Chapter 86.3

“It’s not like it’s impossible. This way, when I go down there in the future, no one can fault me for anything. Never mind, they’ve lost their souls anyway—wouldn’t see them down there even if I tried.”

“This is serious business. Isn’t the initiation ceremony still two days away? Please, reconsider.”

“Mm, I’ll think it over some more.” Liu Yumei picked up her brush. “Bring me more paper. The aura this kid grasped… it’s really hard to describe. Too abstract.”

“Start writing first. I’ll go cut some more sheets.”

Aunt Liu headed to the basement, cut up a stack of paper, and brought it upstairs. As she stepped into the room, she saw Liu Yumei had already filled ten full pages. She was just finishing the last one.

“This is still the first volume?”

Liu Yumei snapped, “This is just the beginning of the first volume.”

“Then what I read before was definitely a fake Liu Clan's Art of Observing Qi. Once you finish compiling this, I want to read it too.”

“I’ll let you read it, I’ll let you read it. Now hand me the paper.”

“Coming.”

As she paused her writing, Liu Yumei lightly twirled her brush.

“The paper’s ready.”

“Hmm…”

“You’ve lost your train of thought?”

“No, actually, I just had a new idea.” Liu Yumei picked up the brush and wrote a line across the fresh sheet. The characters came out crooked and warped—an eyesore.

Aunt Liu examined it from every angle, then shook her head. “What did you even write? I can’t make out a thing.”

“It feels like this mood, this concept, could be woven into the brushstrokes themselves. There’s a strange kind of harmony.”

“Then if you keep writing like this, no one in the future will be able to read it. If they can’t even tell what the words are, how are they supposed to comprehend the concept?”

Liu Yumei crumpled the paper and tossed it aside.

“No… that’s not right.”

“What is it?”

“To write like this, one would have to internalize the full intent across all twenty-four volumes, with perfect continuity front to back, so the whole thing forms a complete cycle. You can’t get that just from understanding one or two volumes…”

“You’re saying—?”

“This boy… he finished the entire book in one night!”

Crack!

The brush in Liu Yumei’s hand shattered into dust, the powder trickling down her fingers.

In her mind, an image arose—back at Li Sanjiang’s house, when she sat sipping tea in the courtyard and occasionally glanced at the boy upstairs, lounging in a rattan chair. The way he flipped through pages—faster than someone skimming a comic book.

“If he could really read through the Liu clan’s secret techniques that quickly, then over the past year, just how many books did he go through in Li Sanjiang’s house?”

At first, Aunt Liu didn’t quite follow. Then her expression sobered. The number of books wasn’t the point. The key was—those books the boy read might all be on par with the Liu Clan’s Art of Observing Qi.

Liu Yumei spoke slowly, “It’s easy to go from frugal to extravagant. Harder the other way around. Reading’s like eating—once you’re used to gourmet, how can you go back to swallowing plain gruel?”

The study fell silent.

Just yesterday, they had joked that there might really be ancient texts hidden in Li Sanjiang’s basement. But now, faced with reality, they were both stunned.

“Heh…” Liu Yumei let out a laugh, pressing a hand to her forehead. “I think I understand now. Us staying at Li Sanjiang’s house… it was to soak up a bit of his good fortune.”

Aunt Liu quietly listened.

“But all that fortune—it seems it was meant for that boy all along!”

…

“Mm, A’Li, there’s more than enough wood shavings now. You don’t have to make any more for the time being.”

Still holding the planer, A’Li glanced at the boy, then down at the floor covered in purple wood shavings, her mood clearly dampened.

Even someone like Liu Yumei couldn’t fully grasp A’Li’s complicated feelings—but Li Zhuiyuan could.

“A’Li, are you worried that Grandma Liu’s initiation gift… won’t measure up?”

The girl nodded.

Her grandmother was joyfully giving away a used book—a first edition, sure, but still—and the only thing A’Li could offer was whittling more ancestral tablets to make up for it.

