Chapter 61 The Magistrate Treats Her Differently
Cheng Wanwan and her four sons split into two groups.
Zhao Ergou and Zhao Sanniu went to a restaurant in Ping'an Town to discuss cooperation, while she took Zhao Dashan and Zhao Sidan to Dekang Academy.
She inquired at the entrance of Dekang Academy and learned that the academy only accepted students who had passed the preliminary examinations. Although the headmaster was just an old scholar, the academy was relatively cheaper than Nanfu Academy. The tuition was one tael of silver per month, and students could pay their debts with grain. The academy had two classes with about fifty or sixty students.
Cheng Wanwan had no choice but to inquire whether there were any other private schools in Ping'an Town.
"The smallest private school is probably the clan school of the Wang family. The Wang family doesn't have many people, so they recruit students from outside. However, they require students to be familiar with the Three Character Classic and the Hundred Family Surnames." The man selling writing brushes, ink, paper, and inkstones glanced at the two boys behind Cheng Wanwan. "If a child this age doesn't know a single word, I'm afraid no school will accept him."
It's normal for three- to five-year-old children not to know how to read.
If a ten-year-old child cannot read, it means he has no talent for studying, and basically no school will be willing to teach him, even if they offer him money.
Cheng Wanwan sighed.
Si Dan isn't lacking in academic talent; his talent has simply been wasted.
It seems that Si Dan will have to thoroughly study these basic primers at home before he can attend the private school in town.
Alternatively, she could be sent to the Cheng Family Village's early childhood education center, but she never wanted to deal with those vampires from the Cheng Family again, so that path was completely blocked.
“Mom, I’ll ask Brother Tiezhu to teach me.” Zhao Sidan was very optimistic. “Brother Tiezhu said that reading and writing are not difficult at all, and I will be able to learn them quickly.”
Cheng Wanwan's lips twitched.
Given Zhao Tiezhu's mediocre level of education, he shouldn't be learning things that lead him astray.
This matter needs to be carefully considered.
While her progress was slow, Zhao Ergou and Zhao Sanniu had smooth sailing and successfully negotiated deals with two restaurants.
However, Ping'an Town is not as prosperous as Hekou Town. The two largest restaurants only ordered a total of 100 bowls, and sold a total of 600 bowls.
In Hekou Town, a bowl costs two coins, and there are five hundred bowls in total, which would cost one thousand coins, or one tael of silver.
In Ping'an Town, a bowl costs one coin. A total of one hundred bowls will cost one hundred coins, which is barely enough to cover the cost.
Based on this calculation, one or two taels of silver can be earned net per day.
Everyone in the family contributed, so she couldn't just let them work without paying them. She had to calculate how much each person should be paid.
Paying her too little wouldn't be good, as it would make her seem stingy; paying her too much wouldn't be good either, because once the four boys had saved up some money, they would definitely take it to town to buy things, which would make it clear that the grain at home was "ill-gotten"...
Cheng Wanwan kept calculating the accounts the whole way. The oxcart swayed and stopped at the entrance of Dahe Village. Zhao Da was going up the mountain to transport firewood home, so the mother and her five children got off the cart ahead of time and carried wooden buckets home.
At the entrance of the village, a family is repairing their roof.
Cheng Wanwan knew that there was a hole in her roof. If it hadn't been for the recent drought, she might have experienced the unpleasant feeling of "heavy rain outside and light rain inside".
She said, "The first thing I'll do when I have money is build a house."
Zhao Dashan immediately nodded: "Starting tomorrow, I will save a little adobe every day. Once I have enough, I can build a house."
Zhao Ergou added, "My older brother and I make adobe bricks together."
He later realized that the reason Shuiqin didn't want to be with him was because she had nowhere to live at home.
San Niu is about to get married. How heartbroken he would be if the woman he likes didn't want to marry him because her family had nowhere to live.
He couldn't let his two younger brothers end up in the same situation as him.
Cheng Wanwan knew what adobe bricks were. They were square molds into which mud mixed with water was poured. At the same time, straw or wheat straw was chopped into pieces about the length of a finger and mixed in. After the mud and straw were thoroughly mixed and solidified, the adobe bricks were poured out and dried to become mud bricks. When building houses, these adobe bricks, made one by one, were used to build the houses.
Most of the houses in Dahe Village are like this. The village head’s house is slightly better, with stone bricks on the ground, but the foundation of the house is also adobe.
Adobe houses are cheap to build. As long as there are many people in the family, you can take time to save some adobe bricks on weekdays and build the house before winter.
Cheng Wanwan didn't really want to live in an adobe house, but at this time she didn't have the means to build a tiled house, and it would easily arouse the envy of other people in the village. Even the village head didn't live in a tiled house, so where would she, a widow with four sons after the family had separated, get the money to build a big house?
Before the mother and her five children had taken a few steps, they suddenly heard the sound of horse hooves behind them.
Cheng Wanwan turned around and saw a carriage speeding towards her from behind. The driver yelled "Whoa!" and the carriage stopped by the roadside.
The curtain of the carriage was lifted, and Zhao Lizheng from Dahe Village jumped down from the carriage with high spirits. The driver bowed and turned the carriage around to go back.
This was the first time Cheng Wanwan had ever seen an ancient horse-drawn carriage. Many people in Dahe Village were also seeing one for the first time. People in the fields and along the roadside dropped what they were doing and gathered around the village head, asking him all sorts of questions.
The village head stroked his beard and said with a serious face, "That carriage belongs to the county magistrate of Ping'an Town. The driver is a servant of the county magistrate. He came here specially to bring me back."
"Wow, the village head is something else! The county magistrate actually sent someone to personally escort you back."
"Our village head is really capable; he can make the county magistrate look at him differently."
The village head, flattered by the compliments, smiled and said, "I was able to catch the magistrate's eye because our Dahe Village worked together with one heart and one mind. The news of digging a ditch to bring water from the mountain a few days ago somehow reached the magistrate's ears. He summoned me today to ask about this matter. In the past, it was difficult for me to even see the magistrate, but now I have the honor of sitting with him and drinking tea."
The other people in the village were extremely envious and kept asking, "How old is the county magistrate? Is he fat or thin? Is he easy to talk to?"
It was also the first time that the village head was received by the county magistrate. He had a strong desire to show off, so he naturally answered the questions one by one.
After everyone finished flattering her, Cheng Wanwan finally spoke up: "Uncle Village Head, why did the County Magistrate specifically ask about digging the ditch? Is there some kind of arrangement?"
The village head's boasting immediately subsided; he hadn't expected that Da Shan Niang could guess the magistrate's true intention in summoning him.
He nodded and said, “There are thirty-six villages under Ping’an Town, and every village is suffering from drought. The county magistrate wants to promote the digging of ditches and asked me if it is feasible.”
The villagers surrounding them laughed.
"Just because there is water on Dadong Mountain doesn't mean that there is water on other mountains."
"There's nothing we can do even in Guihua Village, the closest village to us, and there's absolutely nothing we can do even for villages further away."
"Your Excellency is grasping at straws in your desperation..."
The village head didn't speak, staring at Cheng Wanwan. His intuition told him that Dashan's mother would have a different opinion.
Cheng Wanwan looked at her four sons and said, "Take your things back and clean them up. I'll be back soon."
The village head and Cheng Wanwan walked to the big locust tree in the middle of the village.
The other villagers dared not follow. Ever since the irrigation ditch incident, they no longer dared to look at Sister Zhao with the same eyes they used to.
How could they dare to look down on someone whom even the village head looked up to?
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