"Miss Yan, are you even listening to me?"
Yan Qimeng snapped out of her daze, her eyes darting away awkwardly.
What are you saying?
"I said that it is not easy to open a girls' school, especially in the Imperial Academy. Even if you are a young lady from the Prime Minister's mansion, it is difficult to do so outside.
Not to mention that opening a school requires a lot of financial resources, hiring teachers also requires money; having power alone is not enough.
Furthermore, the prevailing educational ideologies of the time meant that even if you spent a great deal of money to open this girls' school, it would be difficult for anyone to send their daughters there.
Yan Qimeng lives in the light; she doesn't know the life of an ordinary person, let alone understand their thoughts.
She knew that only through education, and only through education, could a woman have more choices in life.
"But reading is a good thing. What parent in the world doesn't love their child?"
"Not all parents love their children when faced with profit and poverty. I was born in a small village and have seen far too much of this."
If girls go to school, who will do the housework, especially since parents' thinking has been outdated by the times?
They only believe that no matter how smart a girl is raised, she will eventually go to someone else's family, and no matter how much they invest, they are just making wedding dresses for someone else.
Such a time-consuming, laborious, and expensive task is less practical than having the sisters in the family go up the mountain every day to gather a bundle of pig feed.
Yan Qimeng only wanted to save women from suffering. If what Yan Chuan said was true, then she would do it no matter how difficult it was.
"Since that's the case, I feel I can't give up so easily. If we can't change the mindset of the previous generation, then we can change our generation, and the next generation, and the generation after that..."
Everything is difficult at the beginning, but someone has to do it. How will we know it can't succeed if we don't try? Besides, I have such a smart person helping me; there's bound to be a way, right?
Yan Chuan was pleased that Yan Qimeng had not been deterred by the difficulties he had mentioned.
"As long as Miss Yan is determined, I can take you to see someone who might be able to help you."
Yan Qimeng: "Who is it?"
The two stopped in their tracks, and Yan Chuan said, "I have no heart to appreciate the flowers blooming in the Prime Minister's residence. How about I invite you to have dinner at Fu Man Lou?"
"Is the person you're talking about also at Fu Man Lou right now?"
"Exactly!"
Fu Man Lou has always been the top restaurant in Beijing, and it's extremely difficult to book a table there, requiring reservations to be made at least half a month in advance.
"Okay, let's go now."
Yan Qimeng, being very carefree, grabbed Yan Chuan and ran out of the mansion. Yan Chuan pulled his sleeve out of her hand.
The two of them were afraid of ruining her reputation.
...
Yan Qimeng was overjoyed to be out with Yan Chuan. The two were riding in a carriage, and Fu Man Lou was just one street away.
She was thinking that the horse was going too fast when suddenly the carriage was hit by something, and shouts came from outside.
The coachman stopped the carriage, and Yan Chuan and Yan Qimeng quickly got off.
Given the situation outside, I'm afraid someone might die.
"You little bastard prince, are you trying to kill my whole family?"
A girl of about seventeen or eighteen years old, with her hair styled in a married woman's bun, crashed headfirst into Yan Chuan and his group's carriage. At this moment, it was unknown whether she was dead or alive.
“Wang family, your daughter has brought this upon herself. If you don’t return the ten taels you paid for her today, none of you will live in peace.”
A woman on the street, probably the girl's mother, saw her daughter lying on the ground with blood streaming from her forehead after being hit, and she was still holding onto her.
"You're not that easy to die, Wang Zhaodi, get up! If you don't get up, I'll dump that dung bucket on your head."
I've never seen anyone as unlucky as you, getting married only to be rejected by your husband's family. I'm warning you, your father and I took those ten taels of silver to pay your brother's tuition.
"If you die today, you'll die in your husband's house. Now get up right now!"
The old woman pulled the thin woman along while kicking her body.
"What are you doing? How can you hit someone?"
Yan Qimeng ran to the woman's side and pushed her away. She patted Wang Zhaodi, who was already dead or alive.
"Hey, young lady, wake up..."
The person was hit by their carriage, which caused this, and seeing how her mother treated her, Yan Qimeng felt indignant.
Seeing Yan Qimeng's attire, it was clear that she was not a young lady from an ordinary family, so Madam Wang did not dare to yell at Yan Qimeng.
"Miss, this is my daughter, the daughter-in-law of the Zhang family. You don't need to concern yourself with our family affairs."
Yan Qimeng had just heard them talking about ten taels of silver. Looking at that Zhang guy, he was over thirty years old, with rough skin, and he looked like he would be hard to deal with.
"Wang, I'm so old, I spent all my savings hoping to have an heir, but you sold me a child who can't lay eggs. You're not going to pay me back today."
"Whichever school your youngest son attends, I'll go there and cause trouble every day, and see if he can continue his studies."
Everything else is fine, but the idea of causing trouble for Wang's son is absolutely unacceptable.
"No way! Whoever says Zhao Di can't have children, I'll tear their mouth apart. After a while, you can make her have ten or eight children for you, no problem at all. I've already spent the money, so if you keep making trouble, we won't have any more."
"I don't care. You either sell your fields, sell your land, or sell your precious son to get your money back. Otherwise, I'll fight to the death with your Wang family."
The two men were so engrossed in arguing over ten taels of silver that they completely disregarded whether the woman on the ground could be saved.
Yan Chuan squatted down, grabbed the woman's wrist, and placed three fingers on her wrist pulse.
She's still alive!
Yan Qimeng looked at the woman's mother and spoke loudly to the two of them.
"Stop arguing, saving her is the priority, get her to the clinic first."
The two men paused noticeably, seemingly afraid that taking the woman to the clinic would cost a lot of money, so they simply pretended not to hear.
"Let me do it, you lay her flat."
To save her life, we must wake her up now; saving her is the priority.
Yan Chuan took out a packet of silver needles from his body and first inserted a needle into the woman's philtrum. Seeing that she was still unconscious, he then used the Ten Xuan points to bleed her.
He pricked all ten of her fingers with a three-edged needle, squeezing out blood. Since the ten fingers are connected to the heart, Wang Zhaodi's brows furrowed noticeably.
Yan Chuan continued inserting the silver needles, finally targeting acupoints such as Quchi.
Wang Zhaodi slowly regained consciousness.
"She's awake, she's awake..."
Yan Qimeng helped her up again, but Wang Zhaodi showed no intention of living.
She simply watched her nominal husband and her mother quietly.
The two men treated her like trash, their eyes and hearts only on the ten taels of silver.
Why did you save me? You might as well have let me die!
The street was crowded with people, and seeing this, no one dared to intervene.
"Death is so easy. You only have one life. Who knows, there might be blessings waiting for you to enjoy later!"
Wang Zhaodi sneered, her face full of disappointment, as if she had long foreseen her fate.
"Yeah?"
Sure enough, after she finished speaking, Wang rushed over and lifted her frail body.
“I told you this slut wouldn’t die so easily. Stay close to your husband. If you run away, your father and I will drown you in the cesspool.”
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