Chapter 220 Lantern Festival Boat
In Heishan Township, many children only go to school for two or three years, and then stop going to school after learning to recognize a few words.
Su Zhizhi: "Why do I still have to go to school?"
Hao Ren: "Learning never ends."
Wu Yingniang also said, "Zhizhi, you haven't read books or practiced calligraphy for a long time recently."
Su Zhizhi stopped talking.
She certainly hasn't been reading or writing recently.
Su Zhizhi looked for help to the people around her, but at this moment everyone agreed that Zhizhi should study.
Even the out-of-tune Old Xu said:
"Zhizhi, you're still young. Even if you want to venture out into the world, it's too early. You can't stay at home all day. You have to learn something and make some friends. Even opera singers have to learn opera scripts."
Su Zhizhi sighed, knowing that she couldn't escape.
Everyone has slightly different ideas about Zhizhi's specific plans for reading.
"How about asking the teacher to come to our house and teach us?"
"Which teacher can manage Zhizhi at home? Why don't we teach him ourselves?"
"It's one thing for us to understand, but it's another to teach others. We can't teach as well as Old Man Qin, and we all have work to do."
"If you ask me, I'd better send it to a college. Find a better college..."
"I know. I've already found out all the information about academies in Chang'an..."
Everyone was talking at once, and the discussion was very heated, as if they were talking about the most important thing in the house.
Su Zhizhi raised her hand high: "I have a question!"
Everyone turned around and said, "Speak."
Su Zhizhi: "Is there any academy where students don't study?"
Everyone: ...
Hao Ren rubbed his brows, and only then did he deeply realize how much Xue Che had helped Su Zhizhi's studies during the past few years in Black Bandit Mountain.
He really misses Xue Che now.
After discussion, everyone drew up a list of colleges, circled the suitable ones and crossed out the unsuitable ones.
Finally, two academies remained.
Hao Ren put down his pen and nodded slightly with satisfaction:
"You can choose between Luming Academy and Zhuji Academy. They're not too far away, both have many female students, and their reputations are very good. With Zhizhi's level, she'll have no problem getting in."
Su Zhizhi sat at the doorstep and listened, but couldn't quite hear it, so she turned around and said:
"Master Qiu once said, 'Hearing is believing, seeing is believing.' No matter what academy it is, I have to go and see it first!"
The snowman in the yard was half melted.
The clouds are heavy tonight, and the moon and stars are hiding behind them.
The north wind blew in through the gaps in the window, causing the lights to sway left and right.
The shadow of Su Zhizhi sitting at the table was also stretched and deformed.
Su Zhizhi was holding a pen and was writing a reply to Xue Che seriously:
A-Che:
Happy New Year!
If the food there isn't good, you can go to Sister Hua's hometown and eat there. Sister Hua said she has sent a message to her hometown, and you can go there and eat for free.
But don’t go too often, or you might be disliked.
The New Year celebrations in Chang'an are lively and beautiful, with revolving lanterns hanging everywhere. Only after arriving in Chang'an did I understand why some families are called "high-ranking families."
When I was moving two days ago, I was sitting in a carriage and saw your house. The plaque on your door was polished very brightly, and the door was so big and tall, as tall as the tree at the entrance of our village.
I heard that my father’s former home is next to yours.
There were many seals on the door of the house, as if it had been there for a long time.
The gate was also tall and majestic, with auspicious beasts carved into the eaves. It was even more beautiful than the largest house in Xunzhou. I then realized that my father had lived in such a magnificent house when he was a child.
I kept staring at the house, but my father just took a quick look and then stopped.
The house I live in now is also very big. We were lucky and bought it for very little money, and Uncle Xu didn't kidnap anyone's mother.
I originally thought that I wouldn't have to study after coming to Chang'an, but who would have thought that my father and others actually wanted to send me to the academy these past two days.
When it comes to studying, their hearts are harder than Chinese New Year bacon.
After the first month of the lunar year, I will go and see the academy with my own eyes.
Alas, life is full of unexpected events!
The first day of the first lunar month in the tenth year of Zhaoqing
Know
After Su Zhizhi finished signing, she raised her eyebrows and added a sentence below the signature:
Oh, I forgot to mention, my strength has increased. If we meet someday, let's have an arm wrestling match. The loser will treat me.
Su Zhizhi folded the letter, stuffed it into the envelope, and sealed it with glue.
She wrote the letter and gave it to her parents, waiting for the right opportunity to send it to the northwest. The entire process of sending the letter was handled by her family, and no information would be leaked.
