Don’t You Dare!
Seeing Tan Lanfang like this, Qin Ya knew that she was hiding something and questioned further. "What's going on? Is there anything that you keep from me?”
Tan Lanfang faltered for a while.
At last, she sighed and finally said, "I got along with you so well, and I didn't intend to hide it from you. My body is so disappointing. Ever since I got married, there was no sign of pregnancy yet. I’ve already visited a lot of doctors. However, nothing cheerful happened. My husband and I often changed residences for the sake of the convenience of medical treatment."
When it came to this issue, Qin Ya indeed rubbed Tan Lanfang’s nose in it.
Although she got along well with Tan Langfa, she was not a doctor after all. She could not know what problem it was with Tan.
Hence, she could only keep this in mind so that if she came across some famous doctors in the future, she would take Tan Lanfang to have a look.
"By the way, I’m here also because I want you to do me a favor."
Qin Ya changed the subject.
Tan Lanfang also put aside those problems that had haunted her for many years upon hearing Qin Ya’s words, thinking that those questions would no longer annoy her if she didn’t dwell on it.
She replied, "Sister, why are you so courteous to me? If you need my help, you can just say it. There’s no need to call it a favor."
"Well, I heard that you were taught to read when you were little. Can I ask you the favor to teach me how to read?"
"Sister Sufen, you are saying that you want to read?"
Tan Lanfang was shocked.
Qin Ya could understand her reaction a bit. After all, in this era, men were asked to be able to read to pass the exam and become the top scholar while women were only asked to be able to do the needlework and family chores. Not many families wanted girls to be literate.
Besides, home schooling with a private tutor was expensive. If it was not a wealthy family, people wouldn’t even be able to afford home tutors for their daughters.
"Is it too much to ask for?"
Qin Ya asked tentatively.
"Not that it is a problem. I feel bored all day anyway. I'll just read with you to pass time."
Tan Lanfang agreed to the request with alacrity.
However, she was still confused about one thing.
"Even if girls like us can read, it’s still useless after all. I often read those painless uninteresting poems, and my husband complains about it all the time. How come you suddenly come up with such an idea?"
It was obvious that Qin Ya couldn’t say that she needed an excuse to show what she knew.
She had too many advanced skills. However, she couldn’t show them now given that she was a stupid woman named Qin Sufen, who would never be able to know what she knew. .
Nonetheless, if she was able to read and whenever someone questioned her, she could just say she read it from the book.
After all, there were not many people who could read in this era. Many books were passed down from the previous generations and were rarely spread outside.
As long as it was about something that others didn’t know, she could just use the book as an excuse.
"I heard people say that there are beauties and gold houses in books, so I want to see if it is true."
Qin Ya came up with a random excuse.
Tan Lanfang covered her lips with her hand and laughed. "My silly sister, it's all made up to cheat people. As you can see, I've read so many books, how can I still be like this now? I haven't become a beauty, and I don't have a golden house."
"Maybe you will in the future."
Qin Ya stopped explaining further.
Tan Lanfang only thought that she was joking and didn’t take it seriously.
She went to the inner room to fetch a pen, ink, paper and inkstone out. Then she started to teach Qin Ya the basics.
However, Tan Lanfang never thought that Qin Ya was so talented that she could remember everything after she was taught once. She could read the whole book within one afternoon.
"You are a genius! Absolutely a genius!”
Tan Lanfang clapped and exclaimed. "Sister, if you are a man, I'm sure you would be able to be the number one scholar in the exam. You’re really amazing."
"You always know how to coax me. It's getting late. I'll have to go back and cook for Xin’er. I'll come back to you tomorrow."
After saying goodbye to Sister Lan, Qin Ya went back to her own yard.
Xin’er didn’t come back yet.
She scooped the rice out of the rice jar to cook porridge first. Then she took out the wild vegetables that Li Chenggu had dug up before, chopped them and squeezed them into juice, which would be used for steamed wild-vegetable buns.
After steaming, she sliced the bun and then fried it. Now, the bun slices were in golden color with a good smell.
After that, she waited for the Xin’er to come back for dinner. However, she waited for a long time but still didn’t see him.
Seeing that it was getting a little dark, Qin Ya couldn't sit still at home anymore.
She covered the food with a basket to prevent rats and other insects from crawling in. Then she put on her clothes and twisted her hair with the hairpin given by Li Chenggu. She closed the door in a ruah and went out to look for Li Xin’er.
From the outside of her own door to the places in the village where children often went to play, there was no trace of him anywhere.
It was getting darker and darker. Soon, it was so dark that she couldn’t even see her hands clearly. At night in the countryside, all kinds of snakes, insects, rats and ants were flooding. Besides, all kinds of animals would bark continuously.
"Xin’er... where are you, Xin’er? "
Qin Ya shouted while she walked, trying to get a response.
One-incense-stick-burning time passed… Two-incense-sticks-burning time passed… One hour had already passed, but there was still no response.
Qin Ya tightly compressed her lips. The more anxious she was in her heart, the clearer her mind was. A child at this age should be fine. The biggest possibility was that he quarreled with some friends and didn’t want to go home because of agitation.
Thinking of this, she went straight to Er’gou's house. She remembered that when Xin’er went out today, he said that he would go to play with Er’gou, who lived at the east end of the village.
Qin Ya just walked to the door of Er’gou’s place and before she could get in, she already heard the quarrelling inside.
"You little bastard, you are still staying in our house. We just broke your clothes, why did you pester us so severely?”
It was a woman's voice, which was cynical and with a country accent.
"Are you Er’gou’s mother?"
At this moment, Qin Ya had no time to care about courtesy. She pushed the door open and directly walked in.
The moment she got inside, she saw Xin’er sitting alone in the yard crying, while the woman aside was pointing her finger at him and cursing him nonstop.
That woman did not expect that someone would come in and suddenly stopped talking.
She turned her head to take a look and unexpectedly found it was Qin Ya. She put her hands on her waist and said, "I didn’t expect it was you. Now the big bastard comes. Now what? Coming to pick up your little bastard?"
The moment Qin Ya heard these words, her eyes turned cold because of anger.
Clap.
It was a slap in the face of that woman.
Because of the reaction force, Qin Ya's hand became numb.
That woman was even more miserable. She was bony, and even with the clothes, she was still as thin as a stick. Qin Ya was much heavier than her; Using all the strength, Qin Ya slapped her on the ground.
"Don’t you dare say that again?"
Qin Ya did not intend to forgive her easily. She bullied Xin’er and also abused him so vulgarly.
The woman was shrewish. When she realized that she was beaten, she began to make a scene.
"You, how dare you hit me?! For crying out loud, there are no laws and rules anymore."
"Laws and rules?" Qin Ya snorted coldly, "Where did you get the gut to scold my son."
"I'm not wrong. He is a little bastard, and who knows where he comes from. He doesn’t even know who his own mother is..."
The woman was still scurrilous.
Qin Ya directly slapped her in the face again. Then, Qin Ya slapped her five or six times continuously.