Wei Nian thought that he just said it casually, but at the dinner table that day, Chen Xuan received a lot of sour remarks from Old Lady Wei and Wei Jin. Wei Jin said that she was "a country girl making trouble for foreign things", while Old Lady Wei said, "Why should you learn to read? As a woman, the most important thing is to work hard. This is the duty of a daughter-in-law."
Seeing his mother and sister like this, Chen Xuan didn't say a word, just drank the porridge silently, and Wei Nian said quickly, "Look at you, isn't it good to know how to read? At least you won't make mistakes when you look at a sign, and you can also do calculations and so on."
"A woman, there are plenty of shopkeepers in the shop, why should she be the one to do the accounting?" Old Mrs. Wei ate her porridge and squinted her eyes to carefully look at Chen Xuan. She felt that although Chen Xuan was from the countryside, she was really thoughtful, so she said, "Our family is just buying vegetables, which is your sister-in-law's job. Your wife doesn't need to learn to read. It's useless!" She also found a job for Chen Xuan, "If you are free, the shop assistants' spring clothes have not been made yet, so cut them today."
Although Chen Xuan is honest, she has one advantage. No matter what the Wei family says, she just won't say a word. If Mrs. Wei tells her not to learn to read, she won't listen. When Chen Xuan had breakfast, she didn't have porridge. She drank two bowls of porridge.
The men went to work in the shop. Chen Xuan and Li cleaned up the kitchen. Chen Xuan thought for a moment and whispered to Li, "Sister-in-law, I learned to read not for the purpose of buying groceries and keeping accounts. I just came from the countryside and I can't read a single word. So I thought I'd learn a few from Sister Yin."
Li put the bowl in the cupboard with a gauze drawer and smiled, "What's the big deal? It's really convenient to learn some words." She whispered to Chen Xuan, "The old lady and the eldest sister-in-law are just like that. Don't take it to heart." In fact, even if Chen Xuan learned to read in order to get the job of purchasing goods, Li would not care at all. Li was such a docile person. She got along well with Chen Xuan. Chen Xuan was diligent and often helped to make clothes and shoes for the children when she was free. Li did not think much about it.
Seeing Li like this, Chen Xuan was secretly grateful in her heart.
She has been in the Wei family for two lifetimes, and the thing she is most thankful for is that she met her younger sister-in-law Wei Yin and her elder sister-in-law Li, both of whom are kind people.
Because of Wei Nian's big mouth, Chen Xuan suddenly had more work to do.
When making midnight snacks at night, she didn't cook anything special for Wei Nian, but simply asked Wei Nian to eat mutton pie.
Wei Nian knew in his heart that he was too talkative and had caused Chen Xuan to be criticized by his mother and sister. After eating mutton pies for ten days, Wei Nian handed Chen Xuan a brown paper bag when he returned to the room at night. Chen Xuan asked, "What is it? Keep your own things for yourself, don't give them to me." Chen Xuan has a good temper, but she is not someone who will not get angry. It's just that she is used to being a coward, and even if she is angry, she will not argue with others, she will just keep silent. So, it has been more than ten days, and every night when Wei Nian returns to the room, no matter what he says, Chen Xuan will ignore him. Wei Nian also has the temper of a young master. Sometimes he gets angry, but he also feels that he is not in the right in the end. Fortunately, he is a lively person, and handed it to Chen Xuan again, "It's for you."
Chen Xuan took it and opened the brown paper package. She saw an indigo cover. She opened it and found snow-white paper inside. Chen Xuan stared at it, "A notebook?"
"This is called a notebook." Wei Nian took out his own pen from the drawer and stuck it on the indigo hard cover for Chen Xuan. Then he stuck the pen on the cover of the notebook. Wei Nian covered his mouth and said, "I spoke too quickly that day and didn't think much about it. You want to learn to read, but I saw that you wrote on some old paper. I gave you this notebook as an apology. I also gave you the pen, so don't be angry."
As the old saying goes, one should be grateful when receiving favors from others and should be grateful when eating from others.
Chen Xuan thought, this old saying is really true. However, Chen Xuan is a principled person, she said, "I heard from Ah Yin that your pen is a branded pen, it is a valuable item. I don't want it, you can just lend it to me for daily use. I will accept this notebook, but you can't say anything without thinking about it in the future. The old lady gave me a lot of needlework, and now I have less time to practice calligraphy."
