“Don’t choke.” Adam Sullivan burst out laughing.

Brian Sullivan grinned, showing his teeth, and asked with concern, “That woman downstairs hasn’t come up to bother you again, has she?”

“No.” Adam Sullivan shook his head, lying without batting an eye.

※※※

Brian Sullivan nodded, finally noticing the ceramic jar and medicine packets on the table, and asked curiously, “Who came to visit?”

“Miss Yin’s... maid.” Adam Sullivan answered truthfully, “She said it’s for us to nourish ourselves.”

Brian Sullivan immediately felt uneasy and said, “How could you accept things from others?”

“I can’t even get out of bed, so even if I wanted to refuse, I couldn’t argue with her.” Adam Sullivan pointed to the bedside and said, “Look, I haven’t touched any of it, just waiting for you to come back and decide what to do.”

“Well...” Brian Sullivan sat restlessly and said, “Yesterday, they already waived the medicine fee for us, which was more than we deserved. Now we’re taking their things again—how can we ever repay this favor? We can’t.”

“We’ll just pay it back slowly.” Adam Sullivan grinned and said, “If you can’t repay it, I will. If I can’t, your grandson will.”

Brian Sullivan rolled his eyes and said, “It won’t come to that...” and accepted the gift.

At this moment, the carp soup was ready. Brian Sullivan brought the clay pot directly to the bedside, the heat making him blow on his fingers. He placed the bedding behind Adam Sullivan to help him sit up, got him a bowl and chopsticks, and finally smiled, “Eat while it’s hot. Even a small carp is a great tonic.”

Adam Sullivan said softly, “Dad, take a set of bowl and chopsticks and eat with me.”

“No, no need.” Brian Sullivan shook his head and smiled, “I already ate outside, my stomach’s full. I’ll just have some soup later.”

Adam Sullivan didn’t press the issue, pointing to the chicken soup in the jar, “It’s hot, it’ll spoil overnight.” The weather was muggy and damp, and such fresh food would spoil overnight and have to be thrown away.

“Don’t rush, eat slowly.” Brian Sullivan smiled kindly, “Eat more so you can recover quickly.” After saying this, he poured the chicken soup back into the jar and put it on the stove to heat up.

Adam Sullivan fell silent, ate a fish, drank a bowl of soup, patted his belly and said, “I’m stuffed.”

“Eat a bit more.” Brian Sullivan served him another bowl of chicken soup, “Get well soon, don’t make your father worry.”

Adam Sullivan clearly heard the old man’s stomach growl, sighed inwardly, and took the bowl, saying, “If I eat any more, I’ll really feel sick.” In fact, he’d noticed in the morning that after serving himself a bowl of thick porridge, there was only a bit of thin soup left in the pot. Having waited until now, the old man must be starving.

“That’s true, too much is as bad as too little.” Brian Sullivan finally nodded, but then said regretfully, “Chicken and fish together, it’s really too extravagant.” Adam Sullivan gave a wry smile, “Who knows if we’ll even have food tomorrow? Let’s just enjoy what we have today.”

“Such pessimism.” Brian Sullivan finally helped himself, scooping a bowl of chicken soup and sipping it, “I’ve already decided what to do. Tomorrow I’ll buy you another chicken.”

“What are you going to do?” Adam Sullivan asked with interest.

“Writing.” Brian Sullivan said as he drank the soup, “I paid attention today. In front of the City God Temple, there are people who write letters for others, compose couplets, and copy inscriptions. They can make at least a hundred wen a day, which is at least two taels of silver a month. Plus the six dou of stipend rice each month, that’s enough for us to get by, and if we’re frugal, we can even save enough to send you to school.”

“Why not teach?” Adam Sullivan asked curiously, “That should be a more stable income.”

“Sigh, you think I don’t want to?” Brian Sullivan sighed, “I’m a licentiate, but I can’t teach at the county or prefectural schools, and in the village schools, they only pay one tael of silver a month. It’s really not worth it.” By the rules, once he started another profession, his stipend student status would be automatically canceled, and the six dou of rice per month would stop as well.

In the wealthy Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions, one tael of silver could buy two shi of rice, but Scholar Sullivan could get six dou without working. That is, if he became a private tutor, he’d only earn an extra one shi and four dou of rice a month, or about seven qian of silver. But if he set up a stall to write, things would be very different, because by an unwritten rule, jobs like selling calligraphy or fortune-telling, which are highly mobile, or manual labor, were seen as temporary solutions to urgent needs and wouldn’t cost him his stipend rice.

The reason is simple: society values mental labor over physical, and wandering the streets telling fortunes or selling calligraphy, while not exactly manual labor, is still considered beneath a scholar’s dignity. As long as there’s hope, no scholar would do such lowly work for long.

Actually, there was another job, with higher income and some respectability: going elsewhere to serve as a legal advisor for high officials.

You should know that Shaoxing legal advisors are famous throughout the country for being “well-read, meticulous, and skilled in handling paperwork.” Especially someone like Brian Sullivan, a Shaoxing native with real academic credentials, would be in high demand anywhere, and even earning only a hundred or eighty taels of silver a year would be considered doing poorly.

But for the sake of Adam Sullivan’s studies, Brian Sullivan could only give up this best option and resolutely decided to go out and sell his calligraphy!

Chapter Six: The Scholar’s Livelihood (Part Two)

No sooner said than done, the next day Brian Sullivan returned to the thatched hut by the river, took out his brush, ink, paper, and inkstone, shouldered a set of old tables and chairs, and eagerly went to the City God Temple to set up his stall.