"Sigh, if Xiao Yuan hadn’t been so outrageous, I would’ve adopted him into the Liu family out of my selfish desires. Now, seeing him like this, I feel even more embarrassed to do so."
"Then as the young mistress of the Qin family, are you going to admit soone into the Qin family?"
Liu Yui looked up pitifully at Aunt Liu:
"I... really can’t bear to part with him."
"Oh, don’t feel wronged." Aunt Liu reached out and embraced Grandma Liu, "You’re not afraid that the younger generation will see this and think you’ve lost your dignity."
"Now bearing the title of the Qin family’s young mistress, I also have to consider their interests. Truly, this has restrained . If I had known earlier, I should have divorced him before they crossed the river."
"What are you saying in anger?"
Liu Yui took a deep breath, her face returning to its usual graceful composure.
Aunt Liu took the hint and started grinding ink again.
"Ah Ting..."
"Yes?"
"Anyways, this kid learns fast. Let him just pick up two skills at once."
Aunt Liu swallowed hard at the suggestion and didn’t dare to respond.
"Speak up."
"This is not for to comnt on."
"You always have the most to say on any other day, without any respect for elders. Why so silent now?"
"It’s up to you to decide."
"It’s not impossible. That way, after I’m gone, they can’t find fault with . Their spirits are gone, I wouldn’t even et them down there."
"This is a serious matter, and the initiation ceremony is in two days. You should consider it more carefully."
"Hmm, I will ponder it over." Liu Yui picked up the brush, "Bring more paper. The qi pattern that this kid has realized is really not easy to describe, it’s too much about intuition."
"You write first, I’ll go cut the paper."
Aunt Liu went to the basent to cut more paper and brought it up. As soon as she entered the room, she saw that Liu Yui had filled ten sheets of paper, with the last one also coming to an end.
"Is this still the first volu?"
Liu Yui replied irritably, "This is just the beginning of the first volu."
"Then what I saw before must have been a fake ’Liu’s Qi Observation Technique’. When you’re done organizing it, I want to take a look too."
"I’ll show you, I’ll show you. Let’s change the paper."
"Here it is."
When Liu Yui stopped writing, she gently waved her writing brush in her hand.
"The paper is ready."
"Hiss..."
"Did you lose your train of thought?"
"No, it’s just that I suddenly had a new idea." Liu Yui resud writing on the new sheet of paper; her strokes were skewed and contorted, almost unbearable to look at.
Aunt Liu looked at it from every angle but eventually shook her head, "What is this? I can’t understand at all."
"It seems that the idea can be integrated into the writing, creating an inexplicable fit."
"Well if you write like that, don’t expect people in the future to understand it. If they can’t even recognize the characters, how can they comprehend the aning?"
Liu Yui crumpled the paper into a ball and tossed it away.
"That’s not right."
"What’s the matter?"
"If I use this thod, I’d have to integrate and resonate the complete intentions of all twenty-four volus, echoing from beginning to end, to achieve a cycle. Just understanding one or two volus would not suffice to capture such expression..."
"You’re saying?"
"This kid, in the span of one night, finished reading the entire book!"
Slap!
The brush in the old lady’s hand suddenly shattered into powder, slowly falling from her fingertips.
In Liu Yui’s mind erged the scene from Li Sanjiang’s house, where she was sitting on the terrace sipping tea and occasionally glancing at the boy on the second-floor balcony who turned the pages faster than one would a comic book.
"If he can so quickly understand my Liu family’s secret techniques, then how many books has this kid read at Li Sanjiang’s place in the past year?"
At first, Aunt Liu was a bit puzzled, but then her expression turned serious. How many books he read was secondary; the key was that the books the young man read were probably of the sa caliber as "Liu’s Qi Observation Technique."
Liu Yui slowly spoke: "It’s easy to go from frugality to extravagance, but difficult to go the other way. Reading is like eating; once used to the fine, how can one continue to savor the coarse?"
The study fell into a brief silence.
Yesterday, they could jokingly guess that Li Sanjiang’s basent might really contain so secret scriptures, but now, when faced with reality, they were still incredibly shocked.
"Heh..." Liu Yui chuckled, pressing her forehead, "Now I seem to understand. We stayed at Li Sanjiang’s place to scrape so luck."
Aunt Liu quietly listened as Liu Yui went on.
"But Li Sanjiang’s luck seems to be specifically prepared for this kid!"
...
"Umm, Alii, this many wooden flower rolls are actually enough; no need to whittle more for now."
Alii held the planer, glanced at the boy, then down at the wooden flower rolls scattered around her feet, feeling sowhat downcast.
Even Liu Yui couldn’t fully understand Alii’s profound emotions, but Li Zhiyuan could.
"Alii, do you feel that Grandma Liu’s initiation gift is not worthy?"
The girl nodded her head.
Her grandma ecstatically gifted soone a read book, an original edition no less, and all she could do was to whittle more ancestral plaques as compensation.
Li Zhiyuan gently smoothed the girl’s brow, hoping to relax it.
"What Grandma Liu gives for the initiation ritual doesn’t matter. It’s the thought that counts.
Besides,
Dr. Alii,
I still owe so much dical expenses to your Liu family."
Having been treated as a patient for so long, this was the first ti she was put in the position of "doctor."
The girl’s eyes imdiately brightened.
And with that, even this room, with its curtains drawn and dim light, seed brighter than the sun outside.
Seeing that the girl was happy, Li Zhiyuan withdrew his hand and touched his own brow, savoring the lingering touch to feel his own disguise.
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