The female teacher's surname was Xue. She was very thin, and wore a turquoise robe. Her hair was simply tied up with a jade hairpin. She had a faint smile on her face, and she looked elegant but not aloof, very much like a female Confucian scholar.

The school was opened in Yimeyuan, the home of Mr. Guo in Jiangling Township. The environment here is beautiful and the scenery is exquisite, especially after the New Year, when there are tracts of green plums, snow plums and red plums. Mr. Wang stood under a green plum tree and seemed to be one with the scenery.

Mrs. Ding hurried forward to greet Mr. Xue. Mr. Xue took a quick look at the mother and daughter. Having been a private school teacher for so many years, Mr. Xue certainly knew that the mistress of a family had a great influence on her children.

Although the lady in front of him looked thin and dressed in ordinary clothes, her eyes and expression were firm. When she said that it would be best for girls to study for three years, the lady didn't even blink, and Mr. Xue already had a good impression of her.

You have to know that her career as a girls' private school has not been smooth sailing. Often, some families are eager to try at the beginning, with unstoppable enthusiasm, but in less than a year they start to find faults with the girls, complaining that the girls are a waste of money; others find fault with the teachers, thinking that the girls cannot find a good marriage even after attending the girls' school, and so on.

Some families only finish halfway. It is obvious that their children are not doing well and the teacher has already taught them with all his heart, but they still blame the teacher for not fulfilling his responsibilities and even drive the teacher away.

Although Mr. Xue wanted to make money, he didn't want to accept disciples who were too difficult and troublesome. If he did, it would ruin his reputation, but it would cause him trouble.

"We have breakfast and dinner at home, and lunch at the school. We eat the same food. You need to bring your own paper and pen on weekdays. I have the supplies for piano and chess lessons here, so you don't need to buy any more." Mr. Xue also explained when to come and when to leave, as well as the rules here.

Mrs. Ding expressed no objection.

The apprenticeship ceremony was held in the hall of Yimeyuan. Mi Niang presented the six gifts of apprenticeship, including celery, lotus seeds, red beans, dates, longans, and dried lean meat strips. She then knelt down and kowtowed three times to Mr. Xue. Mr. Xue gave her Chinese chrysanthemum and lotus roots. The straight shape of Chinese chrysanthemum implies tallness, while the lotus roots are hollow inside and straight outside, implying that one should be upright in life and be knowledgeable in study.

In this way, Mi Niang was introduced into the imperial school, which was located in a side hall and was decorated very elegantly.

There were eight desks in total, covered with soft pink satin, with a few tassels adding a touch of elegance. Although they said they brought their own paper and pens, a new set of four treasures of the study and a pen holder were placed on the desks.

"Mi Niang, the other girls haven't arrived so early. Let me get the books for you first. These are the books we will study in the first half of the year." Mr. Xue brought over two books.

One is "The Analects of Women" and the other is "The Biography of Filial Daughters". The cover is blue. The handwriting inside the cover is not exquisite and slightly yellowed, but very clear. When turning the pages, a scent of ink wafts in.

While Mi Niang was reading, Mrs. Ding nodded slightly to Mr. Xue and quickly turned and left.

People came to the school one after another. The first one was a girl in a sable jacket with three buns on her head. She was holding a soup pot in her hand and smiled before she spoke. She looked very friendly.

Mi Niang was the first to stand up and bow, and the girl quickly returned the greeting.

"I don't know what your name is, sister. My last name is Ruan Mi Niang, and my father is a student at the prefecture." Generally, one should introduce one's family background first when introducing oneself.

The girl also said hurriedly: "Nice to meet you, you are the daughter of the Ruan family, worthy of being a prominent family in Jiangling. My last name is Tao, and my family calls me Chun'er."

The two talked about their birth years. Tao Chun'er was nine years old and had been studying here for half a year. Mi Niang called her sister.

Mr. Xue watched from the podium and nodded before he left with peace of mind.

Tao Chun'er is as kind as her name suggests. She introduced Mi Niang the first day she saw her. "Our section chief is Miss Guo. Miss Guo's father is the owner of Yimei Garden and is currently in the Imperial College in Nanjing. Her grandfather was once the governor of Guangdong and Guangxi. She is considered to be from an official family. But don't worry, she has a very good temper."

"Then there's Miss Guo Er, who is about your age. She's Miss Guo's biological sister, and the two sisters have never had a quarrel."

"And Miss Wang, she..." Tao Chun'er didn't know how to describe her identity, so she smiled and said, "Her father is a Confucian official."

Just as I was about to continue, I saw two girls wearing similar clothes and jewelry. The taller one was very beautiful, and at a young age, she already had grace.

Tao Chun'er hurriedly said, "Yaoyu, Yaoxian, you are here. Let me introduce you. This is Mi Niang, the daughter of Ruan Xiucai."

Mi Niang thought to herself, so these are the two sisters of the Guo family. The one leading the group must be the eldest daughter of the Guo family. She really has the demeanor of a daughter of a wealthy family.

However, Miss Guo was not at all arrogant. Instead, she was very concerned about Mi Niang: "Sister, you have just entered school. We have studied for half a year. My books have annotations. If you don't mind, just take mine and read it."

Mi Niang was overjoyed when she heard this: "Thank you, Sister Guo. I was just wondering how to catch up on the first few. My dad only taught me "Three", "Hundred" and "Thousand" at home. I don't even understand the first few."

