LRAB Page 99
Page 99
Song Lingyue covered her forehead and shook it, then asked, "If she really has feelings for you, what would you do?"
Xia Yuelan hooked her arm around her shoulder and clenched her fist tightly: "I...I...I will adhere to my moral principles. I will never agree to this easily."
She whispered again, "But if a few more come, I might not be able to handle it."
Fu Hai and Song Lingyue looked at her. Xia Yuelan bent over slightly and whispered, "It's not my fault, she really gave me too much."
Song Lingyue said, "It's nothing! Don't worry about it."
Anyway, someone has already paid in advance with their body.
Xia Yuelan was still very worried: "What exactly happened?"
"That young lady is being way too nice to me, isn't she? She's not that kind of person... Could it be that she's discovered I'm a martial arts prodigy and wants me to switch allegiances to Mount Yucheng?"
"If that's the case, I...I...I..."
Although I really like this place, the thought of having a maidservant with a monthly allowance of one or two taels of silver and the ability to easily pull out gold coins is just... well, let's just say it's not a good idea.
"I absolutely will not go!" she said, her voice barely audible as she clung to her arm.
"You're saying that without any confidence at all!" Fu Hai flicked her forehead.
I opened the "Spy" window and looked again, and found that Miss Butterfly had gone back into the city from outside the West Gate.
"I need to go into town on some business." He walked towards the backyard...
Chapter 183 He just wanted everyone to live a good life.
Fu Hai, wearing only pants and shirtless, rushed into the rain and took a shower.
I went back to my room to change my clothes, ate something simple for dinner, picked up the gift bag, and went outside with my oil-paper umbrella.
"What's wrong with Senior Brother?" Xia Yuelan leaned on the octagonal table in the inn, watching his back as he went out in the rain. "What's he doing so mysteriously? I feel like Senior Brother has changed a lot lately."
Song Lingyue sat to the side, flipping through the ledger, and asked casually, "What has it become?"
Xia Yuelan looked up at the ceiling and thought for a moment: "It looks more like a man now."
"He was a man all along, and you're only just realizing that?" Song Lingyue said.
“I think he used to be more like a child.”
"You're the one who's more like a child," Song Lingyue said irritably. "Senior brother hasn't changed much, he's just grown up."
Xia Yuelan thought for a moment, then asked softly, "Where have you grown?"
After asking the question, he put his hands together, leaned on the table, and chuckled.
Song Lingyue glanced at her junior sister.
This little girl has grown up a bit, but she's not quite old enough yet.
Looking at her bouncing chest as she laughed, he thought to himself that she had grown quite large in that area.
She looked away and continued flipping through the ledger; Sister Qiu Ying had already finished settling the accounts.
After she finished reading, she closed the ledger and breathed a sigh of relief: "Including this gold bean from earlier, I'm still eighty or ninety taels short of the taxes I need to pay this year."
"Within a hundred taels, even if we can't earn it back in the next two months, we should be able to borrow money from the bank in the name of the Dragon Claw Sect to tide us over."
Xia Yuelan said, "Oh, I almost forgot, Madam Langyue from Baoshuzhai came by this afternoon and said that Senior Brother's book has sold out and they want to publish a new one."
Song Lingyue nodded.
Although they had to pay several hundred taels of silver in taxes every year to maintain the Dragon Claw Sect's membership quota, they were still struggling to make ends meet.
However, these sect slots are very difficult to obtain now, and once they are withdrawn, they will be gone forever.
Moreover, as long as the reputation of a reputable family remains, and with proper management, there is always a chance for a comeback.
Just like doing business, as long as the quota is available and Xiaodiancangshan is also there, then the capital will always be preserved.
The most important reason is that the Dragon Claw Sect originally didn't have any powerful martial arts techniques, and after the world became peaceful, there were fewer people practicing martial arts. The previous sect leaders also mismanaged the sect.
