Chapter 18: The Price of Knowledge

"Yes, Brother Sun, I want to learn to read with you."

Seeing his chosen teacher looking a bit dazed, Lu Yuan thought to himself that, just like the rumors, this guy seemed a bit slow-witted.

However, considering that he was only learning to read, and as long as the other party could teach him to read, it didn't matter whether he was clever or not, so he didn't care.

"Oh… Oh."

Sun Siwen came to his senses and, realizing what had happened, felt a surge of joy. He quickly stepped back, opened the door, and said, "Please come in, Young Master Lu. This is not the place for conversation. Let's talk inside."

Lu Yuan followed him in and looked around.

Just like the rumors, Sun Siwen's home was indeed quite poor.

In the spacious courtyard, apart from a planted plum tree, there was nothing else.

On the walls of the houses on both sides, the earthy mud walls had large patches of peeling and pockmarks, which showed that they had not been maintained for a long time.

Entering the reception room, there were just two bamboo chairs on the west side of the empty hall, while a bamboo table was placed in the middle, with two bamboo cups on it. There was nothing else.

Such a large space had so few pieces of furniture. It was evident that it hadn't always been like this.

Remembering the rumors in town, Lu Yuan had a rough idea: 'With this empty and desolate home, it seems this scholar is truly poor.'

"Please take a seat, Young Master Lu, and I'll get you some…"

Sun Siwen led Lu Yuan to the bamboo chair and was about to prepare tea after letting him sit down.

But thinking about how he didn't even have enough rice to eat, Sun Siwen realized that he hadn't any tea left.

With no other choice, he fetched some well water from the courtyard and served it to his guest. After sitting down, he said with a bit of embarrassment, "I'm afraid our home is too poor to offer you any good tea, so I can only serve well water."

"It's all right," Lu Yuan didn't mind, shaking his head. "It's my sudden visit that has disturbed you."

Seeing that the other party wasn't angry, Sun Siwen felt relieved. Then he remembered what had been said earlier and carefully asked, "Just now, Young Master Lu mentioned wanting to learn from me. Is this true?"

His family had been struggling to make ends meet lately.

However, it was not a festive season, so no one was asking him to write couplets. Writing letters on behalf of others was even rarer, with opportunities only coming once every ten days or a month.

Seeing that there was no more income, he was planning to take some more of the family's belongings and exchange them for silver.

At this critical moment, someone actually came to learn from him, which was truly a Heaven-sent opportunity.

Nevertheless, regarding the town's rumors about him, Sun Siwen had heard a thing or two, and he knew there weren't many good words about him.

As the saying goes, one knows one's own affairs best. He was really worried that the other party would dislike him and miss the opportunity to make money.

Indeed.

Although a gentleman shouldn't be so greedy for money, he couldn't even maintain his livelihood, so those thoughts had to be abandoned.

"Of course it's true."

Seeing the other person's nervous appearance, Lu Yuan couldn't help but find it amusing and nodded with a smile.

Hearing this, Sun Siwen felt more at ease but still hesitated, "But I haven't even obtained the Scholar's Degree, and I'm not proficient in the classics. I'm afraid I'll hinder your progress if I teach you."

Although he wanted to make money, Mr. Sun still possessed some integrity.

He knew he had some knowledge, but he was far from being qualified to teach others. Otherwise, he wouldn't still be struggling to obtain the Scholar's Degree.

He was worried that his teaching would misguide the other person, which would be a great sin.

So he mentioned it beforehand.

"That doesn't matter."

Lu Yuan was a little surprised by Sun Siwen's concern and felt that he had indeed found the right person. After considering the issue, he stated his intention, "I never planned to take any exams for a degree.

I only want to learn to read from Brother Sun, not delve into the classics.

About the tuition fee..."

Lu Yuan looked around at the surrounding poverty and pondered for a moment, then said, "How about this: if Brother Sun teaches me one character, I will pay one cent. The more you teach, the more I pay. How does that sound?"

His tuition fee was thoroughly considered.

According to the knowledge from his previous life, people's commonly used and less commonly used characters were roughly around 3,000.

Once this number of Chinese characters was mastered, most texts could be read without any obstacles, and smooth written communication could be had with others.

Although he didn't understand the writing of this world, through his observation, he found that it was similar to the Chinese characters of his previous life. The only difference was each character corresponded to a different meaning.

So by inference, he only needed to master about 3,000 characters in this world, and that would be enough.

As for other uncommon and obscure characters, they could be learned gradually in the future.

While he had some money now and still had more than twenty silver taels after spending some on housing, learning martial arts also required expenses.

Lu Yuan was not sure if the secret book he had obtained would require a large amount of herbs to help with cultivation.

If so, it would be a significant expense.

Therefore, for future planning, it's better to save money whenever possible.

He had already calculated that the secret book contained over 20,000 characters in total, and after deducting the repetitions, there were over 2,000 different characters.

If he could learn these more than 2,000 characters, understanding the secret book would be a breeze.

At the price of one cent per character, 3,000 characters would cost him only a little over three silver taels.

After deducting the tuition fees, Lu Yuan would still have twenty taels in savings.

'This should be enough to cover the initial expenses of learning martial arts,' he thought, turning his eyes to Sun Siwen.

This plan, which involved only learning characters and not the classics, was something he had specially tailored for his own needs.

But whether he could carry it out depended on whether the scholar was willing to agree.

After all, implementing this plan would mean that he would only be hiring someone to teach him how to read. He would not be involved in any other aspects of impartation of knowledge and guidance.

There would be no teacher-student relationship between the two parties in this arrangement.

This was something Lu Yuan had thought about early on, as he never intended to find a teacher who he was supposed to respect as much as a father.

His idea was simple: he would provide the money, and the other party would provide the knowledge, and it would be an equitable exchange, with nothing else involved.

"One cent tuition fee per character…"

Upon hearing Lu Yuan's proposal, Sun Siwen was also slightly taken aback, feeling that it was a bit unconventional and against the rules. He was somewhat resistant at first.

But thinking about the fact that he wouldn't be able to afford food in a few days and that he still hadn't achieved the Scholar's Degree, his initial resistance quickly dissipated.

After hesitating for a moment, he finally nodded, "All right. I'll only teach you the characters, and for each character, I'll charge a one-cent tuition fee."

However, after saying that, he added, "Since I won't be teaching the classics, only the characters, there will be no teacher-student relationship between us, and we don't need to observe any teacher-student etiquette."

Life, after all, prevailed over ideals.