Chapter 33: Never Written Such Ugly Characters
The Lin Family and the Village Head’s family are affinities by marriage with a good relationship. The villagers yield to the Lin Family in everything, afraid of being given a hard time by the two families joining hands.
Shang Wan was the first person in the village bold enough to slap the Lin Family across the face repeatedly, and the Lin Family didn’t even dare to fart.
Li Xiaoshan instantly turned into Shang Wan’s little fanboy, calling her “sis” sweetly one after another.
Li Dashan asked curiously, “Lady Shang, do you know martial arts?”
Shang Wan waved her hand. “I know a bit of three-legged cat kung fu, not worth mentioning.”
Li Dashan: “…”
You call kung fu that’s so fast even the afterimage can’t be seen three-legged cat kung fu?
Shang Wan truly didn’t think her martial arts were good. This was her gene evolution, an ability that came with being an ability user, not related to martial arts at all.
If she knew martial arts, she wouldn’t have failed to control her strength last night and almost flattened Liu Shi’s head.
She remembered every time her own child was pinched and hit by Liu Shi. Last night, while Village Chief Lin went to the Chen Family to help, she sneaked into the Lin Family, covered Liu Shi with the quilt, and beat her up.
Poor Liu Shi directly fainted from pain, without even seeing what the attacker looked like.
The Lin Family all suspected it was Shang Wan who did it. In the entire village, only Shang Wan was so black-hearted and vicious-handed, but they had no evidence and could only swallow this loss for now.
Shang Wan brought the Li Family brothers back home. Xiao Huan had just finished bathing Xiao Hui.
Yuan Yuan always liked to snuggle with Xiao Hui. Xiao Huan worried that Xiao Hui’s fur would get Yuan Yuan sick if it was dirty, so she boiled hot water every couple of days to bathe it.
Xiao Hui was extremely unwilling to be washed, but didn’t dare refuse. Every time it was forced to bathe and smell nice, it would lie on its exclusive stone slab, squinting its eyes to sun its fur.
Li Xiaoshan leaned over wanting to pet it. Xiao Hui unhappily bared its wolf teeth, looking ready to bite off the boy’s hand if he dared reach out.
Li Xiaoshan could only regretfully withdraw his hand and run over to watch Yuan Yuan and the little turtle racing to crawl on the soft cushion.
A round wooden stick was laid across the door of the west wing room, with a thick wool blanket draped over it, serving as the door panel.
“Big Brother Li, it’s this door.” Shang Wan folded up the thick wool blanket and stepped aside to make room for Li Dashan to measure.
Li Dashan took out his ruler and began measuring.
His height of nearly two meters made him almost as tall as the door frame when he stood there.
Lu Chengjing had taken his medicine and was lying on the kang, drowsily just starting to feel sleepy. He vaguely heard Shang Wan’s voice, opened his eyes again, propped himself up to sit, turned his head to look, and saw a tall and sturdy figure blocking the door completely.
Who is this?
Shang Wan’s voice came from outside the door. “Big Brother Li, how much for one door panel?”
“It’ll be eight qian of silver.” Li Dashan answered while looking at the person sitting up on the kang, feeling somewhat familiar, like he had seen him somewhere before.
Lu Chengjing also felt Li Dashan looked somewhat familiar. After thinking for a moment, he matched Li Dashan’s face with the more youthful face in his memory and asked, “Are you Li Dashan?”
“You’re… Little Jing?” A delicate little face flashed in Li Dashan’s mind. He was so surprised his mouth slightly opened. “Little Jing, who was even prettier than a girl?”
Lu Chengjing: “…”
That last sentence was totally unnecessary!
“When did you come back?” Li Dashan walked over somewhat excitedly. “Aren’t you the young master of the Lu Family in the city? Why did you come back to the village?”
“It’s a long story.” Lu Chengjing looked behind him and sure enough saw Shang Wan smiling at him with deep meaning.
It was all heard by this woman.
Something like being prettier than a girl was definitely a black history.
Before Lu Chengjing could get annoyed and embarrassed, Shang Wan restrained her smile a bit but couldn’t help teasing him. “So my husband has been good-looking since he was little. I picked up a great bargain.”