Then she continued, "I wonder what kind of books my sister likes to read? We don't have much else at home, but we have a lot of books."

This was not a lie. Mi Niang's great-grandfather was good at collecting books. He once had half a floor dedicated to collecting books. However, apart from her father, there was no one to inherit the legacy, so their family was indeed poor, but they had a huge collection of books.

Miss Guo smiled and said, "It's only natural for classmates to take care of each other. Don't say thank you."

Miss Guo Er whispered, "My sister likes to read travel essays."

"Then I'll go back and look for it for Sister Guo."

Mi Niang breathed a sigh of relief. These three were pretty good, but looking at the remaining cases, there should be four more. I wonder how these four will fare.

The next person to come in was a girl in elegant and luxurious clothes. She was wearing a small satin jacket with rouge red dots and red gold thread. The rouge red was a very bright color. Mi Niang had only seen such a color on Grandma Shang Si, who was famous for her wealthy family.

There is a string of pearls hanging around her neck. Each of the pearls is shiny and you can tell at first glance that they are high quality pearls.

Miss Guo immediately said, "Sister Ji, this is the new sister Ruan."

Her surname is Ji, and she is probably the daughter of the richest man in Jiangling. No wonder this outfit is worth about five or six hundred taels.

Miss Ji nodded slightly and whispered to Miss Guo Yaoyu, but no one knew what they were talking about.

It was also said that two people came to the door, one of them was an acquaintance of Mi Niang, Zhou Furou. As soon as she entered the door, she hugged Tao Chun'er and said, "Sister Tao, I missed you so much!" After that, she snuggled into Guo Yaoyu's arms and acted coquettishly, and also hugged Guo Yaoxian, the second lady of the Guo family.

She was very clever with her words. She kept shouting at the sisters and at the same time, telling her own embarrassing stories, making everyone laugh.

Mi Niang thought that she was still the same as in her previous life, very good at acting coquettishly and showing that she was harmless. Also, it was said that she had a lucky face, so she was very popular wherever she went.

At that time, she was sent to the palace together with Zhou Furou. Obviously, she was a member of the Nguyen clan and was only concerned about Queen Nguyen, but she was not as good as Zhou Furou in acting coquettishly and making jokes.

They always say that she is still young, very innocent and doesn't understand anything.

Yes, this person who knows nothing actually squeezed herself out to the side of Queen Ruan and had no place to stand. As a peasant girl, she was betrothed by the Queen to the son of Marquis Jinxiang.

Naive people are the most cruel.

Just as she was lost in thought, she heard someone next to her snort coldly, "Zhou Furou, the master said that you have to hand in two small characters and ten large characters after the New Year. Did you forget it again because you were being coquettish?"

Mi Niang looked at her. This girl had just come in with Zhou Furou. Tao Chun'er introduced her, saying that her surname was Luo and her father was a teacher in Shangqiu County, Henan Province. She was from a scholarly family.

Zhou Furou came over and smiled flatteringly: "Sister Qiujun, I wrote it, I wrote it, but my handwriting is so bad, it can't compare to yours."

Luo Qiujun pouted. She was not used to being too close to others. She quietly moved Zhou Furou's arm away from her. Tao Chun'er came out to smooth things over and said, "Forget it, Qiujun. We haven't seen each other for years. You know Fu Jie'er. She just started to learn last year. It's understandable that she can't write well."

Guo Yaoyu also came out to smooth things over, and Luo Qiujun didn't say anything else.

At this time, Mr. Xue came in with a book, looked at the two empty seats, and couldn't help but ask Guo Yaoyu: "Why didn't Wang Sumin and Chen Shanniang come?"

Guo Yaoyu was the section chief, and she had always been in charge of all matters of the school. Mr. Xue had just returned from his hometown in Anqing for the Chinese New Year, so naturally he didn't know about this.

Then I heard Guo Yaoyu say: "Sumin was ill for a while and is still ill. My mother asked the doctor to tell her not to go out and see the wind. As for Shanniang——"

At this point, Guo Yaoyu's eyes dimmed and she sighed, "Mrs. Chen said her mistress wants to learn needlework and won't come anymore."

This was also within Mr. Xue's expectations. In fact, Mr. Xue could probably guess that Chen Shanniang's mother was a poor woman and thought that giving up school was too expensive, so she might have wanted to return the money. However, the Guo family was an honest family, so they might have returned the money privately to avoid embarrassing her.

Mr. Xue pressed his hand, motioning Guo Yaoyu to sit down, then took a deep breath and said to everyone: "Your parents may have sent you to the private school to give you more playmates, or to let you make connections, or even to raise your status so that you can get married in the future. But I want to say that studying is not for the sake of dressing up, but for you to understand reason and not be deceived if you know how to read. We women are confined to the inner house and cannot go out like men, but we must know what the world outside is like."

Mi Niang believed what she heard deeply. Such valuable advice was enough to show that Ms. Xue was indeed a very knowledgeable woman.

Although the truth is not entirely in the book, if you can understand the truth in the book, you will avoid many detours.

Moreover, if Mi Niang were to live her life over again, she definitely wouldn't want to be at the mercy of others, so she must improve herself. After all, one's appearance will age one day, and human relationships will fade one day, but only the skills one has learned are one's own.

This seems to be the right place.