Rural Women's Delegation Visit 007

  "Is this stove good to use?"

  Looking at the stove renovated by Su Hua, Yang Genie asked with half-doubt. From a intuitive point of view, Su Hua's stove is slightly larger than before, mainly due to the thicker furnace wall. The mud applied around is quite neat, and compared to the original one that has been used for decades, it indeed looks much better, which gave Yang Genie some confidence in Su Hua. However, the quality of a stove ultimately cannot be determined by its appearance.

  "You'll know once you've tried it." Su Hao leaned against the kitchen door and said with a smile.

  "Mom, I'll cook the pig's food." Lu Xiuer thought of a way to test the stove. They raised a pig at home, which was prepared for killing during the New Year to exchange for some pocket money, and cooking pig food was something that needed to be done every day, so it was just right to use it to test the quality of the stove.

  Yang Genjian nodded in agreement, and Lu Xiuer went to the thatched cottage to fetch a bundle of straw. She pulled out a small handful, lit it with a fire clip, and stuffed it into the furnace to start the fire. Yang Genjian ladled several scoops of water into the pot, covered it, and within a few minutes, hot air was billowing out of the pot.

  "So soon?" Yang Genjian was really shocked.

  "Mom, this stove is really good for burning, the fire is particularly strong, and there's no smoke."

  "Are you trying to scare me?"

  "No, just put a few handfuls of grass on it and the fire started right away, it's really fuel-efficient!" Lu Xiuer exclaimed happily.

  "Heh heh, this is what I, a scholar, have done. Don't you still believe me?" Su Hao said with great satisfaction.

  Yang Genjian looked at Su Hao and asked: "Hao'er, did you really make this stove?"

  "Who else could it be?" Su Hao felt belittled and was quite annoyed.

  "Didn't you ask Dr. Huo to fix it?"

  "What's with the 'Doctor Stove'? I am Doctor Stove, okay?" Su Hao said.

  "My brother is even better than Dr. Huo!" Lu Xiuer asserted, "The stove in the Li Chang's house was built by the best stove master in Shitandan Town, last time when they had a wedding at home, I went to help with cooking and used their stove, it's not even half as good as ours."

  "How did you get burned?" Yang Gen asked in surprise.

  Su Hao could only push all these inexplicable phenomena into the book, saying: "Mom, look at me studying every day, did I study to become a pig? A scholar doesn't have to leave his door to know what's happening in the world. All these things like digging wells and repairing stoves are knowledge, it's all written in books."

  "But how come I've never heard you mention it before?" Yang Genjian still didn't believe that her own son had so many skills, without any hint beforehand, how could she possibly believe?

  Su Hao said: "In the past, wasn't I busy taking the imperial examination to become a xiucai? The main content of this exam is to test the four books and five classics, as long as you can recite them. Now that I have already obtained the title of xiucai, next I will take the exam to become a juren, which is different from taking the xiucai exam. The juren exam tests one's ability to do things, so I started learning these things."

  Yang Genjian still didn't believe it: "You're saying that even the examinees for the imperial examination have to take a test on repairing stoves? Then why can't Tingzhao Gong do it?"

  Su Tingzhao was the village's previous Xiucai and also the father of Suzhong, the village head. Before Su Hang passed the imperial examination to become a Xiucai, Su Tingzhao was already the most learned person in the whole village, but no one had ever heard that he could repair stoves. On the contrary, he would say things like "a gentleman should stay away from the kitchen", meaning that scholars cannot enter the kitchen.

  This brain-twisting question couldn't stump Su Hua, who laughed and said: "Isn't it true that Lord Tingxue didn't pass the Imperial Examination? That's because he doesn't know how to repair a stove."

  "You're cheating." Lu Xiuer was young after all, and her brain was much more agile. She immediately heard that Su Hang was talking nonsense. "You said before that the imperial examination also requires writing articles. You never said anything about repairing stoves."

  "This is where you don't understand." Su Hao opened his mouth, "Scholars taking exams, of course, won't directly take a trowel to try it out, but instead need to write down the process of building the stove. The examiner will look at it and know whether you can do it or not. This is called theory guiding practice, very profound."

  "Oh......so that's how it is?" Lu Xiuer really didn't understand and started questioning her own intelligence.