Lu Chengjing’s ear root turned red from listening, but with his hair covering it, no one could tell.
The honest Li Dashan looked at Shang Wan, then at Lu Chengjing, and reacted a beat late. “Little Jing, is the wheelchair being made for you? What’s wrong with your legs?”
“I suffered some injuries. Brother Yuan has already checked them. It’ll take some time to recover.” Lu Chengjing skirted the main point.
Li Dashan clearly didn’t believe it. Shang Wan chimed in at the right time. “Doctor Yuan said my husband’s legs need to be nurtured for over half a year. A wheelchair will make it more convenient.”
Only then did Li Dashan stop asking. Shang Wan gave him the money for the door panel. Knowing he was busy, she didn’t keep him and saw him out the courtyard gate.
Li Xiaoshan was acting as referee for Yuan Yuan’s little turtle and refused to leave with his brother.
“Come back before dinner.” Li Dashan glared at his brother, not allowing him to mooch a meal at someone else’s house!
Li Xiaoshan pouted. “Got it. I’ll go back after playing a bit longer.”
The two kids and the little turtle were playing well. Xiao Huan was watching from the side, so Shang Wan didn’t interfere. She moved the large table from the main hall outside, then found a piece of charcoal from the stove in the kitchen, spread out white paper, and lowered her head to paint.
Her painting skills were honed in actual combat. She painted the most portraits of fallen comrades, and the second most were those strange mutated plants and mutated beasts.
Now, painting the wheelchair also looked decent. At least Shang Wan herself was quite satisfied.
Brush brush brush, she marked the dimensions. Shang Wan tossed the charcoal lump aside, clapped her hands, and said, “Done!”
Xiao Huan came over upon hearing, pointed at the annotations, and asked doubtfully, “Sis, what are these? Patterns?”
Shang Wan: Careless. There were no Arabic numerals in the original host’s memory.
She simply explained, “This is a kind of numeral. I saw it in miscellaneous books. It can be used to record accounts.”
“So there are such characters.” Xiao Huan sighed, then asked the key question. “Sis, can Big Brother Li read these numerals?”
Shang Wan: Of course not.
She patted her head. These things she was used to really exposed her if she wasn’t careful.
“Go get the brush and ink.” Shang Wan remembered that Xiao Huan and Shi Tou could read characters. If they could recognize them, they should be able to write them, right?
Facts proved that some things couldn’t be taken for granted.
Xiao Huan could indeed write characters, but only her own name. For a maidservant, being able to recognize a few characters was already impressive.
Shang Wan figured Shi Tou was about the same level, so she took the drawing paper inside to find Lu Chengjing.
Xiao Huan watched Shang Wan’s back and muttered doubtfully in a small voice, “Why doesn’t sis write it herself?”
Shang Wan heard it but pretended not to, absolutely not to.
After hearing Shang Wan’s request, Lu Chengjing put down the book in his hand and said, “I’ve never written with my left hand before.”
“Then start now.” Shang Wan handed him the writing brush. “It doesn’t need to be pretty. As long as it can be recognized.”
Lu Chengjing said helplessly, “You at least need to give me a sheet of paper to practice first.”
This woman spent nearly an hour painting this drawing and wasn’t afraid he’d ruin it with a shake of his hand.
Hearing this, Shang Wan gathered the scrap paper, spread out all the usable ones on the kang table, and reminded, “The scrap paper is all here. Seize the opportunity.”
Lu Chengjing also knew times were different now. The family was still waiting for money to build the new house, so they had to save where they could in daily life.
After using more than half of the scrap paper, Lu Chengjing’s left-hand writing finally looked acceptable.
Of course, acceptable in Shang Wan’s eyes.
Shang Wan thought characters were just symbols for recording and transmitting information. As long as they could be recognized, it was fine.
Lu Chengjing was quite discouraged though. He hadn’t written such ugly characters since first picking up a brush at three years old!
Xiao Huan’s shout suddenly came from outside the door. “Sis, come out quick and look. The little turtle is acting strange!”