Wei Nian couldn't do anything to his mother and sister, and he repeatedly assured Chen Xuan, "I will think twice before doing anything in the future."
Chen Xuan solemnly accepted the notebook Wei Nian gave her and said, "Then I won't be angry with you anymore."
Wei Nian took the opportunity to say, "Don't eat mutton patties tomorrow."
Chen Xuan's lips smiled slightly, "You are a little irritated, you should eat some vegetarian noodles to calm down."
“Okay, okay!”
Chen Xuan had originally planned to stop being angry with Wei Nian when she saw that he had a sore on his mouth, but unexpectedly, Wei Nian gave her a notebook. Chen Xuan was not a greedy person, but this notebook really suited her taste and was what she needed right now, so she happily accepted it.
Chen Xuan received Wei Nian's generous gift, so she not only changed the midnight snack for Wei Nian, but also cooked mung bean porridge for Wei Nian in a separate stove, saying that Wei Nian had a fever and she wanted to eat it to cool him down. Sometimes, she would cook soup with white fungus and pears for Wei Nian, and at this time, Mrs. Wei would also say that she also had a fever and eat two bowls of soup.
Wei Yindu said, "No one loves my second brother more than my second sister-in-law."
"It doesn't matter whether it hurts or not. This is the duty of a daughter-in-law!" said Mrs. Wei.
Wei Yin pouted at her sister and said to her mother, "Mom, you should talk to my eldest sister about this."
"What's wrong with your eldest sister? She gave birth to two sons for the Zhao family, isn't that good?!" When Old Mrs. Wei was talking about her eldest daughter giving birth to sons for the Zhao family, she couldn't help but think about how Chen Xuan had been married for three months, but there was still no news.
But think about it, it's only been three months, so it's normal that there is no movement.
Glancing at Chen Xuan who was altering clothes, Mrs. Wei didn't say anything.
After the first month of the lunar year, the weather turned warmer, so Chen Xuan took apart and washed last year's cotton-padded jacket, removed a layer of cotton, and changed the jacket into a padded jacket and continued to wear it.
There were just two things that worried Chen Xuan. The first was that she still hadn't found a way to make money to pay back Wei Nian. The second was that Wei Yin only knew a limited number of words, and Wei Yin had basically taught Chen Xuan everything he knew.
Chen Xuan was thinking about how she could learn more words.
In fact, Chen Xuan can now recognize most of the characters commonly used at home, but she just wants to recognize more characters. She always feels that recognizing characters is a great thing, and naturally the more characters she recognizes, the better.
In order to learn more words, Chen Xuan even looked through the Wei family's calendar and old almanac.
It can be said that Chen Xuan’s desire to learn to read almost overwhelmed the issue of her debt.
Chen Xuan thought about it for a few days and finally came up with a solution. Chen Xuan discussed it with Wei Yin privately, "Sister Yin, I heard you say that our neighbor Mr. Xu is a scholarly family. Sister Yin, I think that if we just try to recognize words out of thin air, the more we think about it, the harder it is to think of anything. What do you think, can we borrow a book from the Xu family? That way, we can read the book and recognize any words we don't know."
"Borrow books from Uncle Xu?" Wei Yin waved his hands when he heard this. "Second sister-in-law, forget it. Uncle Xu treats books as his lifeblood. Once, a friend of Uncle Xu borrowed a book from him and forgot to return it. The friend's family lived in Jiangnan, so he took the book to Jiangnan. Uncle Xu had limited money, so he borrowed a dollar from our father, bought a train ticket overnight, chased to Jiangnan, and got the book back. How could he be willing to lend us a book?"
Chen Xuan didn't think it was possible at first. However, she thought about it for a while and said, "Hey, I heard that Jiangnan is a very far place."
"That's right. It takes two days and two nights to travel by train."
"The fact that Mr. Xu traveled so far to get the book back shows that he loves books very much." Chen Xuan said seriously, "It's his friend's fault. How could he forget to return the book? If you borrow and return, it won't be difficult to borrow again."
Of all the neighbors that Chen Xuan knew, only the Xu family was relatively familiar, and the Xu family was also a family of scholars. Apart from the Xu family, Chen Xuan really had no other place to borrow books. Chen Xuan made up her mind and said to Wei Yin, "Sister Yin, there is no rush for this matter. Let's try it first."
