Yan Mu woke up very early the next day due to a troubled mind.
The sky had cleared up after the rain and several small water puddles had accumulated in the courtyard. The air was especially fresh. Yan Mu took a deep breath. Just when she felt a little calmer, she saw Yu Yuan standing by the short wall, staring at the hole that she had poked in it.
“……” Yan Mu was frozen. She silently turned around and was about to slip away, but right at that moment, Yu Yuan heard something and slowly turned around.
Staring at each other, Yan Mu felt so embarrassed that she wanted to bury her head in a puddle.
“……. I’m going back.” Yu Yuan didn’t mention the hole. He simply began speaking indifferently.
“Are you going back to Hunter Zhang’s house?” At his words, Yan Mu looked up worriedly.
Yu Yuan didn’t reply.
Yan Mu tentatively asked, “Is it because of…… your mother’s heirloom?”
“There are other reasons.” A sharp light flashed in Yu Yuan’s eyes as he thought of something. That hint of sharpness disappeared so quickly that if Yan Mu hadn’t been watching him, she was afraid she would have missed it.
She suddenly remembered the incident when Zhang Goudan rolled down the mountain. Yan Mu opened her mouth but didn’t know what to say.
Yu Yuan took a glance at Yan Mu. After staying silent for a while, he finally said, “I’m going back.” With that, he turned around and walked out.
Only after seeing Yu Yuan’s silhouette disappearing outside the door did Yan Mu wake up.
“Yu Yuan! Wait a minute.” Since she had trouble with her legs she thought she wouldn’t be able to catch up with him. Unexpectedly, he purposely slowed down his pace at the corner to wait for her.
Yu Yuan looked at her in silence. His eyes were beautiful, eyelashes thin as butterfly wings and eyes as dark as the midnight sky.
Yan Mu smiled at Yu Yuan and stuffed a packet of something into his hand. It was wrapped somewhat carelessly in oilpaper, and looked like it had been packed up in a hurry.
“This is for you.” Yan Mu said, somewhat embarrassed.
She hoped that with this parcel of things, Yu Yuan could forget about her night attack and peeping. Yan Mu’s toes curled in embarrassment when she remembered what had happened last night.
Yu Yuan glanced at it and was about to speak, but he saw the young girl gripping a bamboo pole and returning to the courtyard as if she was fleeing.
“……” Those unspoken words just got stuck in his chest.
Yu Yuan found a hidden place to stand, then lowered his eyes and slowly opened up the oilpaper packet.
When he saw what was inside, he paused. Wrapped in the brown oilpaper were two dazzling golden-yellow vegetable millet dumplings and a large white egg.
The summer cicadas were crying relentlessly. The sun stealthily rose and the thin clouds gradually disappeared. Scorching heat came and went as the fresh morning breeze mixed with the sun’s warmth.
The corners of Yu Yuan’s mouth slightly twitched as the young girl’s fleeing silhouette unavoidably appeared in his mind. He sat on the ground, picked up the vegetable millet dumpling and ate small bites as if he was savoring a delicacy.
It wasn’t until he had eaten even the last crumbs on the oilpaper that he stood up and patted his clothes, turned around and unhurriedly walked away.
**************
When Yan Mu returned home, Father Yan had already woken up to clean.
“Daughter, have you eaten?” Father Yan took a stack of papers out from the top shelf of the cupboard along with a thin book.
“Yes.” Yan Mu nodded.
Actually, she hadn’t eaten breakfast as she had given her portion to Yu Yuan. But there was no need to say such things to Father Yan, so even though her stomach was rumbling with hunger, she still said yes.
She looked towards the thin book and tried to divert her own attention, “Dad, what’s that?”
“After not attending private school for just a few days you already forgot about your textbook?” Father Yan joked with a smile.
…… Private school? It seemed like there really was such a matter.
Father Yan loved his daughter very much, so the original owner was the only girl in the village who could go to school. Unfortunately, the original owner had been in poor health and took leave every few days.
But even so, Father Yan still insisted on letting Yan Mu go to school. When she wrote the setting, she had just casually mentioned Father Yan, so she could only discover the reason for his persistence through the original owner’s memories.
After thinking for a long time, she vaguely remembered that the reason seemed to be related to the original owner’s mother.
