The Legend of Concubine's Daughter Minglan

Chapter 21

"Remember, write from left to right, then from top to bottom; when you start a stroke, make sure to pull your brush to the right and then to the left. When you end a stroke, make sure to pull up slowly, when you press the brush down to write, make sure to lift your wrist up slowly, this way your brush head will look nice..." Minglan and little Changdong were sitting side by side in front of a chimney, with Minglan demonstrating stroke by stroke, Cui mama came from the outside while carrying a small tea tray that was engraved with black painted flowers, on top of it was two white porcelain cups with colourful flowers engraved.

"Thank you Cui mama, causing trouble for you, it's all my fault, making you have to work more." Chengdong's face blushes a little as he took the porcelain cup that Cui mama passed to him while saying a gentle thank you; when he was at Wang Shi's place, he would not dare to move around; he had only talked to Concubine Xiang the whole day but still didn't say much either, after several days since Minglan started teaching him, not only did his learning improved; he can also finally speak neatly.

"Oh Buddha, my little boy, why would you say this, it's all thanks to you coming or else I will have to work a lot harder just to wake this lady up!" Cui mama laughs as she scolds Minglan but Minglan choose to ignore what she heard and only lowers her head and blow the porcelain cup in her hands, Cui mama looks towards Changdong, "Fourth young master you better drink the tea; this is stewed from the new mahogany and plum brown sugar to become a sweet tea; it moisten the lungs and warms the stomach, this is best to drink in the morning, it can also serve as an appetizer for breakfast."
Changdong holds the cup with his two hands and took a sip of the tea, his little mouth was covered in red because of the smoke [1], he puffed his white cheeks out and tasted the sweetness of the tea with all his heart and shyly says, "It really tastes good, thank you mama... But if I would be drinking this every day, then wouldn't it be hard in your pockets, you don't have to do this for me in the future, I do not need to drink this..." his words getting softer and softer.

Cui mama laughingly says: "Fourth young master is actually worrying for us, how could this small amount of tea be hard on us? If you come every morning, then I shall serve you tea every day! Just that we don't know, whether you sixth older sister would have the will..."
Saying in all laughter and smiles, she looks at Minglan; Minglan forced a hearty smile. Which book said that time traveling to the past to be a young missy would let her sleep the whole day, all lies!

Outside the cabinet with pears engraved, Danju was tasked to help Minglan pack up her bags and put out papers to be used for calligraphy in a bamboo case, Xiaotao who was helping her from a side, stupidly asks: "Older sister Danju, fourth young master coming here is a good thing, but our young lady looks very tired, look at her; yawning with all her might, I would rather let her sleep more, why can't she teach fourth young master at noon?"
Danju's frowns with her delicate eyebrows, and gave a hand signal to Xiaotao to shut her mouth and softly says: "Don't gossip! This prefecture is the house of young masters and young ladies, nobody is better than anyone else, the old lady is also having a hard time, having to make sure that she is not biased to anybody, we have the blessing of getting to live by following the old madam and being safe because of concubine Wei who did not say any bad thing to the head, that's it, you have no idea how much terrible thing happened! Minglan's flatteries and the secret slandered is just one of the many, we should not spread baseless rumours, but fortunately, our lady has a big heart, and never put these things on her heart. If she continues to be so close to the fourth young master and make him keep on walking in and out of Shou'An Hall, at that point it would be something else different. One can see that fourth young master looks really pathetic; the young lady is not easy to take care of and the old lady doesn't seem to care and now that he is yearning to learn new words, it is just right."