"Rather than agonizing over it here, why don't we find a better restaurant?"
Cui Cheng and Cui Cai both smiled, much of their earlier melancholy dissolving.
"What a rotten place! My child's feet were rubbed raw. So what if someone carried him for a little while?"
It was the beautiful woman they had met on the road, along with the wealthy boy.
As it turned out, the child, pampered since birth, simply could not manage the forty li from Capital City to the Academy.
Feeling sorry for her child, the woman had forgotten her husband's instructions.
She had secretly had a servant carry him part of the way, only for them to be turned away outright when they tried to enter the Academy.
Where in the world was there any sense in that?
Her husband had just received a promotion. Under ordinary circumstances, she would certainly have argued her case at length.
She might even have come to blows.
But this was the Academy. However overbearing she was, she dared not throw a tantrum here.
So she only dared grumble a little under her breath.
"Mother, my feet hurt!" the child complained.
"A Wu, hurry up and carry the young master."
"I don't want him carrying me. His back digs into me. I want to ride a horse!"
"Where would we find a horse out here in the wilderness?"
"I want to ride that!" The child pointed.
Old Ox glanced over and rolled his eyes in disdain.
The woman looked in the direction her child was pointing.
Three men and an ox, with straw sandals on their feet.
Their clothes all but advertised their poverty; perhaps the only thing worth mentioning was their bearing.
"A Wu," the woman called.
The servant named A Wu took her meaning and walked up