Li Zhuiyuan reached out and gently brushed the girl’s brow, trying to ease the furrow.

“Whatever gift Grandma Liu gives me doesn’t matter. It’s the thought that counts.

And besides,

Doctor A’Li,

I still owe the Liu family a huge stack of medical fees.”

After being treated like a patient for so long, this was the first time someone had called her a doctor.

The girl’s eyes lit up instantly.

Even the dim, curtained room seemed to glow brighter than the midday sun outside.

Seeing her happy, Li Zhuiyuan withdrew his hand and touched his own forehead, using the lingering sensation to sense the state of his human skin.

The girl reached out and pinched his cheek. Then she pinched her own.

Every pinch from her made Li Zhuiyuan feel like a stapler had snapped into his skin.

He was starting to feel an urge to go see Runsheng again—like a slacker student eager to show off his hard-won progress.

A’Li put away the planer.

Li Zhuiyuan gathered the wood shavings into the box. Finally, with a long breath—

Whew…

Exhausting, but he’d finally packed himself up.

Then the two of them sat back-to-back on the floor, leaning against the bed, as Li Zhuiyuan played blindfolded Go and recounted what had happened the night before in the school building.

By the time he finished, it was almost noon—time to head back to school.

“A’Li, once you and Grandma Liu move into the school dorms, I’ll come find you every morning—just like you used to come find me.”

Heading downstairs, he passed the study. The door was tightly shut, and Aunt Liu was nowhere in sight.

“Aunt Liu, I’m heading out.”

The door opened just a crack. “Xiaoyuan, what do you want for breakfast tomorrow?”

“Anything’s fine.”

“All right.” Aunt Liu shut the door again.

In that brief moment, a wave of ink fragrance drifted out.

Good. Seems like the insights of that “book thief” really are helping Grandma Liu refine her family’s legacy.

Though, whoever that person was—someone with that level of understanding—even if history didn’t record their name, they must’ve been someone like Wei Zhengdao.

Stepping out the door and into the courtyard, he turned back and saw the girl on the balcony, watching him leave.

Li Zhuiyuan waved at her.

She raised her hand in response—awkward and unsure, but unmistakably trying.

No longer the girl who once could only sit on the threshold, unable to step outside.

Li Zhuiyuan knew that both his and her conditions were improving.

He knew how to tell fortunes—but he didn’t believe in fate. And yet, sometimes, he couldn’t help but marvel at fate’s strange arrangements.

He was a monster wrapped in human skin. And by sheer coincidence, she was someone who had spent her life staring at monsters.

Back at school, he passed by the sports field. Morning military training was still underway.

Li Zhuiyuan didn’t have to participate. That exception was written into his early-admission scholarship perks—though he wasn’t sure which school official had snuck that in.

In truth, he was too old to be doing this kind of intense training alongside regular freshmen, even though his physical condition easily surpassed most of the students on that field.

He walked along the track’s railing, scanning the crowd, trying to spot Tan Wenbin. But he didn’t know which class Tan was in.

Oh… right.

He just remembered—he and Tan Wenbin were supposed to be in the same class. So which class was he in, again?

Even before school started, their counselor had died.

That left their class with fewer orientation sessions than the others. Though a new counselor was eventually assigned, they’d only had time to hand out some basic responsibilities.

As for his classmates and social circle, Tan Wenbin—based on habits from high school—had been shielding him from all of it.

Guess he’d ask Binbin for the class number once he was back in the dorm tonight.

“Hey little brother, can you help us out?”

A girl in a white dress ran up.

Li Zhuiyuan looked at her.

She pointed to a girl in a blue dress, seated on the grassy slope nearby.

“We’re doing sketches. Could you be our model?”

She reached out, trying to touch his face.

Li Zhuiyuan stepped back, dodging her hand, and shook his head.

“No.”

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