“Big brother, what do you read every day?” Nannan walked beside him, looking up as she asked.
“The classics of the sages,” Shen Yan said.
“What are those for?”
“They teach people how to conduct themselves and govern the realm.”
Nannan blinked, clearly not quite understanding. She asked again, “If you finish reading them, can you become an official?”
Shen Yan fell silent for a moment. He thought of his mother weaving by lamplight late into the night, the shuttle clacking again and again like an invisible needle piercing his heart. He remembered the village head coming to collect the summer tax a few days earlier. His mother had smiled and pleaded with him for ages before he finally granted her a half-month’s extension.
“I don’t know,” he finally said. “But we have to try.”
