Zhenyi was dragged away from the study by her mother, her wrist held tightly. She didn’t dare speak the entire way. Wang Yuan whispered, “Look, Second Sister’s so scared she doesn’t even dare breathe…”
Zhan Mei looked over and vaguely sensed that Zhenyi seemed lost in thought…perhaps she hadn’t yet managed to banish the numbers from her mind?
While Zhenyi herself remained silent, Ju Zi meowed and grumbled the whole way, like Zhenyi’s defense lawyer.
Zhenyi was taken to her grandparents’ house. The two elderly people, worried about their granddaughter, hadn’t yet had a chance to rest.
Yang Jinniang, with tears in her eyes, recounted Zhenyi’s actions, making her apologize to her parents, saying she shouldn’t have caused them so much worry.
Zhenyi then knelt down and bowed respectfully to the head of the table.
Wang Zhefu naturally wouldn’t blame his granddaughter for this. He simply asked Zhenyi, “Tell your grandfather, why do you want to study mathematics?”
The little girl knelt there and answered without hesitation, “I like it.”
“Oh?” Wang Zhefu: “Then why do you like such a dry and obscure thing?”
“Father, Zhenyi doesn’t find it dry.” The girl’s hair was slightly disheveled by the wind, her large eyes earnest and innocent: “Zhenyi finds it infinitely wondrous.”
Zhenyi began her studies at the age of three, and four years have passed since then. She always has many questions to ask, but few can truly give her answers.
She loves words and poetry. Although she can’t yet clearly express why, as she grows older, she will know that what she likes is the reasoning, the scenery, the sentiments, the civilization, and its expressiveness.
But mathematics is different. It is cold, impartial, and constant. No external force or emotion can change its answer. It doesn’t offer expression; it’s simply there, waiting to be explored and utilized. Zhenyi was drawn to this absolute and constant fairness, but at seven years old, she was too young to fully comprehend this feeling.
The source of Zhenyi’s interest was related to the Lantern Festival at Suiyuan Garden half a month earlier.
That night, Zhenyi witnessed a group of scholars and poets gathered in the courtyard under the moonlight, erecting a wooden ruler about five inches long in the center. At midnight, they would observe the length of the moon’s shadow to predict the year’s drought or flood.
This was one of the customs of the Lantern Festival, called “testing the water meter.”
The women also went to watch the spectacle. Zhenyi heard her mother say that they were divining the will of Heaven, asking the heavens about this year’s rainfall.
Could the will of Heaven be divined?
On the way home, Zhenyi asked her grandfather.
Her grandfather told her that this involved celestial phenomena and mathematics.
Afterwards, Zhenyi begged to learn mathematics, and Wang Zhefu complied, teaching her. But only now, upon hearing the words “infinitely wondrous,” did he truly grasp the matter.
Wang Zhefu stood up from his chair, his expression one of delighted surprise and deep emotion: “…Truly wondrous! Indeed!”
“The study of mathematics can trace the true nature of all things in the world.”
The old man pulled the little girl up from the ground, his eyes filled with a love a hundred thousand times greater than before, as if he were seeing the path of inheritance he had almost given up hope for. He finally sighed, “Our Deqing, truly a good child!”
Seeing Zhenyi’s affirmation, Ju Zi was gratified, yet also felt a slight regret. If this were modern times, it would definitely enroll Zhenyi in ten or eight tutoring classes, letting her learn to her heart’s content.
Wang Zhefu said rather solemnly that he would teach Zhenyi calendrical calculations.
Wang Xirui then suggested that Wang Yuan and Wang Jie also study, along with Zhan Mei, who was staying in Jinling as a guest. Zhan Mei’s family had been friends for generations, and Zhan’s father hoped his son could receive guidance from Wang Zhefu.
While Zhan Mei was still lost in thought about the phrase “infinitely wondrous,” Wang Yuan was already reeling from this unexpected misfortune.
—Clearly, it was his second sister who was being interrogated, so why was he the one being executed? Forgive his bluntness, but couldn’t these clever people have their own world? They shouldn’t drag these useless fools into it! Waaaaah!
Yang Jinniang, unaware of the situation, grew increasingly uneasy, but she dared not question or oppose her father-in-law’s decision and could only try to ask her younger siblings.
The Third Madam comforted her, saying it wouldn’t matter much; just consider it a good opportunity to learn accounting in advance. Women who want to manage the household must know how to read accounts.
Only then did Yang Jinniang feel relieved. After calming down, she couldn’t help but regret her anger towards her daughter in the study.
Back in the courtyard, Zhenyi was exhausted. While bathing, she fell asleep on the edge of the small tub.
