W Chapter 28

Chapter 28: “Husband, I Also Know a Little About Literature…”

Taking the mountain trails can save a lot of time, but you need to be careful all the time not to fall.

Ling Xing observed his surroundings. Spring was coming, the grass was beginning to turn green, and the branches of the trees were budding.

In a while, his steamed bun stall can offer some wild vegetable buns to change the flavor.

Shen Lai, Xiaochun, and Xia Xia were playing with stones in the yard. Hearing the movement, they all looked up and ran towards Ling Xing.

Xiaochun and Xia Xia were still a little shy and embarrassed, but Shen Lai hugged his husband’s waist and looked up, acting cute, saying, “Husband, I was very obedient this morning. I swept the house clean. Can I eat a piece of mung bean cake?”

Ling Xing knew this kid was greedy. He laughed, “How can I walk if you hug me? Do you still want to eat mung bean cake?”

Shen Lai immediately let go. Xiaochun and Xia Xia were pushed by Shen Lai and got closer to Ling Xing.

They tugged at the hem of his clothes, their voices so small that it was almost inaudible.

“Grand Husband, we were also good. Want to eat cake…”

After spending these days together, the two children finally dared to talk to Ling Xing actively. Not only did they talk, but they also expressed what they wanted.

Ling Xing raised his hand to touch the heads of the two children, “Let’s go, to the kitchen.”

He gave each of the three children a piece of mung bean cake. The three of them looked like they had received some incredible treasure, their eyes shining.

They cheered, saying Husband, Grand Husband is good, and ran together to the kitchen, sitting on the big stone outside, three in a row, swinging their legs while eating slowly.

Ling Xing closed the cabinet and saw Shen Hui walking out of the house with a wooden gun in his hand.

His wrists and ankles were tightly bound with cloth strips, without leaking a single seam from his cuffs.

Knowing that Shen Hui was going up the mountain to check if there was anything in the cages, and also to pick banana leaves.

Ling Xing stopped Shen Hui and told him to wait a moment.

He held two large pieces of mung bean cake wrapped in oil paper, and took out the four large steamed buns and two buns left over from today from the bamboo basket, walked to Shen Hui’s side, and stuffed them all into the other’s hands.

“This is to replenish your strength, don’t save it, eat it all, be careful when entering the mountain. By the way, did you bring the snake repellent medicine?”

Shen Hui’s hands didn’t dare to use force, for fear of crushing the two pieces of mung bean cake in his palm.

He thought that the buns and steamed buns Ling Xing had specially left today were for Little Fifth and Xiaochun and Xia Xia.

Were they actually for him?

Shen Hui wanted to say that he wouldn’t be hungry. Every time he went into the mountains, he would find a way to fill his stomach.

Otherwise, relying solely on the family’s food, he would not have grown to his current size.

But Shen Hui didn’t say anything in the end, putting all the things into his arms, looking bulging.

When going out, Shen Hui suddenly stopped and replied to Ling Xing, “I brought it, I will be careful, Husband can rest assured.”

…

The land at home had been turned over for several days, and it was almost ready.

After Xu Youfang came back at noon, she didn’t go to the fields in the afternoon, but started doing embroidery.

Ling Xing was grinding mung beans, listening to Xu Youfang saying that her hands were getting rougher and rougher, and doing embroidery was not as skillful as before.

Embroidery is extremely energy-consuming, and it also damages the eyes greatly.

As Xu Youfang said, because of working, her hands were no longer smooth and tender. When embroidering, she could feel the effort, and the embroidery was not as good as before.

Ling Xing didn’t understand embroidery. He sat on a stool, turning the small stone mill, his eyes looking at the colorful embroidery threads.

He asked, “Mother, do you know about velvet flowers?”

There was no velvet flower in the original body’s memory, or maybe he had never been exposed to it.

Xu Youfang shook her head after hearing this, “I haven’t heard of it, what kind of flower is that? Does Xing Ge want it? I don’t know if it grows here.”

Ling Xing smiled, “It’s not a flower that grows, it’s made of embroidery thread. Worn on the head, it’s like a real flower, very beautiful.”

“There are such flowers? Can Xing Ge’er make them?”

Xu Youfang immediately became interested. She was the most skilled at embroidering flowers. As long as she had seen the flowers, their shapes and colors were very realistic. But she had never thought that embroidery thread could actually make flowers.

Ling Xing couldn’t make velvet flowers, but he had watched videos, but only watched the simplest two methods.

