Daily Life

She could not help wondering, Sir left this ribbon here. Could its owner be someone very important to him?

Her brows curved despite herself.

Perhaps that person was Sir's beloved.

She just wondered what sort of person could win Sir's heart.

Qu Hongxiao slowly let out a breath, set the pear branch aside, and opened Clear Breeze, her mind free of distractions.

The first words she saw were "The Master said."

But at that very moment, a vast, ethereal wave of Righteous Qi surged into her mind.

In mere moments, her face flushed red, and she spat out a mouthful of blood.

The instant the blood left her body, it vanished without a trace.

Her whole bearing abruptly weakened, and her eyes grew unfocused. Only after a long while did she come back to herself.

Qu Hongxiao immediately felt her meridians, Dantian, and Purple Mansion enveloped by a milky-white Qi.

She cried out, "Vast Righteous Qi! Sir is that sage!"

Just then, the pear branch trembled and gave off light, and another thought rushed into her head.

"Do not let your mind wander!"

Qu Hongxiao snapped back to her senses. Putting aside further thoughts, she struggled to continue reading, though this time she was exceedingly careful.

She finally understood why Sir had repeatedly said he hoped she could withstand it.

For the time that followed, Qu Hongxiao lost herself in the struggle against the Vast Righteous Qi in the book.

Chapter 31: Daily Life

After sensing Qu Hongxiao's condition in the little world, Ye Fu breathed a little easier.

Qu Hongxiao was off to a good start, and Ye Fu believed she could hold out until the very last moment. After all, although her cultivation had collapsed, her soul and body were still as strong as before.

Ye Fu had just finished making breakfast when Hu Lan happened to arrive. Without a word, she was the first to charge into the kitchen.

After asking her about it, Ye Fu could not help feeling a little helpless.

To get a free meal, the little girl had deliberately skipped breakfast and come straight over.

Ye Fu did not mind. Adding another bowl and pair of chopsticks was no trouble, and it was livelier with three people.

After breakfast and a short rest, Ye Fu took Hu Lan to her lesson.

As for Qin Sanyue, she followed Ye Fu's instructions and went out to buy some flower seeds to plant. Ye Fu had written down some flower-growing methods the night before, and Qin Sanyue followed them as she began planting flowers in the patch of earth at the edge of the courtyard.

Qin Sanyue would actually have preferred to grow vegetables in that patch. They could have fresh vegetables to eat and save some money too. She told Ye Fu what she thought, but he rejected the idea outright. She could not understand why her teacher had turned down such a good idea.

Ye Fu's thought was that once the flowers had grown, he could also use them to make flower tea and flower wine. He had tasted the local wine a few days earlier and thought it was not as good as what he made himself. The same went for the tea, so he decided to make his own and had Qin Sanyue buy flower seeds to plant there.

Qin Sanyue took her work seriously, tending the soil and following the instructions to the letter. Only when Hu Lan loudly debated with Ye Fu in the hall on the left did she raise her head to look. Once she saw that the two were merely debating and not quarreling, she returned to her work with a smile.

There was one thing she wondered about, though: where had Sister Hongxiao, who rarely spoke, gone? She had seen her that morning, but after speaking with Sir, she had disappeared.

Around noon, Hu Zhifu quietly came to the book house to see whether his daughter, Hu Xiaomei, had caused Sir any trouble.

Without disturbing Ye Fu and Hu Lan, he spoke with Qin Sanyue.

That morning, Hu Lan had wanted to leave for school without eating breakfast. He had stopped her and questioned her thoroughly, only to be told that "Sir's cooking is countless times better than the food at home." After that, she had kept clamoring to eat at Sir's house from then on.

Unable to get past his indulgence of his daughter, Hu Zhifu reluctantly agreed to give up his time eating with her to Sir.

Checking whether Hu Lan was studying diligently was secondary on this visit. His real business was to pay Sir for her meals. As a businessman, he knew he had to be mindful of such things; he could not let his daughter make herself unwelcome by eating for free.

So he paid double for her meals and gave Qin Sanyue a few instructions, saying things like "Don't spoil Xiaomei" and "She can help with some chores too." Then he took another look at the two in the hall. Seeing Hu Lan listening with such unusual attentiveness, he quietly left again, with respect for Ye Fu in his heart.

Ye Fu naturally knew what Hu Zhifu had said and saw nothing wrong with it. The meal money was a small matter; what he valued more were the bonds and principles of human conduct. Fortunately, Hu Zhifu seemed to him a decent man.

Qin Sanyue kept the accounts and managed the money at the book house, and Ye Fu was quite at ease with that. After all, she was the one who went out shopping most of the time, and it was troublesome for her to get money from him every time, so he had simply let her manage it.

Qin Sanyue went into her room and pushed aside a cabinet by the bed. Then she lifted a stone slab beneath it, revealing a small space. Inside was a locked wooden box. She tugged at the red cord she wore around her neck wherever she went, pulled out the key hidden against her chest, and opened the lock.

Inside the box were several silver leaves and a pile of copper coins. At the sight of them, Qin Sanyue's face immediately lit up with a smile, a simple smile at seeing something she liked. Even her scar became pleasing to the eye.

After putting the meal money Hu Zhifu had given her inside, she carefully closed the box.

She locked it, closed the stone slab, and pushed the cabinet back.

The whole sequence was incomparably smooth.

Ye Fu had known for a long time that Qin Sanyue hid money this way. He had more than once wanted to talk to her about it, lest she turn into a little money-grubber, but every time the words reached his lips, he could not say them. He understood that what Qin Sanyue liked was not really the money, but all of this, which had not come easily to her. Her thoughts were simple, so simple that she believed the money held Teacher Ye's trust in her and was proof that her present life was real.