Chapter 9

While Zhu Ming was at home, Zhu Xuan had been learning to read with him these past few days, diligently practicing a few large characters each morning and afternoon. Zhu Ming couldn’t bear to let someone as eager as Zhu Xuan waste precious paper, so she practiced her calligraphy by dipping Zhu Lian’s old brush in clean water and tracing the characters over and over again on the Eight Immortals table at home.

Because the idea of reading and learning had already been imbued with a sense of magic in her heart, thanks to the bewitching influence of Master Huang, she was able to endure the tedium and monotony of the process with surprising patience.

Even when it was time to eat and her grandmother and mother began setting the dishes on the Eight Immortals table, she remained oblivious, still practicing with the water-dipped brush. She had already learned the names of her family members and numbers like one, two, three, four, and in her spare moments, she began copying from the Three Character Classic.

“At the beginning, people are naturally good,” she wrote on the table. Though her writing was still awkward and ugly, she focused on memorizing the structure and form of each character.

With a thud, Grandmother set a bowl of food directly over her “At the beginning,” snapping Zhu Xuan out of her reverie. She looked up, sniffed the air, and realized it was time to eat.

“Time to eat, and instead of helping set the table, you’re still scribbling nonsense over here. What you write looks like the tracks of a chicken’s claws! And yet you can really sit still for this. Who are you trying to impress with such diligence? You act like you’re about to take the imperial examination just because you’re allowed to go to school!” Old Lady Sun rolled her eyes as she set down the dishes.

“Hurry up and help with the work. Clean up all that from the table. Every day it’s writing, writing, writing—soon you’ll be wearing marks into my good table with all that water. The day you really become a top scholar, I’ll have this table mounted and hung in the ancestral hall with incense, so the whole Zhu family can come worship our female top scholar!”

Zhu Xuan silently cleaned up her writing materials, pretending not to hear, not letting Old Lady Sun’s words trouble her.

But inside, she was secretly delighted, thinking, Just wait. When I become someone like Master Huang, Grandmother will be so shocked her jaw will drop.

The whole family gathered for dinner. Tonight’s meal was lentil rice: fresh-picked lentils cut into sections and tossed into the rice, with bits of minced pork and a spoonful of lard cooked together. The side dishes included duck’s-foot malabar spinach soup, goose-yellow bean sprouts, tofu with shrimp oil, and braised wheat gluten.

Though there was no lavish meat dish, the malabar spinach was savory and tender, the bean sprouts crisp, the tofu fragrant with shrimp oil and lard, pan-fried to a golden brown on both sides, and the wheat gluten, braised in chicken fat from the previous day with mushrooms, was hardly plain.

Zhu Xuan, who had been lost in thought, turned her full attention to the food as soon as she picked up her chopsticks. Old Zhu, eating as he reminisced, said, “People today really have it easy. Back in our day, did we ever dream of finding lard in our rice? If there was rice to eat at all, it was a blessing—most of the time it was just rice water. In times of chaos and disaster, even tree bark had to be fought over. Isn’t that so, wife? Where is it now—every day a table full of dishes, and you children still don’t know how lucky you are, always wanting to eat meat.”

Old Lady Sun chimed in, “Isn’t it the truth! Kids today are spoiled, well-fed, and even have the government overseeing their schooling. When I was six, I was standing on a stool cooking for the whole family, could do everything from planting rice to harvesting and threshing, worked from dawn to dusk like an ox. Who ever felt sorry for me? And some people here are six years old and still don’t know to help set the table for a meal, just sit there writing all day! Raised too well, each generation worse than the last!”

Zhu Xuan kept her head down, eating as if she hadn’t heard a thing. They were talking about her again.

After all, when Zhu Tang had attended the private academy, he’d never made such a show of studying at home. In a household with little academic atmosphere, Zhu Xuan sitting down to practice her characters was a true novelty—like seeing a monkey speak.

Though the family often talked about producing a scholar, actually witnessing someone quietly devote themselves to learning was beyond their expectations.

