Chapter 129.2

When this guy had not yet come into his own, that shy, bashful, clingy side of him was honestly more than most normal people could bear.

The three of them had accompanied Li Sanjiang around all day, making the rounds, and were all worn out. Right now they were competing to see whose snoring was loudest. Since they were all sleeping in coffins, the sound was amplified, like three giant speakers blasting a symphony.

When Li Zhuiyuan passed the first floor, Runsheng and Tan Wenbin’s snoring quieted a little. Even in their sleep, the two had grown wary. But they quickly recognized whose footsteps those were, and the snoring soon returned to full strength.

That was not especially difficult. Plenty of students could instantly distinguish the sound of their father’s car wheels, engine, footsteps, or keychain.

Lin Shuyou’s snoring, however, did not change at all.

Li Zhuiyuan walked down below the yard and stretched out a hand.

Little Oriole stopped swaying and stood there, looking at the boy.

Li Zhuiyuan understood what she meant and turned around.

Very soon, a pair of icy-cold hands rested on his shoulders.

He took one step forward, and she followed with one step of her own.

It was as though they had gone back to the beginning. The only difference was that Taigong was no longer there in front to lead the way, and Li Zhuiyuan no longer needed to hold an incense burner in his hands.

And besides, he could now easily endure that coldness.

The path across the yard was also much easier to walk than last time. It was no longer that pitted, uneven riverbank where every step sank differently. As Li Zhuiyuan walked ahead, he could sense Little Oriole following beside him, twisting as she moved.

She loved beauty. She was also genuinely flirtatious.

In truth, there was nothing wrong with showing off one’s charm and elegance. It was just that while the mood of the times was gradually becoming more open, it had not yet reached that point. If Little Oriole had been born ten or twenty years later, she might even have counted as the conservative type.

When they entered the first floor, Runsheng and Tan Wenbin kept snoring as usual. As long as the footsteps belonged to Li Zhuiyuan and there were no cries for help or other unusual sounds, their nerves would not be triggered.

But one person sat upright inside his coffin in his sleep.

He opened his eyes, and his pupils were vertical slits.

It was White Crane Child!

Perhaps because Lin Shuyou had not formally entered trance today, yet had gone through the full set of warm-up motions again and again, some sudden stimulus in his sleep had caused him to succeed by accident.

No wonder Lin Shuyou had been regarded in his home temple as a genius of the Officers of the Command Banner line.

Behind him, the hands Little Oriole had on Li Zhuiyuan’s shoulders began to tighten.

Her body also started trembling, putting on the kind of showy display that belonged to a Dead Sinker.

The one beneath the peach grove, the Child did not dare look at.

But Little Oriole was clearly not in that category. The Child felt that He had what it took again.

Li Zhuiyuan looked at the Child and mouthed the words:

“Go to sleep.”

The Child started to rise from the coffin.

Li Zhuiyuan’s gaze sharpened, carrying a clear warning.

Helping improve and reform the system of the Officers of the Command Banner had only ever been something he did in passing, not his main goal. Especially after he had already doubled the number of times he helped Lin Shuyou channel the spirit, and after the Child had shown signs of backing down, Li Zhuiyuan had no further motive to keep pressing the issue.

But if you insisted on being disobedient and working against him, then he would have to study the matter with full dedication.

The Child had only risen halfway before sitting back down.

Then He lay back down again.

He was truly afraid.

In the past, even when facing other river-walkers, or even the Dragon King, as an Yin god He really had not had much to fear. At worst, the spirit medium would be killed, the temple destroyed, and They would merely suffer setbacks in gathering merit.

But the one before Him now truly had the ability to turn Their branch of Yin gods from lofty deities worshiped on high into beasts of burden in the spirit medium’s hands.

That was something even harder to accept than being destroyed outright.

Little Oriole seemed pleased. Not only did she stop trembling, she even started swaying again a little.

Perhaps it really was because the one beneath the peach grove had shared some of her suffering. Her temperament truly resembled what it had been when she was alive.

Li Zhuiyuan took two bottles of drinks from the living room, then led her upstairs, passing Taigong’s door before bringing her into his own room.

When they reached the bed, Little Oriole released the boy’s shoulders and lay down on the bed by herself.

She lay there very neatly, both hands folded over her chest, her face pale as though thickly powdered, her lips an eerie vivid red.

If that overly provocative black qipao were replaced with something more solemn, then his bed would be a standard corpse-resting place.

