Chapter 73 Yao Ping'an copies books; the Mei and Du families meet.

When Mei Hua'er's life in the Mei family was published, it was already the end of the month. Zhou Chunhua counted the remaining money three times, her face turning as black as the bottom of a pot.

The next day, Yao Ping'an, with a large bruise under his eye, lowered his head.

The task of transcribing Yao Xiaoyu's manuscripts had been handed over to Novel Daily. Every time a new manuscript was submitted, the old manuscript would be taken back. The two parties cooperated very well, and Yao Xiaoyu did not want to change it, so she found another job for Yao Ping'an.

Many of the books that Editor-in-Chief Bei could lend out were not available on the market, but they were very useful to Yao Xiaoyu. However, the quota of four books was not enough to keep the old books and read the new ones. After obtaining permission from Editor-in-Chief Bei, Yao Xiaoyu decided to make copies of them.

However, such a person is not easy to find. The articles that have been passed down to later generations have already been written. If you encounter a bad copyist, he may take away the pen, ink and books together and disappear into the vast sea of ​​people.

The loss of the Four Treasures of the Study is a minor matter; the key issue is the books that were taken away. If they are ordinary books that can be bought in bookstores, that's fine. But what if they are rare books that are hard to find even if you have money and connections? Then there would truly be no way to escape to heaven or earth. And the latter type of books are more or less on the list provided by Editor-in-Chief Bei.

After much thought, I felt most at ease using books from my own family. However, to prevent Yao Ping'an from simply copying books from my collection, I decided to take a roundabout approach.

"...That young lady really liked my writing and was willing to let you copy it for the price of one cent per thousand words that I usually give to my family. However, you couldn't choose which book to copy, and you would be paid for each book."

Yao Xiaoyu fabricated a story about a young lady from a scholarly family who planned to use the family's books as her dowry, so she needed to find a copyist to make copies of the books, and she was waiting for Yao Ping'an's answer.

"good."

Yao Ping'an agreed, and the father and daughter had nothing more to say. Yao Xiaoyu didn't linger and went upstairs to take a nap. As she turned around, she raised her head and revealed a bright smile.

The fee for copying books is a reward when things are peaceful, but if a conflict arises, it becomes an invisible chain.

...

"Newspapers for sale! Newspapers for sale! A copy of the Novel Daily is only two copper coins. A new article about a little fish is on it. The real and fake heiress are about to meet—"

Zhang Sancao waved the newspaper in his hand vigorously. Mr. Little Fish was now a guarantee of quality and sales. In no time, only one copy of the Novel Daily was left in his hand.

"Give me a copy of the Novel Daily."

Someone stopped next to Zhang Sancao, but Zhang Sancao didn't take the two copper coins offered to him; he just grinned.

"You should find someone else to buy it; this is one I want to see myself."

Zhang Sancao's happy expression was infectious; the man wasn't angry that he hadn't bought a newspaper, he just looked at Zhang Sancao with surprise.

"You can read?"

At that time, there was no concept of experiencing life. The children who smoked cigarettes, smuggled newspapers, and shone shoes on the street were all children from poor families who came out to make a living. Being able to read meant that one could go to school, or that one had at least one literate elder in the family. No matter how poor one was, one would generally not have to resort to this kind of work.

"Learning to read".

Zhang Sancao straightened his chest and said loudly that he had raised enough tuition fees on the day Ding Xian's Biography ended, and went to school after the New Year. Now he can read and write the Thousand Character Classic and plans to try to skip a grade in a while.

The man wanted to ask something more, but Zhang Sancao had already grown impatient with him and ran away in a flash.

He had arranged with his neighbors in the alley that it would be time for him to read the newspaper, and they had already paid him!

When Zhang Sancao ran to the alley entrance, the chairs in the middle were already set up, and men, women, and children were sitting in a circle around them. Zhang Sancao glanced at his mother, and when she nodded, he sat down at the very back, cleared his throat, and began to read the newspaper.

