Chapter 190: Chapter 189 Grandma’s Scolding Chapter 190: Chapter 189 Grandma’s Scolding Ye Shuzhen suddenly ran out of the classroom crying, and outside in the courtyard corridor, Mrs. Lai discovered it, having not heard the earlier part; she assumed that it was either the teacher or her granddaughter who had bullied her daughter.

“Zhenzhen, what’s wrong? Who bullied you?”

“Mom, don’t ask, nobody bullied me…”

Ye Shuzhen ran back to her room, sobbing.

“Hmph…” Mrs. Lai, waddling with her plump waist, came to the classroom.

“Mr. Chen, why is my daughter crying? Did you scold her?”

“This… Mr. Chen doesn’t engage in bullying others…”

Mr. Chen looked uncomfortably at the old woman in front of him. She was the most difficult person to deal with in this family. Out of respect for her seniority, he, as a gentleman, would never speak ill of her daughter in front of the elderly lady.

“It must be you guys, huh! Look at you, all grown up, sprouting wings, even bullying your aunt…” Mrs. Lai ranted on frenetically.

Ye Shiqi…

Older sister Ye Luoqi…

Second sister Ye Mei Qi…

Fourth sister Ye Fengqi…

Third sister Ye Xinqi…

The students who were eavesdropping outside, listening to the class, enjoyed a drama; they laughed and chattered in the courtyard.

As Mrs. Lai berated the Ye Family’s sisters, outside in the courtyard, the boys and girls whispered their comments.

“That old woman is scolding my wife again.” Gou Dan, who was now a little over ten, had matured into a teenager. He was somewhat more sensible and cleaner than before, and he often boasted about Daya, his future wife, to his brothers.

“It seems like it was the formidable Ye Shiqi who caused this! Speaking of which, that little girl really is something. How could she be the genius of legend? How come all her sisters are so intelligent? They’re smarter than all the other girls in the village.”

These were the words spoken by one of Gou Dan’s brothers.

“Of course, she’s going to be my future little auntie,” Gou Dan declared again.

“Psh, their family just has money to hire a teacher, that’s all. If our family were wealthy enough to afford a teacher, I’d be just as smart. But their aunt really is stupid as can be, dumber than a toddler.”

An eight-year-old village girl who often came to listen in on the class remarked.

“Exactly, if our family had their money, we wouldn’t need to sneak around listening here. Speaking of which, Third Aunt is really a joke. So dumb herself, yet she challenges others, and when she can’t compete, she cries. So weak…”

“That old witch inside, yelling, doesn’t she realize she and her daughter are just as foolish?”

“Seriously, just stop it! We still want the teacher to teach us more texts.”

The chatter from the boys and girls outside got louder and louder. They often eavesdropped from outside, and everybody knew it, including the Ye family. These were the words they were saying now.

Ye Shuzhen heard them too, as she opened the window of her room not far away, and the voices grew louder. Her mother had gone to scold her nieces to vent her own heart’s anger, a move she approved of.

But what those poor wretches outside were saying was enough to make her nearly “vomit blood.”

Inwardly, she cursed those kids. Without money to hire a teacher, they took the cheap option, eavesdropping and still had the nerve to whine!

With such commotion in the classroom, Hongji’s father, who was tinkering in the tool room, heard it too, even the voices from outside. He didn’t bother arguing with the children outside; he just wanted to quickly stop his spouse.

Occasionally, Hongji’s father would work in the village factory, mainly observing and advising apprentices.

Sometimes he would also tinker with things in his own home, making a few more pieces of furniture for the family.

When his son earned money, he would also save for him, as they couldn’t let others do everything; his good sword was not yet old.

Hongji’s father, as his spouse cursed louder and more unpleasantly at their own granddaughter, would have perhaps endured it and ignored her a year ago, but now things were different from before.

His spouse’s unreasonable nagging was embarrassing him, her husband. The teacher was from another village, and she was cursing their granddaughter in front of someone from outside their village. If word got out, it would damage their reputation.

Hongji’s father put down his tools and picked up his smoky bamboo tube, walking to the classroom door. With eyes wide with anger, he scolded his wife who was still spewing out curses:
“Old woman, what madness is this now? Get out here quick, when will that mouth of yours ever learn to hold back?”

“Old man…” Mrs. Lai, scolded by her husband, tried to argue a bit…

“Don’t say anything else; you are disturbing the teacher’s lessons, wasting the students’ learning time.”

“Learn, learn, learn, no matter how well they learn, they will belong to someone else’s family…” Mrs. Lai, prevented by her husband, had no choice but to leave the classroom, still grumbling to herself…

The Ye Family’s sisters heard their grandmother’s words but did not refute them. From their junior standpoint, any rebuttal would be their fault.

That would give them a reputation for being aggressive, or disrespectful to their elders.

Being cursed at by Mrs. Lai like someone scolding in the streets, if they talked back, they might provoke even more extreme insults.

The sisters thought it best not to stoop to the level of someone like Mrs. Lai who was being unreasonably annoying.

Sometimes ignoring a person is better than arguing with her; although some may think they are too weak or do not know how to fight back.

As juniors, they preferred to avoid conflicts with their grandmother and not talk back.

Mr. Chen coughed softly, merely clearing his throat as he felt it was time to wrap up the day’s lesson and assigned homework for the students, mainly involving writing new characters.

Writing was also a lesson, and the teacher would instruct students in how to write various useful characters.

If a student was naturally smart, the teacher would pass on all that he had learned to the student.

Mr. Chen was one such teacher, and these girls in front of him were the bright and clever ones he was diligently nurturing, who would eventually become talented women.

To say that girls who could read were talented was not a point of pride for a teacher.

If a boy passed the imperial exams, he might be listed on the golden plaque, bringing honor to his teacher as well.

If a girl became a talented woman, and people said “such-and-such a woman is a talented one,” and her former teacher was such-and-such a person, the renown of the talented woman would also be a teacher’s pride.

Mr. Chen believed that for a student he taught, male or female, as long as he received payment, he must do his duty as a teacher properly.

Mr. Chen assigned homework in the classroom. The characters he asked them to write were out of sight for the children listening outside. The ones who managed to climb to the window and see for themselves would learn these characters, scrawling them clumsily on the ground.

Those who could see the characters written by the teacher inside the classroom could only recognize them by the awkward shapes on the ground and then also attempt to write them in a twisted manner.

Ink and paper were precious to farmer families; many would write with stones on the ground or with sticks.

Ever since the Ye family hired a teacher, those who stealthily listened to the lessons outside could recite a few lines of the Three Character Classic or climbed to the window to learn a few characters.

This was already a great improvement compared to how they used to be, barely recognizing a few big characters in their baskets.

The parents in the village, unable to afford a private school or a teacher for their children, would do their best to satisfy their children’s learning needs by not making them work during the time the Ye family’s teacher taught classes.

Once classes at the Ye family’s side ended, the children would all go back to their own homes to work. This had become an unspoken understanding between the children and their parents.