The season of embarrassment and delusion

I'd thought life at home would be uneventful, but unexpectedly, a thrill arrived—one day in July, an earthquake struck her home. Oh, no, it wasn't just hers; the emperor's home was shaken, too. To be exact, the entire city of Beijing was shaken. Yao Jing was lying in her stroller at the time, but she didn't feel the shaking at all. Before she even realized what was happening, the quake was over, and the next step was to clean up.

Aside from the little girl, who frantically ran around for a moment, howled a few times, and then was slapped by the nanny and sent crying in a corner, the whole house, though pale, remained in good order. Yao Jing was shocked when she realized what was happening. Aren't earthquakes considered major events these days? Even an earthquake like this wasn't that big.

The house itself was still quite solid, just a little dirt had fallen. The nanny brought the child to the main room for her mother to check on. After confirming everything was fine, everyone gathered up the broken porcelain, put the dislocated furniture back in its place, swept up the scattered food in the kitchen, and then scrambled to get some clean water, fearing the well water wouldn't be safe. And then... whatever else needed to be done!

Yao Jing was completely confused. Such an exciting thing... they actually... remained calm!

The sun, is this still ancient? Didn't the ancients think that solar eclipses and earthquakes were a sign of God's misfortune?

Fortunately, no matter how calm the ancient people were, they would still feel a little uneasy in the face of natural disasters. Otherwise, people would whisper about it.

Chunxi: "I was scared to death yesterday."

Xia Xi: "What are you talking about? I wasn't afraid at first, but I got scared by your howling."

Chunxi: "Nonsense! You were clearly howling even earlier than me! Why was it that I was the only one who asked Nanny Yin to beat me?"

Xia Xi: "That's because you howled too loudly, like a pig being slaughtered."

Chunxi: "You are the one who kills the pig!"

Yao Jing: ...You two are so boring!

The nutritious food arrived. Chunxi said, "Mammy is still Mammy after all. She didn't move an inch, but she still remembered to run to see the second young lady. I was so scared."

Xia Xi: "I told you you're stupid and you don't admit it. Have you forgotten? When we were little, there were earthquakes in the seventh, eighth, and twelfth years of the Kangxi Emperor's reign... You have such a bad memory. My mother told me that there were earthquakes in the third and fourth years of the Kangxi Emperor's reign, before I was born..."

Chunxi: "...You remembered it and you're still howling?!"

Yao Jing: ...So everyone's already used to it. Master Kang, wouldn't the Earth God want to be oppressed by you, constantly making a scene? Could it be that the Earth God is... opposing you on behalf of the entire nation? (Those of you who think this is wrong, go face the wall!)

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After all, the people of Beijing had experienced earthquakes for a long time. After the quake, if their houses didn't collapse and people were fine, they could go about their lives as usual. If houses collapsed and people were injured, they would just have to bear it. The emperor was busy fighting wars and ensuring the longevity of the Qing Dynasty. Seeing that the magnitude of the earthquake was not high, he had no time to pay attention to them for the time being. It was several days before anyone came to investigate the damage. After all, it was not a good thing. Emperor Kangxi probably tried to hypnotize himself into forgetting the incident.

Fortunately, Wu Sangui died in August. It was truly wonderful, finally good news. It wasn't universal celebration, but at least the entire capital was filled with excitement. Everyone forgot about the more common earthquakes and began celebrating the less common traitor's sudden death.

In August, Yao Jing played in her mother's room. Now that she could run and jump, her range of motion naturally expanded. She no longer even took naps in her room, but simply slumped over on the large bed. Mainly because she felt swaying on the floor after sleeping in the swing for so long. Yao Jing had slept in a hammock before, and it was similar: she could only spend half an afternoon there, and at night she could still feel the bed shaking.

In the afternoon, the two brothers came back from school.

The mother asked, "How was school today? Were you naughty?" The two stood up, and Fu Dali said in a serious tone, "The teacher taught 'The Great Learning' today. The teacher said that my son and my brother did well in learning. We handed in our homework yesterday. The teacher circled several words in our calligraphy." Seeing that his mother's expression had relaxed, Qingde smiled and said, "Don't worry, mother. We have a plan. We have learned the homework now before when we were at home." The mother said, "You have to be more careful when you have learned it before." Qingde stuck out his tongue in agreement.

The mother said to Fu Dali, "It's just right. The palace has issued the Eternal Calendar. I can't read it clearly, so I asked someone to put it in your father's study. You can talk to me when I get it back later." Fu Dali agreed. The maid in the main room was very tactful and went to the inner study to get the book.

