyone forgot about those three passersby. Although Zhang Yue had done his best, he still couldn’t compare to Du Wan and Hu Bo Ling Xi working together. Yet, out of all those riddles, they managed to solve twenty-three.
Peng Shisan naturally took care of delivering the prizes. But this time, after he made his way through the crowd, a middle-aged man wearing a six-in-one hat followed him. The man’s expression was initially unfriendly. Seeing the dozen or so guards around and noticing that the women in the middle were dressed in silk jackets over sleeveless cloaks, and though they weren’t covered in jewels, the few pieces of jewelry they wore were quite valuable, he realized that it wasn’t someone causing trouble but rather that his restaurant’s riddles had offended this clearly wealthy group.
At that moment, he couldn’t help but wipe sweat from his brow and hurriedly tried to smooth things over with a smile, saying, “My restaurant only has worthless items like silver-plated trinkets. Since all of you are noble people, I’m sure you wouldn’t even want them for free. How about I treat you…”
“Who said we don’t want them? These twenty-three answers correspond to twenty-three pieces of jewelry. Whether expensive or cheap, I want them all!” Peng Shisan, having gone back and forth once, thought the middle-aged man wanted to play tricks and immediately snapped, “It’s only fair to give prizes for solving the riddles. If you refuse, all those people guessing riddles over there won’t let you off easily!”

The middle-aged man was intimidated by Peng Shisan’s firm attitude. Seeing that Zhang Yue and the others were just smiling without saying anything, he weighed the pros and cons and had no choice but to agree. As he walked back, he cursed inwardly at those experts invited to solve the riddles, calling them fools for letting others solve over twenty riddles so easily. But there really weren’t that many silver jewelry items in the building. His eyes sparkled as an idea came to him. In a short while, he returned hurriedly with an inlaid lacquer box.

“Sir, and you too, big brother. I know everyone comes out to enjoy the Lantern Festival for joy and good fortune. You probably don’t care about silver jewelry. I have delicate silk flowers just delivered from the south, along with several silver-embellished combs, exquisite hairpins, beads in various bright colors, and different types of silk threads. Though they’re not worth much, they can at least be played with. How about I use these to settle the debt?”

Peng Shisan was about to speak again, but Zhang Yue finally couldn’t stand it any longer. “Enough, Old Peng. Stop pestering them. Everyone is just here for fun. Just pick a couple of things they like.”

As he spoke, he stepped forward to take the box. The others looked through it: Du Wan picked some silk threads, Hu Bo took an exquisite hairpin, Qiu Hen Lingxi each got a silver-embellished comb, while Jing Guan chose a silk flower for San San. No one else took anything. Xiao Wu searched through the box for a while and settled for a pack of beads. So when Zhang Yue handed the box back, the middle-aged shopkeeper, who had thought he had suffered heavy losses this time, let out a sigh of relief and thanked them repeatedly, becoming even more convinced that these must be wealthy families coming out for fun.

Just as everyone was happy, Liansheng suddenly appeared out of nowhere, rushed forward, and whispered in Zhang Yue’s ear, “Young master, Eunuch Wang from the Imperial Surveillance Bureau is at the house. He says it’s his fault for losing the emperor! The emperor and Princess Chenliu should be at the lantern market right now. Please help search quickly!”