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Chapter 20: Earning Taels\nThe family stood among the swaying corn-stalks, looking at each other, their eyes moist with emotion.\n
“Okay, let’s eat!” Bailian was a little uncomfortable as she was not used to these types of warm familial scenes.\n
She had led a bloody and coldhearted life in her past life, and this sudden warmth made her, a ruthless agent, feel a bit awkward ah!\n
“That’s right! Father! Let’s quickly eat! My sister brought you a lot of delicious food!” Yuhang’s eyes were bright, flashing with excitement.\n
The corners of Bailian’s mouth twitched. There are so many cornmeal buns, a plate of simple stir-fried greens, and a few pickled dishes. Where is the delicious food you’re talking about?\n
“Alright, let’s eat!” The Third Master laughed at his son’s excited expression.\n
Bailian handed over the remaining white-flour buns to her Father and then gave everyone else a cornmeal bun. \n
“Ah, I forgot to bring chopsticks!” Bailian slapped her forehead in the realization that she had forgotten the utensils.\n
“It’s okay Sister, we can just use our hands!” Yuhang grinned cheekily and fixed his gaze on the vegetables and pickled dishes.\n
Vegetables were quite a common ingredient in the Village, but the miserly Li Family never gave the Third Branch a chance to eat even that.\n
“Well then!” Bailian rubbed Yuhang’s hair affectionately, causing him to redden in embarrassment.\n
“Fifth, thi-, this…why is there so much?” The Third Master’s mouth gaped open and just now had subconsciously took the thing offered by his daughter, but he had just discovered it to be a white-flour bun!\n
“In the future, we will all eat the same food as the rest of the Li Family, because we all have the same status.” Bailian emphasized this point again, “If they insist on treating us before, I’ll definitely take it up with Grandfather and Uncle!”\n
“But…this is already too good!” The Third Master disbelieving his own eyes at the sight of a white-flour bun in his hand.\n
“Father…”\n
He couldn’t bear to eat it.\n
He had never once gotten to eat it.\n
The only time the Third Branch had eaten to their heart’s content had been at Zhang Youen’s house. At that time, the Third Master had rescued Zhang he, but Zhang He’s family had also been very poor. Where would white-flour buns come from?\n
He had never seen, smelled, or tasted buns with white flour before.\n
He had been the one to plant the wheat grains, harvest its golden grains and stalks, and dried it out in the sun.\n
But, he had never eaten it.\n
“Father, we do all the work in the house. The food is made by Grandma and Mother. You do most of the work in the field. The pigs in the courtyard are also fed by the ragweed my brothers and I collect. Why can’t we have it? Why have you never eaten pork or white-flour noodles and steamed buns?” Bailian looked straight at her hesitant Father, “Could it be that those who work can’t eat and those who don’t work have the right to eat the best things? Then is it because Yuhang and Yuyang can’t be like Yuwen and study?\n
“It’s not…. Father….” The Third Master was stunned by Bailian’s straightforward logic.\n
He thought of the times when his children would enviously look on at the children of other rooms, envious that they could study, envious of the food they could eat.\n
Back then, he was also the same.\n
He envied his eldest brother could study, his second brother who spent money to learn business from the people in town, his carefree fourth and fifth siblings, all without worries about food or the daily necessities. He envied everything that his mother and he did not have.\n
Because he never enjoyed those experiences.\n
From the very beginning, my mother and I had been tasked with endless work.\n
This, what was it for?\n
All because he was “concubine-born”?\n
But weren’t secondary wives equal to the main wife?\n
‘Father, Sister’s right, Yuwen and I are the same age, but I can’t go and study as he does.” Yuhang quietly said, his face full of longing.\n
“Yuhang..” Grandmother Ciying’s hot tears trickled down her face again.\n
Madam Zhao was in a daze at the sight in front of her. After being married for so many years, under the vicious and suppressing Matriarch Wang, she had never even considered letting her children go to school.\n
When she was younger, she had also fantasized that her child would be able to bring honor to the family and the ancestors by becoming an official.\n
“There isn’t much money in the family…” The Third Master dryly lamented, but his eyes betrayed him. He gazed sadly at his young son, a guilty expression spreading across his face.\n
Because he saw his young self in his son.\n
“Hmph!” Bailian coldly laughed, “Grandma’s dowry is only used for Uncle and Yuwen to study. Grandfather is a learned scholar, but he didn’t even teach his other grandsons and sons to write their own names. What’s this?”\n
“I….” The Third Master was completely speechless.\n
Because it was true that he didn’t even know to write his own name.\n
His father was a scholar, a person who had studied but had not been able to pass the county level imperial exam.\n
However, he didn’t even know what an academy looked like.\n
“Father, I won’t let my brothers be illiterate, I will definitely send them to school. Yuhang has way more potential than Yuwen!” Bailian raised her eyebrows playfully at Yuhang.\n
When Yuhang heard Bailian praising him, his eyes became much brighter. Even Yuyang, who was usually quite wooden and slow-speeched, brightened up a lot.\n
“Father will go back and discuss this matter with your Grandfather and let him…” The Third Master made up his mind as he looking at the hopeful, twinkling eyes of his two sons.\n
At that time, he had been bullied to work all year round and hoped that one day he could be sent to the academy as well. He had been very eager to get his Father’s attention and desperately wished for his Father to give him warmth and love like other fathers.\n
But, that never happened.\n
Today, his own children would never suffer the way he did.\n
This simple and honest man realized for the first time that he was not just the lowly Third Son of the Li Family, but also the father of these children.\n
“Father shouldn’t go.” Bailian shook her head. “Grandfather and Matriarch Wang will definitely disagree. This matter should be planned out carefully for the long term.”\n
Bailian already had a plan in her heart, with those blood-sucking vampires from the Li Family, they would never give Yuhang and Yuyang the chance to go to school.\n
This was because these two children were on the cusp of adulthood and wouldn’t so easily let go of these two future laborers.\n
The most important reason was that it would take an enormous amount of money to send them to school.\n
Matriarch Wang would never agree, even Patriarch Li wouldn’t agree because now all of the money in the Li Family was going to be used for the Eldest Son’s studies for the next set of imperial examinations.\n
Hearing Bailian’s sudden rejection, Yuhang, and Yuyang’s eyes dimmed immediately, but they didn’t blame their sister. They knew it would be an impossible matter.\n
“Don’t worry, Sister will earn lots of money in the future. Since the Li Family won’t give us a single tael of silver, we can only earn it by ourselves.’ Bailian patted each of her brother’s heads and then looked at her father, “Father, I will earn money by myself in the future, how about it?”\n
“Ah? What?”\n
The Third Master never harbored the idea of saving money for himself as the Third Branch had no source for income and the money earned from selling off crops was always confiscated by Matriarch Wang.\n
“Father, next time someone gets injured, if we don’t have the money, what will we do? Just watch them die?!” Bailian weakly said and pitifully touched her eyebrows.\n
Anyone who saw the injury would get startled.\n
“Fine!” The Third Master nodded quickly, “No matter what you do, Father will support you and help you to the best of my ability!”\n
The Third Master didn’t ask Bailian how she was going to make money, so he just decided to trust in his daughter.\n
Because he felt that it was time that he should have some money in his hands from now on.\n
That bloody scene of my daughter time was truly too shocking, what would we do if someone else had an accident?\n
He knew that, deep down in his heart, that Matriarch Wang would just let them fend for themselves.\n
“Haha, Sister and Father are the best!” Yuhang happily giggled, already imagining a vivid scene of himself attending school in his head. \n
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