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墨書 Inktalez
"Hey!" Cui Xiaoman poked him in the back with a twig. "Are you still going to teach me?"
Lin Dahe snapped back to reality and noticed that the character for "farm" on the sand table had been transformed into a clawing figure, resembling a little person holding a fork.
"What is this... a monster you've drawn?"
"What monster!" Cui Xiaoman rolled her eyes. "This is me, wielding a hoe!"
She jumped up and mimicked swinging a hoe, nearly knocking over the oil lamp. The dim light danced across her face, making her brilliant smile even more vivid. Lin Dahe suddenly felt a warmth in his chest, as if he had been lightly burned, and hurriedly looked down to smooth out the sand table.
"Tomorrow, I'll help you with the land," Cui Xiaoman said suddenly as she was leaving. "So you won't even be able to pay back the interest."
As her figure disappeared into the moonlight, Lin Dahe rushed towards the pile of glowing kitchen scraps. He swung the hoe to stir it up, and the rancid smell made his eyes water. On the third swing, the hoe suddenly clanged against something hard.
Clearing away the rotting vegetable leaves, he uncovered a rusty iron box. The lid was warped, revealing a yellowed stack of paper inside. Just as Lin Dahe reached out to take a look, a red warning popped up from the system: [Land deed detected; related to main storyline; temporarily inaccessible.]
At that moment, he caught a glimpse of a figure flashing past outside the fence—it looked just like Aunt Ma.
The morning mist had not yet lifted when Lin Dahe was jolted awake by a series of knocks on the door. Rubbing his eyes, he opened the creaking wooden door and nearly bumped into Aunt Ma's heavily powdered face.
"The Lin family brothers are up early," she said without waiting for an invitation as she squeezed through the door, cradling a pair of brand new cloth shoe insoles. "I rushed these out last night; try them on and see if they fit."
The strong scent of osmanthus oil made Lin Dahe step back two paces. Aunt Ma had already made herself at home, wandering around the room. Her nails, dyed with Balsam Flower juice, traced along the table and stove edge before finally resting on a low cabinet in the corner—where Lin Dahe kept his birch bark notebook for recording hybridization notes.
"Auntie, you're too kind..." Lin Dahe subtly positioned himself in front of the cabinet and deliberately brushed against her wrist while taking the insoles. The deep brown sandalwood beads on her bracelet pressed painfully against his palm; each bead bore an identical strange pattern—just like the decorations on Zhou Liangzhang's abacus.
"Ouch!" Aunt Ma suddenly bent down to smooth her skirt. "My old leg is acting up..."
Taking advantage of this moment, Lin Dahe stuffed his notes into the stove and turned to help her up, noticing that her eyes were still darting around the room. He sighed casually, "Things have been going missing lately; half of the dried mushrooms I sun-dried two days ago are gone, and yesterday even the salt jar..."
"Have you been robbed?" Aunt Ma straightened up abruptly, her eyes shining with unusual excitement.
"Probably just mice," Lin Dahe scooped some water for her. "I heard Zhou Liangzhang has someone good at catching them?"
The water ladle clanged as it fell into the vat. Aunt Ma chuckled awkwardly and changed the subject: "Speaking of exterminating mice, you need to use Sichuan pepper... Oh! By the way!" She suddenly clapped her hands. "My niece is sixteen this year; she's great at sewing! Tomorrow we should..."
It wasn't until he sent off this unexpected guest that Lin Dahe's ears were still buzzing. He cleared away some ashes from the stove to check his notes and found several pages had clearly been flipped through—especially those detailing experiments on grafting potatoes with local Wild Yam.
The morning dew by the creek had yet to dry when Lin Dahe squatted on a bluestone slab washing clothes. In the distance came a series of pattering footsteps; Cui Xiaoman emerged from the reeds carrying two wild rabbits, her pant legs still dripping with water.
"Did Widow Ma come looking for you?" she asked right off the bat.
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