With the wheat successfully sown, Song Xia was finally able to breathe a sigh of relief.
Recently, her daily routine had consisted entirely of tilling and plowing the fields. Now that the wheat was in the ground, she only needed to wait about a week before checking the seedlings and replanting where necessary.
Therefore, after checking the soil moisture in the fields during the first and second days right after sowing and finding the overall condition to be excellent, Song Xia finally took a well-deserved day of rest after nearly two months of non-stop busyness.
She slept soundly in her room until the sky was already turning dark, finally waking up to stretch and stroll out sluggishly.
“Ah~ There is nothing better than getting enough sleep!” Song Xia stood at her doorway, throwing her arms out in a massive stretch and looking like a lazy cat. Feeling the cool autumn breeze sweep across her skin, she let out a heartfelt sigh.
Just as she finished, Shen Chunming’s head popped out from the neighboring doorway.
“Sister-in-law, you’re finally awake! I thought you had slept yourself to death!”
This kid was getting worse and worse at talking! Hearing Shen Chunming’s remark, Song Xia rolled her eyes at him.
“A-Ming, I’ve realized your literary standards are getting worse by the day. Let me ask you, do you know what three plus three equals?” Song Xia asked, raising an eyebrow as she stretched her limbs.
“Sister-in-law, looking at you right now, I don’t think you slept yourself to death—you slept yourself stupid!” Shen Chunming looked at Song Xia with the gaze one reserves for a fool, finding it too painful to watch. He instantly retracted his head and shouted back into the room, “Brother! My sister-in-law has gone silly! Come quick and take a look!”
“Hey! Who are you calling silly, you little brat?” Laughing and scolding him, Song Xia made a dash into the brothers’ room and grabbed Shen Chunming by the ear.
Shen Chunming squirmed under her grip, refusing to stop wriggling even as he appealed to Shen Huaijing for help. “My sister-in-law has definitely lost her mind! She actually just asked me what three plus three is! Isn’t that crazy? Who wouldn’t know what three plus three is?!”
“So you’re the one spreading rumors about me every single day, huh?” With a mock-sinister grin, Song Xia let go of his ear and switched to tickling his ribs.
Caught red-handed, Shen Chunming collapsed onto Shen Huaijing’s bed, giggling uncontrollably.
Watching the two of them bicker and tumble across his bed, Shen Huaijing felt a smile break across his handsome face—a face usually described as naturally cold—while a faint tenderness bloomed deep within his eyes.
“Hahaha, A-Ming, the flesh on you is really great for tickling! You didn’t grow those pounds for nothing!” Song Xia pinned his hands down, tickling his armpits while talking trash to provoke him.
“Brother! Help me! Sister-in-law is bullying me!” Although Shen Chunming was sturdier than Song Xia, he was still only a nine-year-old child and couldn’t match the seasoned tricks of the older girl. Being tickled into helpless laughter, he could only turn his head outward for rescue.
“If you provoke your sister-in-law, there’s nothing I can do. You’ll just have to beg her yourself.” Smirking, Shen Huaijing “mercilessly” rejected his own brother’s plea for help and even reached out to poke him twice.
Hmm, the tactile feedback really isn’t bad.
“Haha! Even your brother isn’t helping you. A-Ming, you might as well surrender!”
“Brother! Brother! Sister-in-law, I was wrong! I’m the silly one, I’m the silly one!” Realizing the situation was hopeless, Shen Chunming immediately begged for mercy.
“Fine, I’ll spare you this time.” Looking extremely pleased with herself, Song Xia released him and declared victory.
The moment she let go, Shen Chunming scrambled off the edge of the bed, pulled a face at her, and laughed, “Sister-in-law, you definitely slept your brains out! You even believed that stuff! Nyah nyah nyah!” With that, he bolted out the door to find Shen Jiang and the others.
Song Xia laughed and scolded after him, “A-Ming, just wait until you come back tonight!”
“He’ll definitely still dare to come back.” Shen Huaijing added with a chuckle from the side.
Hearing his voice, Song Xia looked up and found herself staring right at Shen Huaijing’s exquisitely chiseled chin.
Only then did she realize that during the scuffle with Shen Chunming, she had ended up leaning right over Shen Huaijing’s bed.
The distance between them was now agonizingly close.
Staring at Shen Huaijing from just an arm’s length away, Song Xia felt that her newly awakened brain might actually be as muddled as Shen Chunming claimed.
Shen Huaijing’s appearance was exceptionally striking, particularly the pair of slightly upturned phoenix eyes beneath his superior brow ridge. Unlike other phoenix eyes that could look overly sentimental, the琉璃-like pupils of Shen Huaijing’s eyes perfectly neutralized that sentimentality, adding a touch of aloofness and detachment instead.
Song Xia stared in a daze into Shen Huaijing’s eyes.
“What is it?” Seeing Song Xia freeze on the bed and thinking she might have gotten hurt during the scuffle, Shen Huaijing leaned slightly closer in her direction to take a better look.
His long eyelashes fluttered downward, gently veering over his eyes as he lowered his gaze. Watching him draw closer and closer, Song Xia finally snapped back to her senses, thrust a hand against his shoulder to stop him from coming any closer.
She immediately bounced up from the bed, turned her back to him, smoothed down her tumbled clothes, and rattled off at lightning speed, “Ah, I’m hungry! Let me go check what there is to eat!”
With that, she scurried away in a flurry.
Left behind on the bed, Shen Huaijing chuckled softly, his right hand gently brushing against the left shoulder where Song Xia’s hand had pressed, as if her palm’s warmth still lingered there.
She gets embarrassed far too easily, Shen Huaijing thought. Since she was his wife, what were they going to do if she stayed this easily flustered all the time?
