Chapter 93: Bamboo Slips

During the daytime, Sang Luo would also venture into the mountains near her home, but she only dared to wander around the village and no longer ventured miles away to explore the mountains near other villages as she used to.

At night, she stayed at Chen’s house. She stayed there for three days, and on the fourth day, Qin Fangniang brought back a message from Shopkeeper Xu, for her.

The message stated that the county office had conducted investigations in the surrounding areas and questioned villagers, but no one had seen any refugees. They also contacted the shopkeepers of several inns in neighboring counties, but none of them had seen any refugees either. It seemed that those from that day were probably refugees who had crossed mountains and barriers to come here. There shouldn’t be a large influx of refugees.

The villagers breathed a sigh of relief.

Sang Luo’s days returned to their former rhythm. However, by this time, the sour jujubes had completely run out. She could only pick some wild jujubes and dig some konjac. Moreover, because she dared not go far, she seemed to have a bit of leisure time after being busy since the crossing?

Fortunately, the past three months hadn’t been in vain. She had made ten barrels of sour jujube cakes and there were still four hundred pieces drying in the molds. With this stock, if she sent two barrels to Yongfeng Restaurant every four or five days, it could last for more than a month. In addition, she had dried over a hundred pieces with bamboo trays, which were snacks left for her own family.

The large jar in the kitchen storing dried konjac was now full. The konjac slices were packed in bags and stored in the jar. Whenever she needed to make vegetarian tripe, she just needed to take out a few slices and grind them into fine powder with a stone mortar. They could be directly processed into vegetarian tripe.

Konjac powder had extremely strong water absorption. Just one or two taels of konjac powder could produce nearly seven catties of vegetarian tripe. This jar alone was enough for the goods of Dongfu Restaurant. Sang Luo felt a sense of security just by looking at this large jar.

However, compared to sour jujubes, konjac could be harvested for another ten days or so. Sang Luo didn’t want to waste what she could see. She decided not to buy another large jar, as it was not cheap. Remembering that there was a storage method in the countryside, she placed a wooden rack not far from the stove, piled the dug konjac on the rack with some distance from the ground, and covered them with a grass curtain. This way, they could be stored for a long time.

Sang Luo improvised a simple bamboo rack herself and placed it not far from the stove. She directly piled the konjac dug from behind onto the rack and covered it with a grass curtain for storage.

However, as a result, the kitchen was full and there was no room to move because there were plenty of items such as tofu molds, boards, wooden barrels, a millstone, tofu filters, a large jar, two bamboo racks, and a long table just for making tofu.

After looking around, Sang Luo finally moved two small tables for dining into the main house with the two children.

The busy days passed until early November. The people who went to serve their corvée duty in the village had all returned. Sang Luo went down the mountain to see them. Before they cleaned up, they weren’t much better than the refugees from that day. They were too thin, their clothes were dirty, and their hair was tangled like a bird’s nest.

Only their spirit and demeanor were slightly different from the refugees.

Thinking back now, Sang Luo even suspected that the people she met that day might have been good civilians who were taken away to serve somewhere and had been tortured too miserably.

The shadow of the refugees in Sang Luo’s heart had mostly dissipated by now, and she relaxed.

After another busy ten days, the konjac and wild jujubes were also gone. At this point, apart from making tofu, dried jujubes, and vegetarian tripe every four or five days to run to the county town, Sang Luo had completely freed up her daytime. She finally remembered the pens and ink she had bought.

She bought pens and ink to make a book for the two children. The words she taught them before were simple, just names and places. To teach further, she had to think about what to teach first each time.

There were differences between the words of the two time periods. Words Sang Luo knew in her previous life might be considered wrong spellings here. She could only teach those that the original owner knew, but since the original owner was a woman and didn’t learn much, what she knew was enough for teaching the children, such as the “Thousand Word Classic.”

In this time period, there was also a “Thousand Word Classic.” Although the content was slightly different, the differences were minimal. It could only be said that there might be some wonderful connections and intersections between different time periods.

Sang Luo bought pens and ink to create an enlightenment book for the two children. With pens and ink in hand, what was lacking was paper and an inkstone.

In the yard, a group of children played. There were five sand trays, and Shen An and Shen Ning acted as little teachers, teaching words for a while and playing for a while. Seeing them having fun, Sang Luo went to a place in the mountains with a stream.

She needed to find a stone that could be used as an inkstone.

Sang Luo wasn’t very capable. She didn’t know how to make an inkstone, but Qiyang County was mountainous, and there were many stones in the mountain streams. Finding a relatively flat stone with a slight depression in the middle to use as an inkstone wasn’t difficult. After traversing several streams, she found three or four usable stones. Finally, she chose the most beautiful one, washed it clean, and carried it back.

After making the bamboo rack last time, there were many leftover bamboo materials at home. Sang Luo asked Chen Youtian to borrow a curved knife and woodworking tools to prepare a substitute for paper, bamboo slips.

Chen Youtian had been resting at home recently. When Sang Luo came to borrow tools and mentioned that she was making bamboo slips to teach the children how to read, he immediately grabbed the tools and went with her. “I’ll help you make them.”

Then, the children in the yard got to know that Shen An and Shen Ning would soon have a book, and Uncle Tian and Aunt Shen found bamboo to make bamboo slips for writing books.

Suddenly, games like teasing chickens, teasing ducks, and throwing stones were no longer interesting. Everyone gathered around to watch the formation of a book.

Chen Youtian often made these things, so he had much more experience than Sang Luo. Sang Luo thought she could just use any bamboo, but Chen Youtian carefully selected the materials, selecting, cutting, boiling, and drying the bamboo. He even added some Sichuan peppercorns while boiling the bamboo, almost doing everything.