The previous sect leader... who was also the senior brother's godfather and their master, was also an old-fashioned good man.
The sect is broke and still tries to provide relief everywhere. It's an old and dilapidated sect that spends money like water, and it has no ability to run a business at all.
Song Lingyue knew that the old sect leader had no choice but to listen to advice and be forced to turn the martial arts school into an inn because he couldn't keep it running.
For the old sect leader, being forced to take off his martial arts robes and become a businessman, instead of being a martial artist who taught martial arts, was a humiliation to his identity.
But after that change, business was indeed good for the first few years.
This year, the main reason is that the canal in the west of the city and the new official road have rendered the entire old official road in this area useless, which is something that can't be helped.
She looked at the rain outside and said, "Yue Lan, do you remember Master? It seems like it was raining just as heavily the day before Master went on stage."
Xia Yuelan hummed in agreement and said in a low voice, "That night, my senior brother also cried a lot."
"He kept persuading his master not to participate in the martial arts competition, and even told his master that it would be fine to keep running the inn, and that everyone could live a good life together."
"Master was very angry and even hit him with a stick, and we didn't dare to say anything. We never expected what happened the next day..."
Song Lingyue said, "At that time, my senior brother probably had a premonition, so he never wanted Master to go on stage to compete again."
"The Zhengwu Association also paid out a sum of money later, but my senior brother didn't accept it."
"In the end, we had already signed a life-or-death agreement, and our fates were left to fate. After that, my senior brother never went to the Zhengwu Association again. For a while, they were worried that he would seek revenge when he grew up, but they were overthinking it."
"Before Master passed away, he said two things to my senior brother: one was that he was absolutely forbidden to avenge him, and the other was that he must revitalize the Dragon Claw Sect in the future."
Xia Yuelan looked up and said, "Revitalize the Dragon Claw Sect! Why do I feel like Senior Brother has no intention of revitalizing the Dragon Claw Sect at all? He just wants to drift through life year after year?"
Song Lingyue hummed in agreement: "Senior Brother and Master have different ideas after all."
"Just like those cultured and refined intellectuals who feel it's shameful to take off their long gowns to write novels and make money with words. My master also felt that it was shameful for us, a respectable sect, to be forced to run an inn."
"But my senior brother doesn't care about these things. What he hopes for more is that everyone can live peacefully and well. His biggest regret is that he couldn't stop Master from going on stage back then."
"He will also uphold his master's last wish to preserve the Dragon Claw Sect, but he won't do anything to promote or develop it."
"He has his own ideas, which is that everyone should just live well."
Xia Yuelan placed her chest and hands on the table: "Yes! That was the second time I saw my senior brother so heartbroken, so distraught, that he cried for many days."
Song Lingyue turned to look at her: "The second time?"
"Hmm! I remember it happened once when I was little. At that time, I was still at Baojitang, and there was an Aunt Qiu, Aunt Qiu... or something like that, I can't remember exactly."
Xia Yuelan tried hard to recall, "That Aunt Qiu wasn't a local. She came to our area from another place. She was very ill and had difficulty even getting out of bed. She lived in a thatched hut behind Baojitang."
“Some people secretly told me that she suffered very serious internal injuries, but I don’t know if that’s true. At that time, my senior brother was still young, and he went to see her and took care of her every day.”
"Although she was a refugee from another place, Aunt Qiu knew a lot. My senior brother took care of her, and she taught him to read and write. Everyone joked that the two of them were like a real mother and son."
Song Lingyue said, "Hmm! I didn't know Senior Brother back then. What happened later?"
"My senior brother took care of Aunt Qiu for more than half a year. Aunt Qiu was slowly getting better, but one night, for some reason, the house was destroyed and Aunt Qiu was found lying in front of the house."
“When my senior brother rushed over, I was there, just like the other children at Baoji Hospital. I only dared to watch from a distance and didn’t dare to get close at all.”