His mother was illiterate, but she had a very good memory. She could tell whoever came to listen to the newspaper without bringing anything.

"Today's Novel Daily publishes 'A Wrong Fate,' 'The Ghostly Tales of Qingyu Tower,' 'Where the Lights Dim,' and 'Peerless Plum Blossoms'..."

Before Zhang Sancao could continue reading, everyone had already made their choice.

"Listen to the story of the plum blossom!"

"The plum blossom is from the story of the switched babies, right? That's it!"

"The one about the wrong babies being fed is nice!"

...

Yao Xiaoyu didn't give the story of Plum Blossom a name. Novel Daily struggled for three days and three nights, but regretfully gave up the more straightforward "True and False Heiress" and chose "Peerless Plum Blossom," which was pieced together from the female protagonist's name, to be more subtle.

Yao Xiaoyu: ...

The question is, should she tell the editor that the children switched at birth by the Mei and Du families are Du Guangcheng, the eldest son of the Du family, and Mei Hua'er, the eldest daughter of the Mei family?

No one could solve the worries of a little fish. The simple folks had become accustomed to the author's unreliable book titles and had readily replaced the story of Plum Blossom with "The Wrong Baby" which they could easily understand at a glance!

This is the common way of addressing people at the lower levels. The upper levels use a slightly more elegant term, calling the story of the plum blossom "Exchange of Lives".

However, none of this mattered to Zhang Sancao. He was just a ruthless newspaper-reading robot who read whatever the uncles, aunts, grandparents, and other relatives from the neighborhood who watched him grow up wanted to hear.

Zhang Sancao turned the newspaper to the page with the plum blossoms, cleared his throat in a pretentious manner, and began to read aloud word by word. The crowd, who had been arguing, quickly quieted down and listened attentively to the sequel to the story of the switched babies.

Yao Xiaoyu did not intend to write this story in a long way, so the pace of Plum Blossom was very fast. The last issue ended with Master Du's complicated feelings after hearing about Plum Blossom's life, and the beginning of this issue is when Master Du tells his family about the matter and then takes his whole family to the Mei family to explain the matter of the babies being switched at birth.

The Du family was also unlucky this time. They happened to be caught in the day when Meijia Village and Zhaojia Village were fighting over water. Fighting over water in the villages was never child's play. Although the people on both sides tacitly agreed not to start a fight, so that the scene was not bloody, the fighting scene was still terrible and tragic. Without water to irrigate the fields, there would be no food. If they didn't die now, they would starve to death after the autumn harvest.

When the Du family arrived at the scene in a string of carriages, the battle between the two villages had already entered its second half, and Meihua was the most conspicuous among them.

The tall, fierce woman, covered in the blood of others, punched a burly man to the ground and kicked a man with a menacing look several meters away. With a flick of her wrist, she let out a scream; with a bend of her knee, she heard the crisp sound of bones breaking. She was truly a demon descended from heaven and a god of war on earth!

Those peach blossom eyes that belonged to Master Du and looked at everyone with tender affection suddenly turned into a fierce aura when they met Mei Hua'er's gaze. The Du family members who met her instinctively shuddered. Du Wushuang, who had originally planned to scare Mei Hua'er with a caterpillar when she got home, so that Mei Hua'er would know that she was the family's treasure, was so frightened that all her little schemes vanished.

She just wanted to draw a turtle on Meihua's face while she was sleeping; she would deliberately whisper to Meihua during class so that Meihua would get her hand slapped by the teacher; when she went shopping with her mother, she would buy herself a bunch of things but not Meihua, making Meihua hide under the covers and cry...

But plum blossom petals are made of iron. If she provokes her, she'll probably suffer a 30/70 chance of getting hurt—if the plum blossom punches her three times, she'll be past her seventh day of mourning!

Waaah, she was wrong. Whether she's Mei Hua'er's older or younger sister, she promises she'll behave herself and get married when she's old enough. Don't send her back to the Mei family; she can't bear a hard life!

