Taking the Girls Out Shopping

The core rule of poetry lay in the use of level and oblique tones.

As long as that remained unchanged, the poems Xu Qi'an had stored away during his nine years of compulsory education still had a place to shine, even in another world.

Xu Xinnian glanced at him and raised his chin. "A bird was in the sky, a worm upon the ground. The bird swooped down to eat, the worm went round through reincarnation."

"Pfft." Xu Lingyue covered her mouth and giggled. But when Xu Qi'an shot her a fierce glare, she lowered her head, her cheeks faintly red.

What a venomous tongue. I really want to hit him. The corner of Xu Qi'an's mouth twitched. This was a poem the original owner of his body had written at ten. Back then, the one who had taught the three Xu children their first lessons was Auntie's father, their grandfather with a licentiate degree.

Once, their licentiate grandfather had tested them on poetry, and this divinely inspired masterpiece had come into being.

Auntie mocked him. "Ningyan, it's not that I look down on you, but Nian'er is the only seed of a scholar the Xu family has ever produced. You and your uncle both write like worms crawling across the page."

"You can't even write properly, and you want to compose poetry?" Auntie pursed her lips. Even the way she rolled her eyes brimmed with mature charm.

Second Uncle was a little embarrassed and coughed. "Ningyan, let's stay out of scholars' affairs. We're off duty today. How about the two of us exchange a few moves in the courtyard?"

What he meant was: Stop sticking your nose where it doesn't belong, brat. You don't understand scholars' affairs. Not only are you embarrassing yourself, you're getting me mocked by my wife too.

"Yellow clouds stretch a thousand miles, the white sun dim," Xu Qi'an said mildly.

Auntie rolled her eyes and lowered her head to drink her porridge.

Second Uncle Xu wiped the grease from the corners of his youngest daughter's mouth.

Xu Xinnian, however, frowned. A single line was not enough to judge anything, but it was already quite surprising that Xu Qi'an could compose such a neatly structured seven-character quatrain.

"The north wind drives the geese through flurries of snow."

Xu Xinnian froze for a moment, a scene spontaneously taking shape in his mind.

Xu Lingyue raised her head, her lively, beautiful eyes looking at her cousin in surprise.

Xu Qi'an lowered his head to drink his porridge and said no more.

"What comes next? What comes next?" Xu Xinnian pressed urgently. It felt just like listening to a storyteller in a teahouse. Just as the story reached its most exciting point, the storyteller would suddenly slap his wooden block down: to learn what happened next, listen to the next installment.

It made people so angry they wanted to hit someone.

"I can't write poetry." Xu Qi'an cast Auntie a casual glance. He merely thought she looked particularly dignified and beautiful today. There was absolutely no hint that he wanted her to apologize.

Auntie widened her big, mascara-ad eyes and turned to ask her son, "Is this poem very good?"

"It's very evocative," Xu Lingyue said softly.

Her education was limited, but even she could tell that the first two lines were excellent seven-character verse.

Seeing his daughter and son's reactions, Xu Pingzhi was stunned. He stared unblinkingly at Xu Qi'an, both astonishment and anticipation in his eyes.

"Fear not the road ahead holds no kindred soul; beneath heaven, who does not know your name!" Chewing a fried dough stick, Xu Qi'an tossed out the last two lines.

With a clatter, the chopsticks in Xu Erlang's hand fell onto the table.

"Fear not the road ahead holds no kindred soul; beneath heaven, who does not know your name..." he murmured, so immersed in the poem's imagery that he could not pull himself free.

Xu Lingyue's delicate body trembled, and goosebumps rose on the backs of her hands.

Xu Pingzhi stretched his mouth into a grin. "Damn it, why does hearing that make my hair stand on end?"

Auntie refused to concede inwardly, but she agreed with her husband.

Such was the power of poetry: a shock to the soul. Even people who could not write poetry and knew nothing of the rules of level and oblique tones would still feel their scalps tingle uncontrollably when reading a masterpiece passed down through the ages.

Xu Qi'an had often experienced that feeling during his school days, shaken by one enduring masterpiece after another in his language textbooks.

"Yellow clouds stretch a thousand miles, the white sun dim; the north wind drives the geese through flurries of snow. Fear not the road ahead holds no kindred soul; beneath heaven, who does not know your name."

Xu Xinnian rose involuntarily, two flushes of excitement blooming on his face, making his already exquisitely handsome features look even more... beguiling.

What a magnificent poem!

Though poetry was not his forte, what scholar did not yearn to compose a hundred poems over a measure of wine? When he heard fine poetry, he too could not help beating time and singing, his blood boiling.

"When did you learn to compose poetry?" Xu Xinnian's gaze was fixed on Xu Qi'an, his eyes bright, stunned, and questioning.

"When did I ever say I couldn't write poetry?" Xu Qi'an chuckled. "Can a poem I wrote when I was first learning represent my abilities now? I've always had quite a talent for poetry. I simply never showed it."

