82 Dinner
◎Because my Daoist companion is righteous, I have abandoned darkness and embraced the light.◎
Half a month after the late emperor's death, the situation in Liulijing gradually stabilized.
A family working in the government office leaked the news that the Empress Dowager had issued a decree of amnesty, and this year's taxes would be reduced by 10%. So, after being cooped up for half a month, everyone came out of their homes and resumed their usual lives, excitedly discussing whether the tax reduction would mean they could slaughter an even fatter pig for the New Year. Children changed out of their faded linen clothes and ran through the streets, while the older ones were taken by their parents to school.
Unfortunately, Yuan Xiaobao was one of the students in the school.
"Wow—I don't want to go to school!!"
He was sitting on the ground, wailing and howling, his cries deafening, refusing to leave no matter how his mother threatened or coaxed him. Aunt Yuan was at her wits' end with the boy, and in her frustration, her eyes caught sight of an open door, and suddenly an idea struck her.
She called out to a passing man in white, "Dr. Mo! Are you out buying groceries?"
Ying Jianhua was taken aback upon hearing this, and nodded slightly after recognizing her. Aunt Yuan continued to chat with him with a smile. Seeing this, Yuan Xiaobao, who was beside her, scrambled up and tugged at her clothes anxiously, saying, "Mother, Mother, let's hurry up, we're going to be late."
Aunt Yuan glanced at him and retorted with her previous words: "Anyway, you don't want to go to school, so being late is fine."
Upon hearing this, Yuan Xiaobao immediately became anxious. Just now, it was his mother who dragged him to school; now it was his turn to drag his mother.
Compared to the old teacher in the school, this guy in white is much scarier. After all, the old teacher doesn't prick people!
Back in Wuling Village, Doctor Ying was famous for "being able to stop children from crying at night." Now, seeing Yuan Xiaobao's timid and hesitant appearance, what else could he understand? He smiled and bent down, asking the child huddled behind his mother, "Are you feeling better?"
Yuan Xiaobao shook his head violently, too frightened to utter a single word. Waaah, he used to think this older brother was handsome... but he never expected him to be so cruel! Aunt Yuan, having achieved her goal, bid him farewell and happily led her child to school.
"Dr. Mo, that's not fair of you. Why are you scaring a child?"
Du Zhijin returned at some point and, after witnessing the two's seamless cooperation, clicked his tongue in amazement.
He pushed open the door, turned around and saw that she was covered in sawdust again. He said, "Go wash up and change your clothes first. We'll have lunch later." "What are we having today?" she asked, glancing into the bamboo basket.
"What would you like to eat? I bought tofu, loofah, and pork ribs, plus a bitter melon left over from yesterday. I'm going to stir-fry the bitter melon and make a soup."
Liulijing was much hotter than the small mountain village. Even with Du Zhijin's internal energy, she still suffered from internal heat after the start of the hottest period of summer. Ying Jianhua and Aunt Yuan had consulted with the makers and were preparing to make tofu and loofah soup for her today to help cool her down.
Du Zhijin certainly wouldn't say she had any objections; what kind of person would be picky about the cook? She really wanted to help him out, but her clothes were dirty, so she had to give up the idea for the time being.
The map remained unresponsive. During their two-week stay in the alley, the two felt as if they had returned to their time in the village. Ying Jianhua cooked and dried medicine, while Du Zhijin fetched water and tended the fire. Occasionally, they would bring back fish that Xingyue had skewered with a sword as an extra meal.
In a daze, they truly became an ordinary couple in the marketplace, busy with the daily necessities of life, with demons and cultivators far removed from them.
He cherished these days so much that he kept putting off having the courage to confess, always thinking, "Next time."
Wait until he finds a day that is neither too hot nor too cold, and until everything falls into place, then be honest with him.
"What are you thinking about? The food's going to burn!" Du Zhijin's voice came from behind him. Startled, he quickly took the food out of the pot, thus preventing the dish from being ruined.
At the dinner table, she noticed he seemed a little down, so she put a piece of pork rib into his bowl: "Don't you have an appetite? Then let's go to the market tonight, and you won't have to cook."
She didn't want him to be busy in the kitchen all the time, and had suggested cooking for herself or eating out. But Amo insisted on doing so, saying that this was what made it feel like "home".
She longed to ask, what does home feel like? Isn't home wherever they are?
But she knew he had many things on his mind, and she respected his silence until he was willing to confide in her.
"It's too hot, I can't eat." He made up an excuse and listlessly put down his chopsticks, though he had barely touched the rice in his bowl.
How can I not eat?
She bit her chopsticks sadly, her gaze fixed on his increasingly thin waist.
Her waist is already very slim!
Noticing her gaze, Ying Jianhua covered her waist with her hand, her tone unconvincing: "It wasn't intentional, I just didn't have an appetite."
“You’re too thin.” Du Zhijin shook her head disapprovingly. “It’s better to be a little chubby; it’ll be softer to hug.”
"Really?" Hearing her say that, he suddenly felt a little tempted, and after hesitating for a while, he finally picked up his chopsticks. Du Zhijin simply kept talking to him to distract him.
"It seems that all the children in the alley attend the same school. The teacher is a very experienced scholar who is said to have taught a top scholar ten years ago."
Ying Jianhua said, "Who knows what happened ten years ago? In terms of intelligence, none of them are as clever as Honghua."
Although Honghua often gets distracted when writing large characters, she memorizes things very quickly; she can recite the poems taught one day by heart the next.
Reminded by him, Du Zhijin also felt a bit tempted by Honghua. It had been several months since he'd seen her, and he wondered if anything had changed in Wuling Village.