Li Zhuiyuan stood beside the bed, watching droplets of water drip steadily from the bedframe.

He pointed at the plank above the bed, indicating that she could go up there.

If she kept soaking the entire bed like this, there was no way he would be able to sleep.

Little Oriole kept her eyes closed and did not move.

Li Zhuiyuan nodded, then simply pulled the chair out from behind the desk, set it beside the bed, sat down, leaned back, and then—

Snap!

He flicked his fingers.

Since he believed in helping people all the way through, this was a new dream.

A broad stage, a huge banner, and below it an audience dressed neatly, seated as though in an auditorium.

At the back, backup dancers came onstage, and expensive sound equipment rumbled to life.

Li Zhuiyuan had moved the venue of the company holiday gala his parents had taken him to when he was little into this place.

It could not be helped. His memory was too good, so he could recreate every arrangement and layout.

And because he had already mastered the techniques from Wei Zhengdao’s Black Book, what Li Zhuiyuan was doing now was, in effect, altering Little Oriole’s memories.

Only this time, it was not to control her.

Because whatever he wanted her to do, he would not need control. She had no defenses against him at all.

If Wei Zhengdao ever found out that his self-created ultimate art was being used like this, then even if he were truly dead, he might be so furious he would kick open his coffin lid, rise as a Dead Sinker, and come fight him.

Though, given Wei Zhengdao’s personality, that was hard to say.

It was also possible that after reviving as a corpse, he would eagerly come over and listen to the concert together with him. He might even get onstage and sing a duet with Little Oriole.

At that moment, Little Oriole stood on the stage before the microphone stand.

In the dream, she had completely regained the appearance she had in life.

She began to cry, constantly wiping away tears from the corners of her eyes.

Back then, that was not how she wiped tears. She would have just used the back of her hand or her fingers directly. But now this was, after all, a grand stage, and she had begun to act more reserved.

She started singing, her body swaying with the rhythm.

Her dance movements were no longer as exaggerated. She began to hold back, and her singing started paying attention to phrasing and style. Sometimes, when she knew she was about to miss a high note and crack, she would even pass the microphone toward the audience below.

She was not fully accustomed to this stage.

But she greatly enjoyed it.

Li Zhuiyuan sat below, head lowered.

Then he suddenly realized he had overlooked something. He had recreated that scene from memory in too much detail.

So at this moment, seated on his right was Li Lan.

Li Zhuiyuan did not want to see her, so he waved a hand, and the seat beside him became empty.

As for his left—

Li Zhuiyuan turned to look. Sitting there was a refined and handsome man, applauding the performance onstage.

This was his father.

He was always so warm and kind, without even a trace of the faults common to children of powerful families. In dealing with others, he was gentle and polished, like jade.

It was precisely because of those qualities that Li Lan chose him.

Of course, he had surely pursued Li Lan madly as well.

But Li Zhuiyuan knew very clearly that before his father had ever started pursuing her, Li Lan had already chosen him.

He understood himself too well, and so also understood Li Lan too well. For the two of them, mother and son, making an outsider like them was truly very simple.

In most social interactions, the two of them were basically taking an open-book exam—

and one where the answer sheet was right in front of them.

Li Zhuiyuan looked at his father a little longer. He was still young now. Li Lan’s illness had not yet fully worsened. At the very least, she could still keep the human skin on her face in place.

Judging by the time this performance had taken place, another year and a half later, Li Lan would no longer be able to keep up the act.

And then this man would be tortured into a pitiful state: stubbled, red-eyed, mentally dazed. That became his normal condition for a long time afterward.

He loved Li Lan too much.

And Li Lan understood far too well how to hurt him.

The worst forms of cold emotional abuse in ordinary families would have seemed too crude and low-grade to even be worth mentioning in Li Zhuiyuan’s home.

So regarding the fact that his father had joined a geological survey team after the divorce and had never contacted him again, Li Zhuiyuan felt not the slightest resentment.

It was fortunate that deep in his bones, this father of his had inherited some of Northern Grandpa’s toughness. An ordinary man simply would not have been able to endure that kind of mental torment and blow.

At that moment, Little Oriole finished one song.

The man stood up cheering and applauding, prompting a whole cluster of people nearby to rise and show their warmth and appreciation to the performer onstage.

He truly was like a little sun, radiating a soft white glow.

Just like that day in memory, he lowered his head and looked at him.

“Xiaoyuan, was it good?”

“Yes, it was.”

