The very next day, Song Xia eagerly went to consult the village chief about her idea of setting up a private school in the village.
However, this proposal was instantly met with a bucket of cold water from the village chief.
“Young Mistress Song, I know you mean well, but I’m afraid not a single child in our village will go.”
“Why?” Song Xia asked, somewhat puzzled.
“You’ve seen our village; any child who can walk and run has to start helping out with chores around the house. Besides, no family has spare cash to let their children study.”
“We aren’t planning on charging any tuition; we just want the children to learn some things. Learning more knowledge is always a good thing, isn’t it?” Hearing the village chief’s words, Song Xia immediately made it clear to him that neither she nor Shen Huaijing was doing this for money.
Thinking of those sun-bronzed children running around the fields, Song Xia felt a pang of sorrow in her heart.
Yet the village chief was equally helpless about this.
How could he not know the benefits of literacy? Aside from his family’s backing, the reason he was able to become village chief was precisely because he was literate and could read official documents and notices.
However, which family in the village had the leisure to let their children go study? Even in the village, he was the one who knew the most characters!
“I can help speak a word for you, but the final outcome will still depend on themselves.”
Ultimately, out of regard for Song Xia, the village chief decided to vouch for her once, though he also had his own selfish motive: if the villagers learned a few more characters, he wouldn’t have to struggle so hard every time he explained the imperial court’s official bulletins to them!
Hearing the village chief say this, Song Xia felt a bit bitter; she could already tell that this undertaking wasn’t going to be easy.
“No matter the outcome, we have to try.”
Sure enough, after following the village chief on a wide tour around the village, Song Xia ended up recruiting only four “students.”
In the small courtyard of the Shen residence, Shen Huaijing stared back and forth in utter disbelief at the four little radish heads standing before him, before turning his head to look at Song Xia.
“These are the students you found?”
“Haha, aren’t these quite good? Fewer kids make it easier for you to teach! Haha.” Song Xia forced a dry laugh and quickly pushed Shen Jiang forward. “Little Jiang, hurry up and go pay your respects to the teacher.”
That’s right, three of these four children belonged to Auntie Xing’er’s family.
Shen Huaijing looked with a complex expression at the three “acquaintances” before him. As for the remaining one he hadn’t met yet, it wasn’t a stranger either.
That was because when Wang Xiuli saw Song Xia and the village chief returning with looks of disappointment, she had stubbornly shoved her second son—who wore a thoroughly unwilling expression—over to Song Xia just to pad out the head count.
When Song Xia and the village chief went lobbying from house to house, the general attitude of every household was: “Oh my! Study those things for what? No need, no need!”
Even after the village chief repeatedly tried to persuade them, saying that learning things might lead to a great future and an official post, these villagers remained extremely “shrewd” and wouldn’t buy into it, replying either with: “Village chief, it’s enough that you know how to read! It’s useless for them to learn these things!”
“Oh my, you mustn’t talk like that! We wouldn’t dare dream of official posts! It’ll be a miracle if they have enough to eat later on!”
Others bluntly laid it out: “My Gouzi and his dad have already found a place. As soon as winter arrives, they’re heading to the county town to do odd jobs! There’s really no time for that!”
Only Auntie Xing’er had hesitated after listening, and ended up packing all three of her kids off to Song Xia.
“It’s just right that these three little monkeys run wild around the village all day! It’ll be great for them to learn something from Master Shen and soak up some of his scholarly aura! If they can learn a few characters, then when we go to pay the grain tax next time, at least we won’t be completely clueless!” Auntie Xing’er had laughed and said to Song Xia.
Song Xia was equally helpless about this outcome; she couldn’t very well pounce forward and drag other people’s kids over by force!
Therefore, looking at Shen Huaijing now, Song Xia felt a bit sheepish. Just yesterday, she had grandly assured Shen Huaijing that she would definitely set up a private school, yet all four of these children were only here to show her face and lend support.
