Thus, they urgently needed other fruits.
Throughout the year, the winery required a large number of persimmons for brewing persimmon wine, sweetening the lives of Mianyang’s residents with the bounty of their fruit trees for the first ti.
At least the fruits were no longer rotting on the trees or getting thrown away.
The families with persimmon trees were obviously overjoyed, their smiles beaming with delight.
~~~~
"Have Yunyun and Linyu’s clothes and jewelry been sent yet?" With the New Year approaching, of course, she wanted to add so new clothes and jewelry for her two younger sisters.
"They have been sent." Mingcui replied, "The young miss really liked the style of the clothes this ti."
The clothes were from a newly opened store which featured so exotic designs, which she also liked very much.
"If she likes them, that’s good. What were they doing when you delivered them?"
"Miss Yunyun was reading, and Miss Linyu was tracing red character outlines."
Upon hearing this, Yang Chuxia raised her eyebrows, "How co those two girls suddenly took a fancy to music, chess, calligraphy, and painting these past few months, not even wanting to co out to play?"
Hearing this, Mingcui chuckled and replied, "Madam, you’ve ntioned it at just the right mont. Just when I was there, Miss Linyu spoke of wanting your help to find a qin teacher because she wants to learn the instrunt."
"That might be difficult in Mianyang. Later, I’ll have your mother inquire around to see if there are any outstanding qin teachers in Mianyang. If not, I’ll send a letter to the Capital City to have soone sent over from there."
As she said this, she thought of the young ladies they typically saw and added, "It is good for a young lady to learn more skills. Linyu will eventually return to the Capital City, and Yunyun will also marry there soday. They must master one or two of these arts, and at least have a rudintary understanding of the others. Look at those young misses we usually et, even here in Mianyang. Each one is keen on these four arts, and if they hear soone is inept, they look down on them. Once the two of them go to the Capital City, people there will care even more about these things."
"Mother, I want to learn too."
Lele raised his head upon hearing his mother and maid’s conversation.
"What do you want to learn?" Yang Chuxia hadn’t yet caught on.
"The qin!" Lele pondered for a mont and then said, "The qin sounds nice."
Last ti, the First Madam of the Li Residence, that Prefect’s concubine sister, visited their ho, bringing a qin and playing two pieces, which he had overheard.
"Wait a bit longer," Yang Chuxia said, "My son, biting off more than you can chew isn’t good. You’re still very young; practicing tracing red character outlines is enough, and your father will teach you painting when he has the ti. Wait until you’re five or six to learn the qin. Your hands are still small and delicate, and you could easily get hurt by the qin strings, which wouldn’t be good at all."
"I’ll listen to mother." Lele nodded his head upon hearing this.
"Such a good boy!" Yang Chuxia felt mixed emotions, acknowledging that having a son so eager to learn sotis added pressure on the parents.
"Bao Bao is good too." Just after Yang Chuxia finished murmuring to herself, Yangyang, the little one, ran over to join in. Listening to her son’s childlike voice, Yang Chuxia felt a bit less pressured, thinking to herself how lucky that this son hadn’t turned out too conspicuously clever. Otherwise, she would have missed out on so much fun pestering her son.
"You and your brother are both good," Yang Chuxia said as she stroked Yangyang’s head. Yangyang took the opportunity to snuggle into her arms and even gave her a kiss before saying, "Mother, let’s go out to play."
"It’s almost evening, why go out now? We’ll go out tomorrow."
"Let’s play, let’s play." Yangyang still wanted to go out now and started to wriggle excitedly.
"Son, you see how studious your brother is; is it good for you to love playing this much?"
Yang Chuxia felt conflicted again. A son too studious lacked childish whimsy, yet a son too playful gave rise to worry. Although they were still young, having a point of comparison made it easy to forget their age.
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