The Elixir is for You, The Poison is for Me

#509 - Summer Festival Special Program

Ye Gongmei was feeling very comfortable from the pampering, but she still said, "You only come to me when you have a problem, and leave me out in the cold when you don't. Is that the way you, Grandmaster Lu, treat people?"

Lu Jing knew he had to pull out the big guns, so without another word, he turned and left Ye Gongmei's residence.

Seeing this, Ye Gongmei stopped swinging her little feet, frowned, and muttered, "No way, did he get angry just because I said a few words? Hmph, what a small-minded fellow. Well, I'm not going to be the first to speak. Let's see who can outlast who."

Ye Gongmei had made up her mind, but she didn't expect Lu Jing to return after only a short while, carrying a pile of blue bricks, half a bag of glutinous rice, and a bag of lime.

Lu Jing dumped all of these things on the ground in one go, then went to the kitchen, took out a big pot, lit a fire, and began to cook his half bag of glutinous rice.

Ye Gongmei watched for a while, becoming more and more curious. It felt like a kitten was scratching in her heart. She forgot the harsh words she had said earlier and couldn't help but ask, "What are you doing?"

"Don't worry, you'll find out in a moment."

"Heh, so mysterious. Do you think I don't know what you're up to? Lime and rice porridge – isn't that for building walls? But I'm doing fine here in the academy, and there's no danger, so there's no need for city walls."

"It's not a wall."

After Lu Jing finished cooking the glutinous rice, he poured in the bag of lime and mixed it well, then began to lay the bricks.

It was his first time doing this kind of work, so he was inevitably a bit clumsy. At first, the bricks he laid were crooked and askew, and he was laughed at by Ye Gongmei, who was standing nearby. But after he got the hang of it, they became much neater, and his speed also increased.

Lu Jing spent a total of two hours building a small pond.

"What is it? It's just a pond." Ye Gongmei was a little disappointed.

Lu Jing still didn't explain anything, but went to the back mountain again, fetched some water, and then sneaked into Professor Zheng's yard, scooping up a dozen goldfish from his pond and putting them into the pond.

Seeing the goldfish swimming and wagging their tails in the pond, Ye Gongmei's eyebrows couldn't help but twitch. Obviously, she also liked these little goldfish, but she still said, "A fish pond is just a fish pond. There's no need to be so mysterious about it."

"I told you not to rush."

Lu Jing got up, looked at the fish pond he had built, and checked the surroundings to make sure there were no leaks. Then, he took out a small fishing net from his pocket, which he had bought along with the lime, bricks, and glutinous rice.

"Are you treating me like a child?" Ye Gongmei pouted, looking very disdainful.

Catching goldfish was not uncommon in Chen Dynasty. It was a popular folk game. You could often see vendors doing this kind of business at temple fairs or lively markets, and most of the people who came to catch goldfish were young children and young women.

Ye Gongmei felt that she was too old to play such childish things. That Lu Jing was really hateful, treating her like a stinky kid and trying to coax her.

But if that guy begged me, I might be able to reluctantly play for a while, Ye Gongmei thought.

But who would have thought that when Lu Jing heard her words, he actually reached out and tore the little fishing net down.

Ye Gongmei was stunned at the time, tears welling up in her eyes, but before she could say anything, she heard Lu Jing say, "Do you have paper here? Get me some paper, and I'll show you something fun."

Ye Gongmei said "Oh," turned around, quickly wiped away the tears that were about to fall with her hand, and went back to the inner room to get a stack of rice paper. When she came out, she was followed by a mountain spirit.

The mountain spirit knew how powerful Lu Jing was, so although it was curious, it just stood far away and watched the fun.

After that, Ye Gongmei saw Lu Jing take out a piece of rice paper, attach it to the small fishing net, and then hand the net to Ye Gongmei, saying, "Go catch goldfish."

"How can you catch fish with a paper net?" Ye Gongmei frowned again.

Ye Gongmei reluctantly took the paper fishing net, and after pretending for a while, she tiptoed to the pond to catch fish. Because she was worried that the paper would break when it came into contact with water, she was very anxious the first time.

Before the goldfish could figure out what was happening, it had already directly broken through the thin paper.

So, Ye Gongmei learned her lesson the second time and moved much more gently. However, the paper had been soaked in the water for too long and failed to succeed.

This time, without Lu Jing taking action, Ye Gongmei changed the third piece of paper herself, and then began to cycle continuously.

Ye Gongmei became more and more absorbed in the game, completely forgetting about the time. Later, she couldn't help but start yelling, completely releasing her nature.

Lu Jing was happy to relax, sitting on the bench where Ye Gongmei used to bask in the sun, watching Ye Gongmei with a smile.

After about an hour, Ye Gongmei's wrists were sore from scooping, and her feet could no longer stand. She threw the fishing net in her hand and sat directly on the ground.

Then she said to Lu Jing, "You tricked me."

Before Lu Jing could say anything, Ye Gongmei said again, "But it was quite fun to play."

"Then rest for a while and continue playing."

Ye Gongmei shook her head, "No, you must have come to me today for something serious. Let's talk about the serious stuff first."

Lu Jing nodded when he heard this and didn't bother to be polite with Ye Gongmei, "Can I borrow the Beast Taming Formation you mentioned to me before?"

"How so?" Ye Gongmei's eyebrows moved again, "Who do you want to use it against? That formation was created by me to tame the most ferocious beasts, but I haven't actually used it much myself. After all, there aren't many things in this world that can be called ferocious beasts."

"I'm just asking the teacher, which is the most powerful monster in the academy."

Ye Gongmei's gaze towards Lu Jing became even stranger, "Are you looking for trouble, kid?"

She originally thought that Lu Jing was borrowing the formation to deal with some great enemy, but it turned out that Lu Jing hadn't even decided on the target he wanted to deal with, and he had already come to her to borrow the great formation.

Lu Jing couldn't say that he had taken a fancy to the formation's high consumption of secret power and had put it in his backup plan early on. He could only say, "This… as the ancients said, practice makes perfect. I've learned so much knowledge from you, and I want to practice my skills."