Xie Yan really wanted to go back.
Wu Pingzhi was speechless and hurriedly looked around the house, muttering to him about what things needed to be added.
Xie Yan listened with both ears open, but did not hear.
He thought that it was better if there were not enough things, so that he could go home.
After inspecting the schoolhouse, they had nothing else to do and could each return to their homes.
Of course not!
Xie Yan’s legs trembled, and he didn’t know which direction to step in, which made Wu Pingzhi laugh.
“Take the silver first and then go back. From now on, every meal you eat will cost money.”
He could treat others, but he couldn’t win Xie Yan’s heart.
The old Xie Yan would have directly ordered the dishes. Now, with his husband’s guidance, he wouldn’t be so straightforward. He’d keep some silver in his hand and buy what he wanted to eat.
The silver comes from only a few sources; why not take it?
Xie Yan went off excitedly.
After getting the silver and rice, he could go home!
Home, to be precise, was the shop.
Lu Yang finished the morning’s business and had Lu Lin take care of things up front while he went to the back yard to pack luggage with his mother-in-law, taking everything Xie Yan would need for his stay.
In their household, they never prepared extra supplies.
Items like toothbrushes and toothpaste were counted by the number of people.
They were a couple, had kissed, and shared chicken soup; they didn’t bother with such formalities.
When Xie Yan returned home on leave, they would use his things and share them.
There were bedding sets; Lu Yang had brought dowry quilts when she got married, all brand new.
They later used the new quilts, so the old ones were perfect for Xie Yan to take.
He also took apart an old cotton coat and made a pair of cotton knee pads for Xie Yan.
The knee pads were made from the sleeves, and the remaining parts were cut and sewn by Lu Yang into a small vest. He also sent it along with Xie Yan.
The weather hadn’t warmed up yet. According to past experience, it wouldn’t warm up until after the Qingming Festival, which was still two or three months away.
Even after taking off the thick cotton coat, one still needed to wear a quilted jacket. Xie Yan studied for long periods without moving, so wearing a vest underneath would protect his chest.
The top scholar in his family easily became immersed in his books, and before he came to his senses, his hands and feet would be frozen stiff without him even noticing the cold. With no one to take care of him, Lu Yang was worried.
The shoes have also been packed. He had already taken the time to wash and dry them.
Since they are in the same county, he took fewer items this time. Next time he goes home, he will bring back the dirty clothes and shoes to wash and dry, and then bring two sets of clean clothes with him.
However, since it’s the beginning of the school year, Lu Yang gave him the shoes that looked newer first.
Earlier, Wu Pingzhi had sent them two sets of cotton clothes, boots, and socks. They had already worn the new clothes, but there was still a pair of shoes left.
They say that when you wear new shoes, you walk on new paths. They wore one pair during the New Year, and Xie Yan will wear another pair tomorrow when school officially starts.
The rest were miscellaneous items.
Xie Yan wasn’t picky about his writing tools. When his brush split, he would trim it with scissors and continue using it.
In his words, as long as the paper was neat and clean, the font wasn’t too difficult, and any brush would do. He could just pick one up and use it.
He also had a good brush that he used occasionally when he felt like practicing calligraphy.
The private school also had calligraphy classes. If your handwriting wasn’t up to par, your exam papers wouldn’t even reach the examiner’s desk, so this was an important class.
When he first started school, he didn’t want to show off, so he had to maintain a proper attitude. Lu Yang carefully packed the brush into a small box.
As for the inkstone, well, it was a family heirloom, but he wasn’t sure if it was a good one.
Xie Yan’s father used this inkstone, which was very ordinary in style, about the size of a palm, concave in the middle, slightly raised around the edges, with nothing special about it.
The inkstone he carried with him was even smaller, only big enough to hold a small ink stick as thick as a finger.
Lu Yang thought about it. Since he wrote a lot in class, he decided to bring the large inkstone. The large inkstone holds more ink, making it more convenient to write with.
He planned to save up some silver and buy another large inkstone for his family’s scholar to use at home. Otherwise, the small inkstone wouldn’t be enough for writing articles or anything else.
He gave him half of the paper and ink.
Wu Ping said he would take care of all these things, but Lu Yang didn’t have the nerve to accept that. He would use what he had at home first.
Lu Yang thought that for the first few days of school, it would be better to bring the books along, place them on the desk, and let the teacher look at them. Otherwise, his desk would be empty—what kind of attitude would that be?
He didn’t take many, but he brought all the Four Books and Five Classics.
He had recently learned that those participating in the imperial examinations only needed to study one classic text, which was equivalent to one of the Four Books.
However, Xie Yan, relying on his sharp mind, claimed he could apply knowledge across subjects, having read and understood them all, and could roughly recite them.
When Lu Yang heard him say “roughly recite,” his heart sank.
What does “roughly recite” mean? If you know it, you know it; if you don’t, you don’t—there’s no room for vague answers.
Xie Yan explained that after memorizing the texts, he would disassemble the books and randomly reassemble them, placing his favorite passages in one pile and the ones he disliked in another.
Now the books were in disarray, and he didn’t know what he remembered or what he didn’t. However, when asked about a specific sentence, he could generally recite the context before and after it.
Poor Lu Yang hadn’t read these books, and his literacy hadn’t yet reached the level where he could flip through them at will, so he couldn’t test him and had to ask Wu Pingzhi for help.
Today, while organizing the books, Lu Yang flipped through them and saw that he didn’t know which book the articles inside had been taken from, but he vaguely understood the markings.
Xie Yan had underlined sentences in the book and inserted exam papers afterward. The papers were written by an unknown person and had been bound into the book along with the text.
Lu Yang: “…”
He had never seen anyone read books like this before.
Due to Xie Yan’s haphazard binding of the books, Lu Yang couldn’t tell which books the Four Books and Five Classics had been scattered into, so he took them based on their covers. There were a total of nine books, and he took them all.
After everything was packed, he filled three boxes.
When Zhao Peilan went to the kitchen, Lu Yang climbed onto the bed and took a set of undergarments from the bedside cabinet, rolled them up, and hid them under the blanket.
This set of underwear was what he usually wore. He felt that given how clingy his family’s top scholar was, he would definitely miss him when he started school, and there was nothing else to ease his longing, so he would just let him sleep with the clothes!
Next, he packed things like water cups and bowls and chopsticks.
The water cups were for everyday use, and the bowls and chopsticks were for extra meals in the house.
Lu Yang cooked some fried flour for him. After it was cooked, he put it into bamboo tubes. Each tube held over a pound, and he packed two tubes. He also took a packet of sugar.
He also grabbed some walnuts and red dates for snacks.
Sunflower seeds were not needed, as they were addictive and would interfere with his studies.
He would pack two baskets of meat buns for him tomorrow.
In case the food at the small canteen was not good, they could heat up the buns for lunch.
That’s all.
Lu Yang tidied up and went to the front gate to look around.
Lu Lin joined him in looking around: “That’s strange. Didn’t they say they’d be back after lunch?”
They said it was the first day of reporting, so there were no classes, and they’d be back after lunch at the latest.
Lu Yang said, “Maybe they went to the county school.”
Xie Yan was worried because he hadn’t received his rations money for the Lantern Festival.
After the festival, he had gone out, so he must have taken it with him.
Mostly they just chatted.
Lu Lin said, “My father talked to me about something. He asked if I remembered my third aunt, the one who used to give me tofu to eat. I have some vague memories of her. He said it’s been many years since he last saw her, and that she married into the county. Now that I’m also in the county, he asked me to help find out where she is. But where should I go to find out?”
