This time, Li Hui seemed to have left earlier than usual, but Lin Yijian did not notice when he left.

Once she got absorbed in drawing, it was easy to forget the time. It was only when Mother Lin knocked on the door to ask about dinner that she realized so much time had passed.

Thinking about how the other party had come over this time without clamoring to eat anything, Lin Yijian felt a trace of faint awkwardness in her heart.

Perhaps because that strange emotional influence was missing, dinner was tasteless. Seeing her daughter poking at the bottom of the bowl with chopsticks, counting rice grains, Zhang Qi knew her old habit had returned.

She paused for a moment and said softly, “If you can’t eat, then don’t eat.”

Regarding Lin Yijian’s eating problem, things at home had certainly not been this harmonious in the beginning.

When parents saw their child not eating, they would inevitably be anxious, though the expression varied. Father Lin took a very common parental approach: the authoritative command of a patriarch.

However, the situation became worse and worse. When she was little, Lin Yijian had even reached the point where she would vomit whatever she ate.

It had been too long, and Lin Yijian’s own memory of that period was already blurry. But according to her mother, in the end, they took her to see a psychologist. After that, Father Lin stayed away from the family dining table for a year to avoid triggering her stress reaction.

Lin Yijian felt her mother was exaggerating.

She was just occasionally a little lacking in appetite and ate a bit less. How could there be any psychological shadow?

Thinking this, she could not help glancing at her father.

Lin Hongzhi relaxed his expression, making an effort to look as if nothing was wrong.

See, no problem at all!

Thinking this, Lin Yijian lowered her head to look at the bowl again.

The faint fragrance of rice lingered at her nose, and that pure joy and satisfaction caused simply by food welled up. Lin Yijian hesitated for a moment, then used her chopsticks to pick up a mouthful of rice and put it into her mouth. As her upper and lower teeth ground the soft grains, during the process of chewing, the starch in the rice was broken down by salivary enzymes, and the sweet flavor was perceived by her taste buds… It wasn’t bad.

In the end, Lin Yijian finished dinner with a portion slightly less than that of an average adult woman, but still considered normal.

When she returned to her room, she brought with her an inexplicable feeling as if she had accomplished some major event, and flopped herself into her chair.

The wheels of the swivel chair rolled a short distance under the force of her drop. Leaning against the backrest, Lin Yijian tilted her head back and looked at the ceiling for a while.

Logically speaking, she should be continuing her drawing at this time.

But after glancing at the unfinished line art over there, she hesitated for a while and still opened the search engine: material requirements for rattan shields, weaving methods for rattan shields, combat methods using rattan shields…

However, when she saw the search results, Lin Yijian could not help but be stunned for a moment.

Wasn’t this the famous “kill one thousand enemies, lose three of your own” Mandarin Duck Formation?!

*

Li Hui came a little later today.

But he brought good news: Yuzhou produced rattan, and the locals were accustomed to rattan weaving. The rattan for weaving shields obviously could not be used straight from mountain harvesting. The initial processing alone was a major undertaking, and Li Hui could not wait. Now, however, the situation was good; they had ready-prepared and softened materials from the locals… Although the quantity was limited, having some was better than none.

To be honest, the whole matter had gone so smoothly that Li Hui felt a sense of unreality, as if truly blessed by some deity.

But thinking about his experience, which could be called a “marvelous encounter”, it was indeed not impossible…

When Li Hui arrived, it was already past lunchtime, but Lin Yijian had not yet woken up.

Last night, she had spent extra time researching, and in order to avoid being discovered by her mother for staying up late, Lin Yijian chose to pull an all-nighter directly.

Powered by two cups of coffee, she was full of energy until dawn and successfully passed Mother Lin’s “morning inspection.” After a breakfast she truly had no appetite for, Lin Yijian went into her room with yogurt and cereal, directly saying, “I am not eating lunch.”

Amid Mother Lin’s nagging of “not eating again,” Lin Yijian poked her head out from behind the door and solemnly emphasized, “I have something to do this morning, Mom. If it’s nothing important, don’t come in!”

Zhang Qi: “You little child, what business could you possibly have?”

Lin Yijian: “In short, there is something!”

After solemnly informing her own mother, Lin Yijian threw herself onto the bed and began to make up for sleep.

