Qin Heng glanced at Gu Baozhu with a resentful look and stammered, "I've been busy catching fireflies all night long."

After waiting a while and not hearing the next line, Qin Jijiu glared and said, "What kind of poem is this? In ancient times, people studied by the light of fireflies, but you've been busy catching fireflies all night. What are you busy doing?"

Qin Heng forced himself to say, "You can do the next line, Dad, right? Just do whatever you want me to do."

Qin Jijiu was furious and wanted to beat Qin Heng up.

"I'm busy beating you up, you little beast."

Having anticipated this, Qin Heng hurriedly rushed towards Lord Gu, who was standing idly under the tree, and cried out, "Brother-in-law, save me!"

Gu Jinghui was standing under the tree, staring blankly at Qin Yuan in the distance, when his brother-in-law suddenly rushed over, and his father-in-law chased after him from a distance, shouting, "You good-for-nothing little beast!"

In a moment of panic, Lord Gu grabbed Qin Heng by the waist and threw him up into the air. Qin Heng let out a strange cry of "Ouch!" and was already thrown onto the treetop.

After yelling, Qin Heng let out a triumphant laugh.

Mr. Songshan laughed and said, "No wonder storytellers call out like that, so that the guests can feel as if they are there."

Qin Siyuan stamped his foot and called out urgently, "Little brother, be careful, don't fall and get hurt."

"How could that be? Do you think my third brother is just for show?"

Gu Baozhu rolled her eyes.

Qin Siyuan hurriedly waved his hand and explained, "How could that be?"

Gu Baozhu snorted, "Of course you, a scholar who can't even kill a chicken, don't know how powerful my third brother is. He can shoot an arrow through a willow leaf from a hundred paces away, and he is strong enough to lift a cauldron. Qin Heng was thrown into a tree by him, and not a single hair on his head was hurt."

"Oh," Qin Siyuan replied, his eyes fixed on the treetops, "I was just worried about him."

Qin Yuan suppressed a laugh and watched the spectacle with her hands behind her back.

Lord Gu is highly skilled in martial arts, so he will naturally be fine. The good show of Qin Heng, that fool, being thrown into the treetop will not be easily seen.

Qin Jijiu was startled. He ran to the tree and stopped shouting for help. He only chased after Gu Jinghui and asked, "Son-in-law, is this boy alright? Will he fall from the tree?"

Gu Jinghui laughed and said, "No, this tree isn't tall. He'll fall down on his own. I'm here to watch over him. Father-in-law, why don't you go and write your poem? With you here, Heng-ge'er won't dare to come down."

Qin Jijiu agreed, sighed, and said, "Let this unruly fellow go up there and suffer the wind. Son-in-law, don't bother with him. Let him learn a lesson."

Gu Jinghui nodded and saw Qin Jijiu off.

You can only listen to your father-in-law's words. If something happens to your brother-in-law, he'll probably become the little beast in his father-in-law's eyes too.

Qin Heng stayed in the tree for a while before slowly sliding down.

When I finally reached the ground, I had finished the poem and was safe.

The sound of the night watchman's drum came from outside; it was already past midnight. Everyone said it was time to disperse.

Mr. Dusongshan was reluctant to give up, saying that he was in the middle of writing poetry and couldn't stop. He added, "If someone could play the zither and Lord Gu could dance with his sword, I could write another two hundred poems."

Qin Yuan didn't respond, but frowned slightly.

Seeing that Qin Yuan had no intention of continuing, Lord Gu said, "If Mr. Songshan is going to stay in the mansion for a long time, what difficulty is there in looking at this?"

Qin Heng said, "Speaking of which, I have never seen my brother-in-law practice swordsmanship before."

Gu Baozhu yawned and said, "You can stay in the guest room tonight, and then get up tomorrow morning to see my third brother practice martial arts. There are no swords, knives, spears, or clubs."

Everyone agreed to get up early the next morning to watch Lord Gu practice martial arts.

Lord Gu: "..."

These people will disrupt his good deeds.

