The new book of the burning prairie star

Since there is no need to buy flour today, Yang Biao wants to visit the bookstores in the county to see if there are any learning materials he needs.

I don't know which bookstore in the county is the largest. Whether in ancient times or modern times, the experience I have gained is that the largest one usually has a relatively complete range of books. The brother and sister paid five cents and parked the mule cart in the parking lot. It was a rare opportunity to visit the county, so they had to take a good look. Then the two of them wandered around the county, deciding to visit whatever they wanted.

"Brother, what are you doing over there?" Suddenly Yang Xiaohua grabbed her brother. Yang Biao looked in the direction of her finger and saw a group of people gathered together, not knowing what they were doing.

"People like to join in the fun." Yang Biao didn't want to go over, thinking there was nothing to see. But Yang Xiaohua was very curious and kept pulling his sleeve, wanting to take a look.

No matter how unwilling he was, Yang Biao was still pulled and forced into the crowd by his sister. He saw a girl of about twelve or thirteen years old chained up, and there were a dozen other girls kneeling on the ground chained up like her. Yang Biao looked around and realized that he had come to the Population Exchange. He heard people around him talking about how these girls were implicated because someone in their family was corrupt and had been demoted to official slaves.

Official slaves? Aren't they specifically for working for the government or officials? The good-looking ones would be chosen to be official prostitutes, serving the powerful nobles. Thinking about the laws in my memory, the official slaves here can be bought and sold to the common people, but they can't get out of slavery for the rest of their lives.

"Brother, I like her. Let's buy her." Yang Xiaohua grabbed his sleeve and asked, "How much money do you need to buy her?" without caring whether her brother agreed or not.

"It'll cost twenty taels," said one of the officers.

"Twenty taels?" Yang Xiaohua widened her eyes.

"If the child can't afford it, just go and play somewhere else." The officer said unhappily.

Yang Xiaohua held her brother tightly, feeling conflicted. She liked this girl very much, and if she bought her and kept her at home, she would have a playmate, but if she bought her, it would cost twenty taels of silver, which was too expensive.

"I bought it." Yang Biao looked at his sister's frowning and tangled face. He didn't know why, but he didn't want to see disappointment on her face. He liked his sister to smile sweetly all the time.

"Are you really buying it?" The official looked at him in disbelief. He was thin and frail, wearing a linen shirt, but he had a gentle temperament similar to that of a scholar. Well, at an age when one's heart is aroused and one's blood is full, it is easy to be moved by a beautiful woman. To be honest, with this girl's looks, the price can be at least ten times higher if she is sold to a brothel. However, since a big shot has said that he will protect her, they dare not sell her to such a place. After all, no matter how much silver she gets, it will not be collected by the government, and they will not get a penny.

Yang Biao took out twenty taels of silver, and he brought thirty taels from home to buy some books. Ancient books were really expensive, and sometimes thirty taels could not buy even one book.

The officer took the silver, handed the girl's birth deed to Yang Biao, and completed the relevant procedures.

"What's your name?" Yang Xiaohua asked the girl excitedly.

"Qin Xiaoran," the girl answered. On her face, Yang Biao saw anxiety, uneasiness, and many indescribable things.

"Can you... buy another person?" Qin Xiaoran asked hesitantly.

"Who to buy?" Yang Xiaohua asked curiously, wanting to say that her family didn't have that much money to buy someone. The family was still building a house and was short of money everywhere.

Qin Xiaoran didn't care and pulled Yang Xiaohua's hand to run to the other side of the exchange. "Where are the original people?" Qin Xiaoran panted. There was a large empty space around, and the officials were packing up their pens, ink, paper and inkstone.

"They have all been bought." said a man who looked like the head of the police.

“All… were bought by someone?” Qin Xiaoran couldn’t believe it and suddenly felt the sky turned gray.

“Yes, I bought them all.”

Although Yang Biao didn't know who that person was, he thought Qin Xiaoran should be very sad, not for himself, but for her. The thing she was most worried about happened - that person was bought, what should she do?

"Who is the person you want to buy? Why don't you let my brother find him for you?" Yang Xiaohua felt a little sorry when she saw Qin Xiaoran's eyes were filled with tears.

Qin Xiaoran just cried silently. Yang Biao still had a lot of things to do today. He couldn't stay here to watch her sad and wait for her emotions to stabilize. Let her sister pull her away. Fortunately, she would walk forward mechanically.

Yang Biao took them to buy ten catties of pork, which cost sixteen cents per catty. The butcher saw that he bought a lot, so he discounted the price by one cent per catty and gave him a large bone. Business people who buy a lot will give away gifts. Whether in ancient times or modern times.

Back in Yangjia Village, Yang Xiaohua and Qin Xiaoran were talking outside. Qin Xiaoran was not bought with money. She was just a relative of the teacher. She came to teach Xiaohua embroidery. Why did they say she was teaching embroidery? Yang Biao felt that most girls in ancient times would learn embroidery before getting married. He probably had this awareness because he watched too many costume dramas in modern times.

"Whose girl is this?" Mrs. Zhang was a little confused when she saw the pretty strange girl coming to her door.

"Mom, she is my brother's niece, and she was specially invited to teach me embroidery." Yang Xiaohua said hurriedly. Her elder brother went to the study room after returning, leaving her here to explain Qin Xiaoran's origins to her mother. She was afraid that it would be too late and she would say the wrong relationship, after all, she was not very good at lying since she was a child.

"Oh, is it Master Zhou? His niece is so pretty." Little Zhang held Qin Xiaoran's hand, looking happy no matter how she looked at her. Master Zhou must want to marry his niece to his eldest son, so that the two of them would have a chance to have more contact and get to know each other better. Thinking about it, she couldn't help but smile.

Although his arm was sore, Yang Biao still went to the study to find his previous enlightenment books, called his brother to his side, and taught him to read. He opened the Three Character Classic and said, "Today, I will teach you to read. Read with me: When a person is born, his nature is good."

"Man is inherently good at birth." Yang Lin echoed.

"This sentence means that when people are born, their nature is good."

"People are similar in nature, but their habits are different." Yang Biao continued to teach, "This means that our personalities are very similar, but later on, due to the different environments and education we received, our habits became very different."

"Take a look at the shapes of the characters first, and then I'll teach you how to hold the brush." ​​Yang Biao took two brushes from the table, handed one to Yang Lin, and held the other for demonstration. "Hold the brush with your thumb and index finger, hook the brush with your middle finger, support it with your ring finger, and support it with your little finger. Here, move like this with me, with your palm empty, like holding an egg."

Then he wrote the character “人” on the paper. “Write it like this. Watch how I write it. Remember it and then try it on a stone with some water.”

"Well, the characters you wrote for the first time are much better than my brother's first time." Yang Lin felt embarrassed by his brother's praise. His enthusiasm increased greatly and he focused and continued to practice writing on the stone by dipping it in water.