Such a day-and-night-reversed, chaotic schedule naturally had side effects; Lin Yijian slept very lightly. Almost as soon as Li Hui arrived, she was awakened.

Because she had been keeping this matter in mind, Lin Yijian became clear-headed very quickly. Mumbling a greeting, she lifted the quilt and directly stepped barefoot onto the floor.

The floor heating in winter was very comfortable. Long used to this, Lin Yijian did not feel anything, but Li Hui could not help lowering his head to look.

He unexpectedly caught sight of a patch of lustrous white instep.

His thoughts paused, and he hurriedly shifted his gaze away.

Lin Yijian did not notice this sudden emergence of abnormal emotion.

Having stayed up an entire night, it was not something that could be made up just by sleeping. At this moment, her brain’s bandwidth for processing information was insufficient; the whole person was in a half-dazed state, even stumbling when turning on the computer.

The laptop was only in sleep mode; Lin Yijian shook the mouse to wake the screen.

She clicked open the document organized last night, and, with a kind of over-fatigued yet inexplicably excited emotion, spoke, “Look at this!]”

—The Mandarin Duck Formation!

Pulled over by this voice, Li Hui finally drew his mind back from the earlier awkwardness.

But as the words and pictures on the screen entered his eyes, he unconsciously became serious.

Li Hui did not speak for quite a while. Lin Yijian dragged the mouse to pull the progress bar downwards, and she too gradually began to feel unsure in her heart. Once the just-awakened excitement passed, the fatigue from staying up all night surged back, and her mood seemed to sink to the bottom along with this wave of tiredness.

The progress bar was dragged to the very end, and in her mind, there was still a silent quietness.

After waiting for a while, Lin Yijian could not help but ask, “Is it that it cannot be used?”

The Mandarin Duck Formation was originally a kind of highly targeted tactic specially designed by the Qi Family Army to deal with the Japanese pirates. Lin Yijian did not know whether this was suitable for Li Hui’s situation. In fact, her understanding of ancient battle formations was extremely limited, and the only bit of knowledge she had was crammed in overnight last night. But from a very simple common-sense perspective, expertise in one aspect must come at the cost of sacrificing in other aspects, just like a fine-liner pen should not be used for coloring, and a large-area eraser cannot be used to fix details…

[Of course it cannot be rigidly applied.] Li Hui’s reply was straightforward, but before Lin Yijian could lose heart, she heard him continue, [If this battle formation could only be rigidly applied, then the person who designed it would be unworthy of being called a master among soldiers.]

Lin Yijian froze for a moment, then asked uncertainly, “You mean, it is useful?”

Li Hui gave a low “Mm.”

Of course, it was useful.

Military formations had been extremely important since ancient times. Infantry with long spears lined up to defend against cavalry charges; cavalry charging in what kind of spacing would not hinder each other, yet would not leave gaps too large. And an important part of new recruits’ training was practicing to understand the military orders, to become one link in the formation. But those were all large-scale army formations, not like the battle formation in front of him now, where an individual’s bravery no longer seemed important, and what mattered was the cooperation between each other within the formation.

There was no need to select exceptionally gifted warriors, but correspondingly—

Li Hui murmured, […Training soldiers.]

The important thing was “training soldiers.”

Let the soldiers accept it, become familiar with it, and regard this kind of cooperation as instinct.

Li Hui’s voice was very low, but in mental communication, there was naturally no problem of whether one could hear clearly.

Hearing this, Lin Yijian hurriedly opened her previous bookmark: the vernacular-translated and original-text comparison edition of Ji Xiao Xin Shu.

[Do you want to take a look at this?]

Mentioning the Mandarin Duck Formation naturally could not avoid mentioning the Qi Family Army, and mentioning the Qi Family Army would make one think of this Ji Xiao Xin Shu.

But Lin Yijian had given up after reading the beginning.

Although the convenience of online knowledge sharing completely removed the obstacle of classical Chinese, to be honest, Lin Yijian still read it in utter confusion: she could recognize each character, and could also understand the meaning when combined, but there was still a layer in between—entirely a literal understanding, and after reading she had the feeling of having read for nothing, which was particularly obvious.

She admitted very frankly, “I cannot understand it.”

Li Hui gave a neutral “Mm.”

He had already seen it.

