I Became the Eldest Daughter of a Fallen Family - Chapter 47

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

Episode 47. Tofu and Soybeans (1)
A cauldron borrowed from the Sim Household sat in one corner of the So Household courtyard.
So Yeon-hui examined the cauldron once, then glanced around the yard.
She quickly picked up a short stick, tied twine to one end, and planted it in the exact center of the cauldron.
Then, flipping it upside down like a compass, she used it to draw a perfect circle on the courtyard floor in charcoal.
Next, she alternated checking the twine and a brick, finished her rapid mental calculations, and nodded to herself.
“Good. Nine bricks per layer, and since firewood needs to fit underneath, eight bricks for the bottom will work.”
So Yeon-u’s eyes went wide.
“Wow, how did you calculate that? The cauldron’s round like the moon, not angular like bricks.”
“I just applied the diameter. What’s so surprising?”
“The diameter?”
“Simpleton. You don’t even know that?”
So Yeon-su chimed in from the side.
“It’s the length across the center of a circle.”
So Yeon-u pouted and objected, looking offended.
“I’m not a simpleton. I know what the diameter is. But how does that tell you exactly how many bricks you need?”
“Well… you just multiply it by 3.14. The circumference equals the diameter times Pi.”
So Jin asked quietly, arms crossed.
“Three point… what? Pi? What are those?”
“Ah, I mean the Circumference Ratio. We usually multiply the diameter by three, but if you calculate more precisely, you get an infinite decimal starting with 3.14.”
So Yeon-hui continued, pointing alternately at the cauldron and the bricks.
“So when you multiply that by the diameter, you can find the circumference quite accurately. Look here—the cauldron’s diameter is roughly three bricks, just a bit short. Multiply that by the Circumference Ratio of 3.14, and…”
“You get just over nine, so nine bricks will fit perfectly!”
So Jin exclaimed as though struck with wonder. He looked back and forth between the bricks and cauldron several times, then spoke again, unable to hide his delight.
“If we apply this method, we could easily calculate how much material we’d need to build city walls or fortifications.”
“Perhaps so. Though I’m not sure there are many walls built in a perfect circle.”
“It would help when laying out a circular battle formation too. I’ve always wondered how many soldiers to position where.”
So Yeon-hui glanced at her father. His eyes had already taken on that distant look—as though her words weren’t reaching him at all.
“Once I know how many soldiers to place in the formation, I could estimate the total force strength. And once the required force is clear, I can calculate how much provisions we’d need.”
Watching her father spin out his thoughts endlessly, So Yeon-hui shook her head.
The twins shrugged as well. Their father had a tendency to sink terrifyingly deep into whatever captured his focus.
“Let’s just build it ourselves, quickly.”
So Yeon-hui rolled up her sleeves lightly and began stacking bricks along the circle she’d drawn earlier.
Without mortar, the work didn’t take long. Once she’d set the last brick in place and dusted off her hands, a neat little clay oven stood in the center of the courtyard.
Watching it come together, So Jin spoke with frustration.
“Really. Those fool treasury officials who keep delaying budget allocations because this simple thing is supposedly too complicated to calculate—what are they thinking?”
“Thieves, obviously.”
“What did you say?”
“Well, isn’t there a saying? A nation isn’t poor because it truly lacks resources. It’s poor because there are too many thieves.”
“… Still, isn’t calling officials thieves a bit harsh?”
“Think about the taxes the people pay. There’s no reason money should be scarce. Shouldn’t the state be supplying armor for you and your commanders in the first place? How many times has our household had to empty its own coffers to manage it?”
“That’s… well, true enough, what you say isn’t wrong.”
So Jin smiled bitterly as he spoke.
At that moment, the kitchen door opened and Lady Hong and Lady Jang emerged into the courtyard together.
“You said you’d only tell us what clay oven materials to change, but there’s been complete silence since.”
At Lady Hong’s crisp voice, So Yeon-hui belatedly tensed her shoulders in alarm.
She’d promised to come back quickly and help sort the spoiled beans. It looked like they’d already finished.
