Chapter 203: Censor He’s Private Tutoring Session
In the end, under Mother’s watchful gaze, Jiang Mianmian wrote a serious version of the translation.
Because Mother really would hit her. o(╥﹏╥)o.
Censor He looked at the rewritten translation, feeling at a loss for words.
“Isn’t this perfectly fine? How could she translate it like that? Always talking about people dying; this child’s way of thinking is a bit problematic.”
Meanwhile, her older brother, Jiang Feng, felt a pang of emotion upon seeing those translations that constantly had people dying.
It wasn’t Mianmian’s fault; she was just like him. Sometimes, he also really wanted to make people die.
He still remembered one night when the whole family went to a cave to take shelter. The lessons Father taught him in that cave—after all this time, he had gained new insights.
He felt this was quite good. Bullying others was always better than being bullied. the analects his sister read had a lot of power.
Censor He, with a conflicted expression, tucked the tea leaves back away.
When he woke up today, he checked his bedside. Usually, upon waking, there would be many fallen hairs on his pillowcase, but today, the amount of fallen hair was halved.
Although he did not pursue immortal pills and cultivation like the Emperor, he still placed great importance on health preservation. Whether one could serve as an official for a long time depended first on whether one lived for a long time.
He pondered it; the only thing different about his diet was that tea.
Waking up in the morning, there was no foul taste in his mouth. Previously, he would wake up every day with terrible bad breath, feeling as if the rot from his stomach had traveled up into his mouth all night. This morning, his mouth was surprisingly clean and fresh.
When he sat up, he didn’t feel that heavy, dizzy sensation in his head; instead, it was very natural, just like ten years ago, he sprang right up.
Censor He felt that these tea leaves were definitely extraordinary. He decided to take them back after all.
Upon learning that she was teasing him, Censor He found it somewhat amusing. “This child is truly mischievous.”
He immediately thought that with such a mischievous daughter, Jiang the Second would have a hard time in the future. Thinking this, he felt much more balanced.
Today was also Jiang Mianmian’s day off.
What was slightly tragic was that her extracurricular classes were basically all full.
She had to learn the zither, chess, calligraphy, painting, as well as horseback riding, carriage driving (charioteering), archery, sword practice, and the soft whip. Cultural studies were just a small part of it.
Come to think of it, it really wasn’t easy.
Jiang Mianmian really had no musical talent; she was tone-deaf. Her chess was very average, her calligraphy was very average, but her painting was alright, though her style was a bit erratic. She loved horseback riding, driving, archery, and sword practice, and she would whip the soft whip until it whistled.
It was clear she had a severe imbalance in her subjects; she loved physical education classes… Her intelligence was average, with no genetic mutations. She was just an ordinary girl.
If she insisted on becoming someone, it was just to meet everyone’s expectations, to have a profession, and to be able to support herself.
But now, she discovered she had no pressure to make a living, and her parents doted on her excessively. Including her older brother, older sister, and Great-Aunt, no one actually had any real demands of her. So, she began to live freely.
She grew up slowly, living her days at a leisurely pace. She found ways to make herself more comfortable, slowly changing things about her life. She had no grand ambitions, but she had many small hobbies.
She didn’t like embroidery, but she liked drawing patterns for others to embroider. The benefit of being a young lady of a wealthy family was that she could like things, and she could also choose not to.
Of course, she knew that Father made her learn these things so she would have a general grasp, to be able to handle things and have some knowledge when out in public. If she made a fool of herself, he worried she would be unhappy; other things were secondary.
To be honest, she used to be someone who cared about what others thought. If someone said one bad thing about her, she would dwell on it for a long time, wondering whether to change, how to change, and if she changed, would the other person say it was good?
On this point, Father was much more open-minded. Father wasn’t afraid of what people said. If someone criticized him, he would tell the person to find the reason within themselves, insisting that it must be the person speaking who was in the wrong.
For her perfunctory zither class, she could pluck out half a song, and after another month of learning, she could probably piece together a whole one. In the future, she could use this song to amuse her parents; it should be barely enough.
She didn’t need to learn singing. Her voice was quite good, but she was always off-key; she would be happy singing, while the listeners would want to cry. Her family didn’t want to applaud against their conscience, nor did they want to hurt her self-esteem.
Strangely, her older brother was actually learning this. In this era, quite a few men knew how to sing. According to her brother, when three or five friends ate together and were in high spirits, they would sing a song; it was considered an elegant activity.
She learned a smattering of chess; knowing how to play was enough. Calligraphy, however, had to be practiced every day because learning itself included calligraphy. This required patience, so she treated it as a way to temper her temperament.
As for painting, ever since Jiang Mianmian scared away a few tutors, no more tutors came, so Jiang Changtian taught her himself. Now, her Father had personally tricked a teacher into coming and even gifted him tea leaves. Jiang Mianmian knew this teacher must be very important. He wouldn’t be so easily fooled.
Censor He had received good tea and knew he wouldn’t be staying in Jingzhou for long. Even if he accepted this cheap student, there wouldn’t be many opportunities to teach. He had to teach something; he couldn’t just take advantage of people.
