The following day, at noon.
A carriage drawn by two horses stood outside the side gate of the Duke's Manor. Dressed as a wandering martial artist in black robes and a bamboo hat, Ye Jingtang waited beside it.
After a short wait, the sound of flapping wings came from behind the manor's tall wall. Niao Niao then popped up over the wall and landed in front of Ye Jingtang, a sugar figurine in its beak, bobbing its head as though presenting a treasure.
Ye Jingtang took the sugar figurine and examined it. It was an exquisitely crafted, gourd-shaped owl. He asked:
"Where did this come from?"
"Chirp, chirp, chirp..."
Niao Niao gestured with wings and claws, indicating that it had had nothing to do last night and gone to the docks to play with Poached Egg, who had asked it to bring this back.
Naturally, Ye Jingtang understood. Yesterday on the street, he had indeed seen Yunli buying sugar figurines near the ice queen. He had never expected her to buy one for him too.
Ye Jingtang chuckled. Sugar figurines did not keep well, and leaving it uneaten would waste Yunli's kind gesture, so he brought it to his lips and licked it.
Come to think of it, when he was little in Red River Town, his adoptive father had bought him sugar figurines too. Back then, he had thought such things were only for children and taken little interest, nor had he tasted anything special.
Now that he truly was an adult, eating these treats meant to amuse children instead gave him a sense that things remained while people had changed.
While Ye Jingtang was silently reflecting, footsteps came from behind the wall again, along with a mother and daughter's voices:
"You should have told us beforehand that you