Chapter 105: Seedling growth (1)

Surprisingly, Wang Caiwei did not criticize Wei Ruo and Xie Ying's choices, but instead asked them to sit down and start giving lectures to them.

Wei Ruo originally didn’t expect much from the lesson, but Wang Caiwei's teaching was not as dull and boring as she imagined. She would vividly tell them stories behind the words’ meanings, and also let them expand and find relevance from the words.

The dispirited Xie Ying was like being injected with chicken blood*. She stared with her eyes wide open, listening with great concentration.

*injected with chicken blood: someone who is crazy or obsessed about something or an idol. Or it means someone who is very excited.

Especially when Wang Caiwei talked about large-scale wars in history, Wei Ruo felt that Xie Ying was about to jump up and fight with people.

In the morning, the two of them learnt together, and in the afternoon, Wang Caiwei arranged for each of them to learn art.

Burning incense, brewing tea, flower arrangement, and hanging paintings are the four most popular arts nowadays, and ladies from all walks of life should learn at least one of them. Wang Caiwei instructed Wei Ruo to learn how to burn incense and Xie Ying to paint.

-Burning incense: The ancients often burned incense with the help of charcoal fire and used incense burners to reduce the smoke as much as possible so that the fragrance could linger for a long time. To achieve this effect requires an extremely complicated and careful method.

 

-Brewing tea: the skill of boiling and brewing tea. People in the Song Dynasty paid great attention to the timing when ordering tea. 

 

-Flower arrangement: different flowers and leaves were gradually used as materials, according to different lines and shapes, color, density, height are artistically processed and combined, and certain thoughts and emotions are incorporated to complete the flowers.

 

-Hanging painting: It originally refers to tea-related paintings hung next to tea party seats. It mainly uses tea events as its content, but can also express a certain state of life, attitude towards life and elegant taste.

Wei Ruo didn’t know if Xie Ying was satisfied with Wang Caiwei's arrangement or not. But she was very satisfied with the course content that Wang Caiwei chose for her.

At the end of the day, Wei Ruo felt pretty good, and it was much more interesting than she expected.

During this time, Mr. Wang also talked about some rules. Compared to Mo mo Li's stereotypical explanations, Mr. Wang's explanations were like spring rain, which made it easier for people to understand.

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After a few days, there was new progress in the south of the city. Wei Ruo had to ask for a leave to Mr. Wang in order to handle her affairs in the south of the city.

After fifteen days of seedling cultivation, the seedlings in the experimental field in the south of the city have grown green and lush.

 

-green and lush rice seedlings.

During this period, Mo mo Zhang would report the situation of the seedlings to Wei Ruo every other day.

Watching the vigorous growth of the seedlings, Mo mo Zhang became more proactive despite her reluctance at the beginning.

At first, she was reluctant because she thought Wei Ruo was fooling around, but when she saw the seedlings growing lushly, Mo mo Zhang realized that this eldest young lady from the countryside was really skillful!

"Miss, I estimate that we can start growing and planting rice seedlings in the next two days, but we still need you, Miss, to go and see it before we can finalize it."

Mo mo Zhang didn’t dare to make up her mind now and had to consult Wei Ruo.

"You go and report this to Mother." Wei Ruo said.

Although the rice seedlings had only been successfully grown and the rice had not yet been officially harvested, it was enough to show that the saline-alkali land she improved can now grow rice.

Wei Ruo needed to report this result to Wei Mingting, but she couldn't go directly to Wei Mingting right now, so she could only report to Yun Shi first.

Mo mo Zhang immediately complied and ran to Cangyun Garden to report the good news.

When Mo mo Zhang reported to Yun Shi, Wei Qingwan was also in Cangyun Garden, chatting with Yun Shi.

After hearing Mo mo Zhang's words, Yun Shi was pleasantly surprised: "Really? Did it really succeed?"

"It's absolutely true. I've been keeping an eye on it for the past month, and the seedlings are growing well! Lush and green, this old servant is not exaggerating at all. These rice seedlings grow even better than the ones we planted on Mantou Mountain in the north of the city!"

“That's great! I'll send someone to notify His Lord immediately!" Yun Shi hurriedly said.