Chapter 818 - 421: New Discovery

Chapter 818: Chapter 421: New Discovery

Juhua suddenly stopped writing. She mentally calculated the total expenses and jotted down the number. Then, as if remembering something, she rested her brush on the edge of the inkstone. Getting up, she grabbed a comb and began to untangle Huai Zi’s long hair while talking to him.

"Huai Zi, I just remembered what I wanted to tell you earlier before you interrupted and made me forget. When you have the time, could you go to the market and check if my abacus is ready?"

Huai Zi replied, "I’ll go in a couple of days. I need to take the wood ear mushrooms to the market to sell anyway, so I’ll bring it back then. Juhua, do you really know how to use an abacus? You learned it just from reading a book?"

Juhua deliberately put on a smug expression. "It just proves how smart I am! Mathematics and Planning explains everything very clearly. Just stop asking; I’ll show you how to use it once it’s here."

She had learned how to use an abacus before, but she had used calculators for work later on and had forgotten almost everything. However, she could still manage basic addition and subtraction. Multiplication required some hard thinking, and she couldn’t remember division at all. Furthermore, the abacus she learned to use in school in her past life was a Wuzi abacus—one bead on the top deck and four on the bottom. It was completely different from the seven-bead abacus used by accountants in the shops, which had two beads on the top and five on the bottom. Therefore, she had no choice but to ask Huai Zi to custom-order one for her.

To cover this up, she used the excuse of wanting to learn how to use an abacus and had Huai Zi buy a copy of Mathematics and Planning from Qinghui. The book was well-written and easy to understand, but its formulas were specifically designed for the seven-bead abacus. This left her feeling quite frustrated—she had to come up with yet another excuse. Constantly fabricating lies was exhausting, and a single slip of the tongue could ruin everything. Fortunately, she only planned to use it at home and wouldn’t have to explain herself to outsiders.

Hearing her smug tone, Huai Zi smiled slightly.

Once Juhua had combed through his hair, she found a dry cloth and carefully dried it for him. She fluffed his hair out to air-dry. "Let’s wait a bit before sleeping," she said. "Your hair is still very wet."

Huai Zi grabbed a book and pulled her onto his lap. Embracing her, he said, "Let’s read for a while, then."

He barely managed to read a single page. Smelling the faint, milky scent on Juhua and caressing her soft waist, Huai Zi’s thoughts began to wander. Unable to resist, he lowered his head and captured her red lips, kissing her gently and tenderly, finally doing what he had wanted to do but couldn’t earlier in the courtyard.

Juhua didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. "Did my lips turn into a book?" she wondered.

Huai Zi’s kisses made her heart flutter and her body go limp. She instinctively wrapped her arms around his neck and responded passionately.

The lamplight flickered. Under the dim, yellow glow, a deep affection rippled between them. After a long moment, Huai Zi reluctantly pulled away.

"Hua’er," he murmured. Staring deeply into her eyes, he softly suggested, "Let’s stop reading and go to bed early. We can read tomorrow night, okay?"

Juhua had been dizzy from his kisses, but his words brought her back to her senses. She nearly laughed out loud, thinking, "When were you even reading?" However, not wanting to ruin the mood, she suppressed her smile, nestled into his embrace, and nodded.

"Let’s go check on Banli and Cong," she whispered.

Huai Zi nodded. He picked her up and carried her to the bed first, then went to check the twins’ bed curtains. Only then did he blow out the lamp and get into bed, releasing his pent-up passion.

The next day.

When the roosters crowed for the first time, the windows were still a hazy gray. Huai Zi woke up. He gently pulled his arm from beneath Juhua’s neck, carefully got out of bed, and stepped onto the footstool to get dressed.

When he went outside, a light mist still hung in the air, with only a faint trace of morning light breaking through the eastern horizon. In the kitchen, He was already busy. She first used a dustpan to scoop out the plant ash from the stove, preventing it from accumulating and blocking the firewood, before boiling water, washing the pot, and wiping down the stove.

Seeing Huai Zi, she asked in surprise, "Why are you up so early? It’s not even light out yet."

Huai Zi gave a vague response and carried a cup of water to the base of the courtyard wall to rinse his mouth, watering the plants in the process. He crouched in front of the tree root that resembled an old man. Suddenly, he noticed a dense layer of small wood ear mushrooms growing on the dead wood. Startled, he quickly leaned in for a closer look. They were indeed wood ears. Having grown them for years, he naturally wouldn’t mistake them for anything else.

Filled with wonder, he checked the roots of the two adjacent oak trees. These two had been dug up later, possessing their own unique features with their vigorous and peculiar shapes. A scattered amount of wood ears had sprouted on them as well, though not as abundantly as on the first stump.

He paced back and forth, examining them carefully.

The sky gradually brightened. In the backyard, the roosters crowed incessantly, while the chickens and ducks clamored in their pens, going CLUCK CLUCK and QUACK QUACK as they wanted to be let out. Heipi quietly slipped out of the west wing like a cat. Seeing the young master crouching by the wall, he paused in surprise but didn’t ask any questions, simply beginning his martial arts practice in the courtyard. Aunt Liu also hurried into the kitchen to start her chores.

Walking softly up behind Huai Zi, He poked him with her finger. "Huai Zi, what’s taking you so long?" she asked in a low voice. "Why aren’t you done washing up yet? The water is hot. Hurry up and carry it inside so Juhua can bathe the two little ones."