Chapter 753 - 388: Another Dispute Arises

Chapter 753: Chapter 388: Another Dispute Arises

Still, Zheng Changhe wasn’t happy. After drinking most of a bowl of cornmeal mush, he looked up at Juhua. "Tell me, why hasn’t your great-aunt come to see me? She didn’t even visit me in a dream, and after I cried so hard for her. She’ll talk to a little girl like you but not to me. Honestly..."

Yang Family laughed in exasperation. "Oh! So you’re jealous of Juhua now? You’re a grown man, how can you be so dense? If the great-aunt tells Juhua something, isn’t that the same as telling you? Juhua’s from a younger generation, so it wouldn’t be proper for her to take the lead. She’d have to tell you, wouldn’t she? Or tell Qingmu. The great-aunt went to Juhua because she’s easier to approach—our Hulu saw his great-aunt, you know. Otherwise, why wouldn’t she just go to her own children and grandchildren? You’re a grown man. How would a ghost dare to get close to you?"

Realization dawned on Zheng Changhe. He tossed his spoon into the bowl and declared, "Of course! I knew the great-aunt liked me best. How could she not talk to me? You’re right. Her talking to Juhua is the same as her talking to me."

Juhua watched her father, torn between laughter and tears. She was speechless. ’He was really unhappy over *this*?’ She had wanted to tell him it was all a lie, but she was afraid her father, with his simple and honest nature, might let it slip one day. Then, their cousin-uncles would surely blame him. So, she kept the truth to herself. 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ

Yang Family shot him a glare, then pulled out a slightly worn padded jacket and handed it to him. "Change into this. Take off the one you’re wearing so I can wash it."

Zheng Changhe quickly finished the rest of the cornmeal mush and handed the bowl to Juhua with a smile. "My girl, you’ve made this cornmeal mush taste like nothing I’ve ever had. I’ve been eating this for years, and it’s never been so fragrant. Get your father another bowl, will you? And add plenty of pickled bamboo shoots."

Juhua took the bowl, a small smile playing on her lips, and headed for the kitchen.

Yang Family pursed her lips at him. "Eaten it for years? You could eat it for another twenty and it’d still taste the same. This batch tastes different because Juhua added all sorts of things to it. Did you think it was just plain corn grits? Hmph. A while ago you were being so picky you wouldn’t even touch it, wasting our daughter’s kindness. If we didn’t feel sorry for you, you old coot, who would put up with all this? She left the two little ones at home to come serve you, the big one. Have you no shame?"

While changing his jacket, Zheng Changhe just chuckled. "Our girl really knows how to warm her father’s heart."

He then asked, "When is Hulu coming home? That boy saw a ghost over at the great-aunt’s place. We really shouldn’t be taking him out and about."

"He’ll be fine," Yang Family said. "Our grandson is tough. What farm kid doesn’t grow up running wild through graveyards and grassy hills? The more you coddle them, the more likely they are to get into trouble. His uncle is getting engaged today. If we didn’t bring him, his maternal grandmother would never let us hear the end of it. You see your grandson every day; she’s lucky if she sees her grandson a few times a year. Don’t be so unreasonable."

Only then did Zheng Changhe fall silent.

After a moment, he couldn’t help but ask Yang Family how the work on the uncultivated land was going.

Yang Family rolled her eyes at him. "Getting antsy? You lie there a few more days, and the crops in those fields will have already grown." Seeing his worried expression, she couldn’t bear to make him anxious. "Don’t worry, we’ve hired laborers. Stop your needless worrying. Both Qingmu and Juhua said that things are different now—back when we only had a few dozen mu of land, our family could manage it by working a little harder. Now that we have so much land, we have to plan it properly. We might even buy more in the future, so how could we possibly farm it all by ourselves? They have more foresight than you do. You can’t go wrong listening to your son. Otherwise, you could work your old bones to death and still not finish planting all those fields."

Zheng Changhe sighed and nodded. When Juhua came back in with the cornmeal mush, he started asking her about many other things.

He hadn’t been suffering from any major illness; he was simply exhausted and grieving the death of a relative. He was normally a cheerful person, but the sorrow and pain had built up in his heart until he collapsed. After being carefully nursed by his family for several days, he slowly recovered without even taking any medicine.

As the first month of the new year drew to a close, the people of Qingnan Village grew anxious. Ever since Mr. Zhou left, the village school had no teacher. This drove the parents, who all hoped their sons would one day become successful, to distraction. People from Xiatang Market even came by from time to time to ask about it.

Just when everyone was at their wit’s end, a horse-drawn carriage suddenly arrived in Qingnan Village one day. It brought another Mr. Zhou, a scholar in his fifties, along with his family—a wife and daughter. There was also a family of servants, a couple with a young daughter.

Li Gengtian was overjoyed and welcomed this Scholar Zhou into the school as if he were an honored guest. From then on, the Qingnan Village school was open for business once more.

When the villagers heard this new teacher was a scholar, they were ecstatic. In the past couple of years, everyone had come to understand the differences between the ranks of Scholar, scholar, Advanced Scholar, and so on. This Mr. Zhou was a scholar, a rank higher than the previous Scholar Zhou, who was a Scholar. ’If a man like that is teaching our children,’ they thought, ’won’t it be easier for them to pass the examination and become Scholars?’