Du Wushuang followed her parents into the Mei family home with trepidation. Looking at the bare tables and chairs and the rough-made clothes on Mei's parents, she remained calm on the surface, but inwardly she was sobbing.

The Du family's complicated thoughts were shattered by the water-grabbing incident. Mei's parents looked at the impressive group of people opposite them and were at a loss. It wasn't until Mei Hua came out after changing her blood-stained clothes that the conversation got back on track.

Mei Hua'er, who recognized Master Du, initially thought that wealthy people were particularly particular. She felt that the previous silver dollars were not enough to repay the debt of gratitude, and wanted to follow him home to make her a small fortune. However, she then heard the shocking news that she was not actually a member of the Mei family.

Mei Hua'er's first thought after receiving the medicine was that she should have known better than to use the soot from the bottom of the pot to treat her wounds before coming out; the Du family must have good medicine.

The conversation between the Du and Mei families was not pleasant.

Mei Hua, who was only a teenager, was 1.7 meters tall and was treated like 0.8 adults at home. The Mei family was already looking for a marriage for her, but they looked down on the ugly men from the surrounding villages who were willing to marry into the family. They were considering whether to take Mei Hua south for a trip.

The textile industry was developed in the south, and women could earn money at home, so their status was naturally high, and the attitude towards keeping women as sons-in-law was also common.

Moreover, with more mulberry trees, there is less arable land; with more people, there is less land to be allocated. Although in some places boys are still raised as treasures, in other places, men are eager to marry into the family—a family's land is divided among several people, and marrying into the family makes things a little more comfortable.

Choosing a son-in-law from these places is much better than selecting a tall man from among the short men in the surrounding villages.

Just then, Master Du delivered silver dollars. The Mei family thought it was the matchmaker who had sent the God of Wealth to appear. They had already packed their things to go south to find a son-in-law, but it turned out that the man had come to snatch their daughter.

The Mei family had already made their decision: their eldest daughter was tall and strong, with a fiery but measured personality, making her perfect for taking charge of the household; their younger son was handsome and thick-skinned, loved good food and drink and didn't care about gossip, making him perfect for marrying into a wealthy family.

In this world, there are many women who marry into their husband's family, but few men. Younger sons don't have much of an advantage in the marriage market, but if they marry out, their choices become much wider. It's not about whether they cross social classes, but how many social classes they can cross.

Once the eldest daughter marries into the family and has a son or daughter, who will be sent to school, the younger son should also have someone to rely on. After the grandchildren graduate from school, with the help of their in-laws in Shanghai, they can establish themselves in the city, and their descendants will no longer have to be peasants.

But now... sigh!

The Mei family parents looked at Du Wushuang, whose features were delicate and who looked as exquisite as a silk doll. Although they had some affection for her because of her appearance, they did not feel close to her.

What good is being good-looking? They only care about their children's future and their parents' retirement. They don't have to worry about the first one, but when people get old, no amount of gold or silver can compare to having caring children and grandchildren serving them tea and water. They watched Meihua grow up and know that she can't let the two of them suffer. This girl... doesn't seem like someone who can support the family.

The boy next to him was alright, but he looked a bit like a schoolteacher and didn't seem like someone who could manage a household... Could it be that the Du family didn't have anyone capable of running the family business, and they came here specifically to take their daughter because they heard that Meihua was outstanding in everything?!

"We're not that despicable!"

[Old Master Du's face turned red with anger, and only then did Mei's parents realize that they had inadvertently voiced their true feelings.]

Zhang Sancao stopped reading, and everyone waited for a while before urging him to continue. Then they heard Zhang Sancao say that the story would only end here.

Everyone: ...

Attacked by a constant stream of resentment, Yao Xiaoyu scratched her back, thinking that she needed to find a bathhouse to scrub herself from head to toe, as the constant itching was not a good thing.

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Author's note: Zhang Sancao appears in Chapter 21.

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