Well, yet another person she hadn’t written about. It seemed like the world had automatically repaired the plot holes again.
Although the private school teacher ran the school to fill his lonely days, he still had to charge money for the books. In this era, the books were costly, and no matter how cheap the school fees were, the villagers couldn’t easily afford them.
In regard to Yan Mu attending school, many villagers often pointed behind their backs and talked about Father Yan foolishly wasting money.
“I didn’t forget.” Yan Mu snapped back from her daze, as she struggled to retrieve the original owner’s fuzzy memories, she wondered, “Didn’t Teacher go home to visit his family? Won’t it be a while before he returns?”
“Teacher’s letter already arrived yesterday. Dad was busy cooking the rabbit stew and forgot to tell you about it” Father Yan laughed, somewhat embarrassed. His hands never stopped organizing the things Yan Mu used for class, and then pulled out a small pink school bag.
“Teacher mentioned in the letter that he will be back tomorrow, so you must at least review your lessons today.” Father Yan said as he walked into the courtyard and hung the schoolbag on the clothesline.
“But dad, my leg isn’t healed yet.” Yan Mu was acting cute, trying to make excuses.
It wasn’t hard to know that Hunter Zhang wouldn’t let Yu Yuan study. Since Yu Yuan couldn’t attend private school, there was no point for her to go. Her top priority right now was to kiss Yu Yuan to replenish her life, not to be this era’s Number One Female Scholar[1].
But to Yan Mu’s surprise, Father Yan was extremely insistent on this matter, and no matter how much she coaxed, he still wouldn’t yield. He even ordered her to finish reviewing her lessons today.
Yan Mu sullenly picked the book up , but felt her head spin when she saw the rows of vertical traditional Chinese characters inside.
When she wrote the setting, she didn’t specify the world’s standard style of writing, and as a result, the world just automatically set it to traditional Chinese characters. Fortunately, she did roughly set up the teaching materials, and they were still the Four Books[2] and Five Classics of Confucianism[3]. Read this novel at novelping dot com for the best experience.
In her hand she had an even more basic one, the “Three Character Classic”[4].
Father Yan had gone out to do farm work after he finished organizing. Originally, Yan Mu wanted to procrastinate, but Father Yan said that he would check her homework when he returned. She had immediately withered at his words.
She let out a sigh and obediently picked up the book. Actually, Yan Mu had already memorised the “Three Character Classic” in elementary school. Although she’d almost forgotten it all, she still managed to recognize quite a few traditional characters after comparing it to what she already knew.
Outside the window, several yellow orioles rested on the treetops, chirping noisily. A cool breeze blew through, and the half-closed door of the courtyard creaked.
Yan Mu only read for a little while and felt dizzy.
After struggling to graduate in the modern era, she didn’t expect to have to start all over again now that she’d transmigrated into a book.
So hungry. I want to eat something wuu wuu wuu.
Yan Mu plopped on the table, only to feel her stomach growling even more.
The wind seemed to be stronger, slamming the windows. At first, Yan Mu thought it was someone knocking.
Yan Mu was afraid that the window would break, so she covered her hungry stomach and got up to close it.
“Huh?” Yan Mu saw an oilpaper package on the window sill with her sharp eyes.
The oilpaper was finely wrapped, neat and tight. More nicely than Yan Mu could have done.
Yan Mu hesitated for a while before picking up the packet and opening it.
The oilpaper was wrapped layer after layer. It was obvious that the person who wrapped this was very attentive.
When Yan Mu looked at the thing inside, she let out a surprised “eh”.
— It was a large white egg.
It was the one she had wrapped up for Yu Yuan.
[1] 状元 (zhuàngyuan) – title conferred on the ones who come first in the highest imperial examination
[2] 四书 (Sìshū) – the four major Confucian classics, namely, The Great Learning (《大学》), The Doctrine of the Mean (《中庸》), The Analects of Confucius (《论语》), and The Mencius (《孟子》)
[3] 五经 (Wǔjīng) – namely, The Book of Songs (《诗经》), The Book of History (《书经》), The Book of Changes (《易经》), The Book of Rites (《礼记》), and The Spring and Autumn Annals (《春秋》)
[4] 三字经 (Sānzì Jīng) – 13th century reading primer consisting of Confucian tenets in lines of 3 characters