With her naturally resilient temperament, Zhu Xuan thought, I haven’t stolen, I haven’t done anything wrong, I haven’t even wasted good paper—why should I be embarrassed? She kept eating, unbothered by their remarks.

Halfway through the meal, Zhu Ming spoke up, “There’s a market in town today. Xuan, come with me, we’ll buy you proper writing brushes, ink, paper, and inkstone. The school will provide textbooks.”

Zhu Xuan was delighted to hear she could go to the market. She nodded eagerly, and the other children immediately chimed in, “We want to go too!”

Zhu Ming glanced around—all the children from Zhu Tang to Zhu Ying were looking at him expectantly. Zhu Di was still too little, struggling to use his chopsticks.

“What for? Do you have anything to buy? You just want to wander around.”

Zhu Tang protested, “Even if I don’t need to buy anything, it’s nice to get out and see the sights. I haven’t had any fun in ages, always working in the fields. I’m still a kid, I need a break!”

Zhu Ming rolled his eyes. “Listen to yourself! You’re the eldest and still call yourself a kid. Is it my fault you’re working in the fields? Didn’t we sell two acres of land to send you to school? And then you quit! You’re old enough not to study or work, so why do you eat so much?”

Zhu Tang glanced at Zhu Lian and Zhu Ying, “Big sister and Third Sister are bored at home too, let’s all go, Dad? I can carry Ying so she won’t get lost.”

“This time it’s not possible,” Zhu Ming replied. “I have to take Xuan to visit Master Huang.”

“Why visit Master Huang? Won’t you see her at school? And aren’t there plenty of teachers? Is she really going to teach Xuan?” Old Zhu was puzzled.

“She will. I checked. She’s teaching the first-year students, and Xuan just happens to be one. Visiting her at home is only proper. In the past, apprenticing to a teacher required a formal ceremony. Besides, Xuan already met her at school, and Master Huang escorted her home and encouraged us to let her study. That’s already a bond between teacher and pupil. We can’t ignore etiquette. And Master Huang is from the capital—a chance to become her formal disciple is valuable.”

Having lived in Yingtian, Zhu Ming understood social niceties far better than the rest of the family. Though he didn’t know Master Huang’s exact background, her bearing alone marked her as extraordinary. His second daughter was fortunate to have caught her attention.

If Master Huang hadn’t taken a liking to Xuan, why would she have personally brought her home and urged the family to let her study?

This was clearly Xuan’s patron. If you don’t seize the opportunity to forge a connection, will your benefactor lower herself to seek you out?

But Old Lady Sun could not understand Zhu Ming’s intentions and only grumbled, “When Tang and Lian went to school, you never visited their teachers! Now Xuan’s different—she has to offer gifts before she can study? What kind of woman teacher needs that? If you don’t bring her gifts, will she not teach properly?”

“Mother, it’s not a gift; it’s a ceremony of respect, not anything valuable. If you bring real gifts, it would only insult her.”

After much discussion following the meal, Zhu Ming managed to take Zhu Xuan with him to town.

At the market, Zhu Ming bought and packed five items: celery, lotus seeds, red beans, red dates, and longan, then took Zhu Xuan’s hand to buy meat from Butcher Zhang.

As they passed a sugar painting vendor, Zhu Xuan stood transfixed. Zhu Ming tugged her hand twice, but she wouldn’t budge, looking up at him with pleading eyes.

After a moment’s thought, Zhu Ming relented and bought her one. Zhu Xuan, delighted, waited as the vendor asked, “What shape would you like?”

“What shapes can you do?” Zhu Xuan asked.

“I can make monkeys, tigers, rabbits—”

“Can you write characters?” she asked.

The vendor hesitated, then said, “I can, but I don’t know many. What do you want?”

“Write ‘Xuan’ for me—the xuan in daylily.”

Relieved, the vendor agreed, “That one I know. I’ll do ‘Xuan’ for you.”