“At that time, he wasn’t my senior brother yet, but all of us kids liked him very much. I saw him hugging Aunt Qiu, crying and telling everyone to go find a doctor. It was only then that the others remembered to go find a doctor.”
"Then, I saw Aunt Qiu smile and pat my senior brother's head, telling him not to cry... and then..."
Song Lingyue said, "Sigh!"
Xia Yuelan raised her head and continued, "Because no one knows where Aunt Qiu came from, she was originally going to be buried hastily."
"At that time, my senior brother was nominally Master's adopted son, but he had not yet come to Xiaodiancang Mountain."
"My senior brother went to borrow money from Master to give Aunt Qiu a proper burial. At that time, only the people from Baoji Hall were helping him."
"Because my senior brother is Aunt Qiu's only relative... although he's not really a relative, so my senior brother is the one who wears mourning clothes for Aunt Qiu."
"But then something else happened."
Song Lingyue asked in surprise, "What's wrong?"
Xia Yuelan said, "Aunt Qiu had already been buried, but suddenly a group of people came and tried to drag her coffin out."
"My senior brother rushed over to protect him, and he was beaten until his scalp was bleeding. The adults from Baoji Hall tried to stop them from beating people, but they were also beaten."
Then another sedan chair arrived, and a very beautiful young lady stepped out; it was clear at a glance that she was a very wealthy heiress.
"That young lady was probably only about ten years old, but she was very skilled in martial arts. When someone tried to hit her senior brother with a stick, she would teleport several feet away to stop him. To us at the time, she seemed like a goddess."
"She was very angry, and when she looked around, everyone was terrified, and the air seemed to turn cold."
“She went to talk to her senior brother, but he ignored her completely. At that time, the coffin had already been pulled out of the excavated soil. Her senior brother forbade them to open the coffin, but it was still pulled open.”
"After the coffin was opened, the young lady looked at Aunt Qiu, who was already dead, without saying a word. She was just very angry, and no one else dared to approach her."
This was the first time Song Lingyue had heard about this, and she asked, "What is her relationship with Aunt Qiu?"
"I don't know. She probably wasn't a relative. Anyway, when she saw Aunt Qiu who had died, she didn't cry. She just had a cold face."
Xia Yuelan looked up and thought for a moment, then seemed a little uncertain, "Those people took Aunt Qiu's body away, but that young lady didn't leave right away."
"She asked about Aunt Qiu, but we didn't actually know anything about her. It was my senior brother who took care of her during those days."
"Then she went to ask her senior brother, as if she wanted to know how Aunt Qiu spent the last six months, but her senior brother ignored her and just kept crying."
"The young lady then sent someone to give my senior brother money, a whole box of silver, but he threw a tantrum and spilled it, refusing to take it."
"Then the young lady started crying too, and the two of them were crying, crying very sadly. Neither the people who came with the young lady, nor any of us, dared to approach..."
Chapter 184 It's better to resolve enmity than to perpetuate it.
Song Lingyue sighed softly and said, "I didn't expect that such things had happened before. Senior Brother was originally an orphan. First it was Aunt Qiu, and then it was Master."
"No wonder he didn't want to promote the Dragon Claw Sect; he just wanted everyone to live peacefully."
Xia Yuelan said, "Yes!"
She stretched out her arms and legs under the table.
"Actually, that young lady came again later, wanting to ask more questions about Aunt Qiu, and also wanted to take my senior brother away. But my senior brother ignored her the whole time."
“She left again a few days later, and then my senior brother was brought to the mountains by our master.”
Song Lingyue said, "It's not that I can't understand it. If she really is Aunt Qiu's relative, why would you leave her alone outside? Senior Brother must be thinking the same thing."
They looked outside together. The Lantern Festival was over, and the lanterns on the city wall could no longer be lit. The sky was dark, and the wind and rain were fierce.
Meanwhile, at the backyard passageway.