Chapter 7: Should an illiterate woman be taught to read?
Upon hearing this, Zhao Liangxu quickly stood up, dusted herself off, and gracefully bowed like a true princess.
"Thank you very much, Eunuch An."
Zhao Liangxu looked at the bookshelves filled with books, casually picked one and walked over, then stood in front of the bookshelf and carefully selected books.
She didn't really like reading serious books and wanted to choose some books with stories to read, but when Zhao Liangxu picked out a few, she found that they were all books with profound meanings and doctrines, such as "The Art of War" and "The Classic of XX", which were not what Zhao Liangxu wanted to read.
After much deliberation, she finally chose a book called "Night Travelogue." The title sounded nice, and she guessed it didn't seem like a serious book. Zhao Liangxu picked up the book and flipped through it casually for a few moments before her fingertips suddenly stopped.
Zhao Liangxu froze for a few seconds as if she were stuck. Just then, An He looked in her direction and saw that Zhao Liangxu had already chosen a book and was staring at it blankly. He definitely wanted to know what book Zhao Liangxu had chosen.
"Princess Zhao, you should at least let me take a look at the books you've chosen."
Although Anhe had read most of the books in his study, some officials who wanted to curry favor with him would sometimes go out of their way to collect rare books and present them to him, and he had no reason to refuse.
Therefore, there are a small portion of the books in this study that he has not seen before, but he will have Zhang Sheng carefully go through them to check for any omissions.
Zhao Liangxu moved to An He's side and handed him the book.
She glanced at the book, then at Anhe who was holding it, and felt a little awkward. There was something she didn't know whether she should say or not.
She stared blankly at Anhe's profile as he flipped through the book, debating whether or not to tell him something, but also feeling that it would be quite embarrassing to say it.
She was so engrossed in her thoughts that she didn't notice Anhe had put down her book and looked up at her.
After reading a few pages, Anhe realized that the book recorded unofficial histories of the previous dynasty, all baseless fabrications. He was about to look up and make a sarcastic remark about Zhao Liangxu's book selection when he noticed that Zhao Liangxu was staring at him with her lips pursed, and Anhe swallowed his words.
But after a second or two, An He noticed that Zhao Liangxu was just staring blankly with her gaze wandering. He found it amusing and asked, "Princess Zhao is really carefree. She dares to daydream even in such a short time."
Reminded by An He, Zhao Liangxu came to her senses and looked at An He with some difficulty.
Anhe thought Zhao Liangxu was embarrassed because she chose such a meaningless book, and sneered: "I knew you didn't understand these things just from the poems you recited earlier. You can only read these made-up stories."
He returned the book to Zhao Liangxu, indicating his magnanimity and allowing Zhao Liangxu to read it.
But Zhang Sheng and his bunch of useless fellows actually put such books in his study. They really need to be taught a lesson. He has never been interested in these unofficial histories and disdains to read them.
Zhao Liangxu placed the book on the table and finally decided to speak about what she had just been thinking about.
“Eunuch An, I… am not very literate.”
Yes, she was a young intellectual from modern times who wrote neat Chinese characters all day long, but she came to ancient times and became illiterate.
She wasn't entirely illiterate; she was just not very familiar with traditional Chinese characters. Although she didn't completely not recognize them, the ancient custom of writing from top to bottom and reading from right to left, coupled with the fact that traditional characters occupied most of the text, really troubled her, making her almost no different from an illiterate person.
“I remember that whether they were members of the Northern Zhou royal family or hostages who came to our country, they were all qualified to attend school!” An He found Zhao Liangxu’s words absurd.
How could they be illiterate? This is something that nobles are required to learn!
Even eunuchs have schools, how could she not be literate?
Zhao Liangxu's eyes darted around: "But I'm not really Princess Zhao. I only learned simplified characters, so it's understandable that I don't know traditional characters."
"Traditional characters? Point out to me which characters are traditional characters. These characters look extremely simple, so what's the point of simplification?"
Anhe was shocked by Zhao Liangxu's words. These words were all perfect now, and Anhe couldn't think of anything that could be simplified.
Zhao Liangxu pointed out a few words somewhat awkwardly, which made her seem truly illiterate.
She randomly pointed out a few characters: “Ye,” “Tan,” and “Ji.” These characters looked familiar to her. Usually, when she read traditional Chinese subtitles, she could analyze the general meaning based on the context. However, this book was written in classical Chinese, and many parts were vague and unclear.
Anhe looked up at her, still surprised that she didn't recognize the words.
"Ye is the leaf of tree leaves, Tan is the sigh of sighing, and Ji is the strike of striking. Do you really not recognize them?"
"How could this be fake? Could Eunuch An possibly recognize oracle bone script from thousands of years ago?"
What exactly is oracle bone script?
Anhe asked directly.
Zhao Liangxu was surprised and patted her head: "Just think of it as an ancient script like seal script or bronze script."
Anhe snorted; he knew all this.
That makes some sense.
"I'm a little curious about how you would write these three characters. Come on, write them out so we can see."
