Chapter Thirty-two Leisure
With the return of Old Man Yang, the Yang family and the four uncles' families began to enter a standardized work routine, which was cutting down trees and opening up new land. Because the three members of the Yang family worked too quickly, their daily workload was only half a day's worth, leaving them with plenty of time to rest. Otherwise, the uncles and aunts wouldn't be able to keep up. Sometimes, the uncles and aunts would return home to tend to their own fields, and after the new land was opened up, they might hand over those fields to their respective family members.
Yang Heng's teaching of the children has also entered the stage of writing. For this, Yang Heng had his uncle make many shallow wooden trays, each child holding one, with some fine sand inside, and then the children would use a twig to write in the sand. After Yang Heng checked their work, they would smooth out the sand and continue writing the next character.
Learning to write requires a model, Yang Heng knew that even in the future when no one uses brushes to write, having good handwriting is important. Let alone in this era, but Yang Heng was the worst at this. In his past life, he always thought calligraphy was useless, so soft brush calligraphy didn't exist for him, and hard brush calligraphy looked like a scribble. So naturally, the reference material for writing would be that copy of "Qimin Yaoshu". This copy of "Qimin Yaoshu" was handwritten, although it's unknown who copied it, but the calligraphy on it is still pleasing to the eye, with very standard regular script. As a result, there appeared scenes of several children tracing characters on a sandbox.
"No, no, you can't write it like that, it should be written like this, right, Brother Yang?" "Mmm, I shouldn't tell you guys, if I do, you won't remember it deeply. You need to think about it seriously yourselves. Let me go see how they wrote it." This writing, how would Yang know what's good or not? If he can't even write himself, then naturally he wouldn't be able to appreciate it either. So when Nianzi brought up the question, Yang used a very sufficient reason to get out of it, all thanks to the benefits of listening to crosstalk in his past life!
However, Yang Heng did not go to see what others wrote. He was afraid that someone would ask questions again, and he also needed to practice himself. Naturally, it wouldn't be good for him to practice in front of these little ghosts. This crossing over is good, but some things have become fixed, so the result of Yang Heng's practice compared to these children is twice the effort with half the results.
"Alright, brothers and sisters, the time for studying has passed, now it's time for play. Yang Heng didn't want to turn these children into bookworms, so some necessary exercise was still needed, such as running, but there really wasn't a suitable place to run, so running was put aside. Yang Heng chose swimming instead. Now that summer had arrived, the water in the river had warmed up, and Yang Heng and his uncles blocked off a section of the river to create a swimming area for the children. Swimming is great, not only can it exercise the body, but the water pressure can also massage the body, so swimming should be better than just running."
But the children were both boys and girls, and in this society there was still some distinction between men and women. Although it was a bit different from previous eras, it was still not possible for boys and girls to be together with their buttocks exposed. So Yang Heng found some good brocade in his own home and asked the aunties to make several tight-fitting clothes. Both boys and girls had to wear full-body tight-fitting clothes, and Yang Heng also designed a small skirt at their waist. This way, even if the clothes were soaked through, the small skirt could still cover part of them. As for other parts, whether it was boys or girls, they were all still young and didn't show anything anyway.
This garment, although called a tight-fitting dress, has no elasticity in the fabric, so it can't be worn by putting it over the head. So this garment is made as a whole body, but the top is still the double-breasted style of this era, with a button made of cloth. The use of tight-fitting clothes is naturally for convenient swimming. There is no silk here, if there was silk, Yang Heng wouldn't mind trying to make a swimsuit out of it.
In the river, Yang Heng divided the children into several sections according to their height. The shorter ones swam in shallow water and the taller ones in deeper water. However, no matter which section of water, the depth would not exceed the height of the children swimming inside, and when the children played with water, there must be an adult on the side watching to prevent short children from entering the deep water area.
When it comes to swimming, Yang Heng was a Libra in his past life and would sink to the bottom as soon as he entered the water. So before he was 14 years old, he spent quite some time in the water every year, even watching younger kids learn how to swim while he still hadn't mastered it himself. Fortunately, in this era, he is no longer a Libra, and when he enters the water, he quickly adapts to swimming and can do all sorts of strokes - they're just not standard, that's all. His siblings look up to him like he's a god or something, thinking their big brother is amazing not only because he can read but also because he knows so many fancy swimming moves. That's what it's like for kids growing up in the mountains. If they were to go to a big river, they'd probably be laughed at by kids who swim every day. But fortunately, Yang Heng is still young and has a lot to learn. As someone who has traveled through time to this era, conquering the ocean is one of his goals.
When the kids have been playing in the water for a long time, their physical strength and even their heads grow faster. However, this game can't be so monotonous, so Yang Heng thought of another game - badminton. Among all ball games and other sports projects, badminton is currently the only one that can be realized. The venue is easy to find, just find a small space, set up two poles, and hang some broken nets between them to create a qualified venue. As for the racket, it's even easier to make. Let Xiao Shu use relatively hard branches to make the frame of the racket, then use some silk threads to weave on the frame, and that's a qualified badminton racket. The feathers are not scarce, just cut into the right shape, find a piece of soft wood, insert the feathers into the wood, and fix them with glue.
When the badminton court is ready, with badminton and rackets in place, some big kids and uncles burst out with great enthusiasm. Sometimes even aunts will take advantage of the absence of people to play a game here. In short, this era lacks entertainment activities, which is why people are so enthusiastic about such a small activity.
Even swimming, the uncles would run far away to swim, and the aunts would come to the children's playground at night to swim. Of course, each aunt had her own Yang Heng-designed swimsuit. When the aunts swam, only two little girls could be seen in front of them, while others were chased away early on. Since they were all family members, there was no one to sneak a peek, so nothing like that happened.
