Another ten years passed.
Ten years on Tai Xu Mountain were like the mountain stream before the door; seemingly tinkling and ceaseless day and night, but looking back, only a shimmering light remained, its specific shape impossible to grasp.
Only certain tangible things spoke of the passage of time.
For instance, the Vegetable Garden.
What was originally just a small self-sufficient plot beside the Bamboo House had now spread uphill, downhill, and to both sides along the slope, becoming a fairly large-scale terraced field.
Rows of fields, meticulously separated by bamboo fences, were neatly arranged according to the mountain’s terrain, shimmering with various shades of green under the sunlight.
What was planted here had long since surpassed the initial cabbage and radishes.
The rows nearest the Bamboo House remained seasonal vegetables, green and succulent.
Further up were drought-resistant tubers—vines of sweet potatoes and yams crawled across the ground with thick leaves.
Further up on the sun-drenched slopes, corn stood tall with slender stalks topped with red tassels; peanuts were hidden in the soil, showing only fuzzy leaves.
The most eye-catching part was the area to the east:
Clusters of fiery red chili peppers looked like burning little torches; tomatoes hung heavily from bamboo racks in red, yellow, and green; there were even a few short, sturdy potato plants with inconspicuous small yellow flowers, now in their third generation, bearing large and uniform tubers.
Along the western wall of the Bamboo House, the grape trellis built a few years ago was now lush with foliage, providing a canopy of green shade.
Bunches of green grapes tinged with purple hung down, swaying gently in the summer breeze.
This was Arthur’s masterpiece, a variety improved by grafting grapes brought from the Western Regions; though not as sweet as those of later generations, it was surprising enough.
The mountain stream was cleverly diverted through bamboo pipes, gurgling into every field along small, hand-carved channels.
Arthur had even made a simple “waterwheel” using the principle of leverage; though it mostly relied on human pedaling, it saved a lot of effort in drawing water for irrigation.
Every morning and evening, Arthur’s figure could be seen busy amidst this greenery.
At thirty-two, his frame had fully filled out, losing the thinness of youth; his shoulders and back were broad, and his arms were firm and powerful from years of labor. Visit novelping . com for the full chapter.
His blonde hair was still tied back, though a few strands occasionally fell over his forehead, soaked with sweat.
His face had lost some of the flightiness of early youth and gained more of the steadiness that comes with experience, but when his green eyes smiled, they were still bright, possessing a reassuring power.
He always seemed to have endless chores.
The Vegetable Garden needed tending, new crops required care, and the Bamboo House needed repairs and reinforcement every year.
In the last two years, his “career” had expanded—he began tinkering with the “facade” of Tai Xu Mountain.
Fu Hua did not quite understand this.
That day, Arthur was carrying another bundle of freshly cut bamboo up the mountain when she called out to him.
“Zhaoer,” she said, frowning slightly as she looked at the bundle of bamboo that nearly submerged him.
“The old temple on the summit has been uninhabited for a long time; there is no need to trouble yourself with repairs.
This place…
is already quite good.”
The “this place” she referred to was the small courtyard of the Bamboo House on the mountainside.
Over ten years, every blade of grass, every tree, every brick, and every tile had become soaked with the traces of life.
Dried chili peppers and corn cobs hanging under the eaves, farm tools piled in the corner, herbs drying on the windowsill, and the bamboo lounge chair under the grape trellis that had become smooth and warm from use…
everything was as familiar as breathing.
She felt this was good.
Arthur put down the bamboo bundle, wiped his sweat, and smiled.
“Master, you can’t say that.
Although our Tai Xu Mountain lineage’s population is…
uh, temporarily small, we shouldn’t lack the proper grandeur.”
“That Taoist temple on the summit was your original foundation, after all; it’s our facade.
If it’s in ruins, it wouldn’t look good if a guest visited one day or if you wanted to take on another disciple.”
He counted on his fingers: “Look, the tiles on the main hall need replacing, or it’ll leak when it rains; the rotten doors and windows need remaking; the moss on the steps is too slippery, so I need to carve anti-slip patterns; and that mountain gate archway—the characters are almost illegible, they need to be regilded…”
He spoke with great logic, his eyes shining with a light Fu Hua recognized, similar to when he calculated the harvest from the Vegetable Garden.
It was the radiance he had when immersed in a “career.”
As Fu Hua listened, her gaze swept over his mud-stained collar, the back of his hand scratched by a bamboo strip, and his sweat-drenched profile, slightly reddened by the sun.
Her heart gave another inexplicable, gentle throb.
Just like a few days ago, when she accidentally saw him repairing the waterwheel by the stream, shirtless, his shoulder and arm muscles rippling with his movements, sweat glistening under the sun.
She had actually been stunned for a moment, and only hurriedly looked away when Lin Chaoyu called her.
Like even earlier, when he had somehow obtained some strange spices and tried to make something called “hot pot” with dried chili peppers, filling the house with a pungent aroma.
He had been coughing repeatedly from the spice but still cheerfully invited her and Chaoyu to try it.
Looking at his face, flushed red from the spice yet wearing an exceptionally bright smile, she found that the pungent smell was no longer so annoying.
No.
This was very wrong.
Fu Hua lowered her eyes and composed her mind.