When E'niang turned to a certain page, she asked Fu Dali what it meant. Fu Dali sat on the Luohan couch, across from E'niang at the kang table. Qingde leaned over to listen to Fu Dali's slow narration, occasionally interrupting. Yao Jing, who had been sitting next to E'niang, also craned her neck to read.

This is an almanac, written in traditional Chinese characters, completely incomprehensible = =! To be honest, she knows each character separately. Well, good student Yao Jing does know traditional Chinese characters, but she can only understand a few when they are put together. After all, the content of this book is different from that of "The Memorial on Repelling Foreigners".

The three of them finished their discussion, essentially just talking about recent events. They'd save the rest for later review or to ask about when they needed it. Suddenly, seeing Yao Jing also reading, her mother smiled and said, "Little girl, do you like reading?" She pointed to a simple character and asked her to recognize it: "This is 'jia.'" Yao Jing, delighted, started reading it out loud. Qingde, amused, pointed randomly at the characters Yao Jing already knew, and he parroted them.

Qingde was delighted and took off the purse from his waist to play with her. His mother poked him on the forehead: "You're making trouble again." Qingde said: "Sister, are you a quick learner from me?" His mother was both angry and amused: "You were like this when you were little, learning from your brother. You would remember it at the time, but forget it in the blink of an eye. Children have great memories but also great forgetfulness." Qingde was unconvinced: "I'll come to see you tomorrow."

Yao Jing was secretly alert and couldn't act too strangely.

The next day, when Qingde came, he hadn't remembered the incident. He only talked about funny things at school, like a classmate who had played a prank on the teacher and got spanked. Yao Jing secretly complained that she had deliberately clung to her mother. Her mother said, "You're a naughty one too, aren't you?" Qingde was very unconvinced: "I've always been very honest and never had any 'unclear truth' at all." Ah Fu laughed and said, "Second Master said yesterday that he would teach Second Miss to read. Now you haven't forgotten?" Qingde twisted his body like a candy, trying to play tricks on her mother. Fu Dali coughed and he sat up straight again, with a slight blush on his face.

Coughing, Qingde said, "Who said I didn't teach? You are wronging me, sister." He poked Yao Jing's face again, stretched out his hand and scratched the character "甲" on the tabletop, and began the test. Yao Jing was careful to grasp the degree, deliberately answered a few words wrong, and pretended to remember only five or six words with simple strokes. Such results were already good in the eyes of her mother. Qingde had no experience in raising children, and said that his sister was slow to learn. Her mother pinched her ear and said, "Those who can remember everything they see are gods, your sister is already very fast."

From then on, E'niang also consciously let Yao Jing recognize some words, but there was still no formal teacher, and the textbooks were also very superficial. Judging from the traces, it was probably an old tracing book of Fu Dali or Qingde, with simple strokes of words such as "Shang Da Ren Kong Yiji".

Yao Jing was a quick learner, and Qingde felt a great sense of accomplishment in teaching her. If Yao Jing's hands weren't so small, he would have gotten her a pen and taught her how to write. This made Fu Dali envious, and he would cough, flip through the pages, and tease her with the Three Character Classic.

Mother was both angry and amused: "Your younger sister is still young, and don't forget your older sister." Qingde curled his lips: "Older sister doesn't need us to teach her, she learns very well on her own." This is pure rumor! The truth is - I have teased her before, but I just didn't learn as fast as this younger sister. At that time, Qingde was not sure about the truth and didn't persist. Now she has learned it very well. Qingde is unhappy when he mentions this.

Fu Dali glared at him and said, "Mother is right, but we were just playing with our second sister. Mother has already appointed someone to teach our eldest sister needlework, so we shouldn't bother her." Mother said, "That's right."

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The eldest sister had indeed begun to learn some simple housework. Although not her biological daughter, her mother had done a pretty good job. She was given all the same equipment as a biological daughter, and was taught everything she needed. However, she wasn't allowed to use scissors yet, nor could she trace patterns herself. Because she was young, she couldn't do delicate work, so she only learned simple things, and she had to be careful not to prick her hands with the needle. The needlework nanny had her do simple tasks while explaining color matching. Yao Jing couldn't learn these lessons, and her little hands were even less flexible—the classes were inconsistent, and the opportunities to meet were even fewer.

No wonder some people say that relationships between siblings in large families are cold and distant. They rarely see each other, and relationships need to be nurtured, right?!

Actually, this is not true. At least the Fudali brothers are close to Yao Jing, especially Qingde. As they spend more and more time together, they become very close to each other. But Yao Jing always feels that Qingde treats her more like a kitten or a puppy. For example, now Qingde said with ill intention: "Little girl, can you teach me how to write your own name?"

