The question remains: why did the general specifically recall Fu Rong? Whom did he intend to thoroughly investigate?
——
These past two days, Zheng Quchi has encountered another headache.
She had to find suitable clay around Fuxian County to make bricks, as the large area of loess soil in Fuxian County had been almost dug out, forming a large sunken pit.
If we continue digging, the amount of sand and gravel at the bottom will be too high, making it unsuitable.
In order not to delay her brick production, she needs to find another suitable clay source as soon as possible.
She also asked the official to search further afield, while she herself carried a small hoe and dug around the nearby riverbed and dried-up lake.
According to the "Tiangong Kaiwu" (The Exploitation of the Works of Nature), when making bricks from clay, one must dig into the ground to examine the color of the soil. Whether it is blue, white, red, or yellow, the best quality bricks are those that are sticky but not crumbly and powdery but not sandy.
She went to find it according to the description on it.
She was used to working on construction sites and wasn't afraid of getting dirty.
Whenever you see a deep blue or yellow mud pit, jump in, remove the dry, sandy surface layer, dig deeper to collect wet mud, and test the soil's stickiness by touch.
She also found a patch of red mud hidden in the swamp of dead leaves, but after digging around it, she estimated that the amount was not large.
During this time, Li Shi silently followed behind her, watching her climb mountains and wade through rivers, busy searching.
He was still dressed in thick, rich clothes today.
Wearing a hooded mink coat and holding a bronze hand warmer with a cover, he was as refined as a jade vessel compared to Zheng Quchi, a peasant in a coarse cloth coat. He had a serene temperament and a cool expression.
He stood on the slope, watching Zheng Quchi below hunch over and dig in the mud, his ankles covered in mud.
Why are you so devoted to Yuwen Sheng?
Zheng Quchi saw that he was keeping his distance, afraid that the mud would splash on him. He clearly disliked it so much, but he still insisted on following her into the mountains and into the dirt, getting covered in dust himself.
I don't know why Yuwen Sheng let him go. He took Qiu and him with him back then, so why didn't he interrogate him properly?
Right now, the city wall construction is entirely under her and a group of construction officials' responsibility. If he continues with his previous ideas and tries to cause trouble, wouldn't that implicate her?
Thinking about it that way, he figured he might as well follow him; at least keeping him under his nose would allow him to keep an eye on his movements.
If she hadn't been worried that if she told Li Shimi, he would find out and reveal that she was a woman, and might even bring up their "life-saving grace" again, then her innocence would have been impossible to clear.
She already has a lot of blemishes on her record, with a long criminal history. Now she's entangled with this suspicious person. If Yuwen Sheng finds out, how will she survive?
Why is her newly begun transmigrated life so bitter?
The problem is that you keep cutting it down only for it to sprout again, it just never ends, right?
“If I don’t try my best, Yuwen Sheng will tear me apart,” she replied while working.
"He's so violent and ruthless, yet you still risk your life for him?"
To be honest, Master Li occasionally exudes an otherworldly aura, seemingly detached from worldly affairs and social norms. Zheng Quchi secretly thought to himself, "If this brother hadn't lived on that revered mountain, he would definitely have been living in the secluded Gaopeng Palace."
Listen to these words! They're incredibly arrogant, as if they're saying that if the king of this country becomes unjust and tyrannical, they can immediately replace him with someone else.
Zheng Quchi said irritably, "I have no choice but to risk my life, I'm afraid of dying."
Teacher Li was taken aback.
He probably had never met anyone who could talk about their fear of death so matter-of-factly.
After all, the people around him were all staunchly loyal and fearless, and some even believed that dying for the cause they pursued and the truth they upheld was something worthy of praise and celebration.
However, he did not despise Zheng Quchi's ideas. He believed that people could live with pride and unyielding spirit, or they could live a life of mere survival, and these were not contradictory.
“Sang Xuanqing, where did you learn all this? At your age, you shouldn’t have all this knowledge unless someone spent a lot of time and effort teaching you.”
Zheng Quchi was surprised by his insightful observation. After all, she had received more than ten or twenty years of education to become who she was today.
In the past, when she read ancient Chinese texts and savored the lives of historical figures in the books, she had a feeling that if she were thrown into a group of these shrewd people one day, she would definitely be the kind of cannon fodder who wouldn't survive an episode in a TV series.
"Of course, someone taught me, but that's all I know. I don't know martial arts, how to lead troops into battle, how to plot and scheme, how to weave and sew, how to play the zither, chess, calligraphy and painting, or how to sow seeds and cultivate the land. Sometimes I think that apart from doing construction work, I seem to be no better than other men and women, and I'm completely useless."
When Teacher Li heard her say this, he did not sense her inferiority or self-deprecation. Instead, he sensed a self-affirmation hidden beneath her humility.
In her eyes, there is a path, a goal, and a direction.
Suddenly, Teacher Li felt a pang of envy towards her and softened towards her.
He said, "Don't you want me to destroy this construction of the city wall?"
Upon hearing him bring up the matter, Zheng Quchi immediately perked up.
She stood up straight and said to him seriously, "Well, I don't know why you're doing this, but now that General Yuwen has entrusted it to me, if you do anything that affects the construction schedule, I'll be in trouble too."
“If you are only worried about Yuwen Sheng’s punishment, I can guarantee that I can take you away from Ye Kingdom unharmed,” Li Shidao said.
But Zheng Quchi shook his head: "I'm not going anywhere. My home is in Fuxian County. I have never intended to leave my hometown and wander to other places."
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