Chen Xiu had only been gone for more than ten days, and he hadn't brought a letter back, so Li couldn't help but be worried.

Chen Xuejiao has been out before, and knows that taking the water route is faster than the land route, not to mention that she has entrusted a familiar boatman, so there is nothing to worry about this trip.

So he persuaded Li: "When my father was young, he traveled from south to north, and he had a charter in his heart for everything, and he was supported by his uncle, and Weishan Lake was not far from us, maybe it would have arrived now." ”

Having said that, she still couldn't dispel Li's worries, she wasn't worried that she would encounter water bandits on the road, but that Chen Xiucai's body would not be able to survive. This year is colder than in previous years, and at this time of year, small buds are showing under the grass roots on the river beach, but this year it is all dry and yellow. In the past two days, it has been getting cold day by day. Li planned to turn over the bedding in the house and go to the humidity of winter, but he didn't expect that there would be two snowfalls, and the sun was covered by thick clouds, and at noon he saw a ray of sunshine, and the front yard of the house was so cold that it was frosty, and the soil was frozen.

Maoshan Village leans on the Xiaohuai River, the weather is cold, the freshly thawed water in the river has a thick layer of ice, the wind blows from the Xiaohuai River, with water vapor, wet and soaked cold to the bone. It is not useful to wear cotton clothes in this cold, and when I sleep at night, I only feel that the bedding is damp, Chen Xuejiao's body is round and full of meat, afraid of heat and cold, and in a cold day, I don't put on a brazier and hold a soup woman who sleeps hot until dawn. Xue Ru and Jing Hao are just the opposite, their feet are cold after sleeping in the middle of the night, and they are curled up in a ball and shivering together.

The kang that had been stopped burned again, and Li knew that Xue Ru and Jing were afraid of the cold, so they boiled boiling hot water and poured the soup woman into the quilt.

In this way, Xue Jiao, who was sleeping in the same quilt, felt hot all over, and Li single-door made a quilt for her and let her sleep by herself.

Chen Qiping is seven years old after the New Year. The children in the township are generally old, and they have already helped the family to work for half the day. He is the youngest, there are brothers and sisters above, and he is not spoiled, since the division of the family, the Li family has more money in his hands, and the snacks have not been broken, and he is more squeamish than other children. People like them have a talent in front of them. The younger generations of men are all going to study. Chen Qiping learned a few words from his brother piecemeal. He has little interest in reading, he likes to touch the abacus and settle accounts, when Xue Jiao hung the stove to sell tea and eggs. Collecting money and looking for money is he is busy, settling accounts faster than adults, sitting all day long can play an abacus for an afternoon, and an abacus sent by Bi Tao was glowing by the beads he grinded. I don't see him bothered.

Chen Xiucai knew his interest, and this son was more interested in buying and selling than in reading books. But he thinks more long-term, even if children do business in the future, they must be literate, when he was young, he was a bookkeeper, and he saw too many white dings doing business, and he was deceived without even a tile on his head. He taught children literacy every day while he was recuperating from his injuries, and he repeated what he said when he first read school. If you send it to a private school seriously, you will also learn from these two things, and the heaven and earth in it will be desolate. also taught him to memorize it for a long time. Not only Chen Xiucai, but also Chen Xuejiao and Chen Qi'an will teach him. Therefore, in addition to growing a round circle of flesh throughout the winter, Chen Qiping also gained a lot of knowledge.

Although Chen Qiping knows a lot of words, he has not yet been officially enlightened, Chen Xiucai originally planned to enlighten him personally after the beginning of spring, but he has decided to run the economy before the private school starts. So he handed over the matter of enlightening his young son to Huang Xiucai.

On the day of enlightenment, he got up early, thinking that he would be a student from now on, and specially cooked a bowl of egg noodles with thick chicken soup for him to eat. Chen Qiping followed his brother Chen Qi'an into school, the first day to go to the private school without lecturing, first worshiped the prince of heaven and earth, Huang Xiucai asked him to worship the statue of the saint Confucius, knelt in front of the hall solemnly and made a big salute, and gave the master Huang Xiucai tea and kowtowed, so that he accepted this disciple.

People in the countryside are not interested in reading, and only one or two children in a village can read and know a few words. There is only one master in the entire private school, Huang Xiucai, and one school is divided into two groups, one group is older students such as Qi Ping, Han Xingjian, Zhao Yiming and others, and the other group is students who have just been enlightened for one to two years, and the class is divided into two groups. Because there is only one enlightenment in the spring of this year, he will give him a half-day class every day, and the rest of the time he will practice holding a pen and writing. Other people's small bones are unstable, and they have the appearance of holding a pen, but the writing is twisted and crooked. He followed his father and brother to endorse the book very much, but the writing was only a frame, and Huang Xiucai taught him to lift the pen again every day, skimming it and learning it again.

During the recess, Han Xingjian and Zhao Yiming, a few familiar students, often teased him, quietly stuffed him with melon seeds and gave him a few pieces of candy.

