Chapter 86 Salary Received
Qin Yao did not wait for Master Ding to question her, and said calmly:
"The weather has been good recently, and the young lady has been reading so much that she is dizzy, so I took her to the mountains to get some fresh air and relax."
The father, daughter and three of them all looked at the wind and rain outside the house, thinking, "You call this good weather?"
However, they finally found a legitimate reason for Ding Xiang's "extraordinary" behavior and handed a ladder to Mr. Ding so that he could come down.
There were eight dishes prepared on the table, both meat and vegetarian, with a stack of pastries. The aroma of the food wafted over in waves, but the few people had no intention of starting to eat. Qin Yao thought to herself, you guys are torturing people too much.
So, in order to start the meal quickly, Qin Yao said a few more words.
The general meaning is that nowadays, upper-class aristocrats and noble ladies have to take riding and archery lessons, and Miss Ding's is just the entry level.
In the future, Master Ding will take the imperial examination, and her status will really change to that of a daughter of an official family. Mastering two high-class social skills will be beneficial to the harmonious development of their entire family.
The father, daughter and the other two watched Qin Yao finish her words in a serious manner and began to believe it a little.
However, how could a village woman like her know about the social life of noble ladies?
Qin Yao smiled at the father and his two sons. This was not the point. The point was, "If you don't eat now, the food will get cold."
Mr. Ding's serious expression had eased a lot. Knowing that other noble ladies also learned riding and archery, he suddenly felt that it was not bad for his daughter to learn these things.
He picked up the chopsticks, nodded to Qin Yao, and started eating.
Qin Yao watched Master Ding take a bite of the dish before she started to eat.
She ate much more elegantly and restrainedly than usual, only eating three bowls of rice and one bowl of soup.
Ding Xiang asked worriedly: "Qin Yao, are you full?"
Qin Yao smiled politely, "I'm full, it's delicious, thank you Master Ding for the hospitality."
In fact, I only eat about 60% full, just consider it as losing weight today.
But the food quality of Mr. Ding is really good, with plenty of fish and meat, which is really enviable.
Of course, she also believed that the meals she would eat in the future would definitely not be worse than this one.
After the meal, Ding Xiang and Ding Shi left, leaving only Qin Yao and Master Ding in the dining room.
The servants cleared the dishes and Qin Yao followed Master Ding to sit on the armchair nearby. Butler Yu came over and handed a small cloth bag to Qin Yao.
Qin Yao took it expectantly, weighed it, and got her two taels of silver as salary!
"Thank you, sir." Qin Yao stood up and bowed politely.
Master Ding nodded and said, "Thank you for your hard work, Madam Qin, this month."
He also said that if Qin Yao wanted to rest, she could stay in the mansion for a few more days, and then let Zhang Ba drive her home.
Qin Yao thanked him gratefully but declined, thinking that he was just being polite and she couldn't take it seriously.
The two talked for a while, mainly Master Ding asked about Ding Xiang's situation in the past month. At the end, he asked again:
"Do the ladies really practice riding and shooting? Don't they focus on playing the piano, chess, calligraphy and painting?"
Qin Yao had no idea. She was just guessing based on the previous fan fiction about the emperor and empress.
But he still nodded without changing his expression, "Of course you have to practice music, chess, calligraphy and painting, but you also have to practice tea making, flower arranging, horse riding and archery. I can't say you have to be proficient in them, but you have to know the basics. Otherwise, it will be difficult for others to fit in, don't you, sir?"
"Oh, by the way, I heard from Butler Yu that the master will soon go to the capital to participate in the autumn examination. When the master arrives in the capital, he will naturally know whether what I said is true or not."
With this addition, Master Ding thought Qin Yao would not dare to lie to him, so he nodded, believing it to about 80%. He also asked Qin Yao if she wanted to stay for another month to continue teaching Ding Xiang riding and archery.
Qin Yao said, "Master, don't worry. I have taught you all the riding and archery skills in the past few days. You just need to practice diligently in the future."
"Miss, you are smart and you can understand things quickly. As long as you work hard, it's only a matter of time before you can master it completely."
Hearing Qin Yao say this, Mr. Ding felt embarrassed as he remembered how he had reacted so strongly just now.
In the evening, I learned from housekeeper Yu that Qin Yao taught very attentively, and it was obvious that she taught at the level of a professional master. The more I thought about it, the more I felt that such a person would never be just an ordinary peasant woman in the future.
He woke up in shock in the middle of the night and decisively asked the housekeeper Yu to go to the storehouse to get another tael of silver. He also ordered someone to go to the kitchen and ask the cook to make two more servings of Qin Yao's favorite cakes in the morning and give them to Qin Yao when she was leaving tomorrow.
The master's words are enough to make the servants run around.
It would have been fine to get the silver, but it was hard for the cook. She had run out of flour to make cakes, and had to get up in the middle of the night to grind it.
The next morning, when Qin Yao packed her bags to leave, she was a little touched when she saw the two bags of cakes and one tael of silver that Butler Yu brought her.
Ding Xiang packed all the books she wanted to borrow for her, and even put an extra layer of oil paper in the cloth bag to prevent these precious books from getting wet by a sudden rain.
These are all Mr. Ding's study notes. Which scholar wouldn't want the notes of Mr. Juren?
Knowing the weight of these books, Qin Yao checked them carefully before slinging the nine heavy books along with the bow, arrows and heavy sword on her back.
Holding a bag of peach blossom cakes and a bag of mung bean cakes, which were still steaming in his hands, he walked out of the Ding family's gate, waved goodbye, and left, as Ding Xiang looked on reluctantly.
It was still early, so Qin Yao arrived in town and went to the butcher shop to buy five pounds of meat and two ribs.
Then I went to the only grocery store that sold pens, ink, paper and inkstones and bought a thick stack of white paper.
The papers were uncut and tied into a small bundle, wrapped in oilcloth, which cost five cents each.
But I have to. The rain has come suddenly these days, and this cloth can be reused. Just remember to bring it with you next time you come to buy paper.
In order to copy the book faster, Qin Yao bought herself a set of pens and ink. All in all, she spent half a tael of silver.
So, when we say that studying is expensive, tuition is only a small part of it. The real big part is the consumables such as paper, pens and ink, as well as the social favors and so on.
The pastries were sent by the Ding family, so Qin Yao didn't buy any snacks.
Taking a look at her clothes, she could see that the thick cotton was not suitable for summer. She was just forcing herself to wear them, as it was too hot when the sun came out.
Qin Yao couldn't even think about the thin silk that Ding Xiang was wearing, but she could afford linen.
He estimated the needs of each person in his family and bought a piece of linen and a roll of cotton thread, spending another half an ounce of silver.
There are two taels left out of the three taels of silver.
Rice will not mature until mid-July. Now it is June, and there is still a month and a half of food demand. So I bought another 300 kilograms of food, half of which was fine rice and half was miscellaneous grains. And one tael and five cents of silver was gone.
Qin Yao calculated that she only had eight taels and five cents left of her entire belongings.
If it were someone else's family, 300 kilograms of food would last for about three months, but Qin Yao's appetite was as much as five times that of one person, so there was no way they could save the money.
However, once the rice is harvested this year, the food situation of the family of six will be greatly improved, and the food expenses should be saved.
(End of this chapter)