In memory, next, he himself would imitate his father, stand up, and cheer and applaud.

Meanwhile, Li Lan, sitting to the side, would stare at him with a puzzled, obscure look.

This was much better now. One unpleasant gaze was missing.

Li Zhuiyuan stood up and applauded Little Oriole onstage together with the man.

Little Oriole bowed in thanks. Applause rose and fell all around, and she bowed several times in different directions to the audience below.

“Next, I will bring everyone a song... ‘Unforgettable Tonight.’”

Everyone continued applauding enthusiastically, and this time Li Zhuiyuan clapped even more fervently.

Since she was singing “Unforgettable Tonight,” did that mean Little Oriole planned to end things early?

Then maybe he would finally be able to sleep well.

When the accompaniment began, the hall fell quiet, and Li Zhuiyuan sat back down.

“Unforgettable tonight, unforgettable tonight, no matter the ends of the earth or seas, all under heaven share one embrace...”

The facts proved that Li Zhuiyuan had been overthinking.

Little Oriole was not singing that song to signal that the gala was over and everyone could leave.

It was because the songs she knew best were probably just these few.

After “Unforgettable Tonight,” Little Oriole continued performing. Besides singing, there were also solo dances.

One act after another, tirelessly, without end in sight, as though she meant to fill every regret from her life on this stage tonight.

Li Zhuiyuan sat below, one hand supporting his forehead, head lowered.

“Ugh... my head hurts...”

...

In the morning, everyone was eating breakfast in the yard.

Everyone was there except Li Zhuiyuan.

Li Sanjiang blamed himself and said, “Ai, I shouldn’t have kept Little Yuanhou talking so long last night. I don’t even know when I fell asleep myself.”

Tan Wenbin laughed. “It must be because the bed at home is just too comfortable and too cozy, so Little Yuanhou slept in.”

Hearing that, Li Sanjiang laughed too. “That’s right. Home’s definitely the most comfortable place to sleep.”

After humoring Grandpa Li, Tan Wenbin quickly finished off the porridge in his bowl, set down his chopsticks, and headed upstairs.

Little Yuanhou would sleep in?

He knew perfectly well how solid Little Yuanhou’s routine was. Even if he fell asleep at five in the morning, the moment the sky started to pale at five-thirty, Little Yuanhou would get up without hesitation.

For him to wake late two days in a row and miss breakfast with everyone, Tan Wenbin was genuinely worried something had happened.

But just as he reached Little Yuanhou’s door, he saw him push it open and come out.

“Little Yuanhou, are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” Li Zhuiyuan felt his head buzzing and numb.

Lately, even when fighting malevolent spirits, he had never overdrawn himself this badly.

“Little Yuanhou, do you want to rest a little more?”

“No need.”

“Then Grandpa Li is taking us to catch crabs later. Are you going?”

“I’m going.”

Though he did not really want to move right now, tomorrow they would be returning to school. He did not want to give up this time with Taigong.

He washed up, went downstairs, and ate breakfast.

Li Zhuiyuan deliberately had Tan Wenbin bring him a few extra bottles of drinks for the road.

These were not hairy crabs, but they were not small either.

And the method of catching them was simple. Following the irrigation ditches and looking for the crab holes everywhere, you just dug them out.

The crabs were not entirely wild, and they had owners. But Li Sanjiang had already said hello beforehand.

Among relatives and friends in the village, when the season came, giving each other a bucket of crabs was nothing unusual. Even if you wanted to sell them, it was not all that convenient anyway.

Li Sanjiang demonstrated first, and then it was the young men’s turn.

Li Zhuiyuan simply stood beside Li Sanjiang and watched, applauding occasionally.

Runsheng was the most efficient at catching crabs. It seemed that back when he had followed Grandpa Shan and often gone hungry, anything flying in the sky or swimming in the water had likely been fair game.

Yin Meng and Tan Wenbin did all right too, and both had a good amount in their buckets.

The least efficient was Lin Shuyou. His agile body was not of much use here. Instead, he got his fingers pinched by crabs several times, wincing so hard his eyes went crooked, nearly entering trance again.

Li Sanjiang looked at him with sympathy. “Why don’t you just forget it? Once they’re steamed, you can focus on eating. You’re in so much pain your eyes are crossing again.”

After the crabs, Li Sanjiang led everyone to a villager’s fish pond to catch fish.

The host family stood by smiling. When Li Sanjiang brought up money, the other party hurriedly waved him off, saying that would be an insult to Uncle Sanjiang.

