Chapter 278: Buying Books
Editor: Atlas Studios
The bookstore in Xingyuan Prefecture was not far from the prefectural school. In the past, the row was filled with books and various school supplies. This was the first time Bowen had seen so many bookstores lined up side by side. Like a mouse who had fallen into a rice warehouse, his eyes lit up as he looked around, unsure which shop to go to first.
Mu Yangling pulled Bowen to the largest bookstore.
The bookstore had a total of two floors. His shop was twice the size of other shops, and it was divided into two parts. There were five rows of bookshelves on the left, all filled with books, and on the right were various learning tools, such as brush, ink, paper, and inkstones. There were even some famous calligraphy paintings hanging on the front wall, and the wall on the right was filled with consigned calligraphy paintings. Mu Yangling looked up and realized that the calligraphy paintings on it were not bad. Yes, at least she could understand them.
There were many prefectural students reading in the bookstore. Xiuhong’s face flushed red. Seeing that her cousin was focused on the painting on the right wall, she cowered behind Bowen timidly. On the other hand, the usually timid-looking Bowen calmly went forward to take out a book to read. He even patted his cousin to reassure her.
When Mu Yangling turned around and saw this scene, she was slightly surprised.
It seemed that Xiuhong still felt a little inferior. Although she was energetic in the village, she would be timid when she met someone with a higher status than her. On the other hand, seeing as Bowen had always been a little weak and timid, she didn’t expect him to be so calm and steady.
Mu Yangling was pleasantly surprised.
She went forward and patted Xiuhong. The latter immediately held her cousin’s hand and calmed down.
“Bowen, take a look at what you need. We brought enough money. Go ahead and choose what you want with no regards to the money..” They could save on anything, but they couldn’t scrimp on food and education.
Bowen agreed with a smile.
Mu Yangling was about to choose a book herself when the assistant shopkeeper hurriedly followed her and asked in a low voice, “Miss, you want to buy books? I wonder what kind you want to buy. I’ll help you find them.”
Mu Yangling and the others did not dress like people who bought books. Although they were wearing wolf fur coats, the designs were that of the working class. They did not look like educated people.
Mu Yangling did not notice the assistant shopkeeper’s thoughts. She told him that she wanted to read some books on history and geography.
With the assistant shopkeeper guiding the way, Mu Yangling quickly found where they were located. There were a few young students standing there. When they saw the two girls coming over, their faces turned red and they turned their bodies slightly to avoid them.
Mu Yangling had only read history books in bookstores, and she never really had the money to buy them. The Tang history up till that point was exactly the same as in her previous life, and what differed was the period after Tang.
However, she only had a rough idea of the previous history, but she did not know the specific historical events. Moreover, the history written by the ancients was different from the second-hand history translated by the later generations. Therefore, Mu Yangling’s choice of history books on the period after the Qin Dynasty were those that were publicly recognized.
Before the Ming Dynasty, the Emperor and those in power could rarely interfere with the writing of history books. In addition, the Ming Dynasty did not exist in this world. According to historical time, it had not developed to the Ming Dynasty, which made this roughly the Southern Song Dynasty.
Therefore, the commoners could also write historical books. At this time, there were quite a lot of books. Fortunately, there was a most outstanding book in every era. Mu Yangling only needed to read that book to know the basic history.
The assistant shopkeeper couldn’t help but click his tongue when he saw Mu Yangling pick out four books at once.
Mu Yangling handed the books to him and went to the geography section. She went to pick out three books that caught her interest.
Initially, no one noticed Mu Yangling, but after the assistant shopkeeper walked back and forth twice, those who were reading couldn’t help but look over. Seeing that Mu Yangling only picked up a book to read the first few pages before handing it to the assistant shopkeeper, they couldn’t help but size her up carefully. They felt that she didn’t seem to be someone who could afford a large number of books.
Mu Yangling’s five senses were sharp, and she had long sensed that the people in the bookstore were looking at her. She quickly understood what was going on. In this era, although there was the use of movable printing and paper-making techniques, books were still very expensive because there was no such thing as piracy in this world. All books were authentic.
It had to be said that ancient vendors were still very conscientious. The books were exquisite and durable, and there were very few mistakes in typography.
Ancient people treated books with a serious attitude, while modern people only bought books for no reason other than the fact that they wanted to read. However, not only did the ancient people buy books to read themselves, but they also had to pass them down to future generations. This was unlike in the modern world, where books were sometimes thrown away or sold as waste paper in just a few years or more. For books in this era, even decades or centuries later, the handwriting on the books was still clear and the paper was still intact.
This was why books were very expensive in this era.
It was so expensive that other than the children of rich families, even middle-class families could not buy books freely.
“Assistant shopkeeper, do you have any books on agriculture and water conservancy projects here?” Mu Yangling felt that since she might have to farm for the rest of her life, she had to learn more about this topic considering she didn’t have much knowledge in this from her previous life. It wasn’t enough to just learn from Great-aunt and the others. She had to read books.
The assistant shopkeeper looked at Mu Yangling in a daze. “Erm, there are books on agriculture?” He hadn’t started working in the bookstore for long, and had only heard people ask him where books such as ‘The Analects’ and history books were. No one had asked him where the agriculture books were.
The shopkeeper had been paying attention to them. When he heard this, he immediately came up and said with a smile, “Young lady, are you looking for something like ‘Important Arts for the People’s Welfare’?”
Mu Yangling nodded with a smile. “Yeah, books like this. There are also books on water conservancy construction.” Mu Yangling was very good at science in her previous life. She was familiar with science topics, so she wanted to see if she could self-learn some knowledge about water conservancy engineering. When it came to farming, the water conservancy conditions had to be good.
All of this was for better farming.
“This kind of book is a little unorthodox, so it’s on the second floor. I’ll bring you upstairs to look for it.” The shopkeeper led the way.
When everyone saw Mu Yangling coming down, she was holding four more books.
However, the shopkeeper was more respectful to Mu Yangling. When Mu Yangling was choosing the books just now, he had been observing from the side. She had chosen those books very carefully. First, she browsed the contents page, then the preface. She even randomly chose a chapter to read. He watched her choose four out of more than ten books, and these four were the best books in agriculture and water conservancy projects.
It was obvious that she wasn’t picking randomly.
By the time Mu Yangling had chosen what she needed, Xiuhong found two picture books at the bottom and said excitedly to Mu Yangling, “Cousin, I want to buy these two books for Sister.”
The shopkeeper said with a smile, “Miss, these are the most popular flower designs this year.”
Mu Yangling flipped through it. “Then buy them.” Although her mother knew how to draw flowers herself, it wasn’t a bad idea to check out currently trending designs.
Including these two books, Mu Yangling chose a total of 13 books. Bowen also carried three books over and handed them to his sister with a red face. He leaned close to her ear and said, “I also want to buy a copy of Zhu Zi’s Annotations, but it’s so expensive. One book costs 12 taels of silver.”
Mu Yangling raised her eyebrows in surprise. Was a copy of Zhu Zi’s Annotations that expensive?