From the data she organized on the Mandarin Duck Formation, it was clear—this was completely an outsider… or even earlier, when he saw her drawing armor, he had already known.

He was silent for a while, then asked softly, […Why?]

Lin Yijian’s fingers were still pressed on the mouse, puzzled, “What ‘why’?”

[It must have been a lot of effort to organize these things, right? And very time-consuming.]

Lin Yijian paused, “Well… it was okay.”

It did indeed wear a person out.

Li Hui: “And it has no benefit to you.]

Lin Yijian unconsciously frowned, “‘Benefit’ and such…” That was too cold.

“You encountered a problem, and I just happened to be able to help. Lending a hand in passing—isn’t that very normal?”

Li Hui: [‘Me’? You do not seem to like me very much.]

Lin Yijian: … So you are aware of that yourself.

Now that the matter was exposed, Lin Yijian instead felt guilty.

She stammered, “It’s n-not that I dislike you.”

Although sometimes he was indeed quite annoying.

Feeling that continuing on might lead to an awkward topic, Lin Yijian tried to bypass it, “It has nothing to do with that. Shouldn’t people just help each other?”

Help each other?

Li Hui pondered this term, then suddenly asked, [Even if I am a bad person?]

Lin Yijian reflexively replied, “Even if—”

Huh?!

She suddenly got stuck.

Speaking of which, she really did not know much about the other party. All the information about this person had been voluntarily disclosed by him. If he really was a swindler… she seemed unable to tell.

Sensing the wildly pounding, restless emotions in her heart, Li Hui “pfft” laughed out loud.

[Just teasing you.]

As expected, a little girl.

He slightly lowered his tone, explaining seriously, [The Dingping Military Commissioner used troops to force Guanzhong, intending to rebel. Emperor Shun personally issued an edict to suppress the rebellion. This time I followed my adoptive father to quell the revolt.]

At least this time it was so.

Lin Yijian made an “oh” sound without much feeling, as if she had just heard the background introduction of some TV drama.

Not to mention believing it or not, she simply could not even raise any emotions.

After pausing for a moment, she did recall that time on the bus, when it was the other party who had taken the initiative to propose helping her.

Since he could not tolerate that kind of vile behavior and even “acted bravely for a just cause,” he should not be a bad person, right? Moreover, with the current situation between the two of them, what could he possibly deceive her for? He could not cheat money, nor could he take advantage of her looks.

Thinking so, Lin Yijian felt a little more at ease.

Here, after Li Hui finished explaining, his gaze naturally fell onto the screen in front.

On the desktop that had originally been neatly arranged, many messy icons had appeared, with file titles shown in the thumbnails below: “Quick Softening of Rattan…”, “A Kind of Rattan Softening…”, “Basic Structure of Plant Fibers”…

Lin Yijian also noticed where Li Hui’s gaze had fallen, and she explained, “Aren’t you going to weave rattan shields? I looked up some information last night, but these can’t be used. I’ll study it again.”

Weaving rattan shields required pre-processing the rattan strips. This process took as little as several months, and as much as several years; Li Hui obviously could not wait that long.

Fortunately, in a modern society where everything is pursued for efficiency, there are always quick processing methods. But after Lin Yijian downloaded several patents, she quickly found the problem: the materials needed were all refined chemical products, and Li Hui obviously did not have such convenient conditions there, so direct application was completely unrealistic. Lin Yijian planned to look for more information, and if it really did not work, she would research from the principle itself.

While thinking about this, Lin Yijian felt a strange emotion arise in her heart, and the source of this feeling was clearly not her own. But the composition of this emotion was too complicated, so for a moment she could not accurately define it.

Lin Yijian interpreted it according to her own thinking and felt that the other party might be worried.

She paused, then spoke to comfort him: “If I look up more information, there will definitely be a way.”

The methods were all already available; the only problem was whether suitable materials could be found.

Li Hui, however, thought of what Lin Yijian had said earlier: “Lend a hand in passing”… was it?

He laughed softly without making a sound.

[Weizhao is my courtesy name. You can call me ‘Li Weizhao.’]

The deep, magnetic voice sounded in her mind, and in her chest arose a kind of inexplicable excitement that was not unpleasant.

Lin Yijian was stunned for a moment and slightly confusedly gave an “oh.”

…This person’s self-introduction had to be done in two parts?

Having two names was so great, huh!