Chapter 40 – Father Teaches Horseback Riding and Archery

After the Wei family and their group wandered around the streets, Wei Mingting led the crowd to the schoolyard.

The schoolyard is where the soldiers train, and in the past, outsiders were not allowed to come in here, not even the family members of the school captain’s house.

However, recently, the soldiers have been sticking to the front line, and the place where they usually train has been changed to a place closer to the East City Gate, so the schoolyard is now idle, with only a few guards guarding the gate.

Wei Mingting brought a few children over and wanted to use this rare vacation time to teach his sons and daughters horseback riding.

Of the several children, he hadn’t had time to teach any of them yet, except for the eldest, who could ride.

Wei Mingting planned to let his two daughters try horseback riding, it just so happened that he and his eldest son would teach one each, Wei Mingting chose to teach Wei Ruo, leaving the job of teaching Wei Qingwan to his eldest son.

As for the youngest son, Wei Yi Lin, he was watched by Yun as he practiced riding the pony cub.

Wei Yi Lin was usually as skinny as a monkey at home, but today, with Wei Ming Ting present, he was much better behaved and didn’t dare to have any little temper or temperament.

Wei Mingting led his mount “Scythe” to Wei Ruo and asked Wei Ruo: “Ruo’er, do you dare to try?”

Wei Ruo nodded her head, after crossing over for so long, she hadn’t ridden a horse yet!

“Then my father will teach you, this is the stirrup, you need to put your foot here, this is the saddle, and this is the reins …… ” Wei Ming Ting carefully explained to Wei Ruo about the do’s and don’ts of horse riding.

Wei Ruo listened attentively, and when Wei Mingting finished speaking and asked her to try, Wei Ruo didn’t hesitate, stepped on the stirrup with one foot, and sat on it with a flip.

The movements were sharp and dashing, all in one go, without the slightest hesitation or fear.

Wei Mingting was still wondering if he should find a stool for his daughter to pad her feet, Wei Ruo had already ridden up.

After reacting Wei Mingting smiled and said, “Ruo’er you are even more decisive than your elder brother, I think that when your elder brother learned to ride a horse for the first time, he still hesitated for a long time.”

Next to him, Wei Yi Chen, who was in charge of teaching Wei Qing Wan, heard his father burying his words and protested with a smile, “Lord Father, why did you even talk to your sister about this matter, where do you let me, as an elder brother, put my face?”

Wei Mingting returned, “Face is earned by yourself, not earned by your father helping you cover up.”

Wei Yi Chen busily said, “Well well well, it’s the son who is useless, not as valiant as sister Ruo’er! Our Ruo’er is a great woman, a woman of honor!”

Listening to Wei Yi Chen’s overflowing praise, the praised Wei Ruo didn’t feel much, instead, Wei Qing Wan beside Wei Yi Chen lost her head and lowered her head.

As soon as Wei Yi Chen turned his head, he saw Wei Qingwan’s head hanging low with a sad look.

“Wanwan, what’s wrong with you? Not feeling well?” Wei Yi Chen was busy inquiring.

“It’s fine …… it’s just that I’m a little too dumb to quickly grasp the essentials of horseback riding like my sister ……”

“Wanwan don’t think like that, Wanwan has things that Wanwan is good at, there are advantages of Wanwan, there are a lot of things that you are good at that Ruo’er isn’t good at, for example, Wanwan the pastries that you make are very tasty, as well as your embroidery, calligraphy, and poetry are all very good, these are the things that Ruo’er can’t compare to, Wanwan doesn’t have to be the best at everything, that would be too tiring. ” Wei Yi Chen comforted.

“Uh-huh.” Wei Qingwan gave a low assent.

“Alright, big brother continues to teach you.” Wei Yi Chen continued to patiently explain the essentials of horseback riding to Wei Qingwan.

Wei Yi Chen had just said no more than two sentences to Wei Qing Wan when he saw Wei Ruo riding his horse and running, circling around the grass of the schoolyard again and again.

Wei Ruo on the back of the horse smiled openly and spontaneously, completely without the timidity of riding a horse for the first time.

Looking at his daughter’s reckless and unrestrained appearance, Wei Mingting lamented with some relief, “I didn’t think that Ruo’er would be the person most like me, and if he were a man he might be able to fight with my father and son on the same battlefield.”

Yun also noticed the pleased expression on her husband’s face when he looked at her daughter, and couldn’t help but rejoice as well.

Ruo’er was in the end the couple’s own daughter, with some of her husband’s shadow in her.

Thinking of this Yun’s look at Wei Ruo again also eased a lot, since the last time, Yun’s attitude towards Wei Ruo was a lot colder, but today this has caused some changes in Yun’s psyche.

After riding the horse for a while, Wei Mingting took the bow and arrow again for Wei Ruo to try.

“Archery is different from horseback riding, it will be a bit more difficult, so feel free to give it a try, and you don’t have to force yourself if you can’t.” Wei Mingting had a word.

Wei Mingting originally only planned to teach his two daughters to ride horses today, and did not intend to let them try archery, after all, archery was still a bit too difficult for girls.

But Wei Ruo’s horse riding performance just now made Wei Mingting change his mind.

Wei Mingting gave Wei Ruo a demonstration, nocking the arrow, opening the bow, and shooting the arrow.

Wei Mingting seemed to be a born martial artist, a born general, as soon as his hand got the bow and arrow, the whole aura of the person changed, there was a kind of indescribable majesty and vigor, and his tensed muscles looked like they could burst out with infinite power.

And the arrows he shot out bore this out. The arrows hit the bull’s-eye.

Wei Mingting handed the bow to Wei Ruo’s hand and said, “Ruo’er come and try too.”

“Good.” Wei Ruo took the bow and followed Wei Mingting’s actions just now, taking an arrow from the quiver and nocking it on the bowstring.

Wei Ruo caught on quickly and soon mastered the key points of archery and could successfully shoot the arrow out.

But the strength and accuracy are very limited:

In terms of strength, Wei Mingting could pull the bow into a “full moon”, but Wei Ruo could only achieve a “convex moon”;

As for accuracy, not to mention the bullseye, it’s good to not be off-target, after shooting ten arrows, only two landed on the target.

Watching Wei Mingting archery when I think it is not very difficult, really to the hands-on only to find that the hundred paces through the poplar really not casually what people can do.

Wei Ruo glared at the bow and arrow in her hand with some chagrin, how could this broken arrow be so disobedient?

Wei Mingting looked at his daughter’s little expression and smiled, “Ruo’er don’t be in a hurry, take your time, it’s only your first day to try it out today, to be able to do this is already very good.”

Wei Mingting is not comforting Wei Ruo, is really already good, not to mention the girl family, is a man, the first time archery is not necessarily have Wei Ruo such a speed of progress.

Not far away, Wei Qingwan, who was still learning to ride a horse after Wei Yichen, saw Wei Mingting showing a kind expression to Wei Ruo.

After thinking for a while, Wei Qingwan said to Wei Yi Chen, “Big brother, I also want to try archery.”

“Fine, I’ll take you there.” Wei Yi Chen didn’t know what Wei Qingwan was thinking, and when she said she wanted to go archery, he took her there.

This day is to bring my younger siblings to the schoolyard to play, it doesn’t matter if they can learn or not, it’s good to have fun.

Wei Yi Chen and Wei Qing Wan came to Wei Ming Ting’s front, and after explaining the situation to Wei Ming Ting, Wei Ming Ting had his subordinates bring over another pair of bows.

After Wei Qingwan received the bow, she followed Wei Mingting’s demonstration and prepared to draw it.