While she scrambled for an excuse, both women’s footsteps stopped simultaneously as they spotted the crude clay oven standing plainly in the center of the courtyard, with the cauldron resting on top.
Lady Hong spoke first.
“What, what is that? How is the clay oven already here? And… those aren’t bricks, are they?”
Lady Jang’s eyes narrowed.
“You made a clay oven from materials used in tombs? So Yeon-hui. Explain yourself—what on earth is this?”
So Jin stepped forward quietly.
“Don’t scold Yeon-hui. I approved this as well.”
“Sir!”
Lady Jang sighed as though exasperated.
“When Yeon-hui sets out on some ridiculous venture, you ought to stop her. Why do you always defend her like this? Really, the way you favor your eldest…”
Other households divided sons from daughters and discriminated against the latter, but So Jin was different.
He showed no favoritism between sons and daughters in general, but he had a particular soft spot for his eldest daughter, So Yeon-hui.
‘Perhaps he feels sorry for not doting on her enough when she was small, unlike the twins.’
The borders had been turbulent then, and there was little he could do—yet a father’s heart worked in mysterious ways.
Watching her husband so consistently weak when it came to So Yeon-hui, Lady Jang felt both sympathetic and vindicated.
‘Well. And who told him to play the loyal minister?’
But before Lady Jang could even fire off a retort at her frustratingly virtuous husband, So Yeon-u threw her arms about wildly and interjected.
“That’s not it! Father approved it because the youngest piglet was the only one left alive!”
“Idiot! How will anyone understand if you explain it like that? You need to tell the whole pig story.”
Even the usually composed So Yeon-su furrowed her brow and added her voice.
“We don’t have a single chicken in the house—why are you bringing up pigs all of a sudden?”
Lady Jang let out an exasperated breath.
True, a donkey had somehow ended up crammed in the storage shed. But that was borrowed from the Wei Household for delivering tofu and soybeans.
Once the delivery was complete, it would obviously need to be returned.
According to So Yeon-hui, the 6th Imperial Prince apparently gave it as a gift. But then again—would the Wei Household or anyone really understand why the 6th Imperial Prince would suddenly send gifts to the So Household?
But her confusion didn’t have time to settle, because her youngest son So Yeon-u sighed deeply and interjected once more.
“It’s not that… it’s the Analogy Method! That’s it. She used the Analogy Method!”
“What in the world is all this? Yeon-hui, you explain it.”
In the end, So Yeon-hui had no choice but to recount the tale of “The Three Little Pigs” to her mother and grandmother.
Though this time she added the caveat that it wasn’t meant to trick her siblings, but rather to impart a lesson about diligence—and she also mentioned that in the Western Regions, building with bricks is common and taken for granted.
She added that people there naturally use bricks for construction.
“The Western Regions are the Western Regions; the Dajin Empire is the Dajin Empire. I don’t know how things are there, but here, bricks are used for tombs.”
“But Grandmother, we can’t avoid making sauce just because we’re afraid of maggots. If there’s a better material, we should use it. Look at the beans—everyone only knew to boil them. Would anyone have thought of processing them so many different ways?”
So Yeon-hui spoke as she placed half the soaked beans into the cauldron and poured water in evenly.
Then, before her mother or grandmother could stop her, she briskly loaded firewood into the crude clay oven and lit it.
“Ugh! Who can stop that stubbornness!”
“This is why people say teaching girls too much is tiresome. Men can read all the books they want and just talk in circles, but women—once they think something’s good, they go right ahead and do it without hesitation.”
Lady Hong laughed with a slight snort as she spoke.
In the old days, she would have said only half of what she’d just said and caused misunderstandings. When had she become so frank?
So Yeon-hui asked her father for help placing a millstone on the bench built in the courtyard and began grinding the remaining soaked beans.
“Here, let me do it.”
Thanks to her father stepping in with the notion that heavy work should fall to men, she was spared the labor.

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————