“Sigh, why don’t you all introduce yourselves?” Realizing the difficulty of this endeavor, Shen Huaijing quickly accepted the scene before him.
“Greetings, Master Shen, my name is Shen Jiang.” Like his mother, Shen Jiang felt a bit intimidated upon seeing Shen Huaijing, and honestly gave a rather clumsy, half-baked scholar’s bow.
“Mm, state your age as well, and how many characters you recognize.” Shen Huaijing added indifferently.
“Master Shen, I’m seven years old, and I don’t know any characters.” Shen Jiang honestly added.
“Mm, next.” Shen Huaijing nodded to signal the next one.
“Master Shen, my name is Shen Weiqiang, I’m eight years old this year, and I know…” Shen Weiqiang started counting on his fingers, “…ten big characters!”
“My name is Shen Yun, I’m five years old this year, and I don’t know any characters.”
“I-I’m called Xiaohua!”
Shen Huaijing glanced at the toddler-sized Shen Xiaohua, casting a helpless look toward Song Xia.
Song Xia pressed her palms together and bowed to him with a smiling face.
Please, please! Even I didn’t expect this!
Shen Huaijing sighed. He found that the number of times he sighed helplessly lately was growing higher and higher.
“Alright, I roughly understand your situations now. Your levels are a bit too low and you can’t study together with Shen Chunming; we’ll have to start from the absolute basics.” Pausing for a moment, Shen Huaijing suddenly turned to look at Song Xia.
“Xiaoxia, they’ll need paper and brushes to study.”
Song Xia had agreed with Shen Huaijing that teaching the children would be tuition-free, simply giving Shen Huaijing a purpose to occupy his time.
However, once the teaching started, many practical matters had to be taken into consideration.
For instance, a classroom, and for instance, writing supplies.
The classroom was easy enough to handle since the Shen family residence currently only housed three people, making it possible to make do with studying out in the courtyard for now, but paper and brushes couldn’t simply materialize out of thin air.
Hearing Shen Huaijing ask this, Song Xia immediately thought of a solution: “We can start by learning on the sand!”
She had already considered this point beforehand; since there were no paper and brushes, they could just use sticks and sand! Write it down and wipe it clean—it was neither wasteful nor messy to tidy up!
Upon hearing Song Xia’s idea, Shen Huaijing thought about it for a moment and smiled.
She really was very clever.
The moment she finished speaking, Song Xia dragged out a small sack from the west storeroom—where sundries were kept—and dumped its contents out in front of everyone.
It was a bag of fine sand.
Song Xia patted the sand off her hands and blinked mischievously at Shen Huaijing. “I prepared this long ago.”
She had spent ages searching for this in the fields today!
She just hadn’t expected to recruit only these few students, Song Xia thought, looking at the large pile of fine sand on the ground.
Uh, looks like I prepared too much.
Shen Huaijing squatted down, reached out, and felt it. “This sand is very fine; it’ll be great for writing.”
Raising his head then, his phoenix eyes gazed down from above, revealing a trace of charm that caught Song Xia slightly off guard: “Thank you for your hard work, Xiaoxia.”
“Uh, n-no problem.” Every time she was looked at directly by those light-tea-colored eyes, Song Xia would lose her focus a little and offer a dry reply.
“Though we certainly won’t need this much.” Seeing Song Xia’s reaction, Shen Huaijing lowered his gaze again, dipping his head to chuckle softly. “Half of it will do, and A-Ming doesn’t use fine sand anyway.”
And just like that, the five-person mini private school was established right there in the courtyard of Song Xia’s home.
In the Shen family courtyard a few days later.
“Older Brother, Sister-in-law! Why do they have to come to our house every single day to study math and writing?! They are so stupid! Up until now, Shen Jiang still doesn’t know how to write his own name!”
During the亥 hour (around 9:00 PM), Song Xia was busy in the kitchen making sour pastries, while the Shen brothers helped her pit hawthorn berries nearby.
Shen Chunming asked the two of them with a look of extreme dissatisfaction.