Li Sanjiang had only been making a polite gesture anyway, and did not truly pull out any money.

Living in the same village, everyone had their own sense of balance. Exchanges of goodwill did not always have to involve cash.

Since it was not time yet to drain the pond and harvest fish, the owner had originally planned to cast the net himself and put on rain pants to help drive the fish in, but Li Sanjiang refused.

He patted Runsheng. “Runshenghou, go!”

Runsheng stripped off his clothes and shoes and dove into the pond headfirst. Very soon he surfaced again, each hand holding a big fat fish.

“Grandpa Li, is this enough?”

“Enough, enough. We’re making fish soup. Who told you to catch them so fast?”

Now that the children were all back, he had wanted to take them out for some entertainment. Who knew Runsheng would catch crabs fast and fish fast too? Were they really going to have to call it a day and go home this early?

Still, while Runsheng was getting dressed, Li Sanjiang went over curiously and peered at the round marks all over his body.

“Runsheng, did you get cupping done?”

“Yeah. To get rid of dampness.”

“Then you should’ve said so earlier. You shouldn’t go into cold water just a few days after cupping. It’s easy for cold to get into your body.”

“It’s fine, Grandpa Li.”

Back then, Runsheng had once had sixteen coffin nails driven into his body. The wounds had healed after they were removed, but the round marks had still not faded.

With those vents on him, forget diving into a fish pond to catch fish—even if you had him build a house in the river, he could probably manage it.

Next, Li Sanjiang led everyone to another household to catch chickens.

Li Sanjiang’s own family did not raise poultry. He disliked the smell, and there was no one around to care for them anyway. There were businesses that made money, after all, and if he wanted to eat some, he could just go buy it. These things were not expensive in the village.

Runsheng stepped forward again on his own, but Li Sanjiang pushed him back and forbade the big mule from doing more work.

Li Sanjiang said, “Cross-Eyes, you go catch the chickens.”

Lin Shuyou was still looking around, wondering who exactly “Cross-Eyes” was.

Only when he realized everyone was looking at him did he understand that Cross-Eyes was apparently himself.

These chickens were semi free-range inside a large enclosure. They ran fast and would peck people too, so ordinary people would have a hard time catching them.

But this time Lin Shuyou lived up to his physical skills. Before the owner could even open the gate and hand him a net, he leaped in, rushed forward like an arrow, and with both hands snatched one chicken neck after another from the flock as they scattered.

Very soon, he came back carrying two chickens.

Li Sanjiang looked at the sun, then at the two chickens, and could only nod helplessly.

He had run out of activities. There were only so many mouths in the household. They could hardly go to someone’s house right now and buy a pig early just to slaughter it like a New Year’s pig, could they?

Besides, he had vaguely noticed that after returning from Jinling, these children really had grown up and changed quite a bit.

If he actually told them to slaughter a pig, it did not seem like it would be much trouble for them.

After returning with the day’s haul, everyone helped prepare the ingredients and assisted with the cooking, except Yin Meng.

Even Li Zhuiyuan picked up a brush and sat by the well scrubbing mud from the crabs.

Dish after dish was brought to the table, and everyone began eating heartily.

By the end, every one of them was stuffed. Even Runsheng patted his belly to show he could not eat another bite.

In the afternoon, they all sat around in the yard, chatting while digesting.

Since Li Sanjiang was already familiar with everyone else, he specifically questioned Lin Shuyou, who began telling stories from his hometown.

The warm sun, gentle breeze, lazy people, and a young fellow whose mouth never stopped moving—it really was a comfortable scene.

A passing villager brought news that they were setting up a screen in the open area in town and would be showing a movie that night.

Everyone had eaten too much at noon and had no appetite for dinner, so they skipped it and went early carrying stools to claim good spots.

Li Sanjiang chatted with the surrounding villagers, and every other sentence out of his mouth was, “Our Little Yuanhou is back, after all.”

A good number of small vendors arrived in the back. Yin Meng picked out some hair ties, while Lin Shuyou bought a bubble blower and blew bubbles hard at the back of Tan Wenbin’s head until he got it all damp.

Partway through, Li Zhuiyuan used going to the toilet as an excuse and went to one of the vendors to buy two bubble blowers, carefully choosing a few small trinkets.

Ah Li lacked for nothing. Given Granny Liu’s habit of smashing top-grade official kiln porcelain whenever she got angry, giving expensive gifts was meaningless anyway.