Thus, Censor He held a one-on-one class. Come to think of it, the value of this class was absolutely high. It was roughly equivalent to being taught personally by the Prosecutor-General of the Supreme People’s Procuratorate or the Secretary of the Commission for Discipline Inspection in modern times. Censor He had also been a top scholar in the imperial examinations back in the day. For others, being a top scholar was the highest honor, but for him, it was just an insignificant starting point. Being able to chat with such a person would certainly be very beneficial.
Jiang Changtian felt that the place he lived was small and his knowledge shallow. Even if he wanted to pour out all the knowledge in his heart for his child, there wasn’t actually much to pour out. He hoped his child could receive more education, see further, and stand more firmly in life.
As for why he invited Censor He to be Mianmian’s teacher instead of Feng’er’s, that was where Jiang Changtian’s emotional intelligence lay. Teaching a young girl required no need to avoid suspicion; it just depended on Censor He’s mood. If he were to teach Feng’er, there would be many complications, and it would be embarrassing for him. He knew what could not be done and refrained from doing it, and he knew what could be done and pushed hard to make it happen.
In the afternoon. The spring water tinkled. One could hear the spring in the tea room. Censor He listened intently to the sound of the flowing water and asked Mianmian, “Why do you create this sound?”
Jiang Mianmian said, “The bubbling of the spring is good for sleeping.”
Censor He nodded. He had already grasped this child’s sensibilities. If she were his own daughter, he might have been unable to resist reaching for the bamboo whip. Fortunately, she belonged to Jiang the Second’s family. Thinking that she was someone else’s child, he actually quite appreciated this temperament. Everyone in this world toiled; being able to sleep well was actually a great blessing.
It was just that other people spent half their lives rushing about before realizing the importance of a good sleep. The young girl before him had a stunning appearance upon first sight, surpassing her predecessors, with looks even better than Jiang the Second’s, yet without Jiang the Second’s weathering; pure and beautiful, she was actually thinking about how to sleep well.
“Life is short and full of wonders; why do you only think of sleeping?” Censor He said.
The Jiang Changtian family listening in from next door… Father Jiang Changtian, Mother Qin Luoxia, older brother Jiang Feng, Great-Aunt Yin Ping. Jiang Yu was absent because she was too boisterous and couldn’t help herself. Meng Shaoxia was also absent; he had a high sense of morality and was too embarrassed to eavesdrop.
“Uncle He is right. Why sleep so long while alive? One will naturally sleep for a long time after death.” Jiang Mianmian nodded. (Note 1)
Next door, Jiang Feng’s eyes grew moist.
Jiang Changtian was silent; this was also the reason he couldn’t bear to lecture his own daughter. Thinking that if she were to truly start her long sleep while so young, his heart felt as if it were being cut by a knife. He couldn’t bear to say a harsh word, but he was truly worried: if, in the future, he and Xia Mei were no longer around, could she live well?
Among the children, Jiang Changtian felt that Mianmian had the most thoughts. Those eyes, from the moment she was born, seemed to be bright and full of ideas. A sensitive and thoughtful child would not live happily. It was better to be like Jiang Yu, simple-minded; as long as they were strong enough, they wouldn’t worry about her being bullied.
Censor He hadn’t expected that a casual conversation would lead to such a sentence: “Why sleep so long while alive? One will naturally sleep for a long time after death.” At first, it sounded plain, but the more he thought about it, the deeper the meaning. It could even be used to teach himself. He was stunned for a moment.
He then smiled and said, “the analects you translate are very interesting, full of decisiveness and killing intent. If the Sage Confucius knew of this from the underworld, he would likely crawl out to debate with you.”
Jiang Mianmian said seriously, “It is said that the Sage Confucius was from the State of Lu. He took his students to travel through many countries. The Spring and Autumn period was a time of war and chaos, so this student deduces that the Sage Confucius must have been at least eight feet tall, physically powerful and extremely strong. Also, being on the road every day, enduring wind and rain, and the scorching sun, he must have been a dark-skinned, rough, bearded, burly man. Only then could he have safely led his students to lecture in various countries.”
Censor He’s expression cracked. In his mind, the Sage Confucius was like him—tall, thin, elegant, with a thin beard, wearing long robes, and speaking only in classics. But after hearing this little one put it this way, he actually thought it made some sense.
But if the Sage Confucius were a dark-skinned, burly man, and then one read the analects… inexplicably, he couldn’t look at it straight. Damn, he couldn’t chat about classical literature with her anymore; if he continued, it would be ruined. Thinking of Bo Ya and Zhong Ziqi, he didn’t even dare to think about it now.
Next door, Jiang Feng nodded. His sister’s words made sense; the Sage Confucius must have had super-high martial prowess to travel the world. At any time, martial force was the foundation.
Qin Luoxia thought to herself, the child’s words were crude but the logic was sound; she was right.
Jiang Changtian thought, The Sage Confucius must be crying to death.
Great-Aunt thought, The little mistress has a rebellious nature from birth and doesn’t care about anyone.
(Note 1: This sentence originates from the work of Xiao Hong of the Republic of China era.)
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