Chapter 48: The Capital Dialect

The classroom was dead silent as the three of them quietly waited for Master Zheng.

Suddenly, a rhythmic rapping sound echoed from outside, and Sun Shan knew that Master Zheng was about to arrive.

Sun Shan and his companions sat up straight, squaring their shoulders and occasionally peering out toward the door.

Before long, Master Zheng walked in, wearing a long white gown. Seeing his three young pupils sitting obediently in their chairs, he nodded with satisfaction and said, "The three of you are the students I have taken in this year, and you are now classmates. I hope you will study hard, help one another, and make progress together."

Sun Shan and the others replied in unison, "Yes, Master."

Master Zheng nodded approvingly and said, "Now, today we shall begin with the *Classic of Three Character Classics*. I will read a line, and you shall repeat it after me."

"At the beginning of life, human nature is inherently good. In nature, people are close; in practice, they grow apart."

Master Zheng read a line, and Sun Shan's trio followed right behind him.

First, Master Zheng read the line in the Guangnan dialect, and then he read it once more in the so-called Capital Standard Speech.

Sun Shan and the others read the Guangnan dialect fluently, but when it came to the Capital Standard Speech, they made a complete mess of it.

The Capital Standard Speech here was nothing like the Mandarin of his past life; instead, it sounded rather like the dialect of Suzhou, soft and melodic.

The only reason Sun Shan recognized it as Suzhou dialect was because he had once traveled to Suzhou.

He had visited a teahouse to experience the local charm of Suzhou, ordered a fifty-yuan pot of tea, and even spent a hefty one hundred yuan to exclusively commission a piece of pingtan storytelling, sung to the tune of *The Jasmine Flower*. Ever since then, Sun Shan had regarded the Suzhou dialect as wonderfully soft and pleasant to the ear.

At this moment, Sun Shan gained no advantage from being able to speak modern Mandarin in his past life.

Right now, he was a blank slate, needing to learn everything all over again.

Master Zheng did not scold them. Instead, he comforted them, saying, "When you first start reading, you won't get the pronunciation right. Take it slowly. We will read it character by character. We must learn to speak the Capital Standard Speech. Knowing an extra language gives you an extra advantage, making it easier to find a good job. Do you understand?"

Sun Shan and the others indicated that they understood.

Master Zheng then taught it from the beginning once more.

Having taught them how to read, Master Zheng began to explain the meanings of the twelve characters, interweaving the stories behind them, rather than simply forcing them to memorize everything by rote before explaining what any of it meant.

After teaching for an entire morning, they had finally mastered the reading of those twelve characters, though Sun Shan and the others still had no idea how to write them.

Master Zheng said, "In the afternoon, I will teach you how to write the characters. Go and have your meal first." With that, he left, presumably heading to the neighboring classroom.

After respectfully watching Master Zheng depart, Brother De immediately slumped into his chair, his gaze vacant as he mumbled, "Shanzi, I don't want to go to school anymore. This is so hard."

Sun Shan also felt it was terribly difficult. He recognized the characters, but reading them in the Capital accent was genuinely too tough. More importantly, there was the calligraphy practice in the afternoon, which made his head hurt even worse.

In his past life, when he attended elective classes in school, Sun Shan had also joined a calligraphy class. He had spent three whole sessions practicing just a single character—"Yong"—until his patience finally ran out, and the whole thing fizzled into nothing, after which he never touched a brush again.

On the other side, Yang Qingbei timidly spoke up, "So you guys think it's hard too."

He had thought he was the only one struggling. Since everyone else found it difficult, it proved that it genuinely was hard, meaning he had paid close attention in class, and nobody could blame him for it.

Sun Shan glanced outside. It was midday, and vast as the world was, nothing surpassed the importance of eating. Wearily, he said, "Let's go eat. We still have class in the afternoon."

The three of them walked out of the classroom toward the kitchen, where Uncle Zheng had laid out their warmed lunch boxes on a shelf.

The students picked up their lunch boxes, stepped out of the kitchen, and entered the open courtyard.

The Zheng Family School did not have a cafeteria, so the students could only sit on the stone steps and hold their meals while eating.

The intermediate and senior class students were there as well.

Sun Shan took a closer look and realized there were only fourteen students in total.