Although Chen Xuan sounded very confident, in fact, she was not sure at all. Mr. Xu, who was so fond of books that he could take a train for two days and two nights to a place as far away as Jiangnan for a book, would not be willing to lend the book to a country woman like her. However, even if she was not sure, Chen Xuan wanted to give it a try.
After pondering for several days, Chen Xuan made up her mind.
She had always been honest, and after making up her mind, she felt that this was not a fair thing to do, as if she was scheming against someone. However, Chen Xuan was still shameless, and when the Xu family girl came to look for Wei Yin, she was very attentive to help serve tea and water. Sometimes, when Mrs. Wei was not at home, she was bold enough to take snacks from Mrs. Wei's snack box. Chen Xuan did not eat any of them, but put them on a white porcelain plate and sent them to her sister-in-law Wei Yin and the Xu family girl, asking them to eat.
Old Mrs. Wei knew about this the day before. It was not that she took out the snack box to count, but Wei Jin told her. Because when Chen Xuan took the snacks, Wei Jin was not happy and did not let Chen Xuan take them. Chen Xuan had set her sights on the girl from the Xu family. She said to Wei Jin, who was looking down at her, "The girl from the Xu family is Ah Yin's friend, and our grandfather has a good relationship with Mr. Xu. Our family is not a stingy family." Then, Chen Xuan took three pieces of snacks, put them on a plate and took them away.
Wei Jin did not fail to complain. Old Mrs. Wei said several things to Chen Xuan, saying to Chen Xuan, "Is this yours? You are so generous."
Chen Xuan kept her head down and let Old Lady Wei scold her. Then, when the Xu sisters came again, Chen Xuan gave them snacks, which made Old Lady Wei so angry that she directly got a big lock and locked the snack box. Chen Xuan had no choice. However, although she had no snacks for the Xu sisters, Chen Xuan had already used snacks to shamelessly get to know them.
This is mainly because the second and third sisters of Xu went to school since they were young. They were educated, but their needlework skills were very average. It was said that they were not very good at it. Mrs. Xu and Aunt Xu had to take care of the household affairs every day. When they were too busy, they would occasionally have to sew a button or a buckle by themselves. Anyway, that work was pretty average. This was said by a kind person like Chen Xuan. Chen Xuan said to them, "Your wives and concubines are also busy. You and Ah Yin are good sisters. I am a few years older than you. If you don't mind my lack of education, just call me sister. Hey, you are well-educated people. Needlework and other things should not be your duty. I look at you like my own sisters. If you don't mind, take it off first and I will help you sew it. It will also save you the trouble of calling your wives and concubines later." This series of words was not said by Chen Xuan suddenly. She had always wanted to make friends with the Xu sisters. She was bold enough to give them snacks from Old Lady Wei. Chen Xuan had always paid attention to the Xu sisters. She had long seen that the needlework of the Xu sisters was average, and some places were even more ordinary than ordinary. Chen Xuan was not familiar with the others before, so she couldn't ask them why their needlework was so poor. But as they gradually became familiar with each other, she realized that she was not good at talking, so she practiced in private for a long time before she found a chance to talk to the Xu sisters.
Chen Xuan has no other advantages, she is just used to doing housework, she helped the Xu sisters to take apart the not so good ones, which were obviously made by the sisters, and sew them again in a delicate and beautiful way. The Xu sisters thanked Chen Xuan very much, Chen Xuan smiled, "I do this at home all day long, it's just a small thing, don't do this. If you have such things again, just tell me, it's not a big deal."
Chen Xuan considers himself to be an honest person, but even honest people can be cunning at times.
Chen Xuan only helped the Xu sisters a little, and she didn't even mention asking someone to teach her how to read.
Although the Xu sisters were in school, they were not as good at making clothes as Wei Yin, nor as skillful as Wei Yin. The same clothes were made by Wei Yin and looked especially good. The Xu sisters' clothes were often worn by the elder sister and then the younger sister. When they needed to be altered, the Xu sisters would come to discuss the altered style with Wei Yin.
After Chen Xuan waited for them to finish discussing it, she took over the needlework and helped out.
This happened two or three times, and then Chen Xuanfang said that she wanted to borrow a book to read.
Yes.
This time, Chen Xuan not only wants to learn to read.
She planned to borrow a book to read.
Now that you have the book, are you still worried about not being able to recognize it
This is the ultimate goal of Chen Xuan's long-term courtesy to the Xu sisters!