Chapter 18 – Learning to Read

The next morning, Xia Tian went with Sister Yao to pick mushrooms on the mountain for half a day. Shen Nian had four large bamboo baskets filled up.

In the afternoon, they didn’t go up the mountain again. Instead, they cleaned up the vegetable garden in the backyard. After a few days of rain, the vegetables had all grown.

Xia Tian used a small hoe to weed around the vegetable seedlings and loosen the soil.

In about two months, they should be able to eat the vegetables they grew themselves.

After finishing the weeding, she started tidying up the yard.

The firewood she had brought back was neatly arranged according to size. The larger, thicker pieces were chopped with an axe in the yard, and then stacked neatly against the wall.

Shen Nian sat at the door, watching Xia Tian spinning around like a top, busying herself the whole afternoon, and couldn’t help but laugh!

The girl was still angry about yesterday!

Shen Nian smiled, and called out to her, “Xia Tian, get me a cup of water!”

“Alright, coming!” Xia Tian picked up the teapot. “Isn’t there water here?” She pouted, clearly unhappy.

Shen Nian didn’t respond to her little tantrum.

Instead, he asked, “Xia Tian, would you like to learn to read?”

Xia Tian, who had been sulking, instantly brightened up and her eyes shone.

“Yes, yes!” How could she have forgotten about this?

The original body couldn’t read, but since she had been living in the village and hadn’t had any opportunity to show that she could read, she hadn’t been exposed. Now that Shen Nian was willing to teach, what a great opportunity!

Shen Nian knew she would agree as soon as he suggested it.

This girl probably wanted to read. Often, when she was cleaning, she would sneak a peek at his books, and her eyes would light up when flipping through them.

However, she would only flip through them and quickly close them again, probably because she couldn’t read.

It had to be said, this was a beautiful misunderstanding!

“There’s no ink or paper at home. Let’s go buy a set tomorrow, and pick up some beginner books,” Shen Nian suggested.

Xia Tian asked, “Should we go together tomorrow?”

“You go,” Shen Nian refused.

“Well then! I can’t read, I’m afraid I won’t be able to buy the right stuff.” She didn’t want to go alone.

“Shen Dage, don’t you have books? Just teach me to recognize the characters first. When I can read them, then we can buy more,” she suggested.

“Okay.” Shen Nian nodded. First, she would learn to recognize characters, and then later, they could start learning to write. He considered it as a way to repay her for taking good care of him.

Shen Nian went inside, took out a book, and sat at the door. He opened the first page, pointed to the characters, and began teaching her word by word.

Xia Tian leaned over, her eyes focused on Shen Nian’s hand movements.

His fingers were long and elegant, with distinct joints. If only her hands were as graceful.

Looking at her “chicken claws,” she immediately felt self-conscious.

After Shen Nian finished reading, he noticed Xia Tian hadn’t kept up. He looked up and found her staring intently at his hand.

Shen Nian lightly cleared his throat. Xia Tian snapped out of it, embarrassed, smiled at Shen Nian, and quickly caught up by reading along.

The book used traditional characters, some of which she didn’t recognize, so she quickly followed along by pointing at each character, reading it out loud.

After finishing a sentence, Xia Tian looked up and asked Shen Nian, “Shen Dage, is this correct?”

When Shen Nian nodded, she continued with the next sentence.

In this way, with one teaching and the other learning, within less than half an hour, Xia Tian had already recognized all the characters on the first page.

Shen Nian looked at her.

He knew she was smart, but he hadn’t expected her memory to be this good.

Seeing Shen Nian’s surprised expression, Xia Tian proudly said, “I’m smart, right?”

Shen Nian smiled faintly and nodded, “Smart!”

If she had a tail, it would surely be wagging by now!

Xia Tian also smiled, thinking to herself, “What surprised you is still to come!”

They continued studying for a while, but as it got late, Xia Tian went to prepare dinner.

Shen Nian put away the book and watched as Xia Tian busied herself in the kitchen.

These peaceful days didn’t seem too bad after all!

There was no scheming, no fear of being manipulated.

…

A few days passed quickly.

During these days, Xia Tian had learned half of the book and recognized quite a few characters.

At Shen Nian’s house, besides teaching Xia Tian to read, he spent his time weaving things from bamboo strips.

He even taught Xia Tian to weave a rocking chair, which was placed in the yard.

Xia Tian, who had already become familiar with Sister Yao, gradually made friends with the other women in the village, including the aunties, uncles, and older sisters.

She even dug up a grapevine from a familiar aunt’s house and planted it in the yard, saying that once the vine grew, she could sit on the rocking chair under it to enjoy the cool breeze.

On April 14th, before noon, a visitor came to the house.

Xia Tian had gone up the mountain to cut bamboo. The bamboo she had cut before had already been used by Shen Nian.

Sometimes the little chicks would run into the backyard garden.

To prevent them from damaging the crops, she planned to cut more bamboo and set up a fence around the vegetable garden.

She also intended to build a chicken pen in the backyard so that when the chickens grew up, they wouldn’t leave chicken droppings all over the place.

As soon as Xia Tian entered the door, she saw Shen Nian sitting under the apricot tree in the yard with a man. The table and stools Shen Nian had woven were placed under the tree.

Upon closer inspection, she was surprised.

“Big Brother?” she exclaimed, not expecting someone from the Xia family to come to see her.

It was none other than her elder brother, Xia Yang.

“Siya.” Xia Yang quickly stood up, his voice full of surprise, his face slightly awkward.

“Big Brother, why are you here?”

Xia Tian put down the bamboo she had carried on her shoulders, smiling as she walked over to Xia Yang.