After Qin Yuan finished washing up, she was so sleepy that she didn't want to move her fingers at all. She let Lord Gu carry her to the bed and hold her in his arms.

Lord Gu then asked her, "What do you think of my suggestion to have a collection of poems printed?"

Fortunately, the weather had gradually cooled down in the evening, and Qin Yuan no longer felt unbearably hot. In his arms, she mumbled, "Okay, that's what I wanted to bring up even if you hadn't said it. From now on, let Mr. Songshan, my father, and Young Master Nantang make money for us..."

Qin Yuan fell asleep before she could finish speaking.

These past few days have been filled with preparing for banquets and welcoming and seeing off guests; I'm so exhausted that I can fall asleep the moment my head hits the pillow.

Lord Gu tapped her nose, both loving and hating her, "You heartless little thing, you only care about money."

The next morning, Lord Gu got up early to practice his martial arts, but no one came out to watch him practice.

After practicing all eighteen martial arts, Lord Gu muttered while wiping his sweat, "Scholars... no matter how learned they are, they are all untrustworthy fellows."

When he returned to the house, he found that his wife was still asleep. After washing up, Lord Gu didn't know what to do or wanted to do anything, so he went back to bed, held his wife, and took a nap.

When Qin Yuan got up, she was surprised to see that Lord Gu was still sleeping in bed.

Why is my husband still sleeping today?

Gu Jinghui opened his eyes groggily and said, "I've already practiced martial arts and come back, but I'm still a bit tired, so I might as well take a nap."

Qin Yuan urged him, "Let's have breakfast with Father and the others, then we'll see them off."

Gu Jinghui asked, "Why not stay a little longer?"

Qin Yuan said, "It's just a few streets away. If my husband wants to see you, he can ride a horse there. Does my husband want to keep my father here to ask you about your studies?"

“That won’t do. I have some free time these next few days, so I need to listen to Mr. Songshan’s lectures as much as possible.”

Gu Jinghui immediately remembered the long reading list Qin Jijiu had given him last night, and he was wide awake.

The two got up and went to the front hall to wait for the Qin family to have dinner together. Just as they sat down, they saw Sixth Master Gu walk in with dark circles under his eyes.

Qin Yuan was taken aback and asked, "Sixth Brother, did you not sleep at all last night?"

Sixth Master Gu said listlessly, "Yes."

"What did you do? Your dark circles have sunk all the way to your cheekbones!" Lord Gu decided to grant Sixth Master Gu's wish and show concern for his elder, speaking in a gentle tone: "It's one thing to be like this on ordinary days, but you're so tired even when we have guests at home. What kind of behavior is this? Besides, you've been weak since you were little. You need to take better care of yourself. Even the best body can't withstand this kind of exhaustion."

Sixth Master Gu was quite frightened. He wanted to say something but ultimately remained silent. After a long while, he said, "I was thinking about poetry last night. I was also looking at how well everyone else's poems were written, and I was thinking about how to match them with illustrations. I couldn't sleep because of it, so I got up and drew for a while until dawn."

Qin Yuan said, "Sixth Brother is wasting his energy like this. If Xiao Dong knew, wouldn't he be sad? Learning is a never-ending process and cannot be accomplished in a day."

Sixth Master Gu nodded and said, "Third Sister-in-law is right. This will not happen again."

Lord Gu thought to himself, "Why don't you say I'm right? You only listen to your third sister-in-law."

That's really strange.

As they were muttering to themselves, the Qin family members all came in, and Mr. Songshan arrived uninvited. The group discussed yesterday's poems and unanimously agreed that Mr. Songshan's poem was the most magnificent, Qin Yuan's poem was lively, graceful, and grand, Qin Siyuan's poem was powerful, Qin Jijiu's poem was profound, and Gu Liuye's poem was still at the bottom, but it was easy to understand.

When the topic turned to printing poetry collections, Mr. Matsuyama asked, "How did the last poetry collection sell? Will these poems of ours sell? Should we polish them a bit more? Also, if any good poems come up in the next couple of days, how about we just print them out?"