Yao Jing nodded. Of course she had to. She had forgotten her official code name here. What if one day, Standard Dad came back and called her name, and she didn't respond? That would be embarrassing. Qingde had already prepared. He spread out a piece of paper on the kang table, picked up a pen, and wrote two neat small characters, stroke by stroke. Yao Jing recognized the characters "Shujia". To be honest, Qingde's handwriting was quite good.

Then, her conscience told her that Qingde was a bastard!

These two characters are so complex, they're beyond the control of a one-and-a-half-year-old, okay?! Qingde grabbed Yao Jing's hand and began writing, his ink smearing. "Nima Jia" has eight horizontal lines! You could string them together like spicy hot pot on a stick! Making a one-year-and-four-month-old's tender paw draw eight lines on a two-centimeter length with a brush! How insane! !!!

As Qingde wrote, he said, "Now, when you first start learning to write, you should write bigger. That way it will be easier. When you have mastered it, you can write smaller..."

Fu Dali couldn't stand it anymore, so he reached out and took the pen and walked away, glaring at Qingde: "You are starting to tease your sister!" Then he said to Yao Jing gently: "It's enough for little Niuniu to recognize these two words. I will teach you next year, okay? By then, you can ask big brother to teach you, or you can ask mother to hire a teacher for you." Yao Jing held her twitching forehead and nodded in agreement.

Then he stretched out his two tender arms: "Big brother, hug me." He gave Qingde a bald head.

Seeing that Yao Jing was learning faster than other children (after all, she was just an old cucumber painted green), her mother found a servant who could read a few words and started reading the Three Character Classic to her. Her mother's message was clear: "Fu Dali and Qingde, you two still have schoolwork to attend to at the official school. It's fine for you to come home and talk to your sister every day, but don't let your studies be delayed because of your sister. It's not easy to talk to your father when he comes back."

So Yao Jing began memorizing the Three Character Classic, the Thousand Character Classic, and the Hundred Family Surnames. They all rhymed, and being children's books, Yao Jing could easily understand the meaning, making them easy to memorize. For example, the passage about historical dynasties in the Three Character Classic was particularly easy to memorize once she understood it. Then, a problem arose. Master Kang's last name wasn't Kang, nor was he called Master. His name was Xuanye, and the first line of the Thousand Character Classic, "天地玄黄," (Heaven and Earth are Dark and Yellow), was taboo. Xuan is barely a common character, and people sometimes use it occasionally without paying much attention.

That day, Qingde was about to come up to test his sister again when he heard it. Yao Jing then remembered that this was a tricky place to avoid. The word "xuan" should be pronounced like "yuan," and the last dot should be missing when writing it. After saying this, Qingde looked at his sister, whose eyes were wide. "You won't understand even if I tell you. You're still so young. Remember, just pronounce it like "yuan." I'll tell you the rest later."

Yao Jing: ...I clearly remember that there's no taboo for picking out a single character from a two-character name! Is it because the user is the emperor that the taboos have been upgraded?! Avoid it, sister!

Mother spoke up, "I almost forgot. Instead of teaching her those paperwork, why not teach her these useful things? It's better than being busy and fussy when she's older. She's still young and can't start learning needlework like the older girls, so I let you teach her haphazardly. Since you're teaching her, why not teach her more useful things?"

According to her, even if she did learn, she should study something like the Four Books for Women. Although she was Mongolian, her family had surrendered to the Qing Dynasty relatively early, following the Qing Dynasty all the way to the border, and had lived in the capital for some time. She also married a typical feudal man, and her thoughts were closer to those of traditional women.

Yao Jing is currently unaware of this. She simply wants to know exactly which year of the Kangxi reign she was born in, though knowing that wouldn't be of much use to her—she's unfamiliar with Qing dynasty history. But just like always carrying a phone and a watch when she goes out, checking the time regularly—even simply knowing it's 9:08—gives her a sense of security.

She soon found out because it was her sister's birthday. It was Fu Dali who said, "Big sister is...years old this year. Four or five?"

Mother laughed, "Brother, you don't even remember this? This is the seventeenth year of the Kangxi Emperor's reign. Your eldest sister was born on the third day of the ninth month of the thirteenth year of the Kangxi Emperor's reign. She's one year old from the moment she's born, and one year old after the New Year. This is her sixth birthday."

Yao Jing was listening intently. Finally, she knew it was the 17th year of the Kangxi Emperor's reign. "Sister! God, dare you be even more cruel to me? It's been a year and five months, and I finally understand what kind of sky I live under. You're so cruel!"