Educated Youth in the Countryside: She is the Village's Embroidery Queen!-Chapter 472: Not Even Worth Calling a Thing

Very ambitious, Yi Chichi could only wish him success in her heart.

"Did you finish your homework today?"

"I finished it during the small class."

Qin Jiu, being very diligent, took out his homework and handed it to her, "Aunt, do you want to check it?"

"Let me have a look!"

Yi Chichi took the exercise book and carefully looked through it. There weren’t many mistakes, and they had all been corrected.

But this handwriting...

Looking at his handwriting that seemed about to take flight, she said with a headache, "What exactly have you been practicing every day?"

His previous handwriting was flamboyant and somehow exuded a strange vibe no matter how you looked at it.

Now it wasn’t bizarre anymore, but he was letting himself loose too much.

Seeing his guilty face and silence, Yi Chichi reached out her hand, "Let me see your hand."

Qin Jiu obediently handed over his hand, which she squeezed from the finger bones up to the wrist bones, checking it thoroughly.

"Are you not using your wrist strength properly?"

Qin Jiu was bewildered, asking, "How do you use wrist strength?"

Goodness, he really didn’t know how.

Didn’t the elders teach him how to use wrist strength properly when practicing calligraphy?

Yi Chichi was quite puzzled and dragged him off to ask, receiving the answer that indeed, he hadn’t been taught this.

She was instantly speechless, "His handwriting is flying off to the heavens, and none of you noticed this was a problem?"

"All kids have this problem."

Mr. Song said calmly, "We can teach him when he’s older."

Yi Chichi, "??? Older means how old?"

If she remembered correctly, from the time she started learning big characters, she was taught how to use wrist strength.

She seemed to have just turned four years old at that time, with little soft hands, yet she actually developed wrist strength through practice.

Her family’s old man said this should be practiced from a young age.

Why is what Mr. Song said different?

"I started practicing at ten years old; at this age, a child’s wrist bones can already bear weight."

With these words, Yi Chichi immediately understood, "You’re basically suggesting taking it up a notch and giving Xiao Jiu more intensity."

"That’s how I got through."

Looking up at her, the old man said, "If you have a method that doesn’t harm his bones but helps him improve his handwriting, you can use yours."

Yi Chichi then looked at her great-uncle, "What do you say?"

The old man was straightforward, "If you have confidence, go ahead."

So, Yi Chichi went ahead.

The method to train wrist strength isn’t difficult. After returning, Yi Chichi taught him how to lift the wrist, using the elbow as a support point to leverage, making it easier to control the lines of the strokes and thus write beautifully.

Once proficient, he can start practicing rotating the wrist and then suspending it.

Qin Jiu was in the first stage now, no rush.

Let’s get the wrist lifting right first.

In the evening, they ate rabbit meat.

Big Orange and the other cats hunted back two rabbits, and upon getting their consent, Wen’s mother stewed one, and the remaining one was divided into two halves—half left raw for them to eat, and the other half was cooked and dried as a snack alongside shrimp for them.

Qin Jiu looked at the happily munching two rabbits and then at Wen’s mother and Yi Chichi who were eating with gusto, eventually swallowing back the words he was about to say and focused on his meal.

While eating, Wen’s mother seemed to remember something and said, "Did you take the blueprints to the commune today?"

Yi Chichi had just picked up a piece of rabbit meat and stuffed it into her mouth, only to find that it no longer tasted good at all when the words reached her.

She chewed and swallowed the meat, saying resentfully, "Mom, can’t we talk about something happy?"

"That’s definitely a no, since you’ve taken on this work, you need to do it well."

The implication being: dragging it out like this is not a solution.

Qin Jiu chimed in, "Aunt, the teacher says ’Today’s work, today must be completed; time is gold, and time lost cannot be bought back with all the gold.’"

This was his way of telling her not to waste time.

"Eat your food."

Yi Chichi gave him a glance, then turned to Wen’s mother, "I’ll draw it tonight and try to finish it all by tomorrow."

"Staying up all night?"

"That won’t happen."

She’d like to stay up too, but conditions didn’t allow it.

Even though Kao Shan Village had electricity, it didn’t mean there was electricity every day.

After all, the current power resources were too tight.

Furthermore, the lighting wouldn’t be good enough even if there was electricity.

During power outages, they had to rely on kerosene lamps and the like for illumination.

Unfortunately, ever since this snowfall, Kao Shan Village’s power was frozen, and it had been without electricity for quite some days.

In the evenings, she used a flashlight or candles for light.

It wasn’t suitable for working.

"I’ll use a flashlight and candlelight to sketch the rough drafts and then revise and finalize them during the day."

Wen’s mother, hearing this, breathed a sigh of relief, "As long as you know what you’re doing."

She was just afraid her daughter-in-law would ruin her eyes rushing the work. Luckily, she knew what she was doing.

Thus, with calm confidence, Yi Chichi began refining the design sketches the next day.

Liu Lan and her crew, who came with equipment and materials to work alongside her, saw her drawing on the paper, stopping and starting, and couldn’t resist their curiosity; they peeped over and took a glance. Feeling frustrated, they sat back to their original places, sighing, "We’re both human, so why is there such a big gap?"

Yi Chichi didn’t even lift her head, "Drawing these is not difficult. If you’re interested, you could give it a try."

"That’s not hard for you, but it is for me."

Zhou Qiuyu, with a look of ’thanks but no thanks,’ lamented, "I remember the old lady next door used to draw great stuff, using a small twig she could artistically scratch beautiful pictures on the dirt. I got envious and tried learning for a few days, and then..."

She paused here.

But everyone else understood — she had no talent for it.

As expected, she sighed deeply and said feebly, "The old lady called me worthless, like mud that couldn’t be molded into anything."

This critique was a bit harsh.

"How ugly did you truly draw?"

Liu Lan’s curiosity grew, and Yi Chichi was just as intrigued.

Wang Nan and the others focused their attention on her.

Zhou Qiuyu faced everyone’s varied looks quite openly, and calmly said, "The old lady said my drawing wasn’t even worthy of being called a thing."

Recalling the old lady’s past critique, she chuckled.

"Not to boast, but I can’t even recognize what I’ve drawn myself."

This sounded truly abstract.

Everyone was curious to see just how outlandish her drawing could be.

Instantly, the crowd’s expectant eyes landed on Yi Chichi’s face.

She smiled and handed over pen and paper, "Qiuyu, draw something for us to see."

"No problem."

Zhou Qiuyu, unafraid of embarrassment, happily took the paper and pen and used Yi Chichi’s table.

Everyone gathered around to watch her draw. As she laid down the first stroke, Wang Nan exclaimed, "Goodness, these lines are quite straight."

Indeed, they were straight, like using a ruler to draw them.

As the second stroke fell, Yi Chichi evaluated, "This semicircular line is drawn nicely."

However, with these unrelated lines, what on earth was Zhou Qiuyu trying to draw?

Could it be a geometric shape?

She thought her own idea was already bold, but she didn’t expect the finished product Zhou Qiuyu produced left her dumbfounded.

"What exactly are you saying you’ve drawn?"

"An egg."

Zhou Qiuyu held up the paper for everyone to see, not forgetting to ask, "Doesn’t it look like it?"

The room was silent, and Yi Chichi and the others’ faces were somewhat twisted.

This was more than just not resembling an egg; it was so abstractly twisted they couldn’t even begin to identify what this malformed lump was supposed to be.

After all, in all their years, they had never seen any egg resembling this.