Today was the Gathering, so it was normal for him to drink. However, appearing here wasn’t very normal.
It truly wasn’t normal!
Extremely abnormal!
Tang Doudou suddenly came to a realization. First, it was Mu Ye, now it was Baili Yu. The people that shouldn’t have appeared have all appeared here. If this was still normal, then she, Tang Doudou must be the abnormal one.
Aside from the fact that this place was really far away from the Gathering, it was a place where servants lived. The ancient times weren’t the modern times. Masters and servants were differentiated and usually, Masters would never go to the places the servants lived.
The kitchen was even more unlikely. Wasn’t there a proverb that said ‘a nobleman stays clear of the kitchen’? The meaning was probably close to this.
The actual Mencius meaning is that a nobleman who has seen a living animal cannot bear to see it die, hence he keeps away from the kitchen
Mu Ye had come here to find her, and because of that, he had even hung out in front of the latrine.
But what was Baili Yu here for? From the looks of it, could he also have come here to find her? Then she sent this thought playing with a slap and a whoosh. When he wanted to see her, he would usually send servants over to call her. How could he possibly have lowered himself to run over personally?
From what Tang Doudou remembered, Baili Yu would make an extremely pompous appearance every time he went out. He would bring along a pile of maids that were as gorgeous as flowers with blossom petals fluttering around like ‘hualala’. He seemed to rarely go around alone.
To come alone over here like this, could it be that he made a date with a lady?
Or was it that he made a date with Jun Xin?
As she rubbed her chin, Tang Doudou felt that the latter possibility was more likely. When she heard Meng Yu talk about the Plum Garden Gathering and learned that most of the people that were participating were young masters and misses, the intention became very obvious. It’s simply a large scale blind date party!
The people of ancient times all liked participating in such events. After all, in ancient times, young ladies weren’t allowed to casually leave the house and randomly wander around. If they wanted to meet a boyfriend, other than through their parents or matchmakers, the only chance they had to make their own choice was at festivals and banquets. And this Plum Garden Gathering was extremely similar to those kind of events.
A blind date party, huh. Actually, a lot of the young masters and misses probably already knew each other. Other than all sorts of blind matches, there were likely many dates here today as well.
This plum sea was so large, and it was all deep forest. It’d be easy to find a place with no one around and do some things that are not suitable for children…
Tsk tsk. As Tang Doudou thought about it, a vulgar smiling expression appeared in her eyes.
Seeing her smile with hints of evil design, Baili Yu, who seemed a little intoxicated, bent over. His eyes slightly lowered. Below his long eyelashes, an expanse gradually formed into a delicately carved nose bridge. He looked at Tang Doudou whose cheeks were smudged with black ash and got a strong impression that he seemed like a kitten. He couldn’t help but chuckle as he reached out and lightly brushed past Tang Doudou’s nosetip. “What’s this?”
Tang Doudou was in a daze, so how could she have expected that he would suddenly reach out? And the place he touched was her nose tip as well. The familiar feeling immediately made her snap back to her senses. She recalled the torture her nose went through last time and immediately jumped backwards as she stared at Baili Yu with her clear black pupils. ‘What are you doing!?”
Baili Yu retrieved his hand as he creased his brows slightly. “Helping you wipe it clean. It’s so dirty, too ugly.”
… Is he really ok?
Tang Doudou lightly rubbed her forehead, feeling that Baili Yu’s attitude right now was far far from anything good. He seemed like a completely different person from when he was somber.
“Um, I’ll just do it myself!” Tang Doudou didn’t know what he was talking about wiping, but she didn’t dare to let Baili Yu get too close, so she lifted her hand and randomly wiped around on her nose. In the end, the black ash wasn’t wiped off and even more was rubbed onto her face.
She had completely become a multicolored cat now.
“Is it still there?” Tang Doudou asked.
Baili Yu nodded.
Tang Doudou rubbed some more, having roughly guessed that the thing on her face was probably the ashes from when she was cooking earlier. Those things weren’t easy to wipe off, so she gave a few more fierce swipes. When she felt that it was probably gone, she asked again, “This time…”
Before she even finished speaking, a large shadow fell over her. Baili Yu had once again approached and was leaning over to look at her. His good-looking brows lifted. “This is ash. You cooked again? What did you make?”