Chun’er chuckled and poked Zhenyi’s chubby cheeks, then carried her out, dried her off, dressed her in soft undergarments, and tucked her into bed.
Zhenyi slept soundly, clutching the blankets. Ju Zi lay beside her, sprawled out, her furry belly exposed, sleeping quite carefree—making a paperweight was hard work, after all.
Yang Jinniang and her husband sat by the bed, looking at their daughter’s sleeping face. A mix of tenderness and self-reproach filled them. She choked back tears, saying softly, “Today in the study, I don’t know what came over me, like I was possessed by some evil spirit. I don’t know if I frightened her…”
“Judging from her appearance, she wasn’t frightened at all,” Wang Xichen comforted his wife. Looking at their daughter, he slowly said, “This is the first time I’ve seen a father praise and love a child so much. If Yi’er were a boy, she would be a hundred times better than me as her father…”
Yang Jinniang lowered her head, wiping away tears, her voice low and soft: “It’s my womb that’s letting me down…”
“Jinniang, that’s not what I meant,” Wang Xichen chuckled and sighed, wiping his wife’s tears. “Besides, we’ll have more children eventually…”
He pulled his wife into his arms: “Yi’er’s intelligence and studiousness are not a bad thing. She can teach and guide her younger brother in the future…”
Yang Jinniang’s face flushed slightly, but a sudden, inexplicable sense of peace settled in her heart, as if she had finally found a “proper and respectable” use for her daughter’s studiousness.
Hearing the couple’s private conversation, Ju Zi felt somewhat presumptuous. She rolled over, facing inward, stretched her legs over her head, hugged them with her arms, buried her head, and curled herself into a snail shell, continuing to sleep.
The commotion caused by Zhenyi’s study of calendrical calculations subsided during this Jingzhe solar term.
On the day of Jingzhe (Awakening of Insects), it’s best to avoid the cold and seek warmth. After reading, the old man would occasionally take the children to sunbathe by the Defeng Pavilion, sometimes practicing Tai Chi. Orange (the child) even learned a few moves, planning to find a raccoon cat to practice on later.
One day, Zhenyi ate too much and had indigestion, experiencing some abdominal pain. Wang Xichen prescribed medicine for his daughter and also boiled white radish, red dates, and hawthorn berries into a decoction for her to drink.
The decoction tasted quite sweet, and Zhenyi scooped a few spoonfuls into a small wooden bowl on the small table.
Orange (the child) lightly jumped up, licked it twice, and liked it very much, then buried her head in it and drank it earnestly.
Wang Xichen preferred to brew soup instead of tea, and the soup he brewed varied with the seasons and even the solar terms. Listening to her father’s instructions on the temperature of food, Zhenyi sat obediently in her chair and asked, “Father, why do people eat different things in different solar terms?”
“You often read the ‘Collection of Seventy-Two Seasonal Phenomena,’ so you know the way of the changing seasons for all things in the universe. But you may not realize that humans are also part of all things, and thus subject to these changes. Human hair, skin, bones, and meridians also change with the seasons, only not as clearly as the flourishing and withering of plants, so they are not easily noticed.”
Wang Xichen always spoke with great interest about this: “Adapting one’s diet and lifestyle to the changes of the seasons is the way to good health.”
Ju Zi thought that if Xichen lived in modern times, he could probably be a health blogger.
Last time Ju Zi had diarrhea, in this Qing Dynasty, without pet healthcare, Ju Zi had already resigned herself to dying, but unexpectedly, Wang Xichen saved her with two doses of medicine.
Back then, Orange had suggested—listen to the cat, become a doctor, don’t bother with the imperial examinations, there’s no future in that.
After drinking the radish water, Orange shook its paws, sat upright on the small table, and began licking its fur.
Zhenyi curiously asked Orange why it always shook its paws after drinking water, even though they weren’t wet.
Orange meowed and continued grooming—it couldn’t answer that question, it just wanted to shake them a few times. Cats don’t always have a reason for everything they do; if they did, they wouldn’t be cats.
But people usually do things for a reason. Orange vaguely felt that the atmosphere at home had changed recently, but it didn’t know why.
Xirui and Xichen were always frowning and whispering, and people in long robes often came to the house. When they bowed and said goodbye to the old man, they would often shake their heads and sigh.
However, the old man, always smiling broadly, returned to his study after seeing off his guests and told the children with a smile that he would take them to see a dragon that evening.
Ju Zi, lying openly on the desk, scoffed at this.
Wang Zhefu added, “Not a paper dragon, but a dragon from the sky.”
Ju Zi’s eyes widened, and he looked up—”Where? Take me to see it now!”