Chapter 44: Poetry Gathering 1/3

Jin Xiaoye was very tired.

Early in the morning, she went to the city first, then busied herself preparing for the wedding banquet… After suppressing Li Qingzhi, she quickly fell asleep.

Li Qingzhi, however, couldn’t sleep for a while. He finally broke free from Jin Xiaoye’s embrace, then covered them both with the blanket, lying shoulder to shoulder with Jin Xiaoye.

Reaching out to hold Jin Xiaoye’s hand, Li Qingzhi felt his empty heart being filled.

His ability was still weak, but it had improved a lot since his rebirth… Li Qingzhi sent his ability into Jin Xiaoye’s body to check her condition.

Overall, Jin Xiaoye was fairly healthy, but there were some minor issues, mostly due to fatigue and poor nutrition.

In the past few years, Jin Xiaoye has endured a lot.

But as long as Jin Xiaoye paid attention to her diet and rested properly, her body would recover. If he used his ability to help Jin Xiaoye adjust her body in the future, she would definitely live a long life like him.

Well, barring any accidents, they should be able to live for more than a hundred years.

Withdrawing his ability, Li Qingzhi closed his eyes to sleep.

But he couldn’t fall asleep.

With a sigh, Li Qingzhi carefully kissed Jin Xiaoye’s face all over before finally falling asleep.

Li Qingzhi slept particularly well that night.

Since he came to this world, he didn’t have to worry about being eaten by zombies in the middle of the night… He slept soundly every night.

In the morning, Li Qingzhi continued teaching Jin Xiaoye to read while cooking breakfast together.

Recently, Li Qingzhi taught Jin Xiaoye to read using teaching material from Zhu Qian’s autobiography.

When he wrote the book, his knowledge was limited, so he wrote it in simple language, hardly using any rare words, which was suitable for teaching Jin Xiaoye to read.

Li Qingzhi read a few passages to Jin Xiaoye, explaining the meanings of words she hadn’t learned before, while the rice in the pot cooked.

Now they had two pots, one for cooking rice and the other for cooking dishes.

While Jin Xiaoye tended to the fire and read the passages he taught her, Li Qingzhi cracked five eggs and made a large pot of pickled vegetable and egg drop soup.

In addition, he placed the bamboo shoots and taro brought by Zhao Laosan yesterday on the steamer.

The pickled vegetable and egg drop soup was especially good when eaten with rice, and the bamboo shoots dipped in soy sauce were also appetizing.

As for the taro, it would be saved for when they were hungry as a snack.

While preparing breakfast, Li Qingzhi also kept a close eye on Jin Xiaoye, who was studying. If she mispronounced any words, he would remind her.

When the meal was ready, Zhao Xiaodou and Jin Xiaoshu both arrived.

Li Qingzhi let them serve themselves, and seeing that Zhao Xiaodou’s portion was even smaller than Li Damao’s, he added a little more… After the meal, he changed into the clothes Zhu Xunmiao had sent yesterday and followed Jin Xiaoye to the county town.

The poetry gathering started in the morning and would continue until the afternoon. People generally didn’t hold events late at night at this time, as the journey home would be difficult after dark.

After leaving home, Li Qingzhi encountered some villagers. Everyone who saw him couldn’t stop praising his handsome clothes.

His clothes were indeed beautiful, and apart from his clothes, there was nothing else to praise about him.

When a person is particularly thin, they really don’t look good. He looked like a wooden frame now, with a piece of clothing hanging from it. When the wind blew, the clothes seemed to flutter.

Unfortunately, his current appearance doesn’t give people a celestial feeling, but rather a creepy one due to his thinness.

After arriving in the county town, Li Qingzhi went to the Zhu family.

“Mr. Li, my young master came back late last night and hasn’t woken up yet. Please wait for a moment,” a servant from the Zhu family brought Li Qingzhi tea and snacks.

The tea was black tea, and the snacks were champion cakes and sticky rice balls filled with red bean paste. While Li Qingzhi was eating, he saw a young man dressed like himself entering.

The same clothes looked much better on him than on Li Qingzhi!

After chatting for a while, Li Qingzhi learned that this young man was Xu Qifei, whom Zhu Xunmiao had mentioned before, who helped him copy books.

Xu Qifei didn’t know Li Qingzhi, but he was young and easy to talk to. After chatting with Li Qingzhi for a while, he enthusiastically engaged in conversation with him.

