Embroidery requires great patience, which is exactly what Lin Dan lacks the most. After sitting quietly for a few minutes and embroidering a pattern, she would become very anxious and could not continue no matter what. But the Lin family has fallen on hard times, and she has no choice but to learn embroidery skills and revive the family business. Therefore, she has to find an effective way to suppress her anxiety and smooth out her sharp edges.
The number of wooden blocks and wood piles in the house were decreasing at a visible rate. When cooking, Fourth Aunt complained that the servant was too diligent and chopped the firewood too finely, making it difficult for her to control the fire. The servant felt bitter in his heart but dared not say it out loud. Having seen how fiercely the young lady chopped wood, he was a little scared.
Lin Dan practiced embroidery and chopped firewood for a while every day. Her waist and legs were no longer sore, and she had more strength to hold the needle. Slowly, she felt the bloodiness in her bones diminishing, and many more flexible and peaceful things surged up.
She originally thought that tyranny was part of her nature, but now it seems that it is not the case. Rather than saying that it is a kind of nature, it is more like a sequelae caused by some special experience, which can be smoothed out with a little grinding. Strictly speaking, her temperament is more like water, which can change according to the situation, can moisten things silently, or can be surging and violent.
That day, she sat for two hours before she took out her hatchet and prepared to calm herself down, but she saw her maid Cuilan walk in with a strange expression.
"What happened?" Lin Dan straightened the wooden stake and asked casually.
Cuilan looked around and lowered her voice: "The Du brothers and sisters have moved in for more than a month, but they have never interacted with our family. I don't know what happened today, but they actually sent someone to deliver a car full of gifts."
"What's so strange about this? They've been busy preparing for their new home for more than a month, so naturally they didn't have the energy to make friends." Lin Dan split the wooden stake into two even pieces, and then arranged them neatly, splitting it into four pieces, then six pieces, eight pieces...
Ever since the servant was scolded by the two concubines, she stopped venting her anger and instead chopped the wooden stake into strips so that she could carry it to the kitchen to report.
Cuilan came a little closer and replied, "Miss, you don't know. It's not strange that the gift was sent more than a month late. What's strange is that his family actually sent a cart of sawn wood! Several feet long wood can neither be used as lumber nor to make furniture. It's useless except as firewood. What do you mean by his family? They can't be so poor that they can't even afford a gift, right? Madam is sulking right now, thinking that his family is bullying her."
Lin Dan grinned, with a somewhat happy tone: "A gift of wooden stakes? Very good!" She didn't think it was too much. She would chop as many as the gift gave her, which saved her the money to buy firewood.
Cuilan: “…”
She shouldn't have discussed this with the girl!
The two were talking at cross purposes, but they didn't know that behind a wall, Du Rushong was leaning against a tree trunk, listening to their conversation with a hint of interest in his smile.
"Brother, brother, I heard that you delivered a cart of wood to the neighbors today? Let me tell you, we are no longer the young masters and daughters of the Marquis of Anding's Mansion. We can't play tricks on others like this!" A girl in a hundred butterfly skirt hurried into the yard with a loud voice.
The faint smile on Du Rushong's lips disappeared immediately, and when he listened carefully, there was no sound from next door.
"Brother, what do you want to do? They didn't provoke us, so we shouldn't provoke them!" The girl was still yelling, making Du Rushong's face as black as ink. He was about to scold his sister when the crackling sound of chopping wood rang out again, not disturbed by their conversation at all.
Du Rushong couldn't hold back and laughed quietly with his hands covering his mouth.
Du Ruyan seemed to have caught some evidence of a crime, and pointed at the other side of the wall and said, "Did you hear that? Who would chop wood in the garden? You must have pissed them off, so they're deliberately chopping wood to protest!" The two houses were originally one, but later the owner divided the house into two and sold it. The large garden in the middle was divided into two small gardens by a wall, and the layouts were symmetrical.
The more Du Ruyan thought about it, the more she felt that this was the case. She lifted her skirt and climbed up to the top of the tree, wanting to see how angry the person opposite her was about her brother. However, she did not expect that the person chopping wood would be a little girl with a round face, round eyes, and a round nose. She looked very delicate and cute.
Du Ruyan immediately fell in love with this rag doll-like girl and waved, "Little sister, are you angry because my family sent you a cart of wood?"
Lin Dan picked up a new wooden stake, split it in half with a knife, and shook her head: "No, I'm practicing embroidery."
Du Ruyan sneered: "But you were clearly chopping wood!"
Du Rushong also jumped onto the treetop and looked at the little girl with a smile. Seeing her easily split a wooden stake into even-sized strips, his eyes couldn't help but dimmed slightly. The layman looks at the details, while the expert looks at the excitement. He could tell at a glance that this little girl was not just chopping wood to vent her feelings casually, but had a methodical approach. Her sword skills could not be achieved without more than ten years of hard practice.
He just started to become alert, but suddenly he remembered that this family's background was indeed not clean. Lin Dafu and Zhang Hui were both horse thieves in their past. Each of them was more skilled at chopping people than the other. It was not surprising that they taught their little girl to be like this.
