Li Piaoqing rolled her eyes indignantly, showing a rare flash of youthful liveliness. "You don't know this, you don't know that. When you get back and he asks how I've been, what are you going to say?"
Qu Xin looked at her earnestly for a long while. "I think... you're rather like an elderly empty-nester with no friends, with endless things to say whenever you meet someone... I'll seriously recommend that he come back and visit you."
"..."
"..."
Li Piaoqing fell silent for a moment, then said mildly, "Let me mention the 'small-leaf down' again. Exclusive annual supply to your Mount Tai Medicine Lodge, two harvests a year, seventeen hundred taels in total. Give it some serious thought."
"I said no. There are plenty of cheaper substitutes with those medicinal properties. Growing in Jadeite doesn't make it gold-plated."
"I did my research. Your Cold-Resisting Clear-Throat Pill sells very well. You could increase production. And our herb has a distinctive sweetness that makes it much more pleasant to take. You could raise the price a little and sell it to wealthy people or children."
"No."
Expressionless, Li Piaoqing dragged the steamer with its two remaining buns in front of herself and ate on her own.
Qu Xin's raised chopsticks stopped in midair.
In the faint light of dawn, Pei Ye washed his face and combed his hair. By the time he picked up his sword and went outside, Qi Zhaohua was already waiting in the carriage.
Peace, in truth, existed only within the Sword Cultivation Academy.
The moment he boarded the carriage, he saw her solemn, tired face and the memorandum she held, on some matter he knew nothing about.
She was the very image of the tightly strung Divine Capital: anxious talk everywhere, turmoil in Phoenix Pool.