Almost everyone around Zhu Xunmiao had read Zhu Qian’s autobiography. While chatting, Xu Qifei asked, “Brother Li, have you read the book about Old Master Zhu?”

“I have,” Li Qingzhi replied.

Xu Qifei was very excited. “This book is truly timeless! I love this part the most…”

Xu Qifei directly recited a few sentences and told Li Qingzhi how well the book was written.

Li Qingzhi felt a little embarrassed.

The book he wrote wasn’t that good, but Xu Qifei liked it so much, partly because he wrote some thought-provoking words in the book, and partly because… Xu Qifei probably hadn’t read many books like this before.

Regardless of whether it’s Xu Qifei or Zhu Xunmiao, they had mostly read the Four Books and Five Classics. In such a situation, suddenly encountering a refreshing fiction novel, how could they not like it?

People always have a particularly deep impression of the first novel they found enjoyable. Xu Qifei asked again, “Brother Li, which part of the book do you like the most?”

Just as Li Qingzhi was thinking about how to answer, Zhu Xunmiao finally arrived.

Zhu Xinmiao seemed a bit listless, and he yawned after entering the room.

“Xunmiao.” “Brother Zhu.” Li Qingzhi and Xu Qifei greeted Zhu Xunmiao together.

Zhu Xunmiao looked a bit excited when he saw Li Qingzhi. “Brother Li, did you write any articles when you came back yesterday?”

Zhu Xunmiao came back late yesterday because he went to Ding Xi’s house to read the autobiography Li Qingzhi wrote about Ding Xi.

Compared to Zhu Qian’s autobiography, Ding Xi’s autobiography was more exciting, with plenty of fighting scenes.

Such plots were undoubtedly the favorites of young people. Zhu Xunmiao couldn’t stop reading it, and even felt that this autobiography was more attractive than his father’s.

He only went to Ding’s house in the evening. At that time, Ding Xi had just returned home and started reading the book Li Qingzhi had sent. He followed along and couldn’t put it down.

Unfortunately, Li Qingzhi had bound the pages together after writing them separately this time… Zhu Xunmiao couldn’t read the contents ahead of time and could only read slowly with Ding Xi, so he hadn’t read much after two hours.

In the end, Ding Xi couldn’t hold on any longer and went to sleep first so that he could finish the book faster.

After all this, when Zhu Xunmiao returned home, it was already late at night. He was so excited that he couldn’t fall asleep and ended up sleeping even later.

Zhu Xunmiao, who used to wake up before dawn, almost couldn’t get up today. When he saw Li Qingzhi, he was thinking about the continuation.

Li Qingzhi said, “There was something at home yesterday, so I didn’t write any articles.”

Zhu Xunmiao’s expression showed disappointment, while Xu Qifei, seeing this, was a bit puzzled. “Brother Li, do you write articles very well?”

Zhu Xunmiao looked at Li Qingzhi. He hadn’t mentioned to Xu Qifei about Li Qingzhi helping him write his father’s book, so he didn’t know if Li Qingzhi would be willing to tell Xu Qifei.

Before, Li Qingzhi had already noticed while chatting with Xu Qifei that Xu Qifei was a “familiar” person who was famous but hadn’t met him yet.

Every night before Jin Xiaoye went to bed, she would talk to him for a while, mainly about her business affairs.

She would complain about some difficult customers, talk about how much money she earned, but most of all, she would talk about the women who made floral headflowers for her, or the gossip those women told her.

For example, there was a woman surnamed Wang who was very close to Jin Xiaoye. Because her husband used to travel for business, she used to always worry and always looked worried. However, after Jin Xiaoye gave her many tasks to do, she no longer cared about her husband’s safety!

In addition, Jin Xiaoye talked more about Mrs. Xu.

Mrs. Xu couldn’t read, and her health wasn’t very good, but in order to be able to support her son’s education, she could sit there motionless for two or three hours, focusing solely on her needlework.

And the person in front of them, Xu Qifei, was Mrs. Xu’s son.

Li Qingzhi smiled at Xu Qifei. “I helped write Master Zhu’s autobiography.”

Xu Qifei looked puzzled.

Zhu Xunmiao explained, “Xu Brother, my dad didn’t read books, doesn’t understand any great truths, and can’t tell stories. His autobiography is so good-looking, all thanks to Brother Li’s touch!”