Even though the spicy strips last time made him really angry, he still couldn’t not admit that the taste was extremely good. It was to the point that it caused him to desire more.
“I haven’t started cooking yet.” Tang Doudou rubbed her chin. She didn’t plan to tell him about how she helped Meng Yu cook yet.
Baili Yu said, ‘Oh.’ He then asked, “What are you planning to make?”
Tang Doudou pointed at the river next to her. “Nuo, fish.”E/N
Hehe, she’s afraid to go down to catch the fish, but Baili Yu’s not scared ah. Tang Doudou laughed like a little fox as she peeked at his seemingly interested expression.
When he had just arrived, he saw Tang Doudou stare at that river and grumbled to himself nonstop. Looks like he really had been wanting to fish.
But, he seemed to remember that Li Xueyi didn’t know how to swim?
Baili Yu lightly pushed Tang Doudou who was in front of him aside and walked to the river. “How many?”
Eh? Tang Doudou paused dumbstruck. She hadn’t even asked yet? Could it be that she’s having another auditory hallucination?
Seeing that she didn’t reply even after a while, Baili Yu asked again, “How many do you need?”
…it wasn’t an auditory hallucination ah. He really was asking her!
Meow ah. The sun still hasn’t risen from the east ah. Baili Yu was actually being this thoughtful, it was surely a world-shocking strange event.
Perhaps it was because she was silent too long, or perhaps Baili Yu was in a really good mood today, or perhaps today’s weather was too good…
As Tang Doudou slowly returned to her senses, she noticed that there were around four fishes that had been strung together with grass in front of her. A languid voice drifted over. “Are these enough?”
When she lifted her eyes, she meet with Baili Yu’s deep whirlpool-like pupils that seemed to have a mysterious attracting force. It felt like her entire being was about to be suck into those pupils. She seemed to have seen such pupils somewhere before. It seemed like last time, when she fell into the water, the person that flew over also had these kinds of pupils…
That’s not right, even before that, she had seen them somewhere. Where did she see them before?
Where was it? How come she can’t remember!?
A stab of pain pulsed from deep inside her head. The lacerating feeling forced Tang Doudou to stop thinking and slowly crouch down.
Baili Yu saw that something was wrong with her and threw the fish to the side. He reached out to help hold Tang Doudou up as he asked, “What’s wrong? Is the poison flaring up again? That’s not possible, I’ve already helped you suppress it earlier. There’s no way it would flare up again so soon. Sit down and let me take a look.”
“My, my head feels like it’s about to split. It hurts.” Tang Doudou didn’t really hear what Baili Yu said as she held her head with her hands.
Baili Yu lifted his hand to check her pulse but didn’t find anything out of the ordinary. He couldn’t help but become puzzled as well. Why would it be like this?
“I’ll help you back to Plum Garden.” Baili Yu made a swift decision. After he returned, it’d be best if he also called Bai Feiyun over to take a look.
“No, no need. I’ll be fine after I rest a while.”
“Don’t try to be stubborn. Even though it’s said that I’m the only one capable of curing the Disseminating Tassel Fragrance, I’m still not very knowledgeable about its characteristics. No one knows what kind of side effects it can create. If you want to live, you must listen to me.” Baili Yu’s eyes were filled with never before seen seriousness. He had already decided that if Tang Doudou wouldn’t agree, he would just forcefully carry him back.
He had promised that person that he would help cure Tang Doudou’s Disseminating Tassel Fragrance.
“Why do you treat me so well?” The headache had slowly dispersed and as Tang Doudou’s attention returned, she noticed the strong worry in Baili Yu’s eyes. Because of that, this sentence just abruptly popped out.
Baili Yu was stunned for a moment, then smiled. “Did Alliance Head Li forget the deal between us?”
Deal?
She looked towards Baili Yu with confusion. “What deal?”
“As expected, you’ve forgotten.” Baili Yu smiled lightly as he said.
