As was Su Tang busy complaining about Luo Xingchen, Pei Xuan’s carriage gradually left Qingyuan County. Pei Xuan slowly opened the package Su Tang had given him just before he left and found a set of clothing made from blue brocade lying inside.
Because Su Tang had rushed and only barely managed to complete the clothing over the past two days, they were very simple without any embroidery. However, despite being simple, the stitching was very fine and it was clear to see that effort had gone into making these clothes. It was easy to picture the image of the little girl using an oil lamp and wielding her needle and thread until deep into the night.
Pei Xuan remembered how Su Tang had seemed very sleep-deprived that morning and was also inexplicably angry at him. His eyes flashed. He finally understood why she had been so unhappy with him.
He couldn’t help but reach out and stroke the new clothing, feeling that unique texture of brocade under his fingers. Pei Xuan smiled faintly and said, “How can she have learned for so long but still made no progress? It’s still so ugly!”
After saying that, he opened up his luggage that had his other set of clothing which had been “mended” by Su Tang before, and prepared to put the new clothes inside as well.
However, when he took the new set of clothing out of the package a small white satchel suddenly fell out. Pei Xuan picked it up and found that the small satchel was made from satin. Pei Xuan immediately noticed that it was obviously made from the same material that he had given to Su Tang last year.
If that was all it would be fine, but this white satchel also had embroidery on the front and back. Although the lines were very simple, it was still easy to tell what the embroidery depicted. The front had the front of a “magical” looking pig embroidered on it, while the back had the pig’s hindquarters, including a little curly tail on its butt.
Heh, it was very coquettish and enchanting.
Moreover, not only was there an image of a pig embroidered on the satchel, there was also a line of strange characters which read: ‘PeiXuanIsAPig’. A modern person could easily read those characters, but in Pei Xuan’s eyes they seemed simple and rough as if they were missing lines that would complete the meaning of the words.
(tl note: This is a reference to the difference between ancient Chinese and modern simplified Chinese. Su Tang apparently used simplified Chinese for the embroidery.)
After looking over the whole satchel, Pei Xuan couldn’t help but gnash his teeth and say: “This little villain…”
As his hand tightened on the satchel, he suddenly noticed that there seemed to be something inside. He opened it and found there was actually a letter there. He took out the letter and Su Tang’s extremely recognizable calligraphy came into view: You must have scolded me just now, I’m going to tell master!
“Her handwriting is still really ugly!” After reading the few words on the letter, Pei Xuan gritted his teeth and said.
The little villain had given him this package in such a solemn way, but the letter inside was something like this? Shouldn’t she have at least written him a sincere goodbye? This little money grubber was really good, hmph. She had no other skills, but she still knew how to be a tattle-tale…
As he thought to this point Pei Xuan, who was still holding the satchel in his hand, suddenly paused for a moment. It was unclear what he was thinking about, but he opened the curtain of the carriage and looked out at Qingyuan County Seat which was slowly fading into the distance, and finally he showed a smile. Sure enough, she wasn’t just a little villain, she was also full of tricks!
When Pei Xuan suddenly opened the curtain like this, the soldiers who were escorting him all became nervous and worried that there might be some more twists and turns coming. But who knew that the young master would just show a strange smile for a while and then peacefully return to the carriage? Moreover, after that, there was no more movement from the carriage all the way back to the capital.
Meanwhile, Su Tang naturally had no idea about how Pei Xuan reacted when he saw the things she had sent him. At any rate, some things couldn’t be said out directly, but she had at least given out all the hints that she, as his junior sister, should have given.
The way Pei Xuan had helped her practice her archery, as well as how he had subconsciously protected her, created a small debt between them. But now that she had sent him that set of clothing and satchel she felt that they no longer owed each other anything, and Su Tang didn’t plan to give Pei Xuan or his complicated matters any further thought.
Instead, she was going to concentrate on planning her first processing workshop with Luo Xingchen.
Thus, she brought Luo Xingchen to take a look at her blueprint for the workshop. After seeing it, Luo Xingchen said: “This is a water wheel? So you plan to use a water wheel to turn the handle of the manual meat grinder instead of laborers? What this built on the side of it?”
Unfortunately, it seemed Luo Xingchen couldn’t quite understand the blueprint after looking at it once, so she just directly asked Su Tang about her doubts.
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tl begging corner:
tl note: I’ve gone back and changed all previous translations of “Hand Operated Blender” to “Manual Meat Grinder”, because that is a better and less made-up word for the machine being described. Apologies for the previous mistranslations. This fix will become somewhat important next chapter.