Chapter 3

Once everything was ready, I began teaching Qingning to read.

At first, I taught her to recognize characters.

We started with the simplest—one, two, three. Within a month, she could read the entire Three Character Classic.

Qingning had no extraordinary gift, but she made up for it with diligence.

Whenever I taught her a character, she would write it from memory again and again on her own.

She knew writing supplies were expensive, so she often wrote on the ground with a twig. When she ran out of space, she would stamp the earth smooth and begin again, day after day.

I didn’t stop her.

I was desperately short of money.

Supporting Pei Yizhi’s studies had used up almost all the savings my father left me.

I had bought our latest batch of writing supplies by pawning a silver hairpin my mother had left me.

I had meant to stake everything on the school, only to find that nobody believed in me.

Back then, I had copied books for a bookseller in the city to help cover our expenses. Pei Yizhi had been so absorbed in studying that he never knew the food he ate was paid for by copying that had left my fingers misshapen.

Now I took up the work again, telling myself that I would get through this!

The shop paid two copper coins per copy, though it also depended on the length of the book.

I could usually copy three books a day, sometimes four or five.

There was one drawback: the books weren’t allowed out of the shop. Otherwise, I could have copied even more.

So I spent my days copying books and came home at night to teach Qingning.

Before leaving, I prepared food for the day, leaving one portion on the stove for her and taking the other with me.

Qingning learned to wash clothes and cook simply by watching me. I hardly needed to teach her.

One day, when I came home, she had already washed the clothes and hung them neatly across the courtyard, where they fluttered in the wind like banners of victory.

She was munching a cucumber, one hand on her hip as she watched me, smiling around loud, crunchy mouthfuls.

At that moment, I felt certain that Qingning was different from Pei Yizhi.

A scholar mustn’t become so helpless that they cannot tell one grain from another or do an honest day’s work, only to end up forgetting the most basic principles of decency.

And so I taught Qingning differently from the way my father had taught Pei Yizhi.

Before she learned scholarship, I wanted her to learn how to be a good person.

One evening, I came home early and brought out meat pies I’d bought in the city for us to share.

Qingning was delighted. Meat was a rare treat.

When she had eaten her fill, she asked, “Big sister, why do I have to study?”

Only then did I realize that she wasn’t studying because she liked it. She did it because I had brought her home and taught her.

Wasn’t there a wish to please me in that too?

I took out the Three Character Classic, which she had already finished, pointed to a passage, and asked her to read it.

She leaned over and recited in her clear little voice, “A child should not neglect learning. If one does not learn in youth, what can one do in old age?”

She stopped and looked at me.

“Go on,” I said.

“Uncarved jade cannot become a fine object. Without learning, a person cannot understand righteousness.”

“Qingning, remember this. We study not only to gain knowledge and learn proper conduct. What matters most is understanding what is right and wrong, and acting accordingly. If someone has knowledge but no morals, if they don’t understand righteousness, then however much they learn, it amounts to nothing.”

Qingning looked thoughtful.

After that, she grew fond of those four lines from the Three Character Classic and liked to recite them whenever she had a spare moment.

Her voice was clear as an oriole’s, loud and ringing. There she would stand, a tiny figure in the courtyard with a broom taller than herself, sweeping and reciting, her voice carrying for miles.

That was when I felt she had truly come to love learning.

What I hadn’t expected was that her powerful, clear voice would be what finally got Three Mountains School open again!