“It’s that I can’t remember anymore.”
“It doesn’t matter, if you can’t remember, then just let it be. From the looks of it, you seem to feel a lot better?”
Tang Doudou nodded. The pain had come quickly, but also left quickly. She sat on the ground and dazed for a while as she recalled what Baili Yu said earlier. So he was treating her this well due to that deal. From that time when he helped her out of her difficult position at that time in the martial arts convention, to the time he saved her from the pond, and when he went to the Alliance Head Residence to catch her… all of it was because of that deal!
After sitting up, she saw the fishes on the ground and immediately jumped up, lively and cheerful again. “Let’s go! Seeing as you’ve saved me several times, I’ll let you eat some cooked fish!”
“En?” Baili Yu saw the bewilderness in her eyes that had transformed into disappointment. Yet an instant later, it was replaced by liveliness again. He couldn’t help but also smile slightly as he said, “Alright.”
When they got back to the wood house, all the people inside hurriedly dropped to a kneel the moment they saw Baili Yu.
“Master!”
Meng Yu lifted her eyes and saw Tang Doudou was standing next to Baili Yu. A bad premonition emerged in her heart. Could it be that Master discovered that she had Alliance Head Li help out and came to penalize her?
That’s not right ah. Even if he was going to punish her, he would have sent someone to call her over. How could it be possible for him to come over personally?
Then, she looked again on the suspicious red on Baili Yu’s jade-like face and couldn’t stop herself from muttering: Master drank wine?
Immediately, she became even more on her guard. Master drank ah!
The last time he drank was already eight years ago, wasn’t it?
That time, it seemed to have been because…
Before she could think too much, Tang Doudou pointed to the side and said to Baili Yu, “You can just wait over there. I’ll call you once I finish!”
Everyone was dumbstruck. She was speaking to Master like this?
“Alright.” Out of everyone’s expectations, Baili Yu gave a light reply and really went over there to wait.
Probably because the alcohol was rushing to his head, he slightly lowered his eyes and collapsed onto the emptied long table. After giving a yawn, he actually just laid down there and fell asleep. In regards to this, even Tang Doudou was also speechless. This person’s ignoring ability truly has reached the point of perfection where the stove fire has turned bright green. (allusion to Daoist alchemy)
Looking at the people kneeling on the floor, she said, “You guys should get up, stop kneeling. Meng Yu, have you finished everything? Can I borrow the kitchen?”
As she spoke, she shook the fish in front of her a little. There’s so many fish, what should she make?
“Alliance Head Li, why did Master come here?” Meng Yu saw that Baili Yu seemed to have fallen into deep sleep and immediately stood up and waved towards the other women, signaling for them to get out. Afterwards, she rushed to Tang Doudou and asked quietly.
Tang Doudou waved, “How would I know? This is his garden so wherever he wants to go is up to him.”
That sentence was rather true.
Meng Yu asked again, “Then what are you doing?”
She pointed at the fishes in Tang Doudou’s hand. “Are you planning to cook fish for Master? Master didn’t eat over there earlier?”
“I don’t know ah. I was planning on cooking some fish from the start, so I went to the river to get some fish. However, I ended up encountering him, so we just came back together.” Tang Doudou casually replied. Seeing that it was already past lunch, she decided to rest awhile and just make it for dinner.
So Tang Doudou put the fishes in her hand into the wooden basin nearby and asked Meng Yu, “Didn’t you need to head to the cooking competition? If you don’t head over now, won’t you end up late?”
“Aiyah!” When she was reminded by Tang Doudou like this, Meng Yu immediately recalled her proper business. “Then I’ll head over first. Master…”
“Don’t worry. I won’t lose your master.”
Meng Yu looked at Baili Yu who was breathing evenly and realized that Ye Chuan was definitely following Master secretly, hence she stopped worrying.
After calling someone to help carry all the things for the competition over, she left as well.
All that was left in the spacious wooden house was Tang Doudou who was cleaning up the stove and Baili Yu who was sound asleep.
Wind blew in. Tang Doudou rubbed her chilled neck. Why did the temperature drop so suddenly?
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