Qingyang Academy

Cangshan Town had only two streets in all, one running east to west and one north to south.

It was an obscure little town in Qingyang County, in the southern part of the Great Chu State. Qingyang County had dozens of such towns.

At Wan Family Furs Merchant, a shopkeeper shouted, "Moth-eaten, rat-gnawed, bald hide shedding fur—a wolf pelt, fifty cash."

Wang Hong secretly gritted his teeth. He did not waste his breath arguing and reached out to accept the fifty coins.

The fur trade in Cangshan Town was monopolized by the Wan family. The Wan family had the final say on the prices of all furs.

Anyone who tried to meddle in the fur business either vanished mysteriously, or thieves visited their homes and wiped out their entire families. After that, no one dared touch the fur trade again.

After leaving the Wan family's shop, he went to the pharmacy to sell the Medicinal Herbs. The three Solomon's Seal plants sold for seventy-five cash, the Kudzu Root for one hundred and thirty cash, and the other herbs he had gathered earlier for more than twenty cash.

As Wang Hong walked down the street, he kept reaching into his clothes to feel the weighty copper coins. His heart brimmed with accomplishment.

Before he had gone far, he saw a crowd gathered ahead, chattering noisily without end.

Wang Hong also squeezed over. He saw a large notice pasted on the wall, bearing a bright red official seal.

As for what exactly was written on it, Er Gouzi could not recognize a single character.

At the front of the crowd stood a middle-aged man dressed like a poor scholar, with a pale face and a goat beard, reading aloud in a booming voice.

Nine out of ten of the onlookers could not recognize a single word. At that moment, they all pricked up their ears and listened intently.

Though the language was flowery and difficult to follow, Wang Hong still grasped the general meaning.

Qingyang Academy in the county seat would expand its enrollment next spring. At that time, anyone under fifteen who passed the entrance examination and paid ten taels of silver each year could enter the academy.

Students who passed the graduation examination before the age of twenty would have the chance to be recommended for local official positions or to enter the military, where they might become military officers.

"I heard the county magistrate himself graduated from Qingyang Academy."

"The county magistrate was a literary student at Qingyang Academy. Its martial program is the truly formidable one. General Wu of the Northwestern Army also came from Qingyang Academy."

"I only hate that I was born a few years too early! Otherwise, I would definitely pass the examination and become a great general. Then I'd ride a tall steed, wear a treasured saber at my waist, charge into battle, and cut such a dashing figure!" A young man in the crowd with figure-eight brows, triangular eyes, and a pair of protruding rat teeth beat his chest and stamped his feet in utter frustration.

"Give it a rest, Triangle Eyes! You want to be a general looking like that? You look like a little chick. Great generals are all broad-shouldered and thick-waisted. With your chick-like frame, if you carried a fire poker and stood before the army shouting, 'Triangle Eyes is here!' people would think our Great Chu State had no one left." A sturdy, dark-faced young man mocked him.

Wang Hong ignored the crowd's clamor and quietly left. A little thought had begun to stir in his heart.

"This is a good opportunity. But the tuition is ten taels per person. For me and my little brother, that makes twenty taels. I need to earn twenty taels of silver in the next few months. I'll have to plan this carefully."

"I have one fen of land, and time passes there more than twenty times faster than outside. Wheat and rice can ripen in about half a year. One fen can yield twenty or thirty jin of grain each season. Even if we eat dry rice every meal, half a fen would be enough to feed us."

"The other half fen needs to grow something more valuable. The first thing that comes to mind is Ginseng. There are still about five months until next year's examination, which is nearly ten years inside the space."

He then spent one hundred cash at the pharmacy on one hundred and fifty Ginseng seeds. After buying some wheat seeds, rice seeds, rice, and coarse salt as well, he ended this trip to Cangshan Town.

"Brother!"

He heard his little brother calling from far away.

"Why are you only getting back now? I've already made the meal."

"My little brother is so capable!" He pulled an oil-paper packet from his clothes and waved it a few times before his little brother.

"Guess what it is. If you guess right, I'll let you eat this sugar figurine."

"Hmm... braised pork head!" His little brother deliberately put on a sly expression.

"Brother! I'm already eight, not some three- or four-year-old child. You're still playing such childish games with me."

Wang Yi reached out to snatch the oil-paper packet.

"Give me the sugar figurine!"

When he opened the packet, there was indeed a very delicate sugar figurine inside.

The two brothers walked home with their arms around each other's shoulders.

"Brother! It's so sweet. Have a bite too."

Wang Hong glanced at the sugar figurine, now covered in saliva from being licked all over.

"No."

"Just take a bite. It's really sweet! I'm not lying."

Crack! Wang Hong shut his eyes and took a bite.

"You bit its head off! I licked it for so long and still couldn't bear to bite it." His little brother was so upset that his face turned a little red.

"Next time I go to town, I'll buy you another one to make up for it."

"You promise?"

"Of course! Your brother has always been a man whose every word is a nail." Wang Hong patted his little chest, little more than a rack of ribs.

When they got home, they filled two bowls with thin wild-vegetable gruel. Wang Hong thought to himself, This gruel is truly thin. If it were poured onto the ground, even a dog couldn't catch it.

"Little brother, starting tomorrow, our family will eat dry rice."

"Every meal?" His little brother was somewhat startled and did not react at first.

"Of course, every day, every meal." Wang Hong smugly patted the rice sack and declared with soaring spirit.

"From now on, our family will eat fragrant food and drink spicy broth too. Whatever the landlord eats, we'll eat!"

"Xu Da Sha was even eating chicken legs two days ago. I went outside their village to dig wild vegetables and saw that fool standing by the roadside gnawing on a chicken leg, like he was afraid nobody would know. His snot was dripping onto the chicken leg, and he was still chewing away with such gusto." His little brother spoke with a hint of sour envy.

"In a few days, we'll eat chicken too. When the time comes, we'll squat at the village entrance and eat chicken legs as well." Wang Hong licked his lips.

"They even slaughter pigs for the New Year!"

"We will too!"

"Where's the pig?"

"We'll buy one!"

"You're bragging! Brother, if you brag too much, you won't be able to marry a wife." His little brother utterly refused to believe him. From childhood until now, he had only eaten meat a few times.

"Your brother never brags! Besides, we can wash clothes and cook for ourselves. What would we need a wife for?"

His little brother suddenly understood. "Right! No wife. If we marry one, she'll steal our chicken legs too. Niu Dan next door married a wife, and they fight every night. They scream and howl so loudly that it's frightening to hear."

Wang Hong felt as though something was not quite right, but for the moment, he could not figure out what.

The two brothers each held a bowl of gruel and sat on the stone by the doorway, shoveling it into their mouths.

After eating, he discussed going to the academy next spring with his little brother. His little brother eagerly looked forward to it as well, dreaming of becoming a great hero who would roam the martial world with a sword in hand.

That night, he entered the space again. The Solomon's Seal he had planted earlier was growing splendidly. He planted wheat and rice over half a fen of land, then planted the Ginseng seeds. Afterward, he found that a small patch of land was still empty. Er Gouzi pondered what he could plant there. As a farmer, leaving land barren was simply unbearable.

"Tomorrow, I'll go into the mountains and look around. I'll dig up some other medicinal plants and grow them in the space."

The next morning, Wang Hong entered the space and discovered that the wheat and rice he had planted the night before had already grown several inches tall. The rice was growing no worse than rice planted in flooded paddies, and the Ginseng had already sprouted little green shoots.