The peony tea party for the noble ladies of Chang'an was held beside the Nine-Curved Bridge at the Grand Coordinator's estate. Snow Mountain cold tea was piled high in carved lacquer trays, yet it could not rival the eye-catching nature of the carving knife in Huwa's hands. The young boy was squatting atop the white marble railing, carving a "tea-guarding ghost face" onto a stone lion, sending wood shavings fluttering down into the tangled-branch lotus patterns of the noble ladies' skirts.
"Little artisan, be careful!" Li Yuniang's Feicui bracelets chimed. "This railing is made of snowflake stone sent by Persian merchants. If you carve it up, you'll have to pay for it with your ghost-face wood carvings." Huwa stuck out his tongue and jumped down from the railing, holding up half a carved stone lion ghost face. "Lady Li, look! The lion is smiling with abacus-bead eyes, which matches your Feicui abacus just right!"
Giggles erupted among the group of noble ladies, and Zhang Yifan seized the moment to unfold his abacus and start reckoning. "Do all you honorable madams know that a single qian of wild ginseng prescribed by the Imperial Medical Academy can buy three dou of coarse grain?" The Abacus Beads bounced like butterflies at his fingertips. "If we use the improved codonopsis from Cyan Ox Village, the silver coins saved would be enough to dig ten wells for the children in the west-city slums—" He suddenly pointed at the stone lion ghost face Huwa had just carved. "Look at th…
Chapter 57