57: Chapter 57 The crow landed on the coal briquette; no one can say who's black.
The starry sky was brilliant, and the moonlight was at its peak.
The boundless desert was draped in a layer of silver radiance; from afar, it actually looked like a cold, shimmering snowfield.
No wonder the poem wrote that the desert sand is like snow.
Gazing out, flat-topped solitary peaks stood like massive stone stools, scattered across the silver-white world like pieces on a chessboard.
Atop the highest and steepest peak, a gentle breeze fluttered Yun Zhuo's hem and tousled Su Qingyuan's long hair.
"Xiao Zhuo, it's so beautiful here!"
Su Qingyuan snuggled in Yun Zhuo's arms, her fingers tightly clutching his lapel.
When she looked up at him, several strands of hair blown by the wind drifted before her eyes like a naughty child, insisting on veiling her gaze so no one could see the watery tenderness within.
Yun Zhuo raised his hand, gently brushing away those stray strands and carefully tucking them behind her ear, his fingertips grazing her warm earlobe in the process.
"Teacher Su, did you bring a bed?"
Su Qingyuan shook her head subconsciously.
"Sigh," Yun Zhuo drawled out intentionally.
"What's wrong?" she asked quickly, shrinking further into his embrace as a slight, inexplicable nervousness rose in her heart.
Yun Zhuo looked down at the softness in her eyes, a mischievous smile curling his lips. "I'm afraid it'll be too hard for you later. Look at your delicate skin; if you bruise your knees, how are you going to wear black stockings tomorrow?"
"You little rascal!" Su Qingyuan gave the boy a flirtatious glare, then clutched his lapel again, tilted her head up, and whispered in his ear, "I brought a blanket."
"Oh? Really? Is it thick?"
"Mm." Su Qingyuan nodded, looked around, and pointed at a rock. "That spot is flat."
Having said that, she left Yun Zhuo's embrace and ran over.
After inspecting the large rock, she took out the blanket and spread it out, then knelt on it to test if it would hurt her knees.
Realizing Yun Zhuo was watching her, she panicked and hurriedly explained, "I... I'm just testing it, just testing, you know? It's not because I want you to do that."
Yun Zhuo rested his chin on one hand and smiled slightly; truth be told, Teacher Su was quite cute sometimes.
"What are you laughing at?"
"I'm happy seeing my wife make the bed for me!"
Su Qingyuan smiled faintly, walked over, and shyly took Yun Zhuo's hand. "Let's go!"
"Go where?"
"You little rascal, your teacher has come to invite you personally, what more do you want?"
"Is the teacher going to check my homework?"
"That's right, Student Xiao Zhuo. Have you finished your homework? If there's anything you don't understand, the teacher can teach you, you know. One-on-one tutoring, guaranteed results."
After saying that, she gripped Yun Zhuo's hands and pulled him up.
"Here, do you know how to use this?"
Yun Zhuo glanced at the item stuffed into his hand; he certainly didn't think it was a disposable glove for eating crawfish.
He subconsciously gave a bitter smile and shook his head.
"It's fine, I'll teach you."
Yun Zhuo grabbed her hand. "No, I mean, is this really necessary for the first time?"
"Yes, otherwise it could cost a life."
"Don't panic, Teacher. Let this student calculate the portents." Yun Zhuo pinched his fingers together and said, "Tonight the celestial signs are peaceful and the earthly banes are hidden; even if there is a 'calamity of blood,' there is absolutely no danger to life.
Set your heart at ease and spend this night peacefully."
Su Qingyuan burst into laughter. "How did you calculate that? Teach me."
"You want to learn?"
"Mm."
"The law is not passed to six ears; come closer."
Su Qingyuan leaned in as told, staring at him intently.
Yun Zhuo placed a finger under her chin, gave it a gentle tilt, and naturally kissed her cherry lips.
The wind stripped away the scorching irritation of the desert day, carrying grains of sand toward the distance.
