Repairing doors and windows
"And you're talking about Yan Yan? You made her wait for ages!" Xiao Ling said, standing up for Meng Yan.
"It's my fault." Yue Lang readily admitted, "Without my senior and junior brothers causing trouble, I always wanted to sleep until I naturally woke up, but I still tried to open my eyes."
"You just woke up, Yue Lang?" Xiao Ling's voice rang out the window, then fell back down the next moment. "Yan Yan kindly told me that you were busy with something, but it turns out you were busy catching up on sleep. No wonder I didn't see you even though she had washed a whole quilt."
"I……"
Yue Lang raised his hand, but then, unsure of what to say to change the situation, he simply slapped his hand back to his mouth and stared at Meng Yan expectantly.
Feeling that burning gaze, Meng Yan moved her shoulders, which were sore from listening to the commotion, and defended him, "I made him sleep."
“Yes, Yan Yan must have her reasons for arranging it this way.” Yue Lang was quick to accept any opportunity to back down, regardless of how slippery it might be.
With the silly incident over, Yue Lang, not having time to admire his new pairing with Meng Yan, excitedly asked, "What does Yan Yan plan to do about last night?"
"Last night? Didn't you personally promise everyone that you'd see her today? What does this have to do with Yan Yan?"
Xiaoling was a little confused. She had seen Meng Yan on the boat the whole night, and all the logical explanations and today's agreement were made by Yue Lang. Meng Yan hadn't even gotten off the boat during this time.
"How could such a big decision be made by a clueless Taoist priest like me?" Yue Lang gestured towards Meng Yan with his chin. "I would only dare to relay the message if I had the approval of a professional. Although it's not deceiving people, it's still a way of abusing my power."
Meng Yan took the half-finished sentence from him and continued, "It was my doing. The tools are all ready. Since there's plenty of time, I'm here today to fix the door for everyone."
Xiaoling: "What should I supplement?"
Yue Lang: "For whom?"
Those who knew the situation almost dropped their jaws in disbelief, while those who didn't might have thought he was just there to freeload. He made it sound so casual, treating over a hundred households as if they were just one.
"To give you an example, doors can never be completely repaired. Even if they are repaired, they will eventually rot again. I can only make them stable, but I can never restore them to their original state."
So it was a live woodworking lesson. Yue Lang silently breathed a sigh of relief. Although he didn't have to do any work himself, just listening to it was tiring enough.
After finishing the important discussions, Yue Lang left with a smile on his face. Meng Yan stood beside him, answering the neighbors' questions one by one. Yue Lang would always turn to ask Meng Yan for her opinion, and only when she nodded would he say yes.
Midway through, Yue Lang winked at Meng Yan, wiped the wooden beads in her hand, and soon, the mechanical sparrow flew over carrying a bag of packed tools. Yue Lang did not stop it, and it landed directly in Meng Yan's hand.
"There's something I need to correct everyone on. It's true that I'm a Taoist priest, but this mechanical sparrow was made by Yan Yan herself. The fact that it can fly from the mountains to the seaside is all thanks to Yan Yan's ingenious mechanism. It has nothing to do with me. To be more precise, she is the only one who can solve the problem. I'm just a messenger."
The words reached the ears of every villager, and everyone's questions for Yue Lang instantly turned to Meng Yan. Yue Lang had heard about the magnificent scenery of "Yan Yan" halfway there, and finally he was able to come in person.
The long and tedious conversation was read to her by Yue Lang, sentence by sentence. Before she knew it, Meng Yan realized that she had accepted the new name that Yue Lang had called her several times, while the other caller was still calling her in a gentle voice with great enthusiasm.
As the sun climbed higher, Yue Lang waved his hand to end the endless questioning and arbitrarily pushed the matter to the next part.
"Talking about theories and chatting about everyday matters is not as meaningful as doing practical things."
He took the cloth bag from the sparrow's beak, opened it, and suddenly realized why Meng Yan was so unconcerned about the passage of time.
She brought all her own tools, Mr. Weng's tools, and even the wood that Mr. Weng had chopped—anything that could be used—saving a lot of time-consuming procedures.
In a corner where only the two of them could see, Yue Lang gave her a thumbs up and obediently played the role of his little follower.
At first, people didn't understand why, but after watching Meng Yan's actions for a while, they suddenly realized that they had been making a living by fishing and had forgotten that their hands could create. They had become overly reliant on what their predecessors had left behind, which gradually made things inconvenient and erased the idea of making changes themselves.
Meng Yan's actions were undoubtedly telling them that the solution to the problem lay in their own hands.
If it were just this matter, she wouldn't have gone to such lengths to bring so many tools. Carrying a hammer and a piece of wood with her and finding a broken door to knock on would have been enough. But she didn't. She summoned the mechanical sparrow and brought many tools that she didn't usually use.
Yue Lang handed it to her as needed, patiently waiting for her next move. Although he didn't know the details, he could guess from her actions—he remembered fixing Xiao Ling's door last time, but the steps were different today.
After repairing the door frame and door panel with the rough wooden strip, Meng Yan took out the perfectly polished wooden strip, scraped off the moldy residue with a knife, and casually placed it on the repaired door. Even though her craftsmanship was already very exquisite, it still paled in comparison to this wooden strip.
Judging from its size and structure, this wooden strip seems to be a more suitable choice for the house, and is even significantly better than the old door that has been in use for a long time.
If one is a coincidence, then many would be too?
From doors to windows, even tables, chairs, cabinets, and stoves, there were wooden strips of the right size, but they were all rotten and moldy, and had accumulated a layer of dust that couldn't be blown away after being piled up for a long time.
