Mu Xingzhi smiled as he watched Su Qingluan sitting up straight and shook his head: "I'm just curious, where did you learn this relaxed and carefree look from?"

Su Qingluan ruthlessly complained: "Actually, you want to ask where I learned this way of standing and sitting without any manners?"

In fact, Su Qingluan's posture was not that vulgar, but compared to Mu Xingzhi, whose every move, even the action of rolling up his sleeves, which seemed a bit sloppy to others, was graceful, it was certainly not good enough.

Mu Xingzhi shook his head, and said with a half-smile: "Actually, if you try hard, you can still maintain some grace and demeanor."

Su Qingluan: ...Thank you so much.

Then he continued, "But Qingluan's demeanor isn't as unrestrained as a hermit, nor is it as rigidly defined as that of a lady from a noble family. It's rather strange."

Su Qingluan paused when she was about to hold onto the armrest of the armchair, and secretly sighed in her heart: What a perceptive person, we really can't be careless at all.

In fact, what Mu Xingzhi said was not wrong: although Su Qingluan in modern times does not need to follow a lot of rules for her actions, sitting and lying down like the ladies of ancient times, ever since she was adopted by her master and his wife, in order to prevent her from hunching over, the old couple paid great attention to correcting her posture when Su Qingluan was young.

However, this kind of rigid posture is more for the sake of health, so it is more extroverted and stretched, which is not in line with the graceful and hazy beauty of this era - after all, those who need "boudoir etiquette" in this era are not ordinary people. According to the previous life, it should be regarded as "aristocratic etiquette."

However, Su Qingluan has her own views on "aristocratic etiquette": in her opinion, those nobles have no worries about food and clothing, and do not have to work hard for their livelihood, so they naturally have the leisure time to practice etiquette over and over again in terms of how to sit elegantly and how to eat beautifully.

However, for ordinary people, it is more economical to eat a few more meals and get a little more sleep if they have that much time.

However, this view is certainly not acceptable in this era. After all, in this era, "etiquette" and "character" are linked in a certain sense.

Su Qingluan actually didn’t quite understand: If outstanding demeanor is equivalent to noble character, then what is the meaning of the word "hypocritical"?

Curling her lips, she sat up straight and looked at Mu Xingzhi: "My 'etiquette' doesn't need to appear on any important occasions, and I don't need to represent a certain group or class, so it's enough to be 'good enough'. I don't have to be like those ladies from wealthy families, who would be criticized for not even having a full meal."

"Qingluan disdains those ladies from wealthy families?"

"On the contrary, I admire them very much." Su Qingluan sighed and shook her head. "At every moment, their words and actions, their movements, their postures, even their instinctive reactions, are all controlled with proper manners, and they never reveal any flaws in front of others. This is practically worthy of a 'Labor Medal', okay?"

Looking at Mu Xingzhi, Su Qingluan thought about the people from wealthy families who had their own rules for every move, and even the ladies who had requirements for sleeping positions. She felt that everything had a price, including beauty.

Mu Xingzhi frowned slightly: "What is the Labor Medal?"

Su Qingluan lowered her eyes and thought for a moment before she began to make up a story: "Labor is a form of physical exercise. Look at those etiquette trainings. Although they are just ordinary walking, sitting and lying down, the requirements are very strict. Even the angles cannot be wrong at all. It must be quite physically demanding. Isn't it a form of physical exercise?"

Mu Xingzhi nodded: "Indeed, I found it very painful to teach etiquette when I was young."

Su Qingluan shrugged: "Right? But I'm different—" Su Qingluan pointed at herself, "My 'etiquette' is at most for smooth communication when dealing with people, and for my own health."

Mu Xingzhi could understand the first reason, but the second one...

"In good health?"

Su Qingluan first sat on the chair in a standard sitting position: "This sitting position," then twisted herself into a strange position, "Which one do you think will cause unbearable back pain over time, this or this sitting position?"

"But according to Qingluan's theory, although lying in bed is indecent, it is better for back health than sitting, isn't it?" Perhaps because he found Su Qingluan's theory very interesting, Mu Xingzhi also found a more unique direction... debate, or "arguing".

This wasn't a problem for Su Qingluan. After she fell ill, she had attended countless health lectures in modern society. She could list the harmful effects of prolonged sitting or lying down with her eyes closed.

Naturally, I couldn't discuss things like lower limb venous thrombosis, which involves anatomy, but other obvious things could be used as arguments to refute the argument: "If you keep lying like this, your back will be comfortable, but your muscles will atrophy, and it won't be long before you even have trouble walking. That's definitely not 'healthy,' right?"

Mu Xingzhi nodded in agreement when he heard this.

After Su Qingluan left, Mu Xingzhi turned around and asked Song Bo, who had been standing there like a wooden man, "In your opinion, what kind of background can be seen from her behavior and demeanor?"

Song Bo turned to look at Mu Xingzhi in surprise: "Hasn't the boss already found out that Madam Su is indeed the eldest lady of the Su family who was taken away by mistake?"

"But what she knows and thinks is not what she has developed in the An Ning Marquis's Mansion. Moreover, didn't the spies also say that no master in the mansion has ever been interested in the kitchen?"

"But, she always stands on our side..."

"If she were just an ordinary woman, I would have let her do what she wanted. But you also saw her hand over the stirrups, horseshoes, and the method for smelting fine iron." Mu Xingzhi lowered his eyes, as if thinking about something. "Did you see her expression and movements when she took out the recipe?"

Song Bo thought about it vaguely, but shook his head and said he couldn't remember it clearly.

Mu Xingzhi said in a deep voice, "That casual attitude, while certainly cautious, was only in relation to her surroundings. However, judging by her expression, she didn't take the contents of the paper seriously."

If Su Qingluan was present, she would definitely be scared to death: she really didn't care much about the "technology" written on the paper. After all, this was not an "invention from scratch", but an "improvement on what already existed". So in her opinion, she knew intellectually that this piece of paper was very tempting to anyone who wanted to make a career in this era, but she still couldn't take it seriously emotionally.

Because in modern times, "fine iron" can only be regarded as a "common civilian-level" material. Compared with those nanotechnology materials, superconducting materials are simply not good enough.

It is also because of this that it is difficult for Su Qingluan to emotionally understand how shocked Mu Xingzhi was when he first saw the paper.