Chapter 27 Admiration

Chapter 27 Admiration

Chapter 27 Admiration
She walked at a fast pace, not like she was strolling around. She had a pair of buns on her hair, with a black hairband hanging down her back, swinging like two drooping ears when she walked. Her face looked as if she had put on some makeup, but no lipstick. However, the girl's lips were originally rosy, still youthful and pretty.

She wore a thin jade bracelet and what seemed to be bells on her ankles, which rang slightly as she walked. In one hand she held a thin willow branch, which she used to play with the weeds by the roadside as she walked.

Li Wuxiang guessed who this was after just one look. He had been to the town yesterday and had seen many women there. No matter young or beautiful, they all wore plain cloth and simple buns like Xue Baoping. Although the girl's dress was not made of silk or satin, the color was quite bright. With the bracelet on her wrist, she must be the only daughter of the town owner.

This was an expected surprise.

He withdrew his gaze after just a glance, stood up and walked back to the room.

Xue Baoping seemed to be using the warm water in the pot to clean the inner room. Ever since Li Wuxiang wiped the grease on the stove a few days ago, she kept the house spotless every day. Li Wuxiang sat down by the stove and added another piece of firewood to ignite the embers, then scooped water from the water tank into the pot to prepare some food for reopening the Xue family store in two days.

When he had scooped half the pot of water, he heard footsteps stop at the door - Chen Xiu stood at the door with her hands behind her back, looking into the room with a confident look.

Li Wuxiang didn't look up, he just said: "The store hasn't opened yet."

"Oh, I know. I used to come here often." Chen Xiu nodded, looked around the room again, and took the time to stare at Li Wuxiang. Seeing that he was only busy fiddling with the fire at the bottom of the stove, she coughed, "Hey, I'm thirsty."

"The water tank is by the door."

Chen Xiu walked to the water tank and saw the gourd ladle placed on the wooden lid of the tank. The ladle had been used for many years, and the yellow-brown shell had been rubbed to a shine, with black spots on the handle. Chen Xiu wanted to reach out to take it, but when she saw the black spots, she retracted her hand. But from this angle, she could see Li Wuxiang's profile - slightly reddened by the fire, and the skin on his neck was very tight and smooth.

She exhaled lightly and looked at the yellow earth wall that had been blackened by years of smoke and fire: "Your name is Li Jiye, right?"

"Ah."

"You must be very unaccustomed to living here. Can you get used to the food here?"

Li Wuxiang looked up at her, then lowered his head to continue adding firewood, and said indifferently, "It's okay."

"Are you used to it? You don't sleep on a straw bed, do you?"

"It's not bad."

Chen Xiu broke the willow branch with her hands behind her back. She thought the young master of the Li family should be a gentle, decent and generous person, but now she found that he was like a dull person, cold and lonely, and had nothing but a good appearance. She felt a little resentful in her heart, but it was that good appearance that was fatal - she didn't want to leave immediately in a huff.

At this time, the fire in the stove was about to go out, so Li Wuxiang took the bamboo blowpipe, put it to his mouth and blew a long breath into the stove, and the firelight illuminated his face again.

Chen Xiu took a long breath and exhaled, deciding to give him another chance: "What is that? It looks interesting, can you let me play with it?"

Li Wuxiang waved the blowpipe in his hand: "This?"

"Ah."

"Blowtorch. Dirty."

So Li Wuxiang saw Chen Xiu was stunned at first, then opened his mouth slightly.

He smiled in his heart. Now he roughly understood Chen Xiu's temperament. She had a kind of open-minded temper that came from being spoiled, but she was also very delicate and had a good conscience. If he was smart enough, but not too smart, he would be able to figure out the reason why he was so cold because of what he just said, "very dirty" - she disliked the gourd with black spots and the straw shop, so this made him feel unhappy and offended by her unintentionally.

Regardless of whether or not I can think clearly, I will feel a little guilty because of this vague cognition.

"...Ah, I didn't say you were dirty."

Then, because of this little bit of guilt, she would suppress her ladylike temper which was not too excessive, and continue with her topic in a flattering manner.

Li Wuxiang didn't answer her immediately, but left her there for a while. When he noticed that she was about to frown slightly, he suddenly asked, "Is there a Qi Refiner in your town?"

Her frown was smoothed out. Chen Xiu immediately said, "Yes."

Li Wuxiang raised his face and showed her a forced smile: "If our town had been...if I were also a Qi Refiner, maybe we wouldn't have been so flooded--"

He stopped talking, sighed softly, and lowered his head to fiddle with the firewood.

"I'll go back and ask the immortal master in my town if he can accept you as his apprentice." Chen Xiu said quickly, "My name is Chen Xiu, my father is the Lord of Jinshui Town, and the immortal master is enshrined in our family!"

