Chapter 28 : Choices

After Yuxi returned to her courtyard, she wrote a hundred characters, then sat down in her chair and did not speak for a long time. Nobody knew what she was thinking.

Only Moju was brave enough to interrupt her, “Miss, it’s time for supper.”

Only then did Yuxi pulled out from her thoughts and asked, “What did you make today?”

Three Silky Silverfish Soup

Image credit to PCbaby

Moju brought a sweet white porcelain bowl and said, “Miss, it’s three silky silverfish soup.” Her Master had been very fond of eating fish since she got well. Nowadays, the kitchen cooked fish three to five times, and there were many ways to do it, such as braising in soy sauce, steaming, boiling in water, fish porridge, fish soup, etc.

When Yuxi finished eating the fish soup, Moju tentatively asked, “Miss, what were you thinking just now? You looked so engrossed.“

Yuxi glanced at Moju and said, “I’m thinking about something.” It was better to save somethings of yourself, untold to others, even if this person was your close subordinate.

Moju was somewhat disappointed after hearing Yuxi’s reply.

When Yuxi arrived at Magnolia Courtyard the next day, she was surprised to see Teacher Song air punching in the yard. She did not want to disturb her so she asked old woman Ding, who was waiting by the sidelines with a towel, “What is Teacher Song doing?”

Old woman Ding said with a smile, “This is wuqinxi (lit. Five Animals Play). Ma’am insists on keeping fit every day. After years of persistence, she seldom falls ill even till this day.”

Unbeknownst to Yuxi, Teacher Song was seriously ill a few years ago. After her illness was cured, she felt that her health was not as good as it was before. So, later on, she learned this set of wuqinxi and had been sticking to it all these years.

Yuxi’s eyes brightened up when she heard the words ‘keeping fit’.

Seeing the yearning in Yuxi’s eyes, old woman Ding smiled and said, “If you want to learn wuqinxi, you must persist day by day. If you cannot persist, it won’t work very well.”

Yuxi earnestly looked at Teacher Song practicing without saying a word.

After Teacher Song had done practicing wuqinxi, she went inside her room and cleaned herself up. At that time, Yuchen also arrived. Yuxi looked with a red face at the servant girl behind Yuchen who was holding a qin. She didn’t even think about bringing a guzheng. Well, actually, she didn’t owned one either.

The musical instrument room was Yuxi’s former resting room. As soon as she entered, she saw two tables with a qin and a guzheng on them.

Shishu went up to one of the table and took the qin on top of it. Then, she wiped the table and chair. Finally, she placed the qin that they brought on top of the table.

As if Yuxi hadn’t seen what the maid was doing, she went to the table with the guzheng and plucked a few strings, making a harsh sound.

Yuchen frowned slightly.

Du Yao

Image credit to

Hunan Museum

When Teacher Song entered the room, she saw the qin in Yuchen’s hand at a glance. The surface of the qin was painted with black and red paint, and also with broken lines of plum blossom and snake belly interwoven. While at its back, there were broken lines of ox hairs. She asked, “Is this Du Yao (lit. Solitute and seclusion) ?”

Yuchen nodded and said, “Ma’am, this is a unique relic left by my mother.”

Teacher Song nodded her head and said, “Then you should learn the qin well and be worthy of it when you can play exciting musics in the future.”

Yuxi had never heard of Du You. Despite that, she knew that this qin must had been very valuable, otherwise she would not have seen the surprise look on Teacher Song when she took a glance at it. Then, Yuxi looked at the clothes made of brocade on Yuchen. She had never worn clothes made of brocade in her whole life. Thus, she didn’t want to be compared with her, as it would only make her felt depressed.

Yuchen had been studying qin for more than a year, so, it was not a problem for her to play it fluently. However, after she finished playing a piece of music, Teacher Song commented, “Well, it’s very good, and your technique is quite skilled, but it is still lacking. So, you need to practice more.” This was the outcome of learning the skills first, then the others later on.

