"Talia, Bruce, how was your day? Nothing unusual happened, right? Did you eat properly?"
Chuan Wenwu knocked lightly on the door, then pushed it open and greeted the two inside.
"Big Brother Chuan! You're back!"
Raphtalia had been sitting at the desk with her head buried in a book. Hearing Chuan Wenwu's voice, she brightened and hurriedly turned toward him, only to find a grimy human figure.
"Big... Brother Chuan?" Raphtalia hesitated, unsure it was him.
My big brother isn't this filthy.
"It's me. What, you don't recognize me after just one day?"
Chuan Wenwu was about to smile when he glanced down and noticed the great patches of dirt and dust on his clothes. He wiped his face with one hand and looked closely. Good grief, even his fingertips were black. Remembering how bedraggled the other miners had looked after leaving the mine, he figured he couldn't look much better.
"Damn! I helped the workers dig out some ore in the mine earlier and kicked up dust everywhere. The whole cave was full of rock dust, and now I barely look like myself... Hang on, let me take a bath first-"
No sooner had Chuan Wenwu entered than he hurried back out to scrub himself down in the inn's bath. He didn't need to bring a change of clothes, since all his belongings were stuffed into his shield's storage space. It was just a little heavy...
Men never took long to bathe. Barely ten minutes later, Chuan Wenwu returned to the room in clean clothes, feeling refreshed, with a faint warmth still rising from his body.
"So, how much did you learn today?"
He got straight to the point with Raphtalia.
"Mom and Dad taught me some before, so I learned pretty quickly. I've read half of it already,