An He generously pointed to the pen and ink, indicating that Zhao Liangxu could use them as she pleased, since there was nothing important on the table anyway.
Upon hearing this, Zhao Liangxu picked up a writing brush without hesitation, recalled the way ancient people held a brush, and began to write.
However, she was not a calligraphy master. She had taken some calligraphy lessons when she was a child, but she had long forgotten them. She tried to apply the ink-dipping method she remembered and awkwardly put pen to paper.
Zhao Liangxu lowered her eyes in thought, her brows and eyes downcast. Her dark hair slipped from her shoulders onto the paper on the table. The former Princess Zhao was flamboyant and beautiful, but now she was a different person inside. Unlike her previous vulgar beauty, she now exuded an indifferent and detached temperament, which was truly beautiful and moving.
She looks even more beautiful now than she did as Princess Zhao.
Zhao Liangxu quickly finished writing three characters. She moved the paper towards An He and showed it to him.
An He looked at the three large characters written by Zhao Liangxu. The strength of the strokes varied, and some places were heavily inked, with the black ink spreading across the paper in a rather stylish manner... if these marks hadn't almost completely obscured the characters.
The writing is worse than that of a three-year-old.
“Princess Zhao, could it be that you haven’t even learned how to write?” An He pointed out this doubt sharply.
Zhao Liangxu pursed her lips and rewrote the three characters in the corner. This time, she was more familiar with the feel of the brush, and the characters she wrote were much neater.
“Grandpa An, actually, back in my time, calligraphy was just a hobby; we mostly wrote with pens.”
As she pointed to the simplified Chinese characters she had written, she explained, "Look, the three characters '叶', '叹', and '击' are much simpler than what you wrote."
"Simple is simple, but do you usually write such simple characters?" I never imagined that characters would change so much over time. I wonder how busy people in the future must be to have to put so much effort into simplifying characters.
"Actually, there are also characters with many strokes, such as '繁'. Some of these characters have not been simplified and remain unchanged from their original form."
As she spoke, Zhao Liangxu was about to pick up her pen to write again, but An He quickly stopped her, as he didn't want to see her writing, which resembled that of a child.
Anhe looked at Zhao Liangxu, who was still holding a brush and seemed to be deep in thought about the words in "Night Travelogue," and an idea suddenly came to mind.
In order to climb to the position of Grand Eunuch and Chief Eunuch, he never forgot to practice calligraphy and read books. Originally, he just wanted to be able to speak better in front of the emperor and be qualified to write. However, during his studies, he found that some civil officials said things in court that were quite different from his own thoughts.
He studied poetry, literature, and military strategy more and more, and he achieved some success in his studies. Seeing Zhao Liangxu's almost illiterate performance, he suddenly had the idea of becoming a teacher.
"If you can't read, you won't be able to read any books. Why don't we condescend to teach you something?"
"Okay... Ah?"
Zhao Liangxu thought she had misheard. What was he going to teach her? Was he going to teach her to read?
"No need, Eunuch An, I can learn it myself."
Zhao Liangxu declined, saying that she could learn more by observing more.
“You’re going to learn it yourself? Are you going to figure it out on your own?” Anhe commanded in an unquestionable tone, “You can try refusing.”
He made a "please" gesture, with a hint of "try and you'll die."
"So, how does Eunuch An plan to teach me?"
Zhao Liangxu was very suspicious. With Anhe's eccentric personality, she hadn't even learned anything yet, and he was already finding fault with her and making her angry to death.
Zhao Liangxu raised her hands to shoulder height, giving a perfunctory "surrender": "Eunuch An, we're all getting on in years. If you really want to teach me, it'll be a bit awkward, won't it? How about we compromise? If I have any words I don't know, I can ask you, and you can tell me. That way, I can learn something from you without wasting your time."
She came up with a solution that satisfied both parties.
Anhe frowned. It was rare for him to be in the mood to teach someone, and she didn't appreciate it at all.
Nowadays, everyone in the capital is desperate to get in touch with him, spending all their money and resources just to get some benefits from him. Even just saying a few words to him is something to brag about for a long time.
If it were anyone else who heard An He's words, they would probably be too busy kneeling down to express their gratitude, but Zhao Liangxu actually brushed him off like that.
Zhao Liangxu put on a puzzled look and earnestly asked for advice.
An He was speechless at this, and glanced at Zhao Liangxu: "Hmph, I was just joking, and you took it seriously. My time is very precious."
Zhao Liangxu raised an eyebrow.
Let's assume you're telling the truth.
Anhe was furious when she saw Zhao Liangxu, and waved her away, telling her to take the book and stay away from her.
Zhao Liangxu obediently took the book off the table and walked to a corner a little further away from Anhe to sit down on the ground.
The book is a bit hard to understand now, so she just reads it for fun. She can't not recognize a single word, so she can guess the story by guessing here and there.
Anyway, she reads quickly, just for fun.
Zhao Liangxu leaned against the wall, placed the book on her lap, found the most comfortable position, and turned to the first page to start reading.
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