So Zhu Xuan left the stall, holding her sugar painting with “Xuan” written on it, hand in hand with Zhu Ming. She bit off half the grass stroke and asked, “Why don’t we buy meat from Auntie’s place? Butcher Zhang’s is farther.”

Zhu Ming glanced at her and explained, “What do you know? Buying meat from your aunt isn’t really buying—it’s taking advantage. She’d give us extra because we’re family. What would that make us?”

Zhu Xuan nodded and chewed off the rest of the grass stroke.

At Butcher Zhang’s stall, Butcher Zhang wiped his hands and greeted Zhu Ming, “You’re back. What do you need?”

“Do you have dried meat strips?” Zhu Ming asked. The dried meat they’d made for the New Year was gone, and for the old-fashioned teacher’s ceremony, dried meat was the proper gift—not greasy fresh meat.

Butcher Zhang gave him a look, “I’ve got some. Let me fetch a few for you to see.”

Zhu Ming nodded, and Zhu Xuan continued munching her sugar painting. Butcher Zhang’s son, Zhang Xiaowu, sat at the stall, grinning widely as he stared at Zhu Xuan.

Sensing his gaze, Zhu Xuan looked up and met his eyes.

Xiaowu, about Zhu Xuan’s age, didn’t play with her often but knew her. He said with a cheeky smile, “Xuan, let me have a taste?”

Zhu Xuan shook her head. The last time he’d said that, he’d finished her rice cake in one bite.

Xiaowu didn’t get angry at being refused, just kept watching her eat. “Is it good?”

“It’s good,” Zhu Xuan replied flatly.

Xiaowu fell silent. He was a chubby, tiger-faced little boy. Zhu Ming found their exchange amusing and said to him, “If you want some, ask your father to buy it for you. He sells so much meat every day, why should he begrudge you a bit of sugar?”

Butcher Zhang returned with the dried meat. Xiaowu ran over, pointing at Zhu Xuan, “Dad, I want one too!”

Butcher Zhang looked at his son in annoyance, “Get out of here and don’t make trouble.”

Xiaowu pouted, then wandered back to Zhu Xuan’s side, still watching her eat.

Butcher Zhang laid out the dried meat, “See how beautifully I smoked these? Look at these pieces, such good color—I almost want to keep them for myself. Aren’t they just as good as your sister’s?”

Zhu Ming carefully inspected each piece and finally chose three, paid, and took Zhu Xuan’s hand to leave.

By then, Zhu Xuan had finished her sugar. Xiaowu, having watched her eat it all without getting any, was a little upset and shouted as she was leaving, “Zhu Xuan, you’re so mean! I’m not playing with you anymore! I’m starting school soon, and you’re not, are you?”

He puffed up with pride as he spoke. Zhu Xuan, holding her father’s hand, turned and tossed her sugar stick—the one she’d licked clean—at Xiaowu. “As if I care about playing with a greedy little brat like you! I have school too! What’s so great about it?”

Xiaowu, having lost the contest, refused to admit defeat. “Liar! Liar! Zhu Xuan the braggart! King of tall tales!”

Zhu Xuan glared at him, cheeks puffed in anger, and pulled at her father’s hand, hoping he’d defend her.

Zhu Ming, exasperated by their pointless squabble, said, “Xiaowu, Xuan really does have a school to go to. She’s not lying.”

With that, father and daughter walked away. Xiaowu stood at the stall for a moment, as if digesting the news, then picked up the sugar stick Zhu Xuan had thrown.

His father’s eyelids twitched, but it was too late to stop him.

Xiaowu stuck the bare sugar stick in his mouth and sucked on it, then looked up at Butcher Zhang, aggrieved, “No taste, Dad.”

Butcher Zhang slammed his cleaver on the block. “Zhang Xiaowu, you filthy rascal! How did I end up with such a glutton for a son?”

Hearing the commotion behind her, Zhu Xuan felt a wicked glee and tightened her grip on Zhu Ming’s hand as they walked on.