Li Wuxiang shook his head again and said softly, "It's not that easy...but thank you anyway."

Chen Xiu felt a little anxious, thinking that she had never spoken to anyone so carefully, but she always failed to coax him. But when she thought of his pitiful life experience, she felt ashamed of her anxiety. Moreover, she suddenly realized that what she said just now was really wonderful - if Master Zhao really accepted him as a disciple, he would have to come in and out of her house!
This morning, Master Zhao had clearly told my father that he was the young master of Lijia Bay, but my father kept procrastinating and refused to ask anyone to propose marriage, saying that such matters had never been so urgent and that it depended on his character.

But is there any need to talk about his character? He dared to beat up the scoundrels in the town, and the scoundrels were afraid of him. He was polite when talking to the shopkeeper, and he was many times more educated than Zhao Qi! This is obviously a combination of civil and military. What else can you say that things have always existed? Aren't rules made by people? In Jinshui, it is obvious that Dad's meaning is the rules!
If I could get him to walk around the house a few times, Dad wouldn't know what to do, but Mom would definitely be very happy!
She took two steps forward so that she could see him more clearly through the stove. "I can say something good for you. Besides, Master Zhao... well... he's actually not a bad person."

Li Wuxiang frowned slightly: "But I heard that Qigong practitioners all have bad tempers." "Ah, not really. I think his temper is okay, but he doesn't like to talk much. He stays in the room, mysterious, and seems to look down on people... Ah, actually, it's not like that. He actually..."

Li Wuxiang smiled and said, "My family used to worship the same."

This smile made Chen Xiu feel relieved. She dragged the stool over and took a step forward to sit on the other side of the stove. She didn't mind her skirt brushing the ground at all. "Right, right? That's it! When my father talks to him, he doesn't respond. He is also very picky about food. He doesn't want any onions, ginger, garlic or leeks. My mother has to cook for him separately and has to open another stove!"

"He always thinks he's very smart! When he first came here, my father invited him to drink. After a few drinks, he sighed and said, 'Oh, there are so many stupid and foolish people in this dirty world. It really makes people feel disgusted.' At this point, he coughed and spat on the ground. He then said, 'Most of them are very vulgar and don't know etiquette.' Oh, my family doesn't know etiquette, but we know not to spit on the floor of the main hall of the host's house, right?"

"My father flattered him, saying that Master, now that you have great magical powers, you naturally look down on the vulgar people in the world. Alas, for a master like you, although the practice in the mountains is hard, it is also better to have peace and quiet. When he heard my father say this, he quickly told my father how famous and rich their Ranshan Sect was, and what golden whisks, jade ruyi, elixirs and pills they had. I almost laughed to death. He looked like he had never seen the world. My family also has a jade ruyi, and it is inlaid with beads. "

As long as Li Wuxiang smiled a little and asked a few questions, she would keep talking happily, as if she could make the person she liked happy and also because she finally found someone of equal status and sympathetic understanding in this small town to talk to. So after a quarter of an hour, Li Wuxiang had a general idea of ​​what kind of person Zhao Qi was.

After a while, when they had finished talking about Zhao Qi, Chen Xiu turned to talk about some trivial things in life. It was the first time that Li Wuxiang had seen a girl with such a temperament, and this was in this world - lively and generous, with a simple mind, as if she was born without understanding the dangers of the world. It was hard to imagine what kind of family she was raised in.

So he smiled less and responded more briefly, and soon Chen Xiu found that there seemed to be nothing to talk about. She realized that she seemed to be sitting too close to Li Wuxiang - like the kind of friends who have known each other for a long time, almost touching each other's knees, and that's why she noticed that the mute girl from the Xue family was sweeping the yard with a big broom.

Last night, when she was tossing and turning in bed and couldn't sleep, she was still thinking about it. She felt that her future husband was currently staying in a young girl's house, which always made her feel uneasy. But now she was relieved - with such a good-looking and cultivated appearance, and such a family background in the past... How could she think about him randomly?
The hostility she had previously felt was gone, and when she thought about how it was she who had dragged her Li Jiye out of the river, she even felt a little more apologetic, so she immediately took the opportunity to stand up and walk into the yard, greeting her cheerfully: "Sister Xue, do you still remember me? I once came to your house to ask for water, ah... I was thirsty just now too."

Xue Baoping stopped, holding the broom, looked at her with wide eyes, and glanced at Li Wuxiang again.

