“Sigh~” Yu Hongdou sat propping her chin at the doorstep, her gaze so intense it seemed capable of piercing through the two tightly shut wooden doors.
About four hours earlier, while enjoying the scenery on the cliff with her brother Yu Song, Yu Hongdou had accidentally witnessed Yu Silang being ambushed on the opposite mountain. The sight left the siblings stunned for quite some time before Yu Song grabbed her and they raced down the mountain.
Upon returning to the village, Yu Song immediately sought out their father. Under Yu Sanlang’s direction, the men of the Yu Family sprang into action.
Yu Song took his uncles to find the village chief and rally the young men of the village to rescue those on the mountain. Yu Sanlang rode a donkey into town to seek official help—actually to report to the newly appointed magistrate, his influential patron, and borrow some men.
Yu Laoyezi gathered the other elderly men in the village to notify the remaining households to bar their gates for safety and organized three-person patrol teams to work in shifts day and night.
As one of the witnesses, Yu Hongdou was interrogated multiple times by her family. It was only when Yu Laotaitai ordered everyone to carry on with their usual tasks that she finally escaped the family’s questioning.
“Sigh~” Yu Hongdou sighed again, her heart filled with worry.
She never expected that the scene she had just recalled yesterday would unfold before her eyes today. What she regretted most now was dragging the rest of her family into this.
If only she had pretended not to see… Yu Hongdou raised her hand and patted her head. What was she thinking? She was raised with the education of the Five Emphases, Four Beauties, and Three Loves—how could she stand by and watch someone in danger?
“Sigh~” Yu Hongdou let out another sigh.
The male lead had plot armor and the female lead’s protection nearby, so he would surely be fine in the end. But the others might not be so lucky. Even though her own father and brother were villains who survived until the end, who could guarantee they wouldn’t be affected by her, a time-traveling butterfly flapping its wings?
“Alright, Hongdou, stop sighing. Come here, let me teach you how to make knot buttons,” said Xu Shi, who had been sitting restlessly inside. Her daughter’s loud sighs only added to her unease, so she decided to find something for both of them to do to distract their minds.
“Mother, teach me embroidery instead. I want to make pouches for my brother and father,” Yu Hongdou said dejectedly as she entered the room. Seeing her mother organizing the sewing basket, she thought about her own Embroidery Skill and suggested switching subjects.
Xu Shi nodded indifferently; she just wanted something to occupy themselves. She began casually explaining the different schools of embroidery, stitching techniques, tools, and skill classifications to her daughter.
Some of what Xu Shi taught overlapped with what Lian Wenzhi had mentioned, while some was new. Comparing the two, Yu Hongdou realized that while Xu Shi’s explanations were broad though general, Lian Wenzhi’s expertise was deep but limited to her specific strengths.
“Mother, how do you know so much about this?” Purely based on theoretical knowledge, Yu Hongdou suspected her mother must have at least a Level 2 Embroidery Skill and couldn’t help asking curiously.
“That’s a long story,” Xu Shi smiled faintly at her daughter, her expression tinged with melancholy as memories surfaced.
Originally, Xu Shi had been the young lady of a minor gentry family. Unfortunately, she was not the legitimate daughter and encountered natural disasters in her childhood—first a severe drought, then a flood. The Xu Family had no choice but to flee as refugees. Drifting from place to place, the once substantial Xu Family gradually scattered and dispersed.
“Mother originally had an elder brother, the eldest son of the Xu family, but we got separated along the way. When we reached Taoyuan Village, your grandmother was critically ill. Fortunately, your grandfather treated and cured her, so we settled here. Later, your grandmother remarried your current grandfather and gave birth to your uncle. I was also married off to your father as his wife.” By the end of her story, Xu Shi couldn’t help but smile faintly. In truth, Yu Sanlang had been quite attentive before their marriage, and her mother thought the Yu family seemed honest and reliable, so she agreed to marry her off to him.
“Your grandmother’s close friend was an embroiderer who had served in the palace. She was employed by the Xu family back then and secretly taught me a lot. It’s a pity I was still young at the time, otherwise my skills might have been better.” After recounting these past events, Xu Shi stretched a small piece of cloth for her daughter and drew several straight lines on it with a charcoal stick, teaching her how to start stitching.
Yu Hongdou was already familiar with embroidering straight lines. After pretending to stitch a few crooked ones, she began to demonstrate the skill she had practiced in her embroidery lessons. Xu Shi, who had been closely watching her daughter to prevent her from pricking her fingers, was astonished by her sudden display of talent. Just as she was about to praise her daughter, they heard a commotion outside.
“Brother is back!” Yu Hongdou recognized the voices of Yu Song and her uncles. She threw down her needle and thread and dashed outside.
In the courtyard, Yu Silang, with a cloth strip wrapped around his head, was being supported dizzily by Yu Dalang and Yu Erlang as they helped him toward the main room. Yu Song, along with his cousin Yu Li from the second branch and his eldest cousin, was busy entertaining the villagers. For a while, the small Yu family residence was bustling with visitors.
Yu Hongdou squeezed through the crowd to slip behind her brother, tugging at his waistband to listen closely to the key details.
It turned out that when the villagers arrived, Yu Silang had already been rescued, though he was still unconscious at the time. He had been hidden in a dirt pit with his head wound already bandaged, but the person who saved him was nowhere to be seen.
While carrying Yu Silang down the mountain, the villagers spread out to search the eastern hills but found nothing.
So, was the male lead saved by the female lead after all? Yu Hongdou pondered this. If her fourth uncle was still unconscious at the time, then the female lead hadn’t had the chance to tell him about that clue. Thinking of her father, who had gone to the city to seek help… she wondered if this opportunity would still fall into the male lead’s hands.
Though Yu Silang had returned safely, Yu Sanlang remained absent. By nightfall, even Yu Song had quietly left. That night, Xu Shi tossed and turned restlessly, and Yu Hongdou found herself wide awake as well. She decided to enter the teaching mode to accumulate embroidery experience. To her surprise, upon entering, she noticed the embroidery progress bar had increased by a tiny amount.
“It seems embroidering in the real world can also boost skill progress, or is it proficiency?” Yu Hongdou stared at the progress bar, counting on her fingers. It matched the few straight lines she had embroidered in front of Xu Shi during the day, filling her with unexpected delight.
As a five-year-old little bean, Yu Hongdou wasn’t considered part of the Yu family’s workforce yet. Apart from spending her days watching the chickens and ducks in the yard or catching insects, she had no real responsibilities. If she could improve her embroidery progress outside the teaching mode, she would have much more time to practice.
At the first light of dawn the next day, Yu Hongdou, like an internet-addicted teenager, eagerly picked up her embroidery needle. Before she could make more than a couple of stitches, she saw Yu Sanlang, who had been away all night, hurriedly walking through the gate.
Without stopping to speak to his wife and daughter, Yu Sanlang went straight into the main room. Shortly after, Yu Laoyezi and Yu Silang—the latter with a white cloth wrapped around his forehead—emerged from the house with serious expressions, following Yu Sanlang out the door.
Yu Hongdou’s curiosity piqued, she clutched the embroidered cloth in her hand and toddled slowly behind the three men on her short legs. Watching them enter the village chief’s house, she suddenly recalled the “Zhi Xiang Cult’s Jialan Incense” worth 2 Sign-in Points on the chief’s Eight Immortals table, unconsciously furrowing her brows into a slight frown.
Hmm, perhaps she should just use the 2 points she currently had?