Guo Xuantong disregarded her mother's words. She felt that now that Lu Shiyan had become a military officer, he understood the difficulties of someone without connections in the officialdom and had begun to look down on Jiang Tangtang. This was her opportunity.
Regardless of Lu Shiyan's initial intentions in wanting to be with her, she was determined not to become a concubine.
He will definitely divorce Jiang Tangtang, his wife who has shared his hardships, in the future.
However, she is not an unreasonable person, and she will definitely treat her son Kendi well.
To avoid being unable to adapt in the future, she decided to first get along well with Lu Chenyan.
Lu Chenyan didn't go picking wild vegetables with the other children today. After breakfast, he took a twig and wrote all the characters his father had taught him on the sand table.
When Guo Xuantong saw him practicing calligraphy on the sand table, she sighed inwardly, feeling sorry for him. This poor farm boy didn't even have paper and pen to practice calligraphy.
Once she has children, she definitely won't let him suffer like that. As for the child born to Jiang, she'll just make sure she doesn't mistreat him.
As for the rest... let's forget about it!
She was thinking to herself, but smiled and said, "Practicing calligraphy?"
Lu Chenyan didn't like answering silly questions. He glanced up at her, then lowered his eyes and continued practicing calligraphy on the sand table.
Seeing that Lu Chenyan ignored her, Guo Xuantong was a little unhappy, but thinking that she would have to come into contact with Lu Chenyan sooner or later after marrying Lu Shiyan, she put on a smile and said, "Your handwriting is too ugly. Do you want me to teach you to read?"
Lu Chenyan finally asked, "You can read?"
Guo Xuantong's tone was full of pride, "I am the daughter of the county magistrate, of course I can read."
"What's this pronounced like?" Lu Chenyan wrote a character on the sand table. It was one that Jiang Tangtang had written on a piece of paper before.
Because of his good memory, he could write it down perfectly, but since no one had taught him, he didn't know what it meant.
He was very enthusiastic about learning to write. Besides practicing all the characters Lu Shiyan had taught him, he also wrote characters he had seen before and memorized. However, no one had taught him how to pronounce these characters before, so he didn't recognize them.
Guo Xuantong's face immediately stiffened, and she said, "What are you writing? It's all a mess, I can't read it at all."
Guo Xuan's father was a very old-fashioned man who believed that a woman's virtue lay in her lack of talent.
Although a tutor was hired to teach his daughter at home, Guo Xuantong, influenced by her father, didn't put much effort into her studies. She could recognize simple characters, but struggled with more complex ones.
Lu Chenyan, unaware that she didn't recognize it, wrote it again on the sand table, asking, "Can you see it clearly now?"
Guo Xuantong tried to justify herself, saying, "I can't see clearly. Who writes in the mud? You have to use a pen to write on paper. When I get out of here, I'll bring you a pen and paper to write for you."
Lu Chenyan ignored her and continued writing. Guo Xuantong talked for a while but received no response, so she got bored and turned to find Guo Xinyi.
The villagers in the valley were all very busy, and Guo Xuantong, being self-righteous, felt that these villagers who only knew how to farm were not worthy of associating with her.
So even though she had lived in the valley for so long, she didn't know many people. The only people she could talk to were her younger sister and her mother.
On the contrary, Guo Xinyi has now become one with the Jiang family. Now that the lime kiln is also under the Jiang family's control, they are busier than before. Seeing everyone so busy, Guo Xinyi took the initiative to take on the cooking chores.
She has been learning a few things from the Jiang family while sewing clothes for the baby at their house recently, and now she can barely cook simple meals.
When Guo Xuantong arrived, she saw Guo Xinyi busy at the makeshift stove.
Seeing my younger sister with soot on her face and weeds in her hair, looking like a country girl, I felt even more certain that my choice was right.
If she is afraid of temporary difficulties and chooses to marry a man from the countryside, she will end up living the life of a country woman, just like her sister.
When Guo Xinyi saw her coming, she stopped what she was doing and asked, "Big sister, is there something you need?"
Guo Xuantong had originally wanted to talk to her about Lu Shiyan and share her suspicions, but seeing her sister's expression, she suddenly decided not to say anything. She shook her head and said, "It's nothing."
Guo Xinyi felt that her expression suddenly changed.
Yesterday she was frowning and looked utterly hopeless. But today, all the worry has vanished, and there's even a hint of pity in her eyes when she looks at herself.
She didn't understand what was going on with her, so she didn't pay much attention and went back to her work.
Wei Ying can now get out of bed and walk. Although she's still in her postpartum period, she doesn't want to see Guo Xinyi, a young girl, busy with all that work. So, she comes over to help after the baby falls asleep.
The two of them worked together and quickly finished cooking the meal.
Today was the first day the lime kiln started operation, and there were so many things to do that Jiang Lao Si and Jiang Lao Wu couldn't find time to go home for dinner. Wang Shi prepared a carrying pole and baskets, intending to put the food in earthenware pots and deliver it to them.
Seeing that Wang was struggling to carry everything by herself, Guo Xinyi offered to help. In addition to the food, they also prepared hot water to cool her down. Since Wang couldn't carry it all by herself, she gave the lighter items to Guo Xinyi to carry.
When Guo Xuantong saw that they were going to deliver food to the lime kiln, she rolled her eyes and got up to follow them.
The lime kiln was built at the foot of the mountain on the west side of the valley, quite far from where everyone lived. Even if you walked fast, it would take more than half an hour.
After walking for a short while, Guo Xuantong was panting heavily, looking like she was about to faint.
Wang looked at Guo Xuantong, then at Guo Xinyi, and couldn't help but sigh in her heart, how could the two sisters be so different?
Guo Xinyi was also a pampered young lady who had never done farm work, but she was willing to do anything and learn anything.
But Guo Xuantong does nothing all day and acts superior, looking down on everyone.
I don't know why she looked down on everyone and went to the lime kiln.
Unbeknownst to Wang, Guo Xuantong intended to go to the lime kiln to see Jiang Tangtang make a fool of herself. Although the village had successfully produced red bricks, Guo Xuantong felt that Jiang Tangtang was joking about burning lime.
Making lime is much more difficult than making red bricks.
Could a village woman like her really have managed to do that with just a few random tinkering steps?
Does she think that by messing around with all this nonsense, she can be a good match for Lu Shiyan?
She's dreaming!
Jiang Tangtang, who was deemed to be just messing around, is now teaching everyone how to identify stones.
To save time, Jiang Tangtang selected some people to build the lime kiln today, and others to go up the mountain to collect stones. Once the kiln is built, the stones can be directly placed inside to be fired.
With work proceeding simultaneously on both sides, the lime could be burned more quickly. This would also allow the construction of defensive outposts and houses to be put on the agenda more rapidly.
The villagers were surprised and found it absurd to hear that lime was made by burning stones.
They all know that lime is a powdery, white substance. How could this be made from burning stone? Stone burned into powder?
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