Duanmu Huai spent a day in Yangzhou before boarding the ship again and heading toward Luoyang. The scenery of mountains and rivers had been beautiful enough, but with wars breaking out everywhere, none of them had any interest in admiring it. Even the cities were filled with people indulging in drunken revelry, which made them feel bored. Thus, they spent most of their time aboard the ship, either "cultivating" with Duanmu Huai or doing their own things.
Take Wang Yuyan, for example. Since Duanmu Huai was always complaining that they did not know how to cook, Wang Yuyan had begun learning culinary arts. Apart from cultivating, she spent nearly all her time studying dishes and recipes. She had read extensively since childhood and knew a few recipes recorded in ancient texts. Wang Yuyan had never had any particular hobbies before, but now she seemed to be gradually falling in love with cooking and had begun learning how to prepare food.
Little Dragon Maiden, on the other hand, was very interested in music. She had practiced the qin since childhood, so it could be considered a hobby of hers. Unfortunately, there were no musical instruments aboard the yacht, so Duanmu Huai exchanged an ancient qin and some music scores for her from the shop. In her spare time, Little Dragon Maiden would burn incense at the bow and play the qin for entertainment.
Duanmu Huai knew nothing about music, but Little Dragon Maiden was clearly extraordinarily gifted, with an extremely profound understanding of melody. She could play every score after looking at it once, and master it after practicing it once. Duanmu Huai thought it sounded pleasant, so he let her be. After all, the yacht mostly had things like symphonies and rock music, which sounded jarring in this era and