the two of them just walked to the study.
Qiu Che remained silent and probably didn't know what to say.
The suffering has passed, but the pain and scars remain.
She cannot stand on the sidelines and give the other party any evaluation of their past choices.
That was a kind of contempt for Li Qingwu.
Seeing her serious expression, Li Qingwu smiled instead: "There is no need to be so bitter and resentful. I don't want to mention this to you, which will only make you unhappy."
"It's your turn now," she said in a relaxed tone. "I'm done, what about you?"
Qiu Che did not answer immediately, but took a deep look at her, and then said, "Follow me."
Then he pulled her into the study.
Li Qingwu staggered when she pulled him, and he was slightly stunned when he looked at the two people holding hands together.
As if remembering something, her ears turned a little red, and she quickly turned her eyes away in panic.
Unfortunately Qiu Che didn't pay attention.
The Princess Mansion was awarded by the emperor to Li Qingwu on the day of their wedding, and she had only been here a few times. After they got married, she tacitly gave up the study to Qiu Che and never entered it.
Seeing the two people entering the house, Yu Ming and Fu Ling, who were following behind them, looked at each other and stopped at the door in tacit agreement.
Since Fuling had been cold-hearted towards Yu Ming and Yu Yan because her master was taken away for no apparent reason some time ago, last night she was forced to listen to the sound of her master having sex with her again.
When they looked at each other, there was a subtle awkwardness in the atmosphere between the two.
No one took the initiative to speak. They quickly turned their eyes away in unison, looking at the sky and the ground, but not at each other.
At this time, in the study room.
Qiu Che did not move much luggage from the small courtyard. There were only two boxes. One box contained clothes and the other contained books. They were all placed here, unpacked.
ââMost of the servants in the Princess Mansion are arranged by the emperor. They like to report everything to them. How many chopsticks and dishes you picked up for dinner last night will be known clearly.
Even if there was nothing shameful in the box, Qiu Che didn't like the feeling of being spied on.
Only she is qualified to tell others what her belongings are.
She placed the books scatteredly on the sandalwood bookshelf. From a distance, she saw that it was full of books.
Finally, Qiu Che took out a bunch of strange wooden products from the bottom of the box where the books were placed, and placed them on the table one by one.
A whistle, a small wooden sword, a statue of a person or an animal...
Li Qingwu wanted to ask what it was, but he opened his mouth and felt that it would be superfluous to ask.
No, because these things were obviously made by Qiu Che.
Although some are exquisitely made and some look rough and clumsy, you can still see the shape of the lotus in various corners.
She couldn't help but ask: "Do you... like lotus flowers very much?"
Qiu Che thought for a moment and said, "It's okay. It's just that there was nothing else to engrave on, and I happened to think that lotus flowers were quite pleasing to the eye, so I used them to make a private seal."
She Then he asked, "How do you know this was done by me?"
Li Qingwu pursed his lips and smiled, taking out the bird whistle from his sleeve. Thinking of the fact that he had disguised his identity to contact her, he said with a guilty conscience, "You can tell. "
At the bottom of the bird whistle, there is also a rough lotus print.
But if you play with it very often or be extra careful, you won't be able to find it.
What's more, the first time you see these wood carvings, you can find that they and the bird whistle are both made by Qiu Che.
Seeing her looking at these wooden sculptures frequently, as if she liked them very much but didn't dare to touch them, Qiu Che said with a half-smile, "If you want, you can take a few more to play with."
Li Qingwu shook his head repeatedly. Just as he was about to speak, Qiu Che said again: "Actually, things are not difficult to carve. I still have a lot here. It doesn't matter if I give them all to you."
"I didn't insist on giving them to you because we were still strangers at that time."
Li Qingwu Moving his lips, he answered dryly: "What about now?"
"Now?" Qiu Che said matter-of-factly, "Of course we are allies now."
Li Qingwu smiled, but still shook his head.
"Why not?" She clearly liked it.
"You made them all yourself," Li Qingwu said softly, "Even if you use them a lot now, you can keep these for your collection."
Qiu Che: "I don't care about this."
Seeing that Li Qingwu was still hesitant, she He lifted his robe and sat down on the slope, pretending to be helpless and sighing: "Yu Ming also has a lot of jade inkstones in his hand, and he is still coveting the ones in my hand, so I haven't let go. If you don't want it, then I will give it to them." "Yes."
Li Qingwu immediately said: "Yes!"
The two looked at each other, and Li Qingwu blushed for a moment.
Qiu Che smiled and took a small box and put the wood carvings inside one by one. Seeing that she was really embarrassed, he said no more and changed the subject: "Do you know why I let you see this?"
Li Qingwu shook his head.
Qiu Che said: "Sit down."
This was a gesture of wanting to have a long conversation.
Li Qingwu hesitated for a moment and imitated her to sit down on the sloping steps. Qiu Che stopped him with a smile and stretched out his hand to help her pull a small stool over.
Li Qingwu said slowly: "Actually, it doesn't matter if you sit on the ground."
"You are a princess."
She should be free from dust.
What would it be like to sit on the floor with her.
