Legend of Concubine's Daughter Minglan 知否知否 应是绿肥红瘦

C26 - Minglan's Fish, Qi Heng's Meal

Unlike her two elder sisters who lamented and cried at the news, when Minglan heard that there would be no need for her to attend class anymore, the first thing she did was to order Xiao Tao to hand her a request for a leave of absence to Changdong - suspend those mornings of independent study for three days! Your older sis wants to rest and recuperate.

After over a decade of studying in her previous life, Yao Yiyi was thoroughly sick of it. Attending Teacher Zhuang's classes had just been a way for her to find out more about this time period she had landed in. After all, she could not always be bothering the young maids and servants of this household with questions like, "what's the name of the emperor? Which one is he?" Yet with these few years of study, she had already gained all the knowledge of worldly affairs that she ought to know.

For the past year, Teacher Zhuang had been shifting the focus of his lessons towards the writing of Eight-Section Essays and Political Analysis [1]. All through her life, Minglan had only written Court Trial Records, which never required comparison or contrast, and also never had a word limit. The moment Teacher Zhuang began his lessons, she would begin to feel drowsy. An excuse to escape from these classes was something she had been longing for for some time.

After dinner, she pushed her books aside, washed her little face and little feet, then happily went to bed. Having no need to worry about waking early the next day, she slept sweetly that night and woke with a small lazy stretch, feeling well-rested and filled with energy.

It was now nearing the end of summer and beginning of winter. The sky was bright and clear and Minglan felt like a child whose summer holidays had just begun.

After she had wished her elders good morning, she went to Cui Mama for a fishing rod and a fishing basket to the Manor's lotus pond to fish. Cui Mama knew that Minglan had always been mature and sensible and acknowledged the effort she put into her studies as well as educating her younger brother and thus agreed to this request. She even prepared a basket of bait and ordered Danju and Xiao Tao to take good care of Minglan and make sure she does not fall into the pond lest she be eaten by the fishes. Minglan just kept nodding her head through the lecture.

In the Sheng Household there were two ponds. The larger one was close to the main buildings that housed Sheng Hong's wife and concubines. The smaller one was truly tiny, and was close to the Hall of Peaceful Ages and the private school. The lotus, fishes, and shrimps of the larger pond already had people looking after them. After some thought, Minglan headed straight towards the smaller pond and chose a spot. Danju had set up a small bamboo stool with a large silken umbrella above. Yancao and Qinsang came, each bearing a pot of tea and a plate of fruits and desserts respectively, and they put those plates on top of a small bamboo table.

Minglan felt that since this was such a display of pageantry, that she should at least catch a few more than a dozen fishes in order to fit this kind of display. But then the more impatient she was, the less action there was in the pond.

Fortunately, Xiao Tao was from the countryside, so she had a lot of experience in catching fish and netting shrimps. She taught Minglan how to hook the bait in and look at the buoy, and under the guidance of this great teacher, there were indeed two stupid fish were caught hook, line, and sinker.

The fish in the little pond were used to a peaceful life, and they've never been caught before, so they were all stupid and dumb. In just an hour, Minglan caught a couple of fishes, and she was extremely pleased with herself.

Suddenly, she saw a dark shape in the middle of the clear pond water. Her heart raced as she grabbed a long net, and with the help of Xiao Tao, they swished it in the direction of that dark shape. After a few swishes, everyone looked and saw that it was fat and sedentary soft shelled turtle, who was dumbly pawing at the net. Overjoyed, Minglan jerked her hands, then took the stupid fish and the fat turtle along with her and hurried directly to the little kitchen in the western courtyard.