Over the next few days.
Li Hao left the Divine General Residence and accompanied Bian Ruxue on leisurely outings around Qingzhou City.
He took her to enjoy delicious food, watch grand operas, and listen to storytellers.
They also visited a nearby lake outside the city, where he caught dragonflies and butterflies for her. Using the pages of a Sword Manual, he pressed a butterfly into a specimen and gave it to her.
Neither of them was ordinary, yet doing these little things ordinary people did still filled their faces with smiles.
On their outings into the countryside, Li Hao brought paper, brushes, and painting scrolls, painting picture after picture of Bian Ruxue. With different backgrounds and angles, there were over a hundred in all, until painting her yielded barely any experience anymore.
But he had not painted her for the experience.
Outside the city, they visited not Blackwater Demon Lake, where Second Master Li Muxiu had taken Li Hao, but another, smaller demon lake.
Li Hao brought his Fishing Rod to fish, while Bian Ruxue sat beside him. The White Fox, Xiao Rou, lay in the girl's arms, playing with her.
When she grew tired of playing, the girl propped her chin on her little hands and quietly watched Li Hao fish.
As she watched the boy stare intently at the float, that earnest concentration, so much like his childhood self, brought a faint smile to her lips.
The courtyard from their childhood seemed to appear before Bian Ruxue's eyes.
In that courtyard, while she practiced her sword, she would hear that young voice, untouched by the years, calling from the nearby pavilion:
"Oh, Uncle Lin, you put it in the wrong place again!"
"The pieces don't go inside the squares! They go on the intersections!"
"Uncle Lin, you lost