Chapter 17 (2/2)

“If you were as spoiled then as you are now, how nice that would be,” A warm and sweet atmosphere surrounded the two of us. Fang Hua lowered his head to smile at me, still stroking my hair…

The door–

–opened with a bang.

Willow catkin seeds swirled in the air like thick snowflakes, rus.h.i.+ng into the room. Han Zichuan stood right outside the door, carrying some medicinal plants in his hands. He stared at us stupidly, a few flower petals resting on his shoulders.

I blanked out.

Fang Hua didn’t, but he did push me to one side. I fell on the floor…

Curses, did he really need to give me the cold shoulder?

Fang Hua slowly stood up, probably feeling what he’d done was inappropriate, and bent down to help me up. Then he smiled at the other and asked, “Why did you come in?”

Only now did Han Zichuan recover his bearings. He looked at the medicinal plants in his hands with a startled expression and said, “I decided to tidy these up since they’d been drying in the sun for a long time. There’s not much silver left in the house, so I thought I’d find you for some pills to use for exchange outside.”

His eyes were still staring fixedly at the point where our hands met. It was a long while before he raised a head to smile at me. But this smile…

…it made me feel a little uncomfortable, as if he was doing something sneaky behind his back. I lowered my head and peeked at him from a different angle…oh, this floor was really clean with barely any dust on it.

Fang Hua muttered to himself before pulling out something from inside his sleeves and opening up his palm. When I took a look, I saw two or three pocket-sized bottles there.

My sleeves hastily pushed aside the approaching Han Zichuan as I grabbed the bottles and weighed them experimentally in my own hands. “Yifu, you and Han Zichuan rest at home. Leave it to me to sell the pills.”

Fang Hua smiled, straightening up his slender form as his hands vanished back into his sleeves. His silence was equal to a tacit consent.

Nowadays, even he had to admit that years of living in seclusion made it hard for him to find his bearings in the markets. Once, I went strolling with him in the streets. It wasn’t long before a person b.u.mped against him, followed by another and then another. He’d only smile at them after it happened.

When they left, he’d point at their retreating backs and say he was extremely familiar with these people. When I asked him why, he said it was because they were always b.u.mping into him. I had stared into the skies, speechless, before giving him a glance.

When he lowered his head to feel around his clothes, his expression had s.h.i.+fted. You didn’t need brains to figure out that all of his money had been stolen.

Han Zichuan was even more hopeless…

When the house ran out of silver, he would take some medicines to exchange them for other things. At first I wasn’t certain if he’d come back with enough money for us to use, and yet…

He was pretty good at turning a profit, but even better at spending those profits.

As soon as he stepped back inside the house, the imposing vision that greeted us was…

Two or three young boys carrying in colorful rolls of cloth, various cakes and pastries, objects which ranged in size from a single piece of firewood to the size of a carriage, all bought for our house. Not only did we lose the money from selling the medicine, but there were quite a few loan slips in his robes as well.

So.

After rolling my eyes a few times at the two people in my rooms, I placed the precious bottles in my robes and exited the doors.

I straightened my posture and took a long breath, free from the atmosphere in that house. Looking back, I saw their dazed, dumbfounded figures.

Heh.

If if wasn’t for me…

…how would those two even survive?

[Most up to date translations for this series can be found on volaretranslations.]