When Will My Childhood Sweetheart Marry Me?-Chapter 35 - 0: When the Dao is high by one foot, the devil is high by ten feet
Jiang Shuyao couldn’t make head nor tail of it, slowly retracting her gaze as she folded the Xuan paper neatly and tucked it into her notebook before putting it away. As her eyes wandered, she caught sight of a brand-new book on architecture placed next to the pen holder.
Every time Father returned from a business trip, come rain or shine, he would buy her a book and inscribe a personal message on the first page.
Opening the cover, the inscription on this time’s title page read,
"To inherit comes from flesh and blood, but my expectation for Yaoyao is that it starts from the heart."
After reading this, Jiang Shuyao savored the words for a moment and then laughed helplessly.
Father’s expectations of her were unlike Mother’s—direct and passionate. His were gentle and tolerant, like a spring breeze and soft rain that seemingly nurtured but was in fact a silent killer.
She sighed softly, picked up a fountain pen and wrote her name beneath her father’s message, then placed the notebook in a drawer along with an assortment of architectural books to be archived.
In fact, compared to the inheritance of flesh and blood, it was the inheritance of the soul that was truly invaluable.
Sometimes, Jiang Shuyao would ponder whether it would be good to let the old couple have another child. Maybe her younger brother or sister would take more of an interest in architecture and medicine? 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺
The thought amused her, and that very night she actually dreamt about the Jiangs adding another member to the household. The saying was true—what preys on the mind by day will bring dreams by night, and an obsession can indeed be frightening.
On weekends, the natural instinct was to sleep in. Usually, she would get up at eight o’clock to have breakfast, then go right back to bed.
But today, before the alarm could even ring, the Little Demon King from across the hall knocked on her door, ruining her chances of sleep and instead, she had to serve him milk and bread.
With her parents out, and no plans to leave the house herself that morning, she dressed casually in loose-fitting home clothes, sporting fluffy slippers that shushed with each step as if she were ascending to immortality.
Pei Yan held a sandwich and milk, grandly seated there, quietly watching the girl moving back and forth between kitchen and dining table. His gaze settled on her slender legs and he clicked his tongue, "You, I fear, wouldn’t stand a chance against a Category 6 typhoon."
The girls outside were one heavier than the next, yet his house’s girl was skinny as a rail.
Years of rice eaten in vain.
Southern girls were generally delicate in build, and Jiang Shuyao, in both appearance and physique, perfectly met the contemporary aesthetic preferences of the young opposite sex.
However, that was not enough for someone with such a critical eye, who insisted on dubbing a girl with a height of 168 cm and a weight of 100 pounds as a rail.
Jiang Shuyao quietly took a sip of milk, lifted her eyelids, and glanced across the table, "I don’t want to talk to the uneducated. It’s exhausting."
He: "..."
Pei Yan was deflated, and lazily leaned back, "I was complimenting you, can’t you tell?"
Complimenting her?
The girl suddenly fell silent, a puzzling silence, so quiet it made Pei Yan narrow his eyes.
A dozen seconds passed, and Jiang Shuyao slowly met the young man’s rebellious face. Her eyes, usually gentle and soft, were now a bit aloof.
"To compliment someone should be done like Li Bai," she said, "The clouds long to dress her, the flowers envy her beauty, the spring breeze brushes the threshold, heavy with dew."
"And, the word ’I’ shouldn’t be preceded by ’Old Master’, nor ’Confucius’ or ’Mencius’ either."
By the time the girl’s words touched down, it was Pei Yan’s turn to fall silent.
Damn it, this little girl today was really throwing zingers, had she been learning bad things from someone else?
Fine, he could accept being scorned for his lack of culture, but to dare mock his manners as well? Did she think he was an idiot or deaf not to catch the sarcasm?
Pei Yan, however, wasn’t the least bit angry. His sensuous lips slowly curled into a lazy smile, nodding in acknowledgment of the lesson.
Then he humbly sought further instruction, "Great talent, how would one say ’I like you’ in classical language?"
"!"
Jiang Shuyao’s face turned beet red in an instant, and she was at a loss for words.
Seeing her reaction, Pei Yan, smug with his success, reclined in his chair bursting with unrestrained laughter, a face so gleefully wrecked.
What did this mean?
The intelligence is surpassed by the cunning of the Demon King.
Indeed, scholars will never beat thugs.
