For many people, time was a butcher's knife. It could turn what had once been beautiful into something vulgar, what had once been timeless into something plain. Beneath that blade, beauties aged easily, and Li Guang never gained his marquisate.
But sometimes, that butcher's knife could become a master winemaker. Those fruits that had once been green or sweet, fermented by this master, would become aged brews whose fragrance deepened with time. Their greenness was gone, as was that simple sweetness; in its place came richness and clear, mellow sweetness that intoxicated the soul.
Zhang Tie was drunk for an entire night.
The next morning, when Linda, Fiona, and Beverly woke languidly and somewhat wearily from the bed, they looked at the bed that had suddenly become empty and nearly thought everything from the night before had been a dream. It felt far too unreal. Only the rapid tap-tap-tap of a kitchen knife chopping vegetables on a cutting board, along with the faint aroma of food drifting from the kitchen, told the three women that last night had not been a dream. It had been real. That man had truly returned.
It was Linda's first time indulging so wildly with Zhang Tie. Though she was the oldest, she was also the shyest. The moment she woke and saw the looks in Fiona and Beverly's eyes, she panicked slightly, wrapped herself in a bedsheet, quickly leaped out of bed, and found the nightdress she had tossed onto the floor.
Fiona and Beverly exchanged a smile, then got out of bed as well and casually threw on some clothes. The three women headed toward the kitchen.
When they entered the kitchen, they saw Zhang Tie in an apron, bustling about at speed. He was slicing potatoes into shreds with one hand while