Chapter 20: Milk, I Want to Go to Private School

Song Liangzuo finished looking over the items and ensured he had memorized everything completely before handing the earth poria back to the shop assistant with both hands.

At the same time, he looked at the shopkeeper with gratitude and said with emotion, “Thank you for your guidance, shopkeeper. Thank you, big brother, for helping me get the medicine. I am truly grateful. If I am fortunate enough to find this medicine, I will definitely bring it back to your shop.”

The shopkeeper laughed at Liangzuo’s mature demeanor, chuckling, “Good, good!”

The elderly woman beside them saw that her clever grandson had remembered everything and, thinking of something, shyly asked, “Is this medicine expensive, shopkeeper?”

“Hahaha, as long as you can find one the size of a chicken egg, you can make six or seven hundred wens. The bigger, the more valuable.” The shopkeeper didn’t mind the woman’s ignorance and directly told her the price.

As soon as the elderly woman heard this, she silently exclaimed several times, “Oh my goodness, oh my goodness.” It was as if she could see the silver bouncing around in her arms.

Rubbing her rough palms together, looking humbler and more embarrassed, she continued, “Shopkeeper, you are kind-hearted. Please give us a hint on where this medicine usually grows, so we can find it more easily.”

“There are many in the mountains.”

Upon hearing that it was something from the mountains, the elderly woman’s face immediately fell. She tightly grabbed Song Liangzuo’s hand and, with a somewhat stern voice, said, “Good grandson, we won’t earn this money. Listen to your grandma, forget everything you just saw. We’ll go back and dig for dandelions instead. You do exactly as I say, we’re not going into the mountains.”

Seeing his grandmother in a bad mood, Liangzuo hurriedly said goodbye to the shopkeeper and pulled her out of the medicine shop.

Liangzuo understood why the elderly woman was so upset; likely, it was because her son had died in the mountains, making her very averse to entering them.

Moreover, he was the only male descendant in the family now. If anything were to happen to him, they would truly have no way to survive.

Liangzuo gently squeezed the elderly woman’s hand to get her to look at him and proactively said, “Grandma, don’t worry, I won’t go into the mountains.”

The elderly woman wiped away a tear, which may or may not have been there, and looked down at her understanding grandson with a heart full of love and resentment, “Truly my good grandson, who knows to care for his grandmother. Tell me what you want, and I will buy it for you today. Do you want to eat candied hawthorn? Let’s go, Grandma will buy it for you.”

As the elderly woman spoke, she spotted a vendor selling candied hawthorn not far away and pulled Song Liangzuo toward that direction.

“Grandma, Grandma!” Liangzuo shouted and pulled, finally stopping her, then calmly said, “Grandma, I don’t want to eat candied hawthorn.”

“Ah? You don’t want to eat? Then what do you want? Do you still want green bean cake?”

Today, they had made some money, and the elderly woman was determined to spend a little on her good grandson.

Liangzuo shook his head on the outside but felt like crying on the inside, and said, “Grandma, can you save the money for candied hawthorn for me? Once I save enough, I want to learn to read!”

Liangzuo finally expressed his true feelings; he was truly tired of the endless chores in the fields every day.

Moreover, he wanted to leave Daliushu Village to avoid future situations where someone from the Song family would suddenly want to see him and put him in a bind about their affairs.

“Learn to read? Do you want to wear a long gown?”

The elderly woman remembered that a few days before, during the town market, her grandson had spoken to some people wearing long gowns. Since he wanted to learn to read, he might have been attracted to their clothing.

But what Liangzuo actually thought was that in this era, only people who went to private schools wore long gowns. His grandmother was not mistaken in saying that he wanted to wear one.

Thinking of this, Liangzuo solemnly nodded his head.

However, the elderly woman looked troubled, and finally said in a patient voice, “Good grandson, while it looks nice, it’s really inconvenient to wear while digging for medicinal herbs, and it’s not as roomy as the set of robes your mother has, so you wouldn’t be comfortable doing work in it. If worn for a day, the hem would get dirty. Nothing beats the comfort of our common folk wearing short jackets and wide pants.”

Liangzuo was startled, suddenly realizing that his grandmother misunderstood his intention.

He hurriedly explained, “Grandma, I’m not interested in the clothing itself. I want to study in the private school after we earn a lot of money. Once I learn to read, I can look at books about medicinal herbs in the medicine shop, which will help me recognize more herbs and earn more money. Plus, I want to pass the examination to become a ‘tongsheng’ or have grandpa bless me to become a ‘xiucai’ again…”

Before Liangzuo could finish his sentence, the elderly woman interrupted him, “If you become a xiucai, does that mean you can become a high official? With an imposing demeanor, with a group of servants all around you?”

“……” Liangzuo was baffled; first, while xiucai have privileges, they cannot be officials.

Secondly, why would there be old women and old men surrounding him as servants? Why couldn’t there be strong peers in his age?

However, he didn’t intend to explain too much to his grandmother right now and just nodded vaguely.

This was the second time the elderly woman heard about private school; the first was during the market, when she had outright rejected the idea without a second thought.

Now, the second time her beloved grandson brought it up, she agreed just like that. This time, she didn’t even think it over, saying, “Alright, my grandson wants to go to private school, and once I save enough money, I’ll send you there.”

Now it was Liangzuo’s turn to be stunned. His grandmother agreed just like that. Without even considering it?

“Grandma, have you thought about it?” Liangzuo asked, feeling a bit uneasy.

“What do you want me to consider?” the elderly woman retorted.

“I heard that going to private school is very expensive. Aren’t you afraid we’ll have to tighten our belts and go without eating or drinking to send me to school, only for me to achieve nothing?” Liangzuo asked.

“If you don’t achieve anything, that’s okay. You’re my only grandson in this lifetime. Whether you succeed or not, you are still my grandson, and no matter what, you will always be my grandson,” the elderly woman replied.

“What if I don’t go to private school? Once we save enough money, maybe we can buy a donkey so that you and mom won’t be so tired while farming. Don’t you want that?” Liangzuo asked again.

The elderly woman looked down at her grandson with the gaze of someone looking at a fool, “Wasn’t it you who said that once you can read, you will recognize more medicinal herbs? The more we pick, the more money we can sell them for. With that money, your mom and I will send you to learn to read. Then you recognize even more characters, and we can dig for even more medicinal herbs. Isn’t that just like growing crops? Planting seeds and harvesting; sooner or later, we will buy a donkey.”

“……!” This was the first time Liangzuo heard his grandmother articulate such a logical argument.

The point was, he had been the first to draw out this logic; he couldn’t refute it.

This was also good; it seemed there was finally hope for his future.

That evening, the whole family of five gathered around the small dining table for their meal.

“Mom, is this really the money we earned from selling medicinal herbs?” Wang Chunlan stared at the pile of copper coins on the table, so surprised she could fit an egg in her mouth.

She wasn’t the only one. The two children were equally stunned, staring at the coins on the table, gasping in awe, their faces turning red from holding their breath.

“Of course! This is all from my good grandson’s efforts. Once we earn more money, we’ll send him to private school.”