After instructing Yuchen, Teacher Song went over to teach Yuxi. Since Yuxi had no foundation in playing guzheng, it was essential for her to be taught from the basics, “When playing, use the four fingers of the right hand to pluck the strings.” After giving out a demonstration, Teacher Song continued, “While, your left hand should be on the left side of the guzheng column. Your left hand job is to adjust the tension and controlling the change of the string sound. This is for adjusting the pitch and perfect the melody.”

Then she talked about fingering methods when playing the guzheng, “The right hand has hook, support, split, pick, wipe, pick, pick, beat, shake, pinch, etc., the left hand has press, slide, rub, tremble…”

Listening to these, Yuxi felt so dizzy that she didn’t know what she had learned the whole morning in class.

Because of their tight schedule, both Yuchen’s and Yuxi’s maids send their morning meal directly to Magnolia Courtyard, where the two had their meal.

Yuchen looked at the eighteen dishes placed on her desk, then at the six dishes placed on Yuxi’s desk, and said, “Fourth Sister, let’s eat them together!”

Yuxi shook her head and answered, “No need.” Yuchen had a rich variety of dishes, but the amounts were relatively small. She was afraid that Yuchen would not have enough to eat if she ate some of her dishes. This would surely make the Old Madam came over to settle accounts with her.

Yuchen felt a little apologetic at Yuxi, but she also knew that if she said too much, Yuxi would surely be disgusted with her.

The morning course was not bad for Yuxi as she could understand it. Unfortunately, for the afternoon class, it was the opposite. She had never came into contact with chess and painting, while Yuchen had been studying them for more than a year. The two people were not on the same starting line, but Teacher Song still spoke quickly, causing Yuxi to complain bitterly in her heart.

After class, Teacher Song gave Yuxi two basic books, “This is the qipu (a record of a Chinese chess match), and picture album. Take it back and have a good look.” Learning chess depended not only on talent, but also acquired practice.

Yuxi took the two books and said sincerely, “Thank you, Teacher.” Added with music score book, she now had three books to study.

Back in the Rose Courtyard, Yuxi sat in a chair and recalled today’s events. She could not help herself but sigh with emotion. Yuchen studied the Four Arts as if she were playing. However, Yuxi seemed to be climbing a mountain, especially when it came to guzheng, which could be said she was totally ignorant of. Fortunately, she had been working hard all her life and had a lot of ability to endure it. If it was someone else, she would have been tired of learning long time ago.

When Yuru was in the main courtyard, her face changed as she heard that Teacher Song had started teaching the Four Arts. After she returned to her own courtyard, she ordered Zhuxuan, “Go and inquire if Teacher Song has really started teaching the Four Arts.”

Zhuxuan actually heard the news yesterday evening, but she hid it from Yuru, afraid that Yuru would feel uncomfortable once she heard it. Now, she couldn’t hide it anymore.

When Yuru heard the news was true, her fingernails pierced her palms as she clenched her hands. “Why didn’t you tell me that Teacher Song will teach Four Arts from the beginning? Why didn’t you also tell me that she will teach them now?” She thought Teacher Song only teached Four Arts to her recognized student only. She did not know that she would teach them after a month. If she had known earlier, she would have insisted even if she knew it would be very difficult for her.

Zhuxuan spoke out her guess, “I think Teacher Song must have taken a fancy of the Third Miss and Fourth Miss.” This meant that Teacher Song was going to accept both Yuxi and Yuchen as her students.

Yuru shook her head and said, “Impossible. Teacher Song is only willing to teach one student at a time. It is impossible for her to make an exception for Yuxi.“ Yuxi also didn’t have such a big reputation for Teacher Song to make any exception for.

Zhuxuan gently advised, “Miss, whatever Teacher Song does, it has nothing to do with us.” They were no longer qualified and for them to argue over this matter was meaningless acts.

Hearing this, Yuru immediately felt discouraged.

When learning something, sometimes it was not enough to rely on hard work alone. For example, Yuxi who had been studying for less than half a month, still played a disturbing noise. Most importantly, she didn’t even know what she was playing, which made her felt too ashamed.

Moju saw Yuxi’s depressed look and tried to comfort her by saying, “Miss, the music that the Third Miss played was so beautiful because she had a good qin. If Miss also had a good guzheng, Miss could also play beautiful music too.”