“They’ve been here for days and haven’t learned a thing! Every day they learn something and forget it the next; how can they be even stupider than me?!”
Shen Chunming had been very unhappy these past few days. Originally, he had been quite pleased that someone else was being forced to read and write just like him, but gradually, he began to sense something amiss.
His older brother and sister-in-law were treating these kids way too well!
When he hadn’t finished his homework, Shen Huaijing would punish him by increasing his workload, but when those other kids completely forgot what they had learned the day before, Shen Huaijing didn’t get angry at all; instead, he patiently re-explained it to them all over again!
Shen Chunming suffered a mental breakdown. By nature he was rather domineering, and now he felt even more strongly that all the attention his older brother and sister-in-law used to give him had been stolen away by these newcomers.
“Older brother, stop teaching them! They simply can’t learn!” Shen Chunming puffed out his chest and raised his chin, delivering his final verdict.
Thump! Song Xia used the back of her hand to rap Shen Chunming on the head.
“What kind of nonsense are you babbling! They’ve only been studying for a few days, while you’ve studied for years! A-Ming, your perspective is too petty, way too narrow!” Song Xia warned him, “Let me tell you, A-Ming, these students were all pulled in with great difficulty by me. If you scare them away, I won’t let you off!”
“Hmph!” Shen Chunming turned his head away and huffed.
Seeing him act like this, Song Xia thought to herself: You can’t handle a child’s jealousy so forcefully; I need to think of a different approach.
Rolling her eyes twice, Song Xia softened her voice and coaxed him with a slightly seductive tone, “Think about it, A-Ming. If they’re lagging behind you in everything they learn, then you can teach them! That way, think of it—oh my! They’ll even have to call you ‘Little Master’!”
Sure enough, Shen Chunming was instantly hooked by Song Xia’s words. “Really? If I teach them, then I can be considered their master too?!”
“Of course! As the ancients say, ‘When three people walk together, there is certainly a teacher of mine among them.’ Of course you can be their teacher!” Song Xia spouted nonsense with her eyes wide open.
“Then! Then I’m going to go tidy up my homework right now!” Having heard her words, Shen Chunming couldn’t sit still any longer. He squirmed on his stool, sprang up to his feet, threw a hasty remark at the two of them, and bolted into the room like his tail was on fire.
Leaving Song Xia chuckling in the kitchen.
Kids really are easy to trick!
“Confucius’s words were twisted by you to that extent, and he didn’t even get to react. It looks like A-Ming’s homework needs an increase in volume.” Having listened to the whole exchange from the sidelines, Shen Huaijing spoke up unhurriedly.
Song Xia thought to herself: I told you so! Kids are easy to trick! As for this adult—how annoying!
“I’m not talking nonsense either. The literal meaning of Confucius’s quote is that when multiple people travel together, there are surely those among them worth learning from. Then the deeper meaning is just that learning shouldn’t be restricted to specific individuals; as long as the other party possesses traits worth learning from, I should learn from them, right? Working backward, since A-Ming is better than them, there’s nothing wrong with them calling A-Ming ‘Little Master’.” Her hands never stopping, Song Xia briskly worked while casually explaining herself to Shen Huaijing.
Hearing her explanation, Shen Huaijing narrowed his eyes slightly. Watching the slender figure busy amidst the candlelight, he once again felt a wave of perplexity regarding Song Xia herself.
As far as he knew, Song Xia came from an ordinary peasant background. Her family had farmed for generations, and by Song Xia’s generation, they were dirt poor. Her parents had passed away early, and she scraped by making a living alongside her older brother and sister-in-law.
How was she able to casually quote Confucius’s classic sayings and even expound upon deeper principles? Those were things only old scholars with profound learning would say.
And even…
Shen Huaijing paused his seed-pitting motion. She also understood so many other things.
Wheat cultivation, sour pastries, curved-beam plows, and she could even diagnose illnesses and prescribe medicine.
She truly made it harder and harder for him to figure her out.