Chapter 712 A Dream of Youth 244
As a result, those who were already interested became even more excited, and even more people started to have designs on the subject.
However, not everyone was optimistic about the appointment of female officials. There were those who wanted to break through and those who were conservative. People's thoughts are not fixed.
Zhao Huilan stood outside the door and listened to her parents having a big argument.
Her father agreed to let her participate in the imperial examination, while her mother had been against it from the beginning.
As for the reason... perhaps my mother is somewhat like my maternal grandfather, who was so pedantic, rigid, cold and ruthless, a gentleman who strictly followed Confucian ethics.
Zhao Huilan admired her maternal grandfather's erudition, his incorruptibility as an official, and his fidelity to his wife.
In the Great Zhou Dynasty, taking concubines was a common practice. Officials and the wealthy would flaunt the number of their concubines, and her father was no exception.
When my father was demoted to a post in Lingnan, his family was not allowed to accompany him, but his concubines were. So my mother arranged for him to take two concubines.
Although everyone does it this way and it seems there's nothing wrong with it, Zhao Huilan still feels uncomfortable.
She liked the kind of family her maternal grandparents had, where it was just the two of them.
However, my maternal grandmother was not happy. Instead, she was filled with anxiety and fear. In addition, she had not had children for many years, so she decided to arrange for my maternal grandfather to take a concubine. In the end, it ended with my maternal grandfather refusing and scolding her.
The mother was later adopted along with her younger brother.
She admired her maternal grandfather for his deep love for his grandmother and for his lifelong integrity and honesty, but she also found his rigidity and adherence to etiquette suffocating.
She used to think this was right, but it was like a bird that had been in a cage for a long time and thought that the cage was its whole world.
Unaware of their predicament.
Fortunately, both her own family and her maternal grandparents' family valued that daughters should study to learn manners. Therefore, even though she had never truly experienced the world outside, she had glimpsed a corner of it through books, and thus her ambitions were born.
"Big sister." The boy carrying the book obediently bowed to Zhao Huilan. He was Zhao Shi, the illegitimate son of the Zhao family.
"Your father and mother are busy. If you wish to ask them for advice, please come another day." Going in now would only displease your parents.
Zhao Shi lowered his voice and said, "Then, can I ask the older sister for help?"
Zhao Huilan glanced at Zhao Shi in surprise, wondering why this half-brother, with whom she had never had any relationship, would suddenly come to ask her for advice.
The Zhao family values etiquette, and it is somewhat rigid. As a result, as the legitimate daughter, she did not have a deep relationship with her brothers, whether they were born of the legitimate wife or illegitimate children.
The rude behavior towards Xie Ning that day truly infuriated Zhao's mother, coupled with her inadequate discipline of the servants, which led to such neglect.
It was during that time that the mother and daughter fought fiercely, which made Zhao's mother dislike Xie Ning, who was at the center of the conflict. She believed that Xie Ning had bewitched Zhao Huilan, so she did not want to see her, and the servants naturally followed suit.
Later, Zhao's father also sold off those servants, and then personally took Zhao's mother to the Xie family to apologize.
Although the Xie family didn't say anything more on the surface, the two families had become estranged. Xie Wangzhi wouldn't so easily overlook the fact that Xie Ning had been neglected and continue to maintain friendly relations with the Zhao family just because he was friends with Zhao Chengran.
His two children don't need to suffer those injustices.
If Zhao's mother truly had no intention of intervening, why would the servants act in such a way? It was merely to curry favor with their master. With unrest in the inner quarters and no control over the servants, it was unwise to get too close to them.
Besides, he also had his own considerations. Zhao Chengran was a good person, and the two had been friends for many years. However, after years of ups and downs in officialdom, Xie Wangzhi had a clear understanding of each other's positions.
Zhao Chengran belonged to the faction that completely rejected the new law, while Xie Wangzhi remained neutral. He approved of the good parts of the new law, but opposed the parts with drawbacks.
Therefore, it's really not good for the two of them to get too close, and it's just right to use this incident to distance themselves.
