Where Immortals Once Walked

Chapter 737: If It Looks Good, That’s Enough

Sun Fuling stared at him for three to five breaths before slowly sitting back down. Sure enough, she intended to stand by and watch.

That meant she had agreed.

He Lingchuan went all out and, true to his word, quickly made two bamboo frames and pasted white paper over them. The room was warm, so the white paper he had pasted earlier dried quickly enough to paint.

Sun Fuling simply waited, wanting to see what else he could do besides write a few words that would make children cry from anger.

As for painting, well, He Lingchuan was a complete layman. Still, in front of Ms. Sun, he had to perform a little no matter what. So he took out red and black pigments and used a bold splash-ink method to color the white paper.

In other words, he was randomly smearing paint around. At most, he was filling in colored blocks. Sun Fuling could not bear it anymore. “What exactly are you doing?”

“Painting a fish!” He Lingchuan pointed at the fish-shaped bamboo frame. “Isn’t this what a koi looks like?” Don’t colorful koi all just look like they’ve been scribbled on?

“Should I paint a big black fish instead?” Well, that’d save me a lot of effort, “but it would be far too careless.”

Sun Fuling tried hard to keep a straight face. “O’ Great Commander, when you train soldiers, do you muddle through like this too?”

He waved a hand. “My soldiers all know the principle of sweating more in training so they bleed less in battle. I don’t need to whip people with bamboo strips at all!”

Sun Fuling finally could not hold it in and burst out laughing.

Of course he did not use bamboo strips to beat people. The Yuheng Army and Panlong Army shared the same lineage. They both treated lazy shirkers with whips and staffs.

Only when he saw her smile did He Lingchuan finally let out a breath of relief.

Then, seeing him go off to ruin another paper kite, first drawing two large circles on the back of the paper that looked like two turtle shells, Sun Fuling was convinced. “What are you painting this time?”

“The spectacles of a venomous snake—I mean, its eyes,” He Lingchuan said with great seriousness. “I’m planning to paint a banded krait.”

“Enough, enough.” Unable to watch him continue making trouble, Sun Fuling snatched the brush out of his hand. “I’ll do it. You go paste paper!”

Naturally, He Lingchuan did not fight her over it. He had already exhausted his three pathetic tricks. If he kept painting, nothing more would come out of it.

But when he saw the slight curve of her lips as she painted, he knew her mood had improved again.

Watching her paint, he said instinctively, “Are you sure you’re not a preschool teacher?”

“Preschool lion?” Is he comparing me to a little lion cub?[1]

“Nothing, nothing!” He looked at Ms. Sun’s painting. The lines were simple, the colors bold, and it was full of childlike charm. “It looks good!”

If it looks good, then that’s enough.

The two worked together, and in about three hours, they finished the craftwork. They even made two more paper kites than originally planned.

“Let’s keep these two for ourselves.” After all the laughing and messing around, the little unpleasantness from earlier had already vanished like smoke.

He Lingchuan noticed that she had said “ourselves.”

Ms. Sun, meanwhile, heard his stomach growling.

“Have you not had dinner yet?”

“Oh, I haven’t.” Only then did he belatedly rub his stomach. The moment he came back, he immediately started doing unpaid labor for Ms. Sun and had not gotten around to finding food.

Though it was not really unpaid labor, after all, he had gotten a kiss in, had he not?

Sun Fuling had no idea what he was thinking. As she scooped water to wash her hands, she said, “Thank you for tonight. How about I treat you to grilled meat? The academy just issued charcoal and firewood today, and there are two big slabs of pork, along with pork sausage from the tavern down the mountain.”

She had changed back into that crisp, capable Teacher Sun.

Meat? He Lingchuan’s spirits lifted. “Then what are we waiting for?”

He flipped back over the wall to his own kitchen, grabbed the charcoal stove with one hand, and headed out.

This outdoor charcoal stove was something he had made by modifying a broken old vat that had already been in the house. The hole in the vat had been polished smooth, perfectly turning into an opening for adding charcoal. Then the top was narrowed, forming a stovetop.