"So Ningyan was the true seed of a scholar in our Xu family!" Second Uncle Xu was overjoyed, his face wreathed in smiles. "Had I known, I'd have sent you to study and made Cijiu practice martial arts."

Unconvinced, Auntie opened her mouth, but could offer no forceful rebuttal.

No, then I'd have failed at letters, and Second Brother would have failed at martial arts. Xu Qi'an knew perfectly well that the original owner had been a hopeless student. Studying would have been a pure waste of time; he would have been better off dropping out and hauling bricks at a construction site.

Xu Xinnian was no material for martial arts either. Expect a soft-skinned pretty boy to pump iron? Temper his physique?

"But this is Ningyan's poem. Just appreciate it and leave it at that. Cijiu, you mustn't claim it as your own. That's no way for a scholar to behave," Second Uncle Xu said.

Xu Xinnian gave a "heh," disdaining to answer his father. Was he that sort of person? He turned to Xu Qi'an. "Let me borrow this poem. I'll make it clear that you're the one who composed it."

I'm the one courting death. Xu Qi'an nodded slightly. "Go on. Take it and show off... display your sageliness before others."

When it came to scholars, of course it was displaying their sageliness before others.

He had intended this poem for Xu Xinnian to use in building connections anyway. He did not particularly care whose name went on it.

He was not part of scholarly circles, so poetry was actually of little use to him. That was also why he had not used poetry to display his sageliness before others over the past month.

His circumstances simply did not allow it.

Spending all day with a bunch of saber-swinging, spear-brandishing constables, he would be better off teaching them to sing "The Man with the Horse-Lassoing Pole" than reciting poetry to them.

"What's the poem called?" Xu Xinnian asked.

I forgot. Xu Qi'an's face stiffened. "I composed this poem on a surge of inspiration. It has no title. Just think of something that will do."

After breakfast, Xu Xinnian led his father's beloved horse out of the rear courtyard and hurried away. Uncle and nephew sparred in the courtyard, stopping short of hurting each other.

"Not bad. Your skills have improved again. To advance any further, you'll have to enter the Qi Refining Realm. But Qi can only arise through communion between heaven and earth." Second Uncle Xu took the sweat towel a servant handed him and wiped his cheeks. "Besides medicinal baths, you'll also need a Spirit Refining Realm expert to open your Heavenly Gate. Otherwise, you won't enter the Qi Refining Realm in your entire life."

The Spirit Refining Realm was the seventh rank of the martial path.

"What are you trying to say, Second Uncle?" Xu Qi'an asked, wiping away his sweat.

"I braved life and death in the Shanhai Campaign to earn enough military merit to have an expert in the army open my Heavenly Gate and let me enter the Qi Refining Realm." Second Uncle Xu sighed. "In my second year back home, Xinnian was born."

"The world is reasonably peaceful now. You don't even have a chance to earn military merit. How will you refine Qi? If you don't refine Qi, are you never going to start a family?"

"Ningyan, your second uncle is getting old. My only wish is to see you marry and have children. Only then can I do right by your late father."

"Let's take things one step at a time," Xu Qi'an said perfunctorily.

Apart from accumulating merit, there was another way to advance: throwing money at it.

Medicinal prescriptions and experts could both be obtained with silver.

Martial heroes used their strength to violate prohibitions, so the imperial court strictly controlled the number of martial artists. The law expressly forbade Spirit Refining Realm experts from privately opening anyone's Heavenly Gate. If they wished to open the Heavenly Gate for their own descendants, they had to report it to the authorities.

However, the bureaucratic climate in Great Feng was now utterly rotten. Corrupt officials ran rampant, and the imperial court's authority weakened by the day. Even if they did not dare defy the law openly, quite a few Spirit Refining Realm experts still sought clients on the black market.

Xu Qi'an was working hard to earn money precisely because he intended to substitute silver for merit.

Otherwise, if I'm stuck in the Essence Refining Realm forever, what use is this iron rod of mine?

Auntie approached with her two daughters and stood beneath the corridor eaves. "Husband, the sun is lovely and warm. Why don't you take Lingyin and Lingyue out for a stroll?"

Second Uncle Xu frowned. "I have something to do."

"Aren't you off duty today?"

"I arranged to have drinks with my colleagues. I'll be leaving shortly. Why not have Ningyan take them out instead?"

Girls from scholarly families were usually raised deep within the inner chambers and could not casually go out shopping.

The Xu family was a family of military officers and had no such stringent household rules.

Xu Qi'an turned to look and met the clear, bright eyes of the sixteen-year-old girl. Surpassing her mother in beauty as blue surpassed the indigo it came from, the girl pressed her lips together and lowered her head slightly with a shy, reserved air.

"I happen to have nothing to do." Xu Qi'an nodded.

Thinking back, the last time I took a sixteen-year-old girl shopping in my previous life was during my "golden years" at eighteen. Of course, that girl couldn't begin to compare with Xu Lingyue.

PS: Thanks to the big shot "Fallen Stars" for the alliance leader donation. There will be extra updates after the paid release.

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