Zhao Huilan was unaware of any of this, but she could tell that the two families had less contact. Of course, this did not prevent her from associating with Xie Ning.
Perhaps she's still young and doesn't think that much.
After a light rain, one can hear the wind chimes swaying erratically under the eaves.
Zhao Huilan led her people out through a small gate to the pavilion by the lake in the small garden. "Why did you think of coming to ask me for advice? Isn't my elder brother in the front yard?"
"My elder brother went out for a boat trip." Even if he didn't go out for a boat trip, his knowledge was only average. He failed the imperial examination last year, and he was only a Mingjing (a lower-level scholar).
But her elder sister was different. She was intelligent from a young age and well-versed in the Four Books and Five Classics. The teachers who gave lectures all admired her talent. Her elder brother would even ask his elder sister to write a few poems for him to show off when he went to poetry gatherings.
Zhao Huilan frowned deeply, turned her head and saw the timid Zhao Shi, sighed, but still didn't refuse, "What don't you know?"
Zhao Shi wasn't good at studying either, but she had one advantage over her brother: diligence. Not everyone could study as hard as Zhao Shi, from the age of six to the present age of thirteen, every single day.
But this child probably really wasn't very gifted. An ordinary person could memorize an article after three or four readings, but he needed to read it thirty or forty times, and he would forget most of it after a short while. Even so, he never slacked off.
If he couldn't remember something, he would review it over and over again. He had no other talents, so he just studied hard with all his might.
Zhao Shi glanced at Zhao Huilan secretly and saw that there were only a few of Zhao Huilan's confidants and wet nurses around her. He then put down the book in his hand and knelt down.
"Big sister, could you please plead with Father and Mother to send Rou'er to the pharmaceutical factory?"
Zhao Huilan met Zhao Shiqiang's gaze, which she was trying to maintain, and asked, "Mother said that place is not a good place." She herself has difficulty getting out.
Zhao's mother was against the idea of female officials, let alone female doctors. She knew that the pharmaceutical factory had opened a free clinic, which treated both men and women.
"A good place is one where you can learn new skills."
This surprised Zhao Huilan, who continued to ask, "Although Rou is born out of wedlock, Mother is always fair and will surely find her a good match so that she won't have to work outside."
Zhao Shi lowered his head and remained silent for a while before saying, "Elder sister, my mother said that only I am the most reliable person."
"Aren't you afraid I'll tell my father and mother about this?"
"Big sister isn't like that."
The two stared at each other for a long time before Zhao Huilan looked away first, saying, "I will talk to my father."
She didn't mention Zhao's mother, because Zhao's father was the one who held the decision-making power. Even if Zhao's mother would argue with Zhao's father about these things, Zhao's mother... would compromise.
Zhao Shi had bright eyes, but he didn't really understand these things. He just did whatever his stepmother taught him. His stepmother told him to study hard, so he studied diligently and never slacked off.
His mother told him to beg his older sister, so he went and begged her.
He was a little less intelligent than others since he was a child, but he would listen to his stepmother because he could sense that she really cared about him and his sister.
The young woman said that they were born out of wedlock, and although they would eventually inherit some of the family property, they wouldn't be able to keep it if they didn't have any skills of their own. She couldn't rely on her father, and she couldn't rely on her brothers in the future.
So even if you study by rote, you must find a way to succeed, and in the end, even if you only manage to get a minor official position, that will be enough.
As for her younger sister, her mother was very respectful to her mother and only hoped that her mother could find a good marriage for her sister in the future. However, when she saw Lord Xie, who was wearing a scarlet official robe, her mother changed.
Instead of urging her younger sister to learn needlework, she used her savings to buy her simple medical books that she could find on the market.
Zhao Shi carried the book through the corridor and went straight back to their small courtyard, where his young mother was sitting under the eaves, doing needlework in the sunlight.
A damp breeze brushed against his eyes, and Zhao Shi couldn't help but call out, "Mother."
The woman looked up and smiled helplessly, "How could you forget again? You should call me 'little lady'."
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