Shui Qing gave him the silver, and seeing that Fan Jin didn't move and showed no intention of leaving, she asked, "Is there anything else?"
Fan Jin hesitated for a long time, his fair cheeks flushed, and said, "I don't have enough money."
He knew his family didn't have much money.
The first time I sold the he shou wu, I bought a lot of things and had three taels of silver left. The second time I sold it, I got six taels of silver and bought some cloth as gifts for my father-in-law's family. I still had four and a half taels left.
Shui Qing gave him half a tael of silver.
Shui Qing was extremely surprised. In those days, the purchasing power of silver was quite impressive. How much would five calligraphy brushes cost?
Half a tael of silver is equivalent to five hundred coins, which is not enough to buy five writing brushes?
Fan Jin said embarrassedly, "It's really not enough. Even the smallest and cheapest calligraphy brush costs 120 coins. I'm not lying to you."
If five children practice calligraphy using only one brush, it will be too time-consuming.
Shui Qing quickly explained, "I didn't disbelieve you, I just didn't expect calligraphy brushes to be so expensive!"
“It’s not expensive. You don’t understand the craftsmanship of making calligraphy brushes. Once you do, you’ll know that a calligraphy brush is worth more than a hundred coins,” Fan Jin defended the things he loved.
Shui Qing became interested and asked curiously, "You know about this?"
"I've heard the Master mention that the finer wool materials are mostly made of sheep's wool, weasel tail hair, badger hair, and civet hair, while the cheaper ones are mostly made of pig hair, horse hair, cow tail, and rat whiskers."
I used pig bristles, but even the cheapest pig bristles, as long as they're not defective, cost 150 coins each.
Because the raw materials need to be deodorized and impurities removed with lime water first, if this step is not done well, the raw materials will be completely ruined and unusable.
After washing and drying, the wool needs to be combed, aligned, pressed, and mixed... Then the wool is arranged on the alignment board and cut to the required length according to the length requirements. Don't you think this requires a lot of patience and care?
After that, the next step is to tie the string. This is the initial preparation of the pen tip. Next, you need to choose the pen handle, assemble the pen handle and the pen tip, and some better ones will even have decorative engravings, but that's where the expensive ones come in." Fan Jin's dark eyes shone brightly when he mentioned his favorite things.
As Shui Qing listened, she thought, "Wow, it's purely handmade, the process is complex and difficult, no wonder it can sell for such a price."
Then, realizing that Fan Jin could remember it so clearly, she must really like it, so she asked, "Do you want to buy an expensive pen?"
Fan Jin shook his head.
"You really don't want to?" Shui Qing didn't believe her.
Otherwise, even if the Master had told him, he wouldn't have remembered it so clearly.
Fan Jin continued to shake his head, saying helplessly, "Shui Qing, I know how much money we have. We currently have a total of seven and a half taels of silver in savings. Building a courtyard house will require at least a hundred taels of silver, and we may not be able to raise enough even after the He Shou Wu treatment ends."
Besides, our family needs some money for emergencies. Even if we have enough, we can't spend it all. Any calligraphy brush will do, good or bad.
He wasn't very good at earning money; he earned 53 coins a day copying books, and it would take him three days' wages to buy even the cheapest calligraphy brush.
A good pen is appreciated by all scholars, but sometimes you can't just look at whether the pen is good or not; you also have to consider how poor you are.
Shui Qing listened and somehow sensed a pang of sadness in her voice.
Sigh, when children from poor families go to school, they have to be extremely frugal, even scrimping and saving to buy a pen.
"Oh, wait, let me see if it's available in the store?"
Fan Jin looked up in surprise and asked blankly, "Does the mall still sell calligraphy brushes?"
Shui Qing proudly said, "There's nothing they won't sell! From the sky, the ground, to the water, they have everything, it just depends on whether you have the money."
Fan Jin smiled. He hadn't thought about buying it from the mall, but he was curious about how much a calligraphy brush cost there.
However, calligraphy brushes are rare items and extremely difficult to make, so they probably won't be cheap in stores...
Shuiqing opened the shopping mall and searched under the stationery category.
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