Chrysanthemums and peach blossoms are the easiest to make, just simply bending and stacking them together according to the flower shape.

Ling Xing hadn’t brushed up on the process videos for those more complicated flowers. Even if he watched it, he hadn’t done it himself, so he wouldn’t remember it clearly.

He thought about the basic method of velvet flowers and described it briefly to Xu Youfang.

To make it easier for Xu Youfang to hear clearly, he also picked up small twigs and drew on the ground while speaking.

“Choose the color you want to use, split the embroidery thread, and then fix it and comb the fluff with a small brush. After the thread is combed, use thin copper wire to fix it.”

“The distance between each copper wire is determined according to the size of the petals, and finally cut with scissors between the copper wires, and rotate the copper wire with a wooden block. Then use scissors to trim the fluff until you can make a satisfactory flower shape.”

Xu Youfang listened to Ling Xing’s explanation, combined with the diagram on the ground, and she really understood it.

“The shops that sell paintings do sell copper wire. Some people will buy it to make cloisonné enamel paintings. But you can only buy a bundle at a time. It’s a lot, but just because there’s a lot, it costs one or two taels of silver.”

After all, she had been wealthy. Xu Youfang’s knowledge and experience were much greater than ordinary people.

Seeing that Xu Youfang was interested, Ling Xing thought about going to the painting shop in town tomorrow to see.

He definitely couldn’t buy a bundle directly right now, just see if he could exchange a section back from the buyer.

This also depended on luck. Ling Xing couldn’t guarantee that he would definitely meet someone, so he didn’t tell Xu Youfang.

After grinding the mung bean milk, he rubbed and precipitated it, and put the remaining mung bean paste in a ceramic bowl. Ling Xing went to wash the linen.

He also tucked away the batter for tomorrow and let it ferment. He went to the east room to count the money and calculate the accounts.

Today’s mung bean jelly sold for sixty coins, with a cost of thirty coins.

The steamed buns and steamed buns sold for six hundred and forty-two coins, with a cost of four hundred and fifteen coins. Among them, tofu was originally supposed to be thirty coins, but Xie Qingya only charged Ling Xing fifteen coins.

The pure profit was two hundred and twenty-seven coins. Removing the warehouse and stall fees of twenty coins, plus the money earned from the mung bean jelly, today’s net profit was two hundred and thirty-seven coins.

Tomorrow, more mung bean jelly will be made, and he can earn more.

Including the money earned in the previous few days, the actual money earned in four days was five hundred and ninety-six coins.

Ling Xing strung the money together and put it in the wooden cabinet as usual, waiting until the end of the month to divide it uniformly with the family and Shen Hui.

…

The cages set by Shen Hui were in the deep mountains. He hunted in the mountains all year round and knew many small roads, unlike other people who had so much difficulty entering.

The weather was just starting to warm up, and there were not as many prey as in the summer and autumn seasons. This time, Shen Hui was not very lucky. None of the eight cages had any prey.

One had signs of being damaged, and it looked like it had been trapped, but was eventually rescued by its companion.

After redoing them, Shen Hui went directly to a deeper place.

Not far from there was a deep pool, which was a hot spring.

The area was not large, but the depth was extremely deep. Staring into it gave a feeling of bottomlessness, which would arouse the fear in the bottom of his heart.

Entering the range with a higher temperature, Shen Hui took out the snake repellent medicine and carefully sprinkled some on his body.

He carefully wrapped the rest and put it back.

A large area of banana leaves grew there. The temperature around here was higher than outside. After Shen Hui cut for a while with a dagger, sweat broke out on his forehead.

He consumed a lot and was hungry.

He subconsciously prepared to look for a snake den, but then remembered that he had food in his arms, so he didn’t need to risk filling his stomach.

Shen Hui sat cross-legged on the ground, opened the oil paper bag, the steamed buns and steamed buns were cold, but they were still relatively soft.

He opened his mouth to bite, but retracted his mouth a little midway, not biting too much.

He was not used to chewing slowly.

In the past, when eating, either he was rushing to chase prey, or the surroundings were more dangerous, so he could only eat it as quickly as possible.

According to Ling Xing, eating things quickly, and eating things hot, were both bad for the body.

Shen Hui chewed the steamed bun in his mouth, preparing to swallow it, then chewed it a few more times.

After eating four steamed buns and two buns, Shen Hui didn’t feel full.

It could only be said that he wasn’t hungry.

The mung bean cake was inevitably broken along the way, but the sweetness was still there, without affecting the taste.

