ATBLM [QT] Chapter 148.1

The birds were chirping in the forest, the first rays of morning light shone on the mountains, and the mist spread all over the valley.

In the crystal clear stream, a few fish were swimming leisurely. Jiang Rui scooped up the cool stream water and splashed it on her face. The little fish was so frightened that it fled in all directions. It burrowed under the cracks in the rocks several times and disappeared.

“Owner, there are fish in the water!”

On a stone not far away, Ling Yuan’s wheelchair stood steadily. He looked at the small fish that were no longer than a finger long and were scurrying in the water.

He couldn’t help but ponder, “Want to eat fish for breakfast? I wonder if catching all the fish in this water area will be enough for you and me.”

“No,” Jiang Rui shook her head and said with a smile, “Such a small fish is not big enough to fit between teeth, and there is no seasoning to remove the fishy smell, so it will definitely not taste good when cooked.”

She took out the dry food she had brought from the carriage yesterday. After a night, it became very hard. She broke off a small piece, crushed it, and sprinkled it into the water. The aroma of the food attracted the greedy fish, and they gathered around it soon, some even dared to jump out of the water.

“You and I have empty stomachs, but these fish are full.” Ling Yuan looked at this side and smiled.

“Anyway, the Owner and I won’t eat it either.” Seeing more and more fish gathering together, Jiang Rui broke off another piece of dry food.

This was true. After the two delicious meals before, who would still want to eat the hard and dry rations?

There was the sound of wings stirring in the forest. Ling Yuan tilted his head slightly, and at the same time, a grass seed popped out of his hand. After a few breaths, a wild pigeon fell straight into the stream from mid-air.

Jiang Rui patted the debris on her hands, picked up the hem of her skirt, and stood on tiptoes. She stepped on the stones in the stream to pick up the pigeons, weighed the weight, raised her head, and smiled at Ling Yuan: “One more will be enough.”

Ling Yuan nodded and continued to pay attention to the surrounding movement around him.

Jiang Rui moved the earthen pot to the side of the stream and cooked a pot of pigeon-stewed mushrooms in the same way as chicken-stewed mushrooms.

After eating, she cleaned the cave and then looked at the pile of dry pyre used up by them with embarrassment. She suddenly took off her earrings, wrapped them in cloth, and prepared to stuff them into the pile of firewood.

“What?” Ling Yuan said warmly.

Jiang Rui said embarrassedly: “We have used up other people’s firewood. It’s still wet everywhere outside. We can’t pick it up and return it to him. I don’t have any money with me, and I’m afraid that Young Master Liu will be in a hurry to find us and also forget to bring it, so I put the earrings here first as a reward.”

Ling Yuan was followed by his servants when he went out, so he didn’t take any money with him. Hearing this, he took off the jade pendant from his waist and handed it over, then he said, “Use this.”

“What is this?” Jiang Rui said with a smile, “A load of firewood only costs a few cents. My pair of small silver earrings is enough to buy twenty or thirty loads, but we also borrowed his cave, so we gave him the extra money as rent. If the Owner of the village puts the jade pendant here, people may be frightened and dare not accept it.”

“It’s not appropriate to leave your earrings,” Ling Yuan said.

Jiang Rui understood what he meant. These days, it is difficult for women’s belongings to easily fall into the hands of men.

But now she left the earrings to the hunter, and he didn’t know who these earrings belonged to, so what did it matter?

Thinking so, she would not really say that to Ling Yuan. After thinking for a moment, she handed the earrings to him, “How about the Owner of the village spending some effort to shape it into a silver mound?”

The earring in front of her was small, made in the shape of a lilac flower, about the size of the nail of her little finger. Not only was it quite small, but it also looked shabby.

There was no woman close to Ling Yuan. The only ones who were relatively common were a few maids in the main courtyard. He didn’t pay attention to their clothes, but in his impression, their jewelry was mostly pure gold, pearls, precious gemstones, etc. If there was silver, it must be silver bracelets and silver hairpins. He had never seen such small silver jewelry.

He couldn’t help but look up at the little cook in front of him as if he had seen her for the first time. He looked at her from up to down and found that in addition to this pair of earrings and a small beaded flower, there was only a thin silver bracelet wrapped around her hand, which was so simple and plain enough, but she still made people feel dazzling.

“Keep it well.” He gently pushed Jiang Rui’s hand away, then cut the jade pendant in his hand into two halves with his sword, and handed half to her, indicating to wrap it up and put it in the pyre.

Jiang Rui looked at the jade pendant with a distressed expression, but she was quite speechless in her heart.

She said that the jade pendant was too valuable, so he cut the jade pendant in half?

It should be noted that the texture of a good piece of jade was as important as the carving. The value of only half of the jade pendant was far less than half of the original jade pendant’s price. It could be said that this piece of jade was ruined by him.

A few pennies of silver earrings could solve the problem, but a few hundred taels of jade pendant must be used instead. Jiang Rui thought that he was a typical person who did not know the value of materials and rice.

It wasn’t that she felt sorry for the silver, it wasn’t her money anyway, but she just didn’t know what to say about his behavior.

Ling Yuan was quite content, with half a jade pendant hanging around his waist, and he went to the entrance of the cave to enjoy the mountain scenery.

Not long after, Jiang Rui also moved a stone and sat at the entrance of the cave. The two of them talked aimlessly, without saying a serious word.

Since last night, she could feel the change in Ling Yuan’s attitude toward her, which was not very obvious. On the surface, he looked no different from usual, still gentle and polite.

But in fact, when Ling Yuan was talking to her yesterday, although it seemed that the topics were casual, there was a hint of probing hidden in his words, but there was no such thing today. They were really having a leisurely chat at this time.

 

 

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