"I am a princess in the palace, the emperor's daughter." Li Qingwu looked down at her, "Here, I am just your wife, she is Qiu Li."
"You also said that if I marry you, I will be yours. "I want to sit side by side with you, is there any problem?"
The last sentence sounded a bit ambiguous, but when it came to the two women, and Li Qingwu's calm tone, it seemed that Qiu Che was just overthinking it. .
Seeing Li Qingwu's serious expression, she thought for a moment: "Okay, no problem."
Li Qingwu sat down.
It's just that Qiu Che's posture is unruly, but Li Qingwu is a little unaccustomed to it, his movements are awkward, and his hands and feet are well-organized.
It doesn't look like sitting on the floor, but like sitting on a jade chair.
Qiu Che suppressed a smile and said, "However, I don't agree with what you just said."
"Which sentence?"
"Every sentence except the last sentence."
Li Qingwu opened his mouth and saw Qiu Che turn his head again, while using the red line Swinging a lifelike small wooden puppet, he said, "Don't you want to ask why I practice martial arts?"
Li Qingwu paused and became quiet.
"I didn't enter the academy until I was seven years old, but I was young at the time and didn't focus entirely on books. I followed a few young boys in the academy and loved to do some carpentry work all day long. Painting the sky and carving the earth, there are many things in the sky. There is nothing underground that we havenât seen before, and we canât carve it out.â
âBut when Qiu Chudong found out about this, he was very dissatisfied. He felt that carpentry was too childish, shameful, and useless.â
"At that time," Qiu Che paused, as if reminiscing, he said amusedly, "I didn't understand at that time why he suddenly wanted to control my carpentry work for no reason."
He said that he cared about his daughter, That's absolutely impossible, but he doesn't care, yet he cares about such trivial matters.
"Later I found out that he lost again in gambling that day, and this time
he lost the entire Qiu Mansion." "Whenever he loses a bet, he becomes red-eyed, and when he loses his eyes, he becomes unhappy looking for someone. There used to be so many servants in his Qiu Mansion . All the concubines ran away because of the defeat of Qiu Mansion, and Mrs. Liu is also a young lady from a wealthy businessman's family. He didn't dare to do anything to Mrs. Liu, so he was angry at my mother. "
"My mother, Mrs. Wang, you. You know, right?"
Li Qingwu nodded almost imperceptibly.
"It's not that I don't want to tell her what her name is, but her name is not a famous name. Whose girl calls her out loud? But she doesn't know a few Chinese characters, but she is also a girl from an innocent family. She is over 20 years old. She was still unmarried, and her family thought she was a freeloader, so they tied her up and gave her to the young master of the Qiu Mansion who had not yet been defeated at the time and happened to be interested in her, that is, Qiu Chudong. "
" Entered the Qiu Mansion . , she refused to mention this name again."
"So she lost her name and only had a surname. Mrs. Liu could be called a eldest lady, but she couldn't be called Wang surname. " I have been shouting for more than ten years."
"That's a bit far," Qiu Che tugged at the corner of his mouth and said, "-The way he vents his anger is to scold my mother and angrily scold her to encourage his parents. "Prestigious."
Sometimes he would show his prestige in bed and torture Mr. Wang.
Qiu Che bumped into it twice. She was young and ignorant. She just thought the scene was disgusting and terrifying. From then on, she had a psychological shadow on the mating of men and women.
So much so that she has a quirk that doesn't like being touched by others - mainly for men.
But itâs better not to talk to Li Qingwu about this kind of thing.
"The most egregious time was when my mother made a fuss and wanted to run away. He was impatient and had my mother's feet broken."
"He broke her into the three-inch golden lotus she is today."
At this point, she noticed that she was On the side, Li Qingwu also shrank his feet calmly.
She paused for a moment and said - From then on, Mr. Wang stopped making trouble and stopped running away.
She seemed to have had her bones broken and could no longer stand upright.
But after spending half her life groveling, did she gain freedom? Did you get happiness in exchange?
nothing.
Qiu Che thought lightly and continued in an understatement: "He has tortured my mother for a long time, and he can no longer torture her. So he targeted me again."
"He lived in such pain, as his daughter, as his beloved How can his daughter, who has the opportunity to go to school because of his gift, live so freely and happily? "
"I told him that carpentry work would not affect my studies, but he didn't believe it." In other words, it doesn't matter whether he believes it or not, as long as he finds a reason. As long as he can scold Qiu Che, "He said that doing carpentry work is useless. I don't want to do carpentry. Doing this will only waste my life."
"He asked me to stop the carving work immediately and also He asked me to swear that I would never touch him again. "
What if I said that I can't do carpentry without doing carpentry? What if one day
I really succeed?"
How about becoming the best carpenter in the entire capital?"
Qiu Chudong sneered and said it was impossible.
He didn't say anything, but his disdainful eyes that glanced up and down already expressed one sentence: You are a girl.
You are a girl, why is the job you like so dirty and grueling?
How can you, a girl, be a carpenter and be the best carpenter in the entire capital?
You're a girl...
because you're a girl, you don't deserve it.