Song Xia, who had sprinted out of the room, had no idea what thoughts were running through Shen Huaijing’s head. She only felt that she was acting a bit foolish today.
“Ha!” Scooping up half a ladle of water, she chugged it down in one go and let out a long sigh.
A sin, what a sin! How could you lose your resolve the moment you see a handsome guy, Song Xia? Shen Huaijing and you are only a fake couple; he doesn’t like you at all, and sooner or later you two are going to divorce and go your separate ways! You can’t let your mind wander!
True to her nature as a modern social butterfly who had stanned countless celebrity “idols,” Song Xia quickly adjusted her mindset. She rummaged through the kitchen, scooped up half a bowl of the “mixed bean porridge” Shen Huaijing had made with a look of mild distaste, and carried the bowl back into his room.
“Shen Huaijing, I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to just lie around the house all day,” Song Xia said, leaning against the doorframe of the inner chamber and slurping her porridge as she offered a suggestion.
“Hmm?” Shen Huaijing hadn’t expected that just moments after fleeing in a blush, Song Xia would bounce right back to discuss business with him as if nothing had happened.
Curious about her proposal, Shen Huaijing asked, “Then what do you think I should do?”
“Well, I think you could be a village schoolteacher!” Song Xia looked at him with a pair of bright, sparkling almond eyes.
She had been harboring this idea for a long time! Shen Huaijing was an educated man; she had heard A-Ming chattering about how, had it not been for his accident, Shen Huaijing would have gone to take the provincial examinations this year! With the capability to take provincial exams, his scholarship couldn’t possibly be poor.
Instead of letting him coop himself up at home to prematurely retire and overthink things, it would be much better to give him some purpose! People needed something to do, she reasoned, otherwise their mental health would start to fray.
At this thought, she lifted her bowl again to pretend to eat porridge, casting furtive glances at Shen Huaijing through the gap.
Good, for now, Shen Huaijing doesn’t look like he’s developed any psychological disorders yet.
Shen Huaijing paused when he heard the word “schoolteacher.” Ever since he learned that the son of a convicted official could not take the imperial examinations, he had never looked at those books of poetry and classics again.
Yet looking at Song Xia’s expectant face now, words of refusal sat right on the tip of his tongue, but somehow he couldn’t bring himself to say them.
Seeing him hesitate and look troubled, Song Xia assumed he was worried about pressure or failing to teach well, so she quickly reassured him, “You don’t need to feel any pressure! We aren’t expecting these kids to go master the classics and pass the imperial exams anyway. As long as they can recognize characters and figure out that three plus three equals six, it won’t be a waste!”
Song Xia hadn’t brought up three plus three out of nowhere earlier.
Auntie Xing’er’s son, Shen Jiang, hadn’t been able to answer that question right away.
Earlier, Song Xia had given Shen Jiang three pieces of sour pastry for the three siblings to share, and later that evening she gave him three more. Yet when Auntie Xing’er asked him later, “How many delicious treats did Sister Xiaoxia give you?”, the boy actually had to count on his fingers twice before coming up with the correct answer.
That incident had given Song Xia’s worldview a severe shock.
A seven-year-old child who couldn’t even master basic addition within ten!
Song Xia knew that most villagers were illiterate; after all, even when signing contracts, they only pressed a thumbprint or drew a circle to make it official. Still, she found it hard to believe that people here didn’t even understand the most basic arithmetic they used every day.
So when trying to think of something Shen Huaijing could do, she instantly thought of having him become a teacher. Teaching people to acquire knowledge, regardless of who they were, could never be a bad thing, right?
Shen Huaijing had initially wanted to refuse, but hearing her put it this way, he began to ponder it in his heart.
Personally, he felt an intense aversion toward studying and the imperial exams—it was a thorn in his heart that hurt the moment it was touched. But if it was merely teaching children how to recognize characters and count numbers, he didn’t find himself nearly as opposed to the idea.
Though he didn’t understand why Song Xia was so fixated on this.
For these lowest-tier villagers, was there any necessity to learn reading and arithmetic? Perhaps some of them would never even set foot in the county town in their entire lifetime, never touch a piece of white paper with their own hands, or never recognize a single Chinese character. They only needed to till their land well, hand over their grain harvest dutifully to the state, listen to the village chief, and do whatever they were told.
Why bother reading and learning characters?
Shen Huaijing couldn’t wrap his head around it, but looking at Song Xia’s expression full of hope, he quietly buried those private thoughts away.
Perhaps that was a question not worth asking.
Finally, under Song Xia’s expectant gaze, Shen Huaijing slowly nodded.
“You’re right. It’s good for them to read a few books. As long as someone is willing to come, I don’t mind acting as a teacher.” Although he said that, Shen Huaijing privately suspected that very few people would actually be willing to send their children over to study.
Unaware of the complex thoughts swirling in Shen Huaijing’s mind, Song Xia cheered happily when she heard him agree, “That’s wonderful!”
After cheering, she added with a slightly apologetic tone, “Actually, I could teach too, but I’m just way too busy with farm work all the time. Don’t worry, if you can’t handle teaching them or they get too rowdy, just let me know and I’ll come whip these little brats into shape!”
Song Xia patted her chest in assurance, though she was feeling a bit guilty inside.
Her busy farm schedule was partly an excuse, but the bigger problem was that she still hadn’t fully mastered the writing system of this era!
Dammit, she could read it just fine, but writing it eluded her completely!
Better not mislead the youth, Song Xia thought with a sweatdrop.
Seeing Song Xia so happy, Shen Huaijing suddenly felt that being a teacher might not be a bad idea after all. It was just that, given his low expectations regarding her optimistic “if you can’t handle it,” if even five children were willing to come to his “private school,” that would already be considered a flourishing scholarly atmosphere.
As it turned out, he was right.