Recalling the little girl's life experience, looking at her adorable appearance, and thinking of her tough personality, Du Rushong somehow felt like laughing.
Lin Dan didn't even look at him, just stared at Du Ruyan. She often heard Cuilan say how beautiful the girl next door was, and when she saw her today, she was indeed as beautiful as her reputation had said. Compared to Du Rushong's facial features with deep and detailed lines, Du Ruyan was softer and more delicate. She climbed up the treetops wearing a gauze skirt embroidered with butterflies, looking like a fairy from the earth, exuding an extremely moving spirituality.
Lin Dan was very patient with her. Pointing to the embroidery frame behind her, she explained, "I've been sitting for a long time and I feel uncomfortable. I always want to chop something. I can go back to embroidering after I chop these pieces of wood."
"I see." Du Ruyan suddenly realized, looked at her brother thoughtfully, and said, "Can you show me the flowers you embroidered?"
"Here you go." Lin Dan put down the hatchet and picked up the embroidery frame.
Du Ruyan's expectant expression stiffened slightly, and she praised: "It's very vivid and well embroidered." She couldn't tell what it was, so she didn't dare to say more.
"Thank you. If you need anything in the future, you can come to me to buy embroidery. Sooner or later, I will be able to embroider better than Meng Si." Lin Dan said seriously.
"Yes, if I need anything, I will come to you." Du Ruyan's mouth cramped from laughing, but she couldn't bear to tell the truth. With the little girl's embroidery skills, she might never be able to catch up with Meng Si in her entire life, let alone sooner or later. She started learning embroidery at the age of three. How old is the girl now? It looks like she should be fourteen, right? It's a little late after all.
Unexpectedly, Du Rushong, who always had a sharp tongue, nodded and said, "I believe that if I give you some more time, you will be able to surpass Meng Si. If you are short of wood at home, you can come to me." After he finished speaking, he chuckled again, and his handsome features glowed brightly in the spring.
Cuilan stared with her eyes wide open, and if her mouth opened any wider she would probably drool. Lin Dan was unmoved and nodded, saying, "Thank you. I'll give you one for free when I finish the embroidery." She spoke with great confidence.
"You're too polite, young lady." Du Rushong couldn't help laughing. Seeing that his sister still wanted to talk to others, he pinched the back of her neck and jumped off the tree. After moving in for more than a month, he had already figured out the little girl's daily routine. After chopping two wooden stakes, it was time for her to practice embroidery again, and he couldn't waste her time.
"Brother, you really know how to talk just now. If you acted like this when you were at home, father would never have taken away your position as the crown prince." Du Ruyan looked her brother up and down with a very ambiguous smile. He gave me lovely gifts and said thoughtful words. Brother, is my lover moved?
"I'm not lying," Du Rushong said firmly, "Sooner or later the little girl will be able to achieve something, just wait and see." She can embroider with a fierceness that makes her want to kill the enemy, and she forces herself to sit still every day and practice hard all the time. With such perseverance, what can't the little girl do?
Du Ruyan shook her head and snorted, not taking her brother's words seriously at all.
On the other side, Lin Dan was completely immersed in embroidery, stitch by stitch, embroidering it smoothly, finely and densely. Three months later, she had mastered several basic embroidery stitches and had learned how to tailor clothes by taking measurements. She even made a skirt for Zhang Hui and her two concubines, which fit them perfectly.
That day, the two concubines finally changed the course and said, "You have already learned the seven basic embroidery techniques. We don't know the more advanced ones ourselves, so we can't teach you."
Lin Dan shook his head and said, "It's okay. The first person who invented embroidery didn't know how to do anything. He had to figure it out bit by bit on his own. Every needle technique that came out was the result of the embroiderers working day and night to figure it out. If they can do it, I can do it too."
The two concubines were pleased and said, "It's the best that Dan'er can think like this. There are some embroideries with excellent skills in the house, which your father found from all over the country. We will bring them to you later for you to see. Maybe it will be inspiring to you. From today on, we will teach you to paint. No matter how superb the skills of an embroiderer are, she still can't embroider anything without beautiful patterns. If you can learn to paint well, you can get twice the result with half the effort in embroidery. I heard that Meng Si is very good at painting. When embroidering, she doesn't even need to trace the pattern on the embroidery cloth. She can just pick up the needle and thread and embroider at will. The finished product is quite spiritual. Many of her embroideries are comparable to the top painters of the time. Wu Huasheng can sell a painting for a thousand taels of silver, and her embroidery can also sell for the same price. People say that her embroidery is not inferior to the peerless paintings. It can be seen how important it is to learn to paint well for embroidery."
Lin Dan nodded in agreement, not daring to slack off at all.
The two aunts took out a few more strands of silk thread and said, "Before you learn to paint, we will first teach you to distinguish colors. If composition is the basis of embroidery, then color is the soul of embroidery. Only by combining the two perfectly can we embroider a masterpiece that will be passed down from generation to generation. Look, the silk thread in my hand has four colors, namely dark green, dark green, medium green, and light green..."
Lin Dan looked at the embroidery thread and shook her head, "Auntie, you are wrong. There are clearly six colors here."
The two aunts looked at the silk thread, then at her serious face, and were suddenly stunned.
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