So at times like this, what mattered in a gift was not value, but memory.

Li Zhuiyuan remembered that when he and Ah Li had come to watch movies before, Ah Li had liked sitting beside him and blowing bubbles with one of these.

After the movie ended, everyone walked home along the road in a loose, scattered group. Hardly anyone spoke. At the very front, the cigarette in Li Sanjiang’s mouth glowed on and off.

There was nowhere in the village or town to get late-night snacks, so after they got home, Li Sanjiang took out the snacks Lin Shuyou had bought and handed them around so everyone could fill their stomachs a little.

That night, Li Zhuiyuan wanted to chat with Li Sanjiang again and hear more stories, but Li Sanjiang turned him down.

“Little Yuanhou, go to bed early. You’ve got to get up early tomorrow to head back to school.”

Late that night, Li Zhuiyuan heard the wind again.

He walked out of his room and onto the terrace. Down below beyond the yard, Little Oriole appeared there once more.

In the night, her long hair hung damp, and the black qipao on her body made the red high heels on her feet seem especially eerie.

But just as Li Zhuiyuan was about to go down and bring her upstairs, she merely lifted her head and looked at him.

Then, with both arms hanging lightly at her sides, she turned and vanished into the darkness.

Over the last two nights, in memory, she had already had her fill.

So tonight, she had come specially to bid Li Zhuiyuan farewell.

Tomorrow, once Li Zhuiyuan and the others left, Xiao Yingying would settle matters at home and return to Li Sanjiang’s house to keep working.

Li Zhuiyuan raised his head and looked at the incomplete moon in the sky, then returned to his room to rest.

Early the next morning, after breakfast, everyone said their goodbyes.

Li Weihan stuffed peanuts, crispy cakes, sausages, and other things into the truck.

Cui Guiying packed all kinds of pickles and sauces from home into net bags and handed them over.

Li Sanjiang gave everyone a red envelope. Lin Shuyou’s was the thickest, twice as much as everyone else’s, because this was his first time visiting.

Perhaps the groundwork had already been laid the day before, or perhaps in the eyes of the elders, this was simply children going back to school after break. There was some emotion in the parting, but nowhere near the point of becoming exaggerated or dramatic.

The three elders stood by the village road and waved to them. After the little pickup had gone far away, they lowered their hands, but they did not leave. They remained there until the truck had completely disappeared from sight. Only then did Li Sanjiang pat his pant leg and say:

“The little sparrows at home have flown off again.”

...

Compared with the elders’ ease and clear-sightedness, the atmosphere inside the pickup on the return trip felt somewhat solemn and heavy.

They were leaving the peach grove reserve.

Soon, laughing without restraint and sleeping with complete peace of mind would both become luxuries again.

Their old life had not exactly been tense and oppressive all the time. Most of the time they still lived normally. But even lacking that last tiny bit of peace, and having just that little extra danger factor, made a world of difference psychologically.

Seated in the front passenger seat, Li Zhuiyuan turned and opened the rear window, looking at Runsheng and the others sitting in the back.

“Judging by the timing and the stage we’re at, it should be time for the next wave. The easy, steady days are over. Everyone remember to shift both your bodies and your minds into the right state.

Stay sharp. Be alert.

We can lose because our strength is lacking. We can fail because of flaws in the plan. But we absolutely cannot die because we were stupid.

Everyone,

we can calmly face any result except regret.”

Tan Wenbin, Runsheng, Yin Meng: “Understood!”

Lin Shuyou: “Got it!”

Tan Wenbin, who was driving, glanced at the rearview mirror with a faint smile on his lips.

The old Little Yuanhou would never have spoken so formally. He would have warned you with very simple words, or even just a look.

That little speech just now was obviously not Little Yuanhou’s style. Little Yuanhou had shown more patience than before.

It seemed that for Little Yuanhou, going home, like going to see Ah Li, could increase his sense of human warmth.

In that case, as the one shouting from the prow, Tan Wenbin naturally had to become even more passionate and exuberant!

Come on, let the passion ignite.

Tan Wenbin reached out, shoved the cassette in, and pressed play. Fei Xiang’s voice came out from inside:

“You’re like a fire in winter, blazing flames warming my heart. Every time you quietly come near my side...”

Li Zhuiyuan: “So, next—”

Damn!

Tan Wenbin was so frightened that he hurriedly turned the volume down to zero.

Then he turned his head and whistled out the window, as though the one who had just interrupted the Dragon King’s speech with loud music had not been him.