Su Zhizhi had a fulfilling time from the first to the fifteenth day of the first lunar month.
Hua Erniang and Doctor Yu took her to travel around the capital.
Hua Erniang was well off, so she invited Zhizhi and Doctor Yu to go to teahouses, theaters, and restaurants in the capital.
Those who don’t know would think that Zhizhi is the child of Hua Er Niang and Doctor Yu.
When Hua Erniang was mistaken for Zhizhi's mother, she just smiled.
Doctor Yu was not obsessed with having a child, but Hua Erniang wanted a child, preferably a daughter like Zhizhi.
Doctor Yu had taken Hua Erniang's pulse many times and knew that she had taken a lot of poisons in her youth. Although she had recovered from them, some damage had still occurred to her body. She was not suitable for childbearing at the moment and needed to recuperate for a few years. After that, she could conceive.
Hua Er Niang didn't force it, so she just took care of herself for a few years, eating and having fun, and being in a good mood every day.
On the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, the Lantern Festival, people in Dayu have the custom of appreciating lanterns.
The streets of Chang'an City remained open for three consecutive nights, allowing people to enjoy the lanterns everywhere.
Hua Erniang said generously that she would invite everyone in the house to go to the street to eat fried dumplings, and would also buy masks for everyone.
Everyone came out together to watch the lanterns and eat dumplings.
When they walked to the back, they dispersed into the crowded crowd in groups of three or four.
The moon is full and the lights are bright.
The lanterns hung everywhere formed a galaxy covering the sky above.
The pedestrians walking through the streets are like fish swimming in the galaxy.
Su Zhizhi held Wu Yingniang's left hand and Hao Ren's right hand.
She was wearing a newly bought tiger mask, Wu Yingniang picked out a monkey king mask, and Hao Ren was wearing a green-faced and fanged Nuo opera mask.
"Little Tiger" looked up and asked, "Dad, where are the most beautiful lanterns in Chang'an?"
A gentle voice came from beneath the green-faced, fang-toothed figure: "Just ahead is the Nichang Painting Boat. They make many exquisite and unique lanterns every year."
"Then let's go!"
On the bank of Qujiang Lake, the colorful painted boat is decorated like a giant koi carp, with seven-colored silk tied to the tail of the boat, which looks like a rainbow when the wind blows.
The pleasure boat is three stories high and is decorated with several exquisite lanterns.
The light flickered, illuminating the half-opened plum blossoms on Su Zhizhi's cloak.
"That lantern looks great!" Su Zhizhi immediately fell in love with a fish-dragon rotating lantern.
There are many swimming fish shadows carved on the outside of the lampshade. There is a mechanism inside the lantern to pull the lampshade. When the lampshade rotates quickly, the fish shadows turn into continuous waves.
Seeing that Su Zhizhi really liked it, Wu Yingniang was about to pay for it when she heard the proprietress say:
"A lantern costs five hundred taels."
Wu Yingniang stopped taking out the money.
This wasn't the right way to spend money. Five hundred taels? She might as well give Old Man Qin a hundred taels and have him make ten lanterns in Lingnan.
Su Zhizhi also knew that five hundred taels was too expensive, and that even if she had money, she couldn't act like a fool.
The proprietress smiled and said, "You can spend ten taels of silver to guess the lantern riddles. If you can guess ten in a row, you can take any lantern you want."
The implication is that if you fail to guess correctly continuously, the ten taels of silver will be wasted.
Chang'an is indeed a den of money.
After hearing the riddle, Wu Yingniang and Su Zhizhi both looked at Hao Ren with shining eyes.
Hao Ren coughed twice and took out some silver: "Ahem...you can give it a try."
But the proprietress took the silver and continued:
"The rules have changed this year. Only children can guess, but adults are not allowed to guess."
Hao Ren: ???
"I guess?" Su Zhizhi was surprised at first, then eager to try, "Then let me do it!"
The servant on the pleasure boat brought a gilded bottle and asked Su Zhizhi to draw a riddle.
"Look at the left, the horse is leaning on it; look at the right, it is leaning on the horse; look at both sides, and your feet are stepping on the vast sand. Guess a word." Su Zhizhi recited it.
The next moment she smiled broadly:
"It's a camel! The camel of the camel."
She had seen camels when she was in the northwest last year, and they were walking on thousands of miles of sand!
At the same time.
The other end of the pleasure boat.
The girl wearing a gilded mythical bird mask, holding the same riddle, spoke:
"I guessed it. It's the word 'camel'."
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Su Zhizhi: Why should we learn calligraphy by reading books?
Hao Ren: Look, you can earn lanterns.
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