Yuxi said as she went speechless, “This requires natural talent. It has nothing to do with whether the musical instrument is good or not.”

Moju saw that Yuxi had gotten angry, made her did not dare to say more. These two days, her Master’s look had not been looking good, presumably because of Third Miss’ performance which was too good to be beaten.

The next day, Yuxi went to see Teacher Song after class. She looked depressed as she said, “Teacher, I don’t want to learn guzheng.”

With Yuchen in the background, Teacher Song knew that Yuxi was under great pressure. However, she was surprised that Yuxi would give up. She always gave her the feeling that she was strong and she would not sound out the difficulties and retreated to avoid defeat (Chinese idiom : withdraw or quit after learning of the difficulties, hardships, etc. Involved) . So, Teacher Song said, “To learn something needs a lot of perseverance and strong willpower. You can’t give up just because you can’t learn it well.”

Yuxi shook her head and said, “Teacher, although chess and painting are difficult, but I have also starting to get a hold of them after learning these days. But I have learned guzheng for such a long time, and yet, I still don’t know what I have learned. Teachee, I heard that learning music depends on one’s talent. Without talent, even with perseverance and willpower, it is still useless.“ What she really meant was, she had no talent for music.

Teacher Song looked at Yuxi and asked, “Do you want to give up halfway?”

Yuxi corrected Teacher Song’s words, “Teacher, it is not that I give up halfway, but I really don’t have the talent in this aspect. Even if I stick to it, it will be just a waste of time.” Yes, she gave it up so easily. It was because, she had no talent on one hand. While on the other hand, she felt it was useless to learn musical instruments. Since it was useless, it was better to use this time to learn something more useful.

Teacher Song then said, “You even dare to argue with me. You really have a lot of guts.”

When did Yuxi had a lot of guts? She was being pressured. “Teacher, I can’t keep on learning it. I don’t know why, but when I was practicing music in my yard, all my maids and old women wished they could plug their ears with cottons.”

When Teacher Song heard this, she could not stop herself from laughing.

Seeing that Teacher Song still didn’t give any positive respond, Yuxi said, “Teacher, Third Sister learned this two years earlier than I did. She’s a quick learner. I am afraid I will not be able to keep up with her progress if this continues. Without learning music theory, I would have more time to spend on other lessons.”

When Teacher Song heard this, she finally nodded and said, “If you don’t want to learn it, then forget about it.” Judging from Yuxi’s performance these days, she could see that Yuxi really didn’t have any talent in this art. She only teached chess and painting twice to her, and Yuxi could easily understand them. However, when it came to guzheng, even if she taught her more than 10 times, it was still useless.

Yuxi felt ashamed of herself.

Then, Teacher Song smiled and said, “Although you have no talent in music theory, you have a good grasp of color. As long as you study hard, you can certainly learn painting well.” Qualification was very important, so was talent. Yuxi’s qualification was very good, and she also had the talent in painting. Teacher Song didn’t want Yuxi to waste it.

Yuxi was somewhat ashamed and said, “Thank you, Teacher.” After a pause, she added, “Teacher, I want to learn wuqinxi from you.”

Teacher Song felt somewhat strange, so she asked, “Why do you want to learn wuqinxi?”

Yuxi answered, “I have been in poor health since I was a child and I often get sick. Mama Ding said that after learning wuqinxi, one would not get sick frequently and no need to take bitter medicine anymore.“

Teacher Song looked at Yuxi, who was ruddy in complexion, and asked suspiciously, “Do you often get sick?” Looking at Yuxi’s appearance, she didn’t looked like a sick seedling.

“I used to get sick a lot, but now I feel much better,” Yuxi answered sheepishly.

Teacher Song kind of understand her situation, but she won’t respond to Yuxi’s request for now. Instead, she said, “Let’s talk about this again next year!”

Yuxi did not know why she had to wait until next year. Now it was already the eleventh month of lunar year and New Year would arrive in another month. Well, came to think of it, how hard was it for her to wait for two months more.