Even among the peasants, farmers, and merchants, whose cheapness was second only to that of merchants, she was not worthy.
Qiu Che then made a bet with him.
Faced with Qiu Che's constant pestering, Qiu Chudong showed great impatience and casually asked her to learn martial arts.
He said: "Only men can do this kind of thing well. If you don't believe me, just give it a try."
Qiu Che tried.
"It was actually too late to practice martial arts at that age, not to mention that I was a woman, and my muscles and bones were indeed more fragile than those of men. At first, the martial arts master was very dissatisfied with me, saying that I was a man, but I was as weak as a little girl. "
Then?"
"Well... I didn't understand his derogatory words at that time, and I didn't feel uncomfortable. I just asked him strangely: What's wrong with the girl? Are all girls weak?"
Qiu Che thought about it. I thought: "I can't describe his expression at that time. It was a feeling of contempt, meaninglessness, and indifference." It
almost overlapped with his expression in the early autumn and early winter.
"He replied to me and said: In short, no girl is better than him."
"Ah, I forgot to mention that eleven years ago, this martial arts master was famous for his unique skills, and he was invincible in the capital."
Qiu Che held his chin, waving the finger tied with the red thread, and said, "From that day on, in order to keep up with the training intensity of his other disciples, I had to practice even numbers every day. "
It's because of my father's instructions. He always beats and scolds me when he is dissatisfied with me."
"I have no power to resist, and I have no right to resist."
Li Qingwu held his breath unconsciously and said cautiously, "Does it hurt?" ?"
"It's okay." As if he was surprised that she would ask such a question that was irrelevant now, Qiu Che glanced at her and continued, "I don't complain about suffering, of course it's not because I was born to endure hardship. It's because I made a bet with him that I would beat him in ten years."
"What happened?"
"I won," Qiu Che said.
Her tone was calm and calm, as if it were natural.
Li Qingwu turned his head and looked at her quietly.
But there was a bit of confusion in his eyes.
"Just as he laughed at me, I laughed at him again."
Qiu Che sneered, "ââIn Qiu Mansion, in the courtyard, just the two of us, he competed with me, and he lost. I A narrow victory."
"He felt embarrassed by losing to his apprentice, so he left the capital. A year later, not many people in the capital remember him."
"I don't know, if he knew that it was not only him who defeated him. His apprentice is still a woman..."
When Qiu Che said this, he chuckled, "What kind of expression would it be?"
Li Qingwu also curled his lips and smiled softly.
"I won both bets."
"But some people still choose to blind their eyes. If they don't see the coffin and shed tears, they won't wake up." They must be suppressed with bloody lessons.
She paused for the last sentence and did not say it.
Li Qingwu knew that she was talking about autumn and early winter.
"There is no road behind you, so why don't I?"
Qiu Che said, suppressed his smile, turned to look at her, and said, "But the path of a woman in this world is inherently rugged and difficult. Someone must be the pioneer."
"I can't help seeing myself in this kind of situation . In the quagmire, but still indifferent, watching more people fall into this situation. "
You may not believe it, but I don't actually have a hobby of persuading people to lead a better life, and I don't like to meddle in other people's business
. Now that you have become my ally, I can no longer watch you continue to live that hopeless life."
"Whether you are doing business or studying government affairs... go try it, learn it, and see. What are you suitable for?"
"So what if we fail? Anyway, we have no way out, right?"
Li Qingwu was quiet for a long time, stroking the lotus pattern on the bird whistle.
Soon, Yuming knocked on the study door.
"Master."
"What's the matter?"
"We have a visitor."
Qiu Che pondered for a moment, knowing that if it was an ordinary "guest", Yu Ming would not stop mid-sentence.
Presumably the identity of the visitor must have been exposed to Li Qingwu, so Yu Ming responded so cautiously.
In fact, Qiu Che planned to take Li Qingwu with him, but he seemed to be stuck in a dead end and was not suitable for going out to meet guests.
Qiu Che didn't mention it.
When he stood up, the movement of his robe brought up a breeze, awakening Li Qingwu who was still deep in thought.
She twirled the red thread in her hand, threw the puppet into the air, caught it with her palm, and stuffed it neatly into the small wooden box.
A series of movements are smooth and flowing, free and natural.
Then Qiu Che bent down, placed the wooden box next to Li Qingwu, and said, "Think about it carefully."
Then he turned and left.
She was wearing a green shirt, and her back was tall and thin. She was not as thin as Feng, but she also looked like a wanderer who could walk with the wind.
It was clear that he was carrying no less things than Li Qingwu, but he looked extra...free and relaxed.
Also extremely out of reach.
Just before she was about to cross the threshold and disappear, Li Qingwu was stunned when he saw her suddenly pause, raise her hand to grab the door frame, look back and say: "One more thing, I forgot to reply to you."
"That's what you said . No, what I said before is also wrong," Qiu Che said, "Although you are married to me, you are not mine, nor are you the Qiu Li family."
"You are not just the emperor's daughter, but also not just a princess. "
ââYou are still yourself."
"My mother has forgotten her name," she said, "Don't forget it."