The evening meal was lively, but it had little to do with Yu Hongdou, as she fell asleep halfway through and had no recollection of how she got home afterward.
When she woke again, everything was pitch black. Yu Hongdou feared she had gone blind and hurriedly opened her system panel. Only after seeing the information displayed did she breathe a sigh of relief.
【Host: Yu Hongdou】
【Check-in Points: 1 (Automatically +1 after midnight each night)】
【Skill: Embroidery Level 1】
【Backpack: 1 Ancient Common Medicine Kit; 2 taels of Silver; 3 jin of White Rice; 1 set of Painting Tools + 20 sheets of Xuan Paper】
Seeing the painting tools she had splurged 2 precious points on, Yu Hongdou felt a pang of regret. But as her gaze fell upon them and she watched the tools unfold layer by layer, all she could do was scream internally with delight.
It was a wooden box designed like a five-tiered rotating storage case. The first tier held brushes of various sizes and thicknesses. The second and third tiers contained mineral and plant-based pigments respectively, each tier divided into 12 compartments with lids. The lids were labeled in small gold-ink regular script with the names of the pigments. The fourth tier was equally split between paper and silk, while the fifth tier held ink sticks, an inkstone, and a paperweight.
Yu Hongdou had once followed some high-end influencers on a certain platform, particularly those specializing in Thangka and traditional Chinese painting. Whenever they discussed pigments, they would lament with heartfelt anguish, and the comments often mentioned prices starting at the cost of an apartment. In the end, Yu Hongdou didn’t grasp the sanctity of Thangka or the elegance of traditional Chinese painting—she only remembered one thing: traditional Chinese pigments were expensive! Extremely, outrageously expensive!
After admiring in awe the shades of vermilion, ink-blue, gardenia yellow, and indigo, Yu Hongdou shifted her focus back to the check-in points.
Seeing that the point she had squandered had been restored to 1, it seemed it was already past midnight. Hearing the rhythmic breathing of her parents from the kang across the room, Yu Hongdou clicked on 【Embroidery】 again and entered the tutorial mode.
Her vision went black, then brightened. When her sight returned, she found herself in an unfamiliar room.
The room was draped with cyan curtains embroidered with vine-like green lines—simple yet elegant. Beyond the curtains stood a thin, pale woman who appeared to be around the same age as her mother, Xu Shi. She stood before an antique rectangular embroidery frame.
“You’ve arrived, young lady. I am your embroidery teacher, Lian Wenzhi, manager of the Lian Family Embroidery Workshop, Ji Jing Branch. In the Lian family, my embroidery skills are considered average at best—I can only help you raise your Embroidery Skill to Level 2. I specialize in auspicious patterns, such as the Auspicious Cloud Pattern, Cloud and Thunder Pattern, Dragon and Phoenix Pattern…”
“To learn embroidery, we must first familiarize ourselves with the tools. This is the embroidery frame. There are several styles of frames…”
Yu Hongdou felt a bit overwhelmed by the flood of embroidery knowledge. She tried to chat with the teacher to build a mentor-student rapport but found her to be rather NPC-like: she would talk incessantly when embroidery keywords were mentioned, but if other topics were brought up, she would just smile silently and watch.
Oh well, might as start learning. In ancient society, learning embroidery could prove highly useful—at the very least, she could help her mother mend socks.
In her previous life, Yu Hongdou had hardly ever held a needle. She had, however, watched her own mother leisurely embroider one cross-stitch piece after another. After retirement, her mother had advanced to French embroidery and bead embroidery, posting each finished piece on social media and tagging Yu Hongdou to ask for likes…
Yu Hongdou felt a bit melancholic, but having been open-minded since childhood, she quickly let it go. After all, her parents were enjoying a worry-free retirement, and her younger siblings were looking after them at home. As a wanderer who hadn’t returned home for years, she had gradually grown detached from homesickness.
Under the guidance of her embroidery teacher, Yu Hongdou began splitting threads and threading needles. After what felt like a busy, endless stretch of time, she finally made her first stitch and started embroidering straight lines…
The teacher didn’t demand much from her. Even when Yu Hongdou’s stitches were crooked, she didn’t scold her, instead explaining nearby what auspicious patterns straight lines could form or what ripples could be embroidered.
Perhaps because nighttime without a phone was too dull, Yu Hongdou actually managed to patiently embroider over twenty straight lines.
At first, they were crooked, but soon her talent as a STEM graduate for drawing straight lines emerged. By the time she finished the twentieth line, her Embroidery Skill progress bar had reached 2% at Level 1. At this rate, would she only need to embroider 980 more straight lines to reach Level 2?
It seemed that as long as she had enough time, leveling up wouldn’t be too difficult. But what time was it outside now? Shouldn’t her parents be awake by now?
Yu Hongdou exited the teaching mode. The darkness around her had lightened slightly, but her parents didn’t seem to be awake yet. She decided to go back in and embroider a little longer. No wonder her mother was always swiftly stitching away—this stuff was truly addictive!
After embroidering fifty straight lines and finally receiving the teacher’s approval to start on wavy lines, a dizzy and bleary-eyed Yu Hongdou finally exited her study-maniac mode. By then, it was fully daylight, and her parents were sitting at the kang table talking.
“No one expected the newly appointed magistrate to be so young, but these scions of noble families are no simple figures.”
“I originally thought to leverage that connection to get Xiao Song a position in the yamen, a job that could support him for life, but I never imagined it would nearly harm our descendants.”
“The nobleman said that in previous dynasties, yamen runners came from humble origins and were barred from imperial exams for three generations. Our current reign is lenient, lifting restrictions on exam candidates to quickly recruit talent. But as the population grows, who knows if there will be new restrictions in the future? So, instead of making Xiao Song a prison guard, he was assigned to the archives.”
At this, Yu Sanlang sighed. Seeing his wife’s mix of lingering fear and confusion, he explained to her that working in the archives meant handling the magistrate’s internal affairs, managing documents, files, and other items daily.
Pretending to be asleep, Yu Hongdou pondered this and equated the position she recalled from memory with her brother’s current job.
Hmm, basically a warehouse keeper.
“Husband, I don’t understand outside matters, but I believe Xiao Song surely knows that whatever you did was for his better future.” Xu Shi could see that her husband was also shaken. Even though she was still somewhat puzzled, she comforted him first.
“Yes, Xiao Song is indeed sensible. These days at the yamen, besides learning his duties, he spends his free time reading. Our son is clever, even impressing the nobleman. The advisor accompanying him even said he’d teach Xiao Song! Huiru, thank you for giving me such wonderful children.” Yu Sanlang’s heart swelled with pride thinking of his son’s quick wit and intelligence. He took his wife’s hand and expressed his gratitude sincerely.
“Stop talking nonsense. Our son mentioned you also found some work—what’s that about?” Xu Shi, feeling shy, glanced at their “sleeping” daughter on the kang, pulled her hand back, and lightly swatted her husband.
“It’s not really work, just doing tasks for important people. Do you really think a county magistrate of such high rank entered the mountains just for novelty? Actually…” Yu Sanlang tilted his head to listen for any movement outside before whispering a few words to his wife.
The matter must have been truly confidential, for even Yu Hongdou, whose ears were perked up like radar, only faintly caught three words.
“Zhi Xiang Jiao.”