"You're going to reopen the store, right?" Chen Xiu looked into the yard and reached out to take the broom. "Come, let me help you. It would be great if you could speak. We could talk often--"

She wanted to sweep the yard, but the big broom was made of dried thin bamboo branches. The handle was thick and bumpy, a little heavier than she thought. She tried to sweep it, but the branches caught the corner of her skirt. She quickly tried to squat down and lift the corner of her skirt, but the broom fell to the ground.

Xue Baoping held the broom and helped her lift the hem of her skirt: "I can talk."

Chen Xiu stared at her with eyes wide open: "Ah?"

Xue Baoping gave her a forced smile: "I just didn't want to talk before."

"Ah..." Chen Xiu nodded, but she didn't understand what she meant by not wanting to talk before, and why. But she heard Xue Baoping say again: "Or you can help me get a bucket of water. He doesn't like the yard to be dirty. You can help me sprinkle water in the yard."

Chen Xiu quickly said, "Okay!"

The Xue family's well was in a corner of the yard, with a stone wellhead and a wooden board covering it. Chen Xiu walked over to move the wooden board away, and her hands were stained with some muddy water from the edge of the well cover. She frowned and put the well cover against the wellhead, and went to pick up the bucket, but she found that the thick hemp rope tied to the bucket was also wet and a little slippery. She took a deep breath, threw the wooden bucket in, and when she heard a plop, she pulled it up, hitting the wooden bucket and making a thumping sound, but when she pulled it up, she found that there was only a shallow layer of water at the bottom of the bucket, and her skirt was completely wet and dirty.

When she panted and brought down the wooden bucket, Xue Baoping leaned on the broom and said, "Ah, your clothes are all dirty. Let me sprinkle it."

Chen Xiu wiped her forehead with the back of her hand: "It's okay, I get dirty when I pick water chestnuts too."

Xue Baoping nodded and started sweeping the yard again.

Li Wuxiang smiled in his heart, continued to add some water to the pot, and began to prepare the noodles and fish to be sold tomorrow. Two girls, one sweeping the yard, and the other limping in front with a wooden bucket to sprinkle water, Chen Xiu talked more, and after a while Xue Baoping also said a few more words. When the yard was swept clean and the bluestone slabs were wet and bright, Li Wuxiang could see a smile on Xue Baoping's face through the white mist.

So he walked into the yard while wiping his hands and said, "Miss Chen, you should go back and change your clothes. Otherwise, you will sweat and your clothes will get wet, and you will catch a cold."

Chen Xiu then realized that her skirt was already mostly wet and stuck to her calves, which was not very nice. Usually she didn't care, but at this moment she cursed herself in her heart, looked at the two people in the yard and took a breath: "Okay, I'll come and play with you tomorrow. You... well, wait, I'll go back and ask my father to ask Zhao Qi to accept you as his apprentice."

Li Wuxiang smiled and bowed to her. She lifted her skirt and walked happily through the wing room. After walking about ten steps, she pretended to twirl her earrings and quickly glanced sideways - she didn't see anyone at the door of Xue's house.

After she walked across the bridge, Li Wuxiang turned around from the door and saw Xue Baoping sitting in front of the stove. He quickly lowered his head and added two more pieces of firewood.

So he let out a sigh of relief: "Things are going a little smoother than I expected. Miss Chen is impatient, and so is Zhao Qi. It's not even noon yet, but if I'm right, Zhao Qi will come over in the afternoon to see if I'm suitable to be his disciple."

Xue Baoping hummed absentmindedly, as if he felt that his hum was a bit perfunctory, so he raised his head and asked again: "Well...how, how do you know that Zhao, Zhao, Zhao Qi would want you to be his special...special...disciple?"

Li Wuxiang walked to the stove, sat down on the bench where Xue Baoping had just sat, and gently touched Xue Baoping's knees: "You also heard what Miss Chen said when she talked about Zhao Qi. A Qigong practitioner feels that he is of noble status and hates ordinary people. He also thinks that asking a country bumpkin to serve him is an insult to his status. However, the requirements in life are numerous and complex. Not only will the Chen family be annoyed, he himself will also think that the Chen family is clumsy and not smart enough."

"So if there is a young man who is careful and smart enough, he should be happy to let him be his nominal disciple and actual servant. Especially, if the young man is alone, he will be more loyal and obedient. I thought you would have to wait until we go to sell winter melon candy before you can slowly find out about this from Miss Chen. I didn't expect her to come and help us a lot."

Xue Baoping's mouth moved slightly, and Li Wuxiang knew that she silently repeated the word "we" twice. Then her expression became more vivid: "Oh, so you were just trying to trick her..."

Li Wuxiang didn't say anything, just smiled slightly and tilted his head: "Let's have some fish noodles for lunch, it's refreshing and cool."

　Two chapters have been merged into one, and there's even a little beauty! Please vote!

　　
　
(End of this chapter)