"At the time, I also asked her about some things," An Jing continued, "Looking at her answers, she was clearly a highly educated woman with a broad knowledge of books. Annotating words and phrases should be no difficult task for her."
"If she is willing, then including her, we would have found thirty-one people."
That night, An Jing took a lantern and went to ask Tobanya, who readily agreed.
The next day, An Jing began to annotate the words with phonetic symbols.
Xiao Changyi also helped with the annotations.
On the third day, Meng Zhuqing gathered thirty scholars to enter Prince Yi’s Mansion.
An Jing and Xiao Changyi had agreed to set aside a large courtyard for compiling the dictionary, and as soon as the thirty scholars entered Prince Yi’s Mansion, Meng Zhuqing led them to that large courtyard.
Due to the status of Xiao Changyi and An Jing, the thirty scholars were all very respectful and nervous, not daring to be presumptuous at all.
Tobanya also came to this large courtyard.
Tobanya had no confidants and nothing much to do; she was actually extremely idle usually, always alone. Now that An Jing had asked for her help, she was genuinely eager to have something to do, even if her face still remained cool and aloof.
When Tobanya entered the courtyard, she happened to run into Meng Zhuqing leaving, and thus the two met. Tobanya said nothing, showed no expression, and just continued walking forward into the courtyard.
As for Meng Zhuqing, he quickly stepped aside respectfully.
Only after Tobanya had entered the courtyard did he leave.
Though they said they were compiling a dictionary, it was not as complex as modern dictionaries. An Jing simply did a straightforward job, primarily focusing on phonetic annotations, followed by a few lines of simple definitions.
Even so, the work took An Jing over two months.
An Jing finished compiling the dictionary on the twenty-first of December, and during the process, she taught her four children how to sing the alphabet song with the 26 pinyin letters.
The day after the dictionary was completed, An Jing and Xiao Changyi went to the palace to see the Emperor of Xiyun, bringing not only their four children but also the dictionary.
There were more than a hundred volumes of the dictionary, each with different content because it was impossible to fit everything into one book.
These were handwritten, not printed, so it was normal that one book wasn’t enough.
Moreover, each book was quite thick.
But An Jing and Xiao Changyi only brought one volume to the palace for Emperor Xiyun to see; one volume was enough to give a general idea, there was no need to bring over a hundred volumes.
Upon seeing the Emperor of Xiyun, An Jing immediately had the four children sing the pinyin alphabet song together.
The four children obediently sang in front of Emperor Xiyun: "A, bo, ci, de, e, fu, ge..."
This was actually ’a, b, c, d, e, f, g...’
But because the children’s voices were soft and milky, the tune sounded a bit altered.
The Emperor of Xiyun was completely bewildered, unsure of what the children were singing.
Only after the four little ones finished singing did An Jing show the Emperor of Xiyun the dictionary, and pointing at the letters said, "Imperial father, these symbols are the phonetic annotations I made for the words. This character is pronounced..."
An Jing explained carefully to Emperor Xiyun. He went from bafflement to enlightenment as his eyes grew brighter and brighter.
It wasn’t until An Jing finished explaining that Emperor Xiyun lavishly praised her and said that this must be promoted, as it would make recognizing characters much easier and simpler for everyone.
"Imperial father, to promote this, we first need to teach people how to read these symbols. The New Year is almost upon us, let’s deal with it next year. You can have a few scholars learn these symbols from me, and later these scholars can teach others in turn," An Jing said.