She suggested, "Why don't we find an opportunity to go back and see the red flowers?"
Ying Jianhua was taken aback, her eyelashes fluttering slightly, before she changed the subject: "Aren't there two more demons on the map? Let's talk about it after this is resolved."
Even now, he still hasn't found the right words to start the conversation.
Regarding the deaths of Prince Chengduan and his son, and Ding Lao.
Thinking about these things, he lost his appetite again. Fortunately, he had eaten some food earlier, so he hadn't really eaten nothing at all. After clearing away the dishes, Du Zhijin looked at the figures in the courtyard and felt secretly troubled.
How can I persuade Amo to eat more?
After the meal, Ying Jianhua, as usual, put away the herbs that had been drying in the courtyard. Liulijing was in the north, and there were many herbs that Jinxi City had never seen. He couldn't resist buying a little of this and a little of that, hoarding them for research.
With nothing else to do, Du Zhijin helped him tidy up. They rented a house with one courtyard, which wasn't very big. A well took up part of the space, leaving even less room to spread out herbs for drying. As a result, some herbs were drying on the roof, and she had to go and collect them.
The first time Du Zhijin used her light-footed skill to get onto the roof, she didn't pay attention to the time. It happened to be the time when people went to buy groceries, and many people saw her fly up and down with a "whoosh," causing quite a stir. From then on, children would often bring her a piece of candy to ask her to retrieve their kites, or if someone's cured meat was carried onto the roof by a cat, someone would bring her two cabbages to ask for her help.
These were all trivial matters, and Du Zhijin agreed to them one by one. After a while, Ying Jianhua asked her if she wanted him to refuse on her behalf.
"You rejected it? Why?" she asked.
"Don't you think doing these things is a waste of time? You used to get very high rewards for exorcising demons, right?"
Du Zhijin thought for a moment and replied, "But even if I'm asked to exorcise a demon, what I seek isn't a reward." She then asked, "And what about you, Amo? You could clearly join the Imperial Hospital, so why are you content to stay here and treat children?"
Ever since word spread that Ying Jianhua had cured Yuan Xiaobao with a single needle, even making him behave, more and more people brought their children to her door for treatment. Ying Jianhua welcomed everyone, and at the peak, Du Zhijin made twenty small stools in half an hour just so people would have a place to sit.
They didn't accept money, so everyone brought meat or eggs, none of them came empty-handed. Some people had even brought fish, but Du Zhijin politely declined.
Fish held a special place in their family; only she could catch them herself.
Getting back to the point, Du Zhijin remembered that after she asked that question, Ying Jianhua remained silent for a long time, as if even he himself didn't know the answer.
In the end, he only said that perhaps he had picked up some of the rough-and-tumble spirit from her.
Being with her made him feel that everything in the world was light and touching, so he unconsciously reached out to help others time and time again.
What is this? Just because my Daoist partner is righteous, I've abandoned darkness and embraced the light?
Ying Jianhua held the newly bought storybook and thought to herself.
After the Great Heat, the days gradually lengthen and the nights shorten. Du Zhijin seized the last rays of the setting sun to collect all the medicine winnowing baskets on the roof.
She flipped and leaped down, performing a graceful movement amidst Ying Jianhua's exclamation, and kept winking at him as she landed.
Ying Jianhua couldn't help but chuckle, pretending not to understand her hint, and continued to rummage through the medicinal herbs.
Du Zhijin was unhappy and moved closer to him, humming softly to express her dissatisfaction.
"Amo, if I and the medicinal herbs fell into the water at the same time, who would you save?"
Ying Jianhua: "...Stop listening to those aunties' nonsense, it's not like you can't swim."
Upon hearing this, her feigned sadness instantly turned into genuine grief. Du Zhijin clutched her chest, her face filled with disbelief, her eyes crinkling into a pitiful smile. Ying Jianhua paused, wondering why she was reacting so strongly today, and immediately said, "I misspoke, please don't be angry."
"Hmph." She poked the medicine basket with the Drunken Mist.
He pursed his lips and ingratiatingly asked, "Sword Immortal? Master Huaizhou?"
"Hmph." He unleashed both swords simultaneously, but accidentally used too much force and knocked over the medicine shelf.
Ying Jianhua, who had been drying the medicine in the sun for three days, wrote: "......"
Du Zhijin: "...Ahem, actually, I just wanted to go to the night market with you!"
She heard from Yuan Xiaobao that there were many novel and delicious snacks at the night market, so Amo would surely be more willing to eat more!
Ying Jianhua had no choice but to reluctantly agree. Du Zhijin happily changed into her outdoor clothes and specially hung up the jade pendant with the character "舟" (boat).
Seeing this, he calmly straightened the jade pendant with the character "墨" (mo).
The two went out, and because of the recent national mourning, the night market wasn't very large, but Du Zhijin was still attracted by the various stalls and shops. She bought two of everything, calling it "sharing the good fortune," and Ying Jianhua could only accept it, and before she knew it, she had eaten about 80% full.
"There are prayer lanterns for sale over there, I'll go ask about the price."
He nodded, found a stall, and sat down to wait for her. It was already dark, and the lanterns along the street lit up one after another, making the flower market as bright as day.
He wondered if the lantern vendor would deliberately raise the price because of her accent... With a slight worry in his heart, he opened the oil paper package he had just bought, took out a pastry and ate it slowly.
Suddenly, he spotted a familiar figure in the bustling crowd, a figure that could never possibly be there, and his heart sank into an icy abyss.
That's Lu Ping?!
[Author's Note]
Simplicity is the essence of life; I'm thinking of writing a farming novel.
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