The Evil Mother-in-law: Torment Children, Work Hard, Be Rich!-Chapter 278: Learning to Recognize Characters

Chapter 278: Chapter 278: Learning to Recognize Characters

Tong Huaqiong glanced approvingly at Man Er.

She then said to Chen Sufen and Liu Yueer, "Not only Man Er should go to the school, but you two also need to learn to read and write."

Chen Sufen and Liu Yueer seemed to hear something incredible, and the sisters-in-law were thoroughly confused.

They too needed to learn to read and write.

Is literacy something that ordinary people can learn?

In the whole village, only the mother-in-law and the young nun could read.

The mother-in-law learned from her brother when she was young, and Gu Taohua was taught by the mother-in-law.

Other women were essentially blind.

However, being illiterate didn’t affect everyone’s life. For so many years, none of the women in Qinghe Bay could read, yet it didn’t hinder them from raising children and managing the household and fields.

Chen Sufen and Liu Yueer exchanged a glance and saw confusion and bafflement in each other’s eyes.

To be honest, Chen Sufen and Liu Yueer were quite resistant to the idea of becoming literate.

Tong Huaqiong could tell their thoughts from their eye expressions.

"What do you two think about learning to read?" Tong Huaqiong asked.

Liu Yueer replied, "Mother, I see that little sister writing is not simple at all. I bet I can’t even hold the brush. Not being literate doesn’t affect us at all."

Chen Sufen nodded in agreement.

They didn’t have the talent for it, and they were already married and had children, why bother learning?

Tong Huaqiong said, "Being illiterate affects more than you think. For example, Taohua, many people think I supported Taohua to become the second-in-command at Taohua Dessert, but do you think it’s that simple? Managing a shop isn’t easy. Like reading the accounts, if Taohua couldn’t read, how would she review the accounts and spot issues?" 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝘦𝘸𝑒𝒷𝓃ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝒸ℴ𝘮

"Or take farming, for instance. Why do the stems turn yellow during wheat growth, and how to eliminate corn ear rot? You know those medications were concocted based on formulas I saw. If I couldn’t read, I’d still be clueless even surrounded by treasures."

"From your little sister and myself, you can see the importance of literacy. If you stayed home forever, it wouldn’t matter if you were illiterate. All you’d have to do is housework and raising kids. But now you’re at the shop, illiteracy would inevitably impact you. Yue Er, do you only want to be a runner? Never aspire to be a shopkeeper? Sufen, do you only want to bake pastries in the oven? Don’t you want to teach apprentices or write down the recipes for your pastries?"

Chen Sufen and Liu Yueer fell into thought upon hearing this.

Their mother-in-law’s perspective was something they hadn’t considered.

Take Liu Yueer, for example. She thought since Dashi was her son, the family business would surely be passed on to their household. Thus, she had no worries.

But it wasn’t true that she didn’t envy Gu Taohua.

Sometimes she hoped she could be like Gu Taohua, able to read accounts and write and calculate.

Chen Sufen felt the same way. She occasionally envied Gu Taohua.

She currently memorizes her pastry recipes. When she can’t remember, she uses stones to draw lines on the wall: the grams of flour, the number of eggs—turning the whole bakery wall into a bizarre mess.

If only she could read, her recipes could go paper, and whenever she forgot, she could just flip them.

"Mother, you’re right. I want to learn, but at my age, can I really manage?" Chen Sufen hesitated without confidence.

Tong Huaqiong was pleased with Chen Sufen’s attitude.

She was more proactive than Liu Yueer.

If there’s the will to learn, then it’s achievable.

Tong Huaqiong said, "How old are you? Could you be older than me? You hadn’t thought of doing business with me before, but now you’re doing well."

Encouraged by her mother-in-law, Chen Sufen regained some confidence and said, "I’ll learn then. If I’m slow, I’ll work extra hard."

Liu Yueer saw Chen Sufen expressing determination in front of their mother-in-law; not wanting to fall behind her sister-in-law, she gritted her teeth and said, "I’ll learn too, just like my sister-in-law."

Tong Huaqiong seemed satisfied.

Gu Taohua said, "Sisters-in-law, don’t treat literacy as something monumental. Learning to read is just like recognizing seeds for farming; once you recognize one, quickly you’ll identify another, and learning more makes it memorable. It’s not like our third brother taking the imperial exams, studying classics; we just need everyday usable characters, nothing difficult."

Tong Huaqiong agreed with Gu Taohua and said, "Your sister is right. You only need to learn everyday usable characters. No hanging by the beams or stabbing oneself with needles, no intense summer or winter practice."

Then Tong Huaqiong gave examples.

"For instance, in our fields, wheat and corn and soybeans—you can learn their characters alongside viewing them physically, which makes it effortless to memorize. When busy in the shop, start with numbers—one, two, three, four, five up to a hundred, simple yet practical."

Tong Huaqiong considered that Chen Sufen and Liu Yueer initially resisted literacy due to their environment, where illiterate women were the norm. Even if this era had talented women, it was distant from their lives.

Women learning to read was something only wealthy families did, unrelated to their farmer girl lives.

This led to imagining literacy as challenging and unattainable.

Tong Huaqiong planned to teach according to their abilities, beginning with simple numbers, thus building their confidence, making them realize literacy was simple.

Indeed, it was quite simple. From Tong Huaqiong’s modern experience, if literacy were difficult, national literacy programs wouldn’t have made such progress.

Her great-grandmother learned to read even at fifty or sixty in literacy classes.

With youth, decent memory, and sharp minds, Chen Sufen and Liu Yueer could certainly learn to read.

Chen Sufen thought about it and asked Tong Huaqiong, "Mother, who will teach my sister-in-law and me to read?"

Liu Yueer said, "Will we go to school with Man Er and Yao Zu?"

If so, it would be so embarrassing.

Two grown women with children attending school with kids—it was unnerving just at the thought.

Tong Huaqiong said, "Of course, I’ll teach you both."

Chen Sufen and Liu Yueer both breathed a sigh of relief.

As long as they weren’t sent to school.

Tong Huaqiong said, "I’ll teach you three characters a day. You both must learn properly because I can’t be doing this for nothing. It’s for your future’s sake."

Seeing Tong Huaqiong begin imposing values, the sister-in-laws promised to study earnestly, nearly swearing to it.

Tong Huaqiong had specific plans for her daughters-in-law’s literacy journey, starting with three characters a day, seemingly few.

Yet over time, they’d accumulate, growing from small to significant amounts. After a year, over a thousand characters would be learned, sufficient for reading letters or accounting.

There are nearly seventy thousand Chinese characters, but daily use only requires about three thousand five hundred, so in two years, Chen Sufen and Liu Yueer could understand Gu Jingzhe’s books.

Moreover, Chinese characters have regular patterns—typically learning one character allows extending to more through radicals and components, simplifying further.

The sticky issue for Tong Huaqiong was usage of brush writing in this era.

Tong Huaqiong’s modern mindset struggled with brush writing, eliciting whispers from Gu Taohua about her brush writing resembling random marks compared to before.

Previously, Gu Family’s New Year couplets were written by Tong Huaqiong along with Gu Jingzhe and Gu Taohua.

But for the daughters-in-law, even if brush writing resembled hers in randomness, it wouldn’t matter as long as comprehension was possible.

Her expectations weren’t high.