Sun Shan's household alone accounted for five of them, and with the village chief's two grandsons, seven children from Sun Village were studying at the Zheng Family School.

Good grief!

That meant Sun Village contributed fully half of the Zheng Family School's GDP.

No wonder Master Zheng was so polite to Sun Bomin and the others. Aside from some distant, tangled kinship ties, the more important reason was that the Sun family were Master Zheng's bread and butter.

As soon as class ended, the senior students stuck with the seniors, the intermediates with the intermediates, and the juniors with the juniors, keeping distinct boundaries between groups.

As for Sun Shan's older paternal cousins, they exchanged a few grinning words with Sun Shan and Brother De before promptly joining their own classmates.

Brother De quickly popped open his lunch box, which held rice mixed with sweet potatoes, a small pinch of greens, and two eggs.

He turned to Sun Shan and said, "Shanzi, hurry up and open your box. Let's see what you're having today."

Sun Shan's lunch box was quite heavy. When he opened it, there was white rice, green vegetables, and braised pork belly.

Upon seeing the alluring, glistening red braised pork, Brother De said with a pitiful expression, "Shanzi, I suspect I wasn't born to my mother. If I were her real son, she'd be cooking pork for me this year."

Sun Shan rolled his eyes at Brother De. You and your mother look identical; nobody would believe you weren't her biological child. Besides, look at your older brother's and second brother's meals—they only get one fried egg each, while you get two. You should be content.

Sun Shan picked up three or four pieces of pork with his chopsticks and placed them into Brother De's lunch box, saying earnestly, "No more than this. If I give you any more, I won't have enough to eat myself."

Brother De broke into a silly grin and said with deep satisfaction, "Thanks, Shanzi."

Then he dropped a fried egg into Sun Shan's lunch box, asking for a half to taste.

Brother De was big-framed and had a huge appetite. He couldn't just take a whole one.

Brother De glanced sidelong at Yang Qingbei next to them. Catching Yang Qingbei's eye, he quickly looked away, leaned close to Sun Shan's ear, and whispered, "Shanzi, Qingbei's meal is even fancier. He has a chicken drumstick."

Sun Shan felt not a single ripple in his heart; he could have guessed it without Brother De telling him.

He had already caught the scent of chicken. Furthermore, among the fourteen students here, Yang Qingbei's clothing fabric was clearly the finest, and the material of his book box was exquisitely crafted as well.

More importantly, he had a fair and clean complexion, entirely devoid of the earthy aura of rural children. One could tell at a glance that his family didn't work the fields.

When they got home, he would just have to ask Sun Bomin which household in Yang Village was wealthy, and he would instantly know whose son Yang Qingbei was.

Aunt Su had been terrified that Sun Shan wouldn't eat enough, so she had packed his rice down densely—it was twice the portion of his usual mealtime appetite.

After eating half of it, he truly couldn't swallow another bite, while Brother De kept casting longing, salivating glances from the side.

Sun Shan handed his leftover rice over to him.

Brother De happily accepted it and said with gratitude, "Shanzi, thank you! Big Aunt is so much better than my mother. Otherwise, I should just have myself adopted by Big Uncle, become your real older brother, and come live and eat at your house."

Sun Dingguang, sitting nearby, gave Brother De a sharp knock on the head and scolded angrily, "Talking nonsense again! When we get home, I'm telling Mother."

Sun Dingyong chimed in from the side as well, declaring that their third brother was acting entirely too outrageous and was willing to talk about adoption just for the sake of food.

Brother De said fearfully, "Big Brother, Second Brother, I was only joking! I wouldn't actually go through with it. You two mustn't tell Mother!"

If their mother found out, she would surely team up with their father for a joint beating, and his backside would blossom into a flower.

Hearing the exchange among the three brothers, everyone burst into laughter.

One of the village chief's grandsons, the cousin Dingnan, pulled Brother De over and said with a smile, "Brother De, you can't just say things like that casually. If your mother hears about it, you'll get scolded, and if the Master hears it, he might think you have poor character and are casually trying to swap your parents."

Brother De nodded hurriedly and said, "Cousin Dingnan, I know now. I was just joking earlier, so you all should pretend you never heard it."

At that, another wave of laughter rippled through the group.