  It's not a heroic victory... Su Hao secretly blamed himself, using some future terms to deceive a Ming dynasty little loli, it's too unheroic.

  After being tired for a whole morning, Su Hao went to sleep after eating. Although he knew that his mother and sister had gone out to work, sleeping at home was really a sinful thing, but unfortunately his physical condition was too poor, and he couldn't help even if he wanted to, so he might as well rest first and think about it later, thinking of some way to make money with his brains, and earning some money to support the family.

  He had only slept for a few hours when he was woken up by the noise coming from outside the door. He listened carefully and it seemed like his mother and several other middle-aged women from the village were walking towards home together. Although there weren't many people, they couldn't help but make a big noise with their loud voices, which sounded quite impressive.

  "Mom, how did you come back?" Su Hang got up from bed and came to the door to welcome his mother Yang Genjian.

  The women started chattering and commenting as soon as they saw Su Hao:

  "Oh dear, it seems we've disturbed Young Master Show's studies!"

  "Gen Di ah, look at your son Huan, he's really talented and handsome. I've said it before, Huan will definitely become a high-ranking official."

  "That's for sure, I heard from my family's deceased that yesterday Haonan talked to that Fengshui master and even the Fengshui master couldn't outtalk him."

  "Xiucai Lang will definitely become a zhuangyuan, Gen Di, you will definitely live a happy life."

  ……

  Yang Genjian was talked about by a group of women with both excitement and embarrassment, saying repeatedly:

  "My son Huan is only good at reading books and can't do anything else. If he can pass the imperial examination in the future, I'll be so happy that I'll die laughing. Who dares to think about him becoming a top scholar?"

  Su Hao was confused and couldn't figure out why his mother had brought a group of middle-aged women home, wondering if it was because he had an outburst the day before and these women wanted to set him up on a blind date. As far as he knew, all of these women had daughters at home. But didn't he already have a childhood fiancée? Fine, if your daughter is pretty, introducing her is not out of the question, but you must agree that she can only be a concubine...

  Su Hua was daydreaming when he saw Yang Genie timidly approaching him, whispering to Su Hua: "Hua'er, it's all mom's fault for talking too much and telling your aunts about your stove repair skills. They all want to come take a look, what do you think..."

  Uh…… Su Hao was speechless, the people who came to see were not him, but the stove he had built. He didn't need to think and could guess that he must have built a good stove, and his mother was so proud that she went around spreading the word everywhere. As a result, these rural women organized a tour group to come and observe.

  "It's nothing, just look." Su Hao said with a big smile.

  A group of women, led by Yang Genjie, entered Su Hang's kitchen. Before they even started cooking, everyone began to exclaim and praise, saying things like how beautiful and exquisite the stove was. After all, praising people doesn't require paying taxes, so no one spared a few kind words.

  Yang Genjian brought a bundle of straw and scooped some water into the pot, and each woman began to take turns trying to light the fire. As soon as the fire was lit, everyone fell silent. These women were all used to cooking every day, and they could feel the quality of the stove with one hand. Before coming to Su Huan's house, they had some doubts about how good this stove could be, thinking that Yang Genjian's words had some exaggeration. When they came to cook on this stove themselves, they felt completely shocked: it turned out that a single stove could be so easy to use!

  "Gen Ni, take a look at your husband, the scholar, and see if he has time to help my family build a stove like this one too."

  Some people have started to make requests to Yang Gendi, they come to Su Hang's house to visit this stove, the purpose is not just to open their eyes, but more importantly, to examine whether this stove is really so magical. If the situation is true, then they will ask Su Hang to help them build a similar one too.

  Every household in the village, like Su Hang's family, has a problem of not having enough straw to burn after harvesting. Going out to pick up firewood every day is also a considerable task. If they can have a stove that saves fuel, the labor saved will be quite considerable. According to Yang Genji, building such a stove would only take Su Hang half a morning's work.

  This is also the reason why Yang Genjian has some apologies in front of Su Hang. She certainly knows what these sisters are thinking, but she cannot refuse. Asking Su Hang to help with this kind of thing will delay her son's studies, and will her usually proud son be willing to do such a thing?

  Yang Genjian looked at her son with a timid gaze, waiting for him to speak up.