As Chen Youtian worked, he explained a few things. Listening to him, Sang Luo realized that bamboo slips made without going through these processes could also be used, but they would be prone to cracking, deformation, and insect damage.

There happened to be Sichuan peppercorns at Sang Luo’s home. After a lot of fuss, they impressed the children who were watching. However, when they realized that boiling bamboo would take an hour, they became impatient. Except for Shen An, Shen Ning, and another little girl who stayed, the others all ran away.

Cutting bamboo strips, scraping off the green, making holes, and stringing the bamboo took more than two hours to make thirty-six bamboo slips. Sang Luo finally understood that writing was not easy for ancient people.

Shen An and Shen Ning were already excited just seeing the finished bamboo slips, even though there were no words on them yet. Especially Shen An, who occasionally picked them up and examined them, unwilling to let them go.

After Chen Youtian finished his task, it was Sang Luo’s turn. She brought the bamboo slips back to the main house and placed them on the small table with the door wide open to allow enough light to come in. She took out the unused brushes she had bought, then brought out the stone she had picked up in the morning to use as an inkstone, added water, and ground the ink.

Shen An and Shen Ning watched eagerly as Sang Luo wrote with the brush and ink for the first time. They held their breath, not daring to breathe heavily.

Because the bamboo slips were not easy to come by and were already strung together, writing a wrong word would require scraping it off with a knife before making corrections. Since this scroll of bamboo slips would be theirs for a long time, possibly the only book they had, and even the only copy for other children learning to read, Sang Luo took it very seriously.

Her own handwriting was okay, but only with a hard pen. Growing up in an orphanage, she never had the opportunity to learn any extracurricular skills. She had never written with a brush before.

She could only try to recall the memories of the original owner, the memories of her brain, and muscle memory.

She dared not start directly. Instead of writing on the bamboo slips right away, she dipped the brush in ink and practiced on discarded bamboo pieces until she got used to it. Then she unfolded the bamboo slips and transcribed the “Thousand Word Classic” word by word.

The whole text had a thousand words, and she wrote for a long time. After finishing, she realized that her hand and neck were stiff.

She was too nervous.

Shen An was also unable to contain himself. He stood by the table and asked, “Big sister-in-law, can you teach me to recognize the words now?”

Sang Luo smiled. “Sure. This was specially transcribed for you to learn. It’s called the Thousand Word Classic. It has a thousand words, with only one repeated word. Once you recognize these thousand words, you’ll have no problem with everyday vocabulary. I’ll first teach you to recite it. After you’ve memorized it, you can check the book yourself to recognize and remember the corresponding words.”

Both children nodded eagerly.

Shen An was extremely eager to learn to read. He cherished this opportunity greatly. To make it easier for the two children to remember, Sang Luo divided the Thousand Word Classic into more than a dozen sections to teach. She didn’t teach too much at once.

Shen An studied seriously and remembered earnestly. When doing other things, he often recited silently. If he couldn’t remember a word, he would ask Shen Ning, and if Shen Ning didn’t know either, they would ask Sang Luo.

…

In the village of Shili, on an unknown day, the group of children including Erniu, Huzi, Shitou, and Xiaoya started to recite something, their mouths filled with words. The words they recited were melodious and pleasant, although the young and old in the village couldn’t understand them.

But it sounded profound, as if the children were learning something extraordinary.

Shen Jin also noticed.

He wasn’t very interested in learning, but he envied that atmosphere. Everyone knew it, why didn’t he?

Gradually, they started to wander towards the foot of the mountain where the main house was located. There were too many children reading in the courtyard, with Shen An leading the reading and a group of children following along. Their voices were loud and orderly, audible even from the bottom of the mountain.

After two days of eavesdropping, the three brothers were spotted by the geese patrolling the territory.

The geese recognized the group of children that Chen Xiaoya often brought, but they didn’t recognize the three brothers. They were strangers, acting suspiciously. What else could they do but flap their wings and charge!

The geese were still far away, but Shen Tie was scared to the point of crying out loud.

His parents had been bitten by geese and bedridden for two days, with blood and flesh hanging. Shen Tie was terrified at the sight of geese, running without knowing where to go, crying out for his elder brother and sister.

Shen An and Shen Ning and the others heard the commotion and rushed out. Just as the geese were about to attack Shen Jin, they managed to stop them in time and drive them away.

The three little ones were exposed while eavesdropping and reading by the foot of the mountain.

Shen Ning went back to the house to get a piece of sour jujube cake to comfort Shen Tie, who was scared and crying. Shen Tie, still trembling and tears streaming down his face, was led into the courtyard by Shen Ning.

Shen Jin: “…”

Chen Xiaoya approached him when she saw him standing there motionless. “Shen Jin, why don’t you come up too? What are you afraid of? Your mother isn’t home, and your father won’t care about you, right? He won’t know you came over here.”

Chen Xiaoya and the others thought that Shen Jin didn’t come over mainly because he was afraid of being beaten by his parents. Everyone in the village knew that Shen Jin’s parents had a grudge against Shen An’s family.

Yes, Shen San returned with the villagers after serving his sentence for a month, exhausted and almost out of his mind!

Was he able to escape after a month? Of course not. It’s just that Shen San felt that one month of punishment was enough. He couldn’t do it all by himself, so he let Li Family serve for one month instead of him.

Naturally, he couldn’t say this to Li Family. He said that the work of male laborers was too heavy, while female workers were different. It was just some light tasks like boiling water and cooking, which were easier. He asked her to take a break.

Since he didn’t go, Li Family had to go by herself. She promised to be back in a month, so now it was Shen San taking care of the children at home, not Li Family.

Chen Xiaoya pulled him towards the small courtyard. “Come on, let’s go. We won’t tell your father.”

Chen Xiaoya wasn’t very strong, but she still managed to pull Shen Jin along.