"No matter how much we modify it, it won't be as good as the original fit," Meng Yan said briefly, waving his hand to signal Yue Lang to put away the wooden strips.
After making simple repairs to a few doors and windows, the crowd escorted them to the west of the village. Halfway there, Meng Yan glanced at the tattered fishing nets drying on the bamboo poles and said to Yue Lang, "Next time, I'll try mending that."
Her hand gesture was spotted by the crowd, drawing their attention. Someone seemed about to ask a question, but Yue Lang blocked them. He dragged the mechanical sparrow towards Meng Yan, a lifeless smile on his face. "We'll talk about next time. Now, it's time to go back and rest."
Neither of them looked back, leaving only two silhouettes heading west of the village. The wind carried Yue Lang's voice, weary but trying his best to be gentle: "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."
.
In Old Weng's home, the bamboo baskets that were originally piled up in a mess were arranged one by one. As if he had expected the two to return, as soon as they entered the door, he put the new dishes on the table. The aroma instantly drew the two who were drifting over. In the same spot as last night, there was a warm and gentle light.
As the saying goes, good things come in pairs. In addition to the hot meal, the news that Mr. Weng was willing to teach them his skills also came over the table. The two, who were still a little nervous, laughed happily, but they didn't know whether this joy came from their stomachs or from their hearts.
Through peer exchange, progress was rapid. Before long, the old man passed on his skills, which took root and sprouted in the fresh soil, and one could vaguely see their future flourishing appearance.
In the afternoon, under the eaves, two figures sat on either side of the carved wooden door. One was laying out paper for calligraphy and painting, while the other was engrossed in weaving a net. Inside the bright room behind the door, an elderly man with white hair was feeding a small fish to a mechanical sparrow.
"Do you want to eat, little one?"
.
Meng Yan and Yue Lang hadn't been seen in the village for several days, and the villagers had assumed they had left. However, on a fishing boat on the west side of the dock, two beautiful figures set sail with great confidence.
Yue Lang adjusted the direction and stood at the bow of the boat, side by side with Meng Yan: "If I had even half of Yan Yan's intelligence, I would probably already be a world-renowned immortal master."
Meng Yan smiled without answering, and took out a newly drawn talisman from his sleeve. Fine lines incorporating flowing water floated on the paper, and the patterns on the side changed into various shells and stones. Since cinnabar was unavailable, he had to use ink instead of vermilion, so it lost its effectiveness, but it was extremely beautiful.
The small boat swayed gently on the waves and sailed away until other fishing boats returned to port one after another. Only then did it step on the last glimmer of light and sail steadily and slowly toward the dock.
"Taoist Master! Yan Yan!"
Someone with excellent eyesight exclaimed in surprise from dozens of feet away on the shore, and others rushed over upon hearing the news, crowding half of the beach.
"Sigh!" Yue Lang sighed deeply, gazing at the night sky in silence.
Seeing this, Meng Yan teased, "Does the Daoist have something on his mind?"
The man was clearly looking up at the sky, but somehow he saw her question, sighed again, and said, "If I had known that calling myself a Taoist priest would mean losing my name, I should have said from the beginning that I was your little follower and let them call me Xiao Yue or Xiao Lang or something. It would have been better than being a Taoist priest!"
"Xiao Lang?"
Due to the difficulty of sign language, Meng Yan usually refers to people by pronouns. This is the first time she has seen a pronoun for a name in her hand, which is composed of two single-meaning phrases: "small" and "bright".
"Yan Yan?" he chuckled softly, then his smile faded as Yue Lang approached her and said seriously, "Let's do it the same way as before. Do whatever is convenient for you. Just know that you're calling me. What kind of relationship do we have? Let's not make things complicated."
Meng Yan rummaged through a bunch of gestures, seemingly trying to find a suitable new action to represent him, but with so many ideas, she still couldn't come up with a solution after trying for a long time.
"If I really want to find a new word, then let's go with 'Lang'." He had a gut feeling that if he kept changing words, who knows what kind of word would be left for him.
Lang means bright. The five fingers are brought together and then spread out as they move upwards. It is neither complicated nor common, and it can preserve the name, making it the best choice.
But when he finished congratulating himself on his cleverness and looked down at Meng Yan, he saw her raising both hands and making a gesture.
A gesture with one hand signifies brightness, while a gesture with both hands emphasizes the meaning and signifies light.
Does she really have to fight for this important position?
It has to be admitted that her smile was higher than her hand in the darkness.
“Lang,” Meng Yan said firmly.
"Yan Yan," Yue Lang said, suppressing his urge to speak.
"Lang".
"Yan Yan".
"Lang".
"..." Yue Lang couldn't go back to that. He looked up at the sky and laughed heartily. When he felt Meng Yan looking over, he deliberately turned around and continued to laugh with his back to her.
Once the boat reached the shore, Meng Yan finally caught the man who was nearly out of breath and dragged him off the boat. He punched him in frustration and then crawled into the cabin to search through the fishing nets.
“Daoist priests, you’re still here. We’ve been away for a few days, and we all guessed you had gone traveling elsewhere.”
"Yes, Lingling said you didn't go looking for her, so we didn't know either... We thought she had left."
Yue Lang rubbed his face to calm himself down and explained enthusiastically, "No, Yan Yan and I have been busy learning new things these past few days and haven't had any free time. So, we just finished up and took a trip on the sea."
Everyone's gaze followed his hand and focused on the large net that Meng Yan had not yet pulled out. This net looked slightly different from theirs, but it was not easy to see clearly in the darkness.
"Oh, and one more thing, the matter of traveling is not up to me." He gestured to the small Meng Yan on the fishing boat. "It's all up to her. Wherever she goes, I'll follow."
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