As for the grill, that was simple: a thin stone slab scrubbed perfectly clean.

Sun Fuling took ice from the mountain spring, put it into an iron kettle, and set it on the heated stone slab.

On the other side of the slab went sweet potatoes and autumn chestnuts.

He Lingchuan took up a knife and sliced the washed pork into thin pieces.

This was all Teacher Sun’s salary. She had specially picked pork shoulder collar, marbled with fat and lean meat. He brushed on a layer of Yuheng City’s specialty sweet pear sauce, then laid the slices on the stone slab. A sharp sizzle rose at once.

Yuheng City had once also been called Pear City. Its pears were large and sweet, and the locals used them to make all kinds of snacks. The most famous was sweet pear sauce. This sweet-and-salty sauce paired best with meat. When pork shoulder collar coated in it was grilled until slightly charred and eaten together with carrot strips, the result was—

A delicious crunch!

There was crispness where there should be crispness, flavor where there should be flavor. The pear juice washed away the greasiness of the meat, leaving only rich fragrance behind.

He Lingchuan also toasted a few flatbreads. Once the outside of the bread turned faintly golden, he stuffed the grilled meat inside, then added a little of the pickled vegetables the landlord had given them.

Sun Fuling took a bite of the meat-filled flatbread, then a sip of wine, and sighed with deep satisfaction.

“Your cooking skills really are getting better and better.”

He Lingchuan gave her a bow. “Many thanks for the praise. Unfortunately, when it comes to this skill, I still can’t compare to Mr. Shao.”

Sun Fuling agreed. “His grilled meat truly is exceptional.”

“You’ve tasted it?”

“Yes.” She bit down, then paused. “In the past, Mr. Shao also took the academy children out for picnics. The moment his grilled skewers came off the fire, no one would eat what we had grilled. I wonder where he is now.”

He Lingchuan instinctively lifted his head to look at the sky.

“Oh, right. Last time, you asked the headmaster about how to calculate the Tianluo Star,” Sun Fuling added. “Afterward, I noticed that it shone bright again on two nights.”

He Lingchuan was startled. “When?”

“One month ago, and seven days ago.”

Those were the Dragon Punishment Pillars Shao Jian had spread, being used by the gods’ believers.

He was still carrying out his mission with unwavering resolve.

Sitting there, He Lingchuan could feel the storm approaching.

He thought of Fang Canran.

Separated by over a hundred years, the stubbornness and resolve of these two men seemed carved from the same mold.

The things they had accomplished stirred the winds and clouds, and what followed would have a profound effect on this world, perhaps even on the divine realm.

But tonight, the stars glittered overhead, and the quiet night was as beautiful as a painting.

Sun Fuling looked at the scattered lights below the mountain and suddenly said, “The city lights are prettier than the stars in the sky.”

He Lingchuan lowered his head. Yuheng City could not yet be called a sea of ten thousand household lights, nor was it anywhere near as dazzling as the Milky Way above. But behind every lamp was a household, and every household had its own story.

Now, his duty was to guard those thousands of homes.

The two of them slowly sipped wine, silent for a long while.

The snow had stopped very early. Sitting beside the warm charcoal stove, neither felt cold. This sensation of boundless heaven and earth, with lights beneath one’s feet, was something that could not be experienced in Panlong City.

“Has no one been fighting at the academy lately?”

“No.” Sun Fuling smiled. “Yuheng Academy is also about to start night classes, with special classes opened specifically for your soldiers.”

“Thank you for your hard work.” He Lingchuan’s sincerity was genuine. “The West Luo people around Yuheng City are joining the army enthusiastically, but too few of them can read. At the very least, they need to understand written orders and combat reports, as well as gestures and coded signals.”

The State of West Ji had originally discriminated against West Luo people and forbidden them from attending school. When Yuheng City had just been captured, one could not find a single literate person among twenty West Luo people.

1. This is a play on words. Teacher is a homophone of lion in Chinese. ☜