Kays Translations
Just another Isekai Lover~
Chapter 26: Sitting In on Class Again
The journey home was smooth and uneventful, and they arrived just in time for dinner. Chen was anxiously waiting at the front gate, and her worries were eased when she saw her son riding in on a swaybacked yellow cow.
At dinner, the main topic was First Aunt’s animated questions about Zhu Pingjun’s performance at the private school. She asked whether Jun’er was doing well, whether the teacher had praised him, and what he had learned. Zhu Pingjun did not disappoint her, boasting that he was doing exceptionally well, getting along with his classmates, and had even been praised by the teacher for studying diligently. He also said he had learned four characters and that they were extremely easy.
With every sentence Zhu Pingjun spoke, First Aunt’s eyebrows seemed to dance with delight.
Meanwhile, Zhu Ping’an could only roll his eyes in silence as he ate flatbread with pickled vegetables. He wondered how First Aunt would react if she knew that Jun’er had fallen asleep and drooled on the desk on his first day. Of course, he would not be the one to expose it. The teacher had already punished Jun’er; if he recognized his mistake and changed, the lesson was enough. If he remained stubborn, saying more would be useless, and First Aunt would only think Zhu Ping’an was jealous and trying to undermine him.
The pickled vegetables at home were all made by Grandmother. Although she had her biases, her pickles were truly exceptional.
Radish sticks and cucumber strips looked as exquisite as jade, fresh and flavorful, with a perfect balance of sweet and sour, crispy and fragrant, leaving one drooling with their unique taste.
Over the past few days, that plate of pickles had accompanied Zhu Ping’an with both meals and congee; without them, the food simply did not taste as good.
“Zhi’er really eats with gusto,” Third Aunt remarked as she watched Zhu Ping’an crunch away at his meal and drink his congee.
“That’s why I said letting Zhi’er tend the cows was the right choice,” First Aunt said. She had been happily praising Zhu Pingjun, and Third Aunt’s interruption displeased her. In her eyes, how could Second Brother’s child compare with her own? Zhi’er was only a cowherd who would scratch a living from the soil, while her son was destined to study and become a top scholar.
Chen’s expression soured, but she couldn’t explode in anger since Grandmother was watching closely. Instead, she vented her frustration on Zhu Shouyi, pinching him until he winced in pain.
What everyone did after dinner need not be mentioned. After the meal, Zhu Ping’an sneaked into the cowshed with a pair of scissors and soon emerged, delighted, with a small tuft of yellow ox-tail hair in his hand.
After returning the scissors, Zhu Ping’an cut a finger-thick section of bamboo, bent over the basin, and tried to stuff the ox-tail hair into the bamboo tube.
This task was tricky; although he managed to get the hair inside, he didn’t know how to secure it. Every time he touched it, it either fell out or got sucked back into the bamboo.
“Zhi’er, don’t play with the water. It’s cold at night, so go back to your room and rest early,” Grandmother said after making a round of the courtyard and seeing Zhu Ping’an fiddling with bamboo in the basin. She assumed he was merely playing.
“Got it, Grandmother,” Zhu Ping’an replied.
After Grandmother urged him once more, she returned to her room.
Hearing the commotion, Zhu Shouyi came over and saw his youngest son bent over playing with water. He couldn’t help but walk over, scooping him up with one arm and carrying him on his shoulder, just like how he would play with him when he was a toddler.
As Zhu Ping’an was focused on the cow tail hair, being suddenly lifted like this caused him to fly up, almost scaring his soul out of him.
Seeing the bamboo tube and ox-tail hair in Zhu Ping’an’s hands, Zhu Shouyi asked what he was doing. When he learned that his son wanted to make a brush, he felt both guilty and amused: guilty that he could not afford to send him to private school, and amused that the silly boy thought making a brush himself would be so easy. Since he could not send his son to school, he decided he could at least make him a brush to play with.
Having made up his mind, Zhu Shouyi offered to make a brush for Zhu Ping’an.
Zhu Ping’an lifted his little face to look at Zhu Shouyi, somewhat incredulous. How could Zhu Shouyi, who had never been educated, know how to make a brush?
“Your Eldest Uncle studied when he was young and went through brushes quickly. I often went to the brush, ink, paper, and inkstone shop to buy supplies for him. After a while I got to know the shop assistants and learned to make brushes myself, which saved the family a little money. Once your Eldest Uncle grew older, he stopped using the brushes I made, but my skills haven’t gone rusty over the years,” Zhu Shouyi said, sounding a little nostalgic.
In the Ming Dynasty, people typically ate only two meals a day: breakfast and dinner. Breakfast was around eight o’clock, and dinner was around five in the afternoon.
Zhu Ping’an went to herd the cows again after finishing breakfast.
“Hey, why does it look like there’s something off with our cow?” Fourth Aunt frowned and muttered to herself as Zhu Ping’an rode out on the old yellow cow.
The cow’s tail had been trimmed, so how could it not look strange?
Hearing this, Zhu Ping’an hurriedly guided the old yellow cow out, trying to avoid any trouble if Fourth Aunt found out about the tail.
Today, in addition to what he had brought the day before, Zhu Ping’an carried a small bamboo basket narrow at the top and wide at the bottom, a brush, and a black-lacquered wooden board about the size of a sheet of A4 paper. He had found the board in the kitchen; it might once have been part of a piece of furniture, but after the furniture was repaired, the leftover board had been thrown into the woodshed as firewood.
The brush and wooden board were for practicing calligraphy. He filled a bamboo tube with river water, and by dipping the brush in the water, he could practice writing on the black-painted wooden board repeatedly without using ink or paper, thus saving resources.
The small bamboo basket was meant for fishing, a method he had learned from Zhu Shouyi while listening to stories last night.
It was still early, and the sun was just right—not too hot—so Zhu Ping’an rode the yellow cow toward the school. As the cow’s hooves clopped over the wooden bridge and climbed the small hill, the grass remained lush, but the little girl from yesterday was nowhere to be seen.
At the riverbank, Zhu Ping’an filled his bamboo tube with water, then led the old yellow cow to a tree halfway up the slope and tied it there to graze on fresh grass. This also gave the patch it had eaten the day before time to recover.
Carrying his improvised class supplies, he passed through the bamboo grove and once again arrived outside the school. He found an inconspicuous corner and settled down to sit in on the lesson.
The timing was perfect; the children’s early reading had just concluded, and after questioning a few students, the teacher was about to begin a new day of instruction.