On the first day, he ate and drank in school, and every morning Li boiled an egg for him, and he was happy, but on the second day, he hung his face, saying that going to school was not fun. called Chen Xuejiao to cross her waist and train once: "You plan to sit cross-legged for a day and don't see you annoyed, why are you annoyed after just one day of school." ”

Chen Xuejiao is very strict with her younger brother, she thinks the same as her father, in the future, if her younger brother really takes the road of business, he must always be able to understand the account book and not be fooled.

Qi Ping's tears rippled, although he is seven years old, he is very good at reading and memorizing, just give the same as memorizing the abacus formula, and he can come with his mouth, but if he wants to sit down and practice calligraphy, the stool is like a needle, two or three can still be written, and there is no patience to write a few sheets.

These days happen to be colder again, commonly known as the inverted spring cold, which is colder than the nine cold days.

Chen Qiping lay on the bed and was reluctant to get up. Because of the cold weather, Li deliberately boiled four-color rice porridge, rice, millet, wheat kernels, and red beans soaked overnight, got up early to boil thick porridge, boiled an egg for each of the two sons who were studying, and specially stewed a bowl of elbows left over from the New Year for him. Li called him to get up, he didn't listen to twist his body and arched up to get into the quilt, covering his ears with both hands, Li hurriedly lifted the quilt, Qi An no matter how cold the day was, he got up when the rooster crowed, and now there are two months before the spring festival, and he is more diligent, and he gets up to read every day, and he reads an article today, and he sees his younger brother arching into a group on the bed, and immediately grinned and put his hand into the quilt, Qi Ping's thigh touched Qi An's cold hand and shrank tighter, first showing two eyes, Later, he simply shrank his head into the quilt.

Li Shi was in a hurry, glared at him and was about to lift the quilt: "Hurry up, it's not good to take leave after a few days of study, and see if your father comes back and doesn't peel your skin." "This son doesn't know how much pampering he is than the first three children, when he didn't split up, he always felt that he suffered with adults, and after splitting up, he could spoil him hard, the more he loved him, the more reluctant he was to beat him, as long as the rules were good, the little things would have passed him.

It's so cold outside, Li really can't lift his quilt. In fact, the house is not cold, put on the brazier, the fire has not been broken overnight, and in the morning the fire is extinguished, and the house is also warm, but for the sake of loving children, Li is reluctant to lift the quilt.

Li Shi and Qi An stood by the bed and coaxed him in every possible way, but he didn't want to get up, with a crying voice in his mouth: "I want to plan the plate, don't learn big characters." ”

Since Chen Xiucai went out, Chen Xuejiao has been working very early every day to help the Li family take care of things at home. She took out the porridge in the pot, soaked the eggs in warm water, tore the chicken thighs and soaked them in the lo-mei, cut a plate of dried radish, mixed with sesame oil and sprinkled with sesame seeds, and brought it into the house to beckon her brother and brother to eat and enter the school. As soon as the front foot stepped into the house, she heard Li persuading her brother to get up and go to school, and she put the food on the table and came to the flush bed.

At the beginning, he persuaded him with Li: "Brother, you usually play well in abacus, but I'm afraid that Xi Dazi won't be able to do it, and the big character is best not described." ”

Qi Ping came out with one eye exposed, rubbed his lips and said: "Master Huang asks me to learn big characters every day, I'm tired of it, I can write if I don't learn words, why do you always let me learn words, my brother doesn't learn them." ”

Chen Qi'an raised the book in his hand and said with a smile: "When you can memorize this book, I won't let you learn calligraphy." ”

Chen Qiping's eyes rolled and he clung to the corners. He has long been impatient to write, what is the meaning of learning characters according to the red frame.

"I'm not going to study, I'm going to plan for it."

Li was angry and wanted to beat him, but he couldn't do it. Chen Xuejiao persuaded her a few times, but he didn't listen, and his temper came up. Everything else is easy to say, but this rule of going to school has to be done, Xue Jiao saw that her brother didn't listen to her brother's good words, and turned around to get a feather duster, this thing was put on the kang to sweep the ashes, and some people would copy it and beat their own children, Li and Chen Xiucai had never used this thing to beat children. Chen Xuejiao ran to her house, pulled out a feather duster from the kang, and walked over angrily to fight.

Chen Qiping has always been afraid of this sister, and when he saw that she was really moving, he was frightened and peeked out of the corner of the quilt, and hurriedly opened his hand to lift the quilt, and shouted in his mouth: "Mother!" Mother! My sister hit me. Li lifted his quilt and put his clothes on him. Chen Xuejiao smashed the feather duster on the edge of the bed, shook his body, and quickly put on the jacket with Li's hand, he had not been beaten, but he had seen Zhang's use of a feather duster to beat the big egg, and it was pumped on the body one by one, and the painful big egg jumped and screamed, and there were rows of blood marks on the legs on his back. Chen Xuejiao and Li's mother and daughter protected him one by one, got him up safely, had breakfast and sent him to school.

This time, Chen Xuejiao allowed him to take the abacus to school, and took advantage of the break to move the abacus beads.

Qi Ping learned the morning's events to Zhao Yiming in school, and his shoulders shook with joy. When I thought of Xue Jiao, a round smiling face, restrained her smile, raised her eyebrows, and looked angry with a feather duster in her hand, I couldn't help but be happy. (To be continued)