Shen Hui ate the mung bean cake, never thinking that he could eat two pieces of food that only children could have.

It was delicious, even more delicious than the mung bean cake in his memory.

After eating, Shen Hui got some more banana leaves, estimated that it was enough for three days, and carried the leaves down the mountain.

His pace was very fast, and the time to return home was much faster than before.

Shen Hui arrived home in the afternoon, and the chimney in the kitchen was smoking. He carried the wide banana leaves and stood at the kitchen door, seeing Ling Xing boiling mung bean water inside.

Ling Xing could naturally see someone standing at the door. His stirring motion didn’t stop, and when he turned his head and saw that it was Shen Hui, a relieved smile appeared on his face, “Second Brother is back, are you injured?”

Shen Hui put down the banana leaves, his expression relaxed, “I’m back, not injured.”

For some reason, Shen Hui added a sentence that he didn’t expect, “Thank you Husband for the snake repellent medicine, it’s very useful.”

Ling Xing knew that the medicine was useful and smiled, “That’s good, I’ll ask Xie Ge’er to exchange it when it’s used up. Second Brother don’t worry that it’s not enough.”

Shen Hui nodded and went to process the banana leaves in a cheerful mood.

To wrap food, the leaves needed to be washed well. Shen Hui was strong, and he couldn’t control his strength well at first, and tore several times right away.

Later, Xu Youfang couldn’t stand it anymore and asked Shen Lai and Xiaochun and Xia Xia to help wash, and she went to the kitchen to boil water.

The mung bean jelly didn’t take long to cook. Ling Xing filled three large ceramic basins and put them there to cool and set.

Xu Youfang continued to make bean rice for dinner, while Ling Xing went out to help wash the banana leaves together.

“Husband, squat with me!”

Shen Lai waved his little hand, warmly inviting Ling Xing to join.

He just wanted to be close to his husband to be happy.

Ling Xing squatted down to wash the banana leaves together, following the location pointed by Shen Lai.

Shen Hui, who came back from fetching water, saw Ling Xing squatting in his original position. After putting down the wooden bucket, he used a gourd ladle to pour water to rinse the leaves, and then squatted quietly beside Ling Xing without a sound.

“Husband, you said last time you wanted to learn lip reading, are you still learning?”

These days were really busy, Ling Xing had forgotten about it. After being reminded, he finally remembered and asked Shen Hui, “I want to learn, how do I learn?”

“The beginning requires a lot of practice, to observe more, the attention needs to be focused, some places are more vague and unclear, you need to remember to analyze through the lip reading read out later.”

After Shen Hui explained, Ling Xing only had one reaction: it was so difficult to learn.

Shen Hui had a good memory and could remember the books he had read before. It was excusable that he could learn such a difficult skill.

The key was that his memory was really not good, and his attention… couldn’t be focused too much, but he was more patient.

Shen Hui also knew that lip reading was more difficult, and he didn’t think that Ling Xing could master it proficiently, just reading a little bit would be enough.

Seeing Ling Xing being frightened by the difficulty of lip reading, and not saying that he didn’t want to learn, he said, “You can only learn the simplest part. The later part will take too much time, and Husband may not have time.”

Ling Xing nodded upon hearing this, thinking that it would be good to follow what Shen Hui said.

Just as he was about to ask Shen Hui when to start learning, he heard Shen Hui say, “If Husband wants to learn to write, I also know some literature and can teach Husband.”

Ling Xing was a little confused, learning to write? When did he reveal his idea of wanting to learn calligraphy?

“That doesn’t need to be learned.”

Ling Xing could write, but his calligraphy was ugly. He was afraid that writing would expose him again, because the original body could write, and the words in his memory were quite beautiful.

Anyway, he, who couldn’t write calligraphy, thought everyone’s writing was beautiful.

Ling Xing thought about finding pen, ink, paper, and inkstone to try later when he had the chance to see if he had muscle memory now.

If not, he would have to find a way to practice calligraphy.

Shen Hui heard Ling Xing refuse, hummed, and then said to him in a low and serious voice: “Li Huiyuan’s writing has shape but no root and bone. He should know, so he practiced more. Husband, don’t praise his writing too much in the future, it may make people feel like you are laughing at him.”

Ling Xing suddenly understood, “I was wondering why he was so humble. Second Brother, you are so observant. I definitely won’t praise him later, lest people misunderstand.”

Shen Hui nodded and chuckled softly, “It should be like this.”