“So, next, don’t deliberately avoid ordinary social interaction. Make your choices according to your true feelings:

Whether you would deal with this kind of person.

Whether you would do these kinds of things.

Learn to look one step ahead and then three beyond. See yourself as a single point, and draw every person and every matter connected to you out into lines.

Catch every drop of river water that splashes out ahead of the coming wave.

This is where I fall short, so... I’ll be depending on all of you.”

Tan Wenbin, Runsheng, Yin Meng: “Got it!”

Lin Shuyou: “Understood!”

Lin Shuyou: “...”

Once Li Zhuiyuan finished speaking, he took the initiative to turn the volume back up and set it to maximum.

“You’re like that fire, blazing flames warming me!”

...

After returning to school, life went back onto its original track.

Runsheng sold goods at the shop. When he met that fellow student from his hometown, Huahou, he would also chat with him in the Nantong dialect.

Yin Meng still went shopping with Zheng Jiayi. Their tastes and habits were similar; they liked browsing without buying.

Though once in a while, the two of them would go look around the antiques street. Yin Meng needed to learn the market and get familiar with prices.

Her family may once have been wealthy, but that had been two thousand years ago. If her grandfather had not had Little Yuan helping him, she herself would not even have managed to get him buried in the ancestral grave.

So her understanding of antiques and curios was not much different from an ordinary person’s. Looking more and learning more would also make it easier for her to pick up bargains the next time they went out, sell them, and save some more money.

Buy a bus?

That way, when they went back, Little Yuanhou could bring Ah Li along and let her sit in the very back row without any issues.

Yin Meng thought this plan of hers was excellent. As a member of the team, sometimes it was not about flattering anyone, but about showing some ambition.

Tan Wenbin, meanwhile, rotated between classes, home, and audit work. Fortunately, the pickup did not need to restock every day, so he could drive it out. Otherwise, the taxi fare alone would have been painful.

Lin Shuyou’s route of movement almost entirely overlapped with Tan Wenbin’s. The only part that did not overlap was whenever Tan Wenbin was alone with Zhou Yunyun; at those times, he would politely vanish.

Li Zhuiyuan continued his “electives across the whole campus” mode of attending classes, continuing to seek out outstanding teachers.

Sometimes, when Tan Wenbin had no class, he would follow Little Yuanhou’s schedule and sit in on some of those professors’ lectures. And honestly, any teacher who earned Little Yuanhou’s approval really did have substance. It did not matter whether Tan Wenbin could understand what they were teaching from other departments or not.

Tan Wenbin felt that if the school selected outstanding teachers at the end of the year, the principal really ought to look at Little Yuanhou’s timetable. There would definitely be no favoritism involved.

For the third and fourth periods this morning, Li Zhuiyuan had chosen Professor Zhu’s ideological and political theory class.

There was one especially obvious thing in class: through lecture after lecture, Professor Zhu had genuinely used his solid theoretical grounding and his ability to connect theory with practice to gradually change the atmosphere of the course.

A lot of students had really begun listening, and had begun thinking.

The sarcastic remarks in class had grown much fewer. Occasionally there would still be some “awakened” student or “independent thinker” saying something astonishing...

but instead of drawing group laughter and heckling, what they received now was dissatisfaction at their disrespect toward the professor and their disruption of everyone else’s learning atmosphere.

In the low tide of the era, there were always some people quietly serving as a light, steadfastly illuminating and influencing those around them. Only time could prove whether they were right.

When the class ended, everyone still wanted more. Some students hoped Professor Zhu would continue a little longer.

Professor Zhu said, “Next time. You all need lunch, so hurry to the cafeteria.”

The students laughed and began packing up to leave the classroom.

Li Zhuiyuan, as usual, was the last one to leave. At that moment, Professor Zhu also walked over to him.

“Xiaoyuan, are you busy at noon? I know it’s abrupt to invite you on such short notice, but my wife wants to meet you. She’s very interested in a young person like you who likes reading ancient texts.”

“Thank you for the invitation. The honor is mine.”

At first, Li Zhuiyuan did not think much of it. It was the sort of thing worth noting, but not worth making a fuss over. But then Professor Zhu said his next sentence:

“Ah, I should have invited you to my home much earlier, but my wife came down with a strange illness some time ago, and she still hasn’t improved. I originally wanted to wait until she got a little better before inviting you, but now... I’m afraid she may not have time to wait. Ah.”

The wave

had arrived.

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