The moonlight was like crushed silver foil, spread over the jagged rocks and flowing along the mountain ridges toward the continuous sea of sand in the distance.
The starry sky overhead was so low it felt like one could touch it by reaching out. The Milky Way was like a pale blue silk ribbon spanning the horizon, and the stars studded the dark blue canopy, shining with a gentleness more tender than any lamp in the city.
Right there beneath the rocks on the mountain peak, the moonlight illuminated the two figures in snowy white. They listened to the soft singing of the wind sweeping across the sand sea, looking up at the sky full of stars blinking their eyes.
There was no clamor, no disturbance, only the stillness of the desert, the softness of the moonlight, and the brightness of the starry sky, which, along with a wisp of clear breeze, brewed the night into an overflowing tenderness.
...(382 words omitted here)
A layer of pale white bloomed at the horizon, like ink stains spreading on rice paper, slowly expanding from the edge of the deep blue sky to disperse the stars.
The blowing wind carried a refreshing, slight chill.
Yun Zhuo lay on the blanket. The person in his arms was still deep in sleep, her breathing as light as mountain morning mist, her hair brushed against her cheek by the wind, trembling slightly with her breath.
He raised his hand to gently tuck her hair behind her ear. Looking at Su Qingyuan's sleeping face, at this moment, he finally understood the Concept of Li Bai's poem.
"Clouds remind one of her clothes, flowers of her face; the spring breeze brushes the balustrade, and the dew is thick with fragrance."
"If not seen atop Jade Mountain, she would be met beneath the moon at the Jade Terrace."
Good poem, good poem. Last night truly inspired a fine poem from me.
When the fish-belly white at the horizon slowly bled into pale gold, Yun Zhuo reached out and pinched her nose.
Teacher Su dizzily pulled his hand away and said languidly, "Don't mess around, let me sleep a bit longer."
Yun Zhuo said softly, "If you sleep longer, the sun will climb up. Won't we be dried into fish jerky by then?"
After saying that, Yun Zhuo wanted to give her a gentle morning kiss.
But he saw Teacher Su's eyelids flutter. Opening her eyes and seeing Yun Zhuo, she hurriedly covered her mouth.
"No way, you're not going to take responsibility now that it's light?"
Teacher Su shook her head, covering her mouth as she said, "My mouth must be full of 'childish' air right now; don't you find it dirty?"
"Last night I also dreamed that I kissed a big-bearded old man all night. We're like a crow landing on a coal ball; neither of us should call the other black."
Teacher Su burst into laughter. "You're the crow."
"Fine, I'm the crow and you're the coal ball. If you don't get up, I'm really going to kiss you."
"Pah, then I'd rather be the crow."
By the time the two of them finished packing, the sun had popped its head over the horizon.
Seeing Teacher Su carefully putting away the blanket, Yun Zhuo wanted to say it was all dirty and to just leave it.
But in the end, he kept his mouth shut.
Because that blanket held great significance to Teacher Su.
"Let's go!" Teacher Su came over and affectionately hooked her arm through Yun Zhuo's.
Yun Zhuo pointed at the rock where they had spread the blanket. "Should we dig up that rock too?"
"Sure, then dig it out and help me carry it home on your back."
"Uh, never mind then. If I carry that, I won't be able to carry you."
"Hmph, naughty. Alright, hurry up and carry me down." After saying that, she happily jumped onto Yun Zhuo's back.
The two of them returned to Crescent Moon Lake.
Teacher Su washed up by the lake, while Yun Zhuo inspected the stone house they had stayed in yesterday.
Looking at the messy footprints around, someone really had come last night. It was a good thing he had the foresight to run off with Teacher Su quickly.
...
The small town along with the farm were gone; last night Chen Kun and his wife self-detonated here, leveling the place to the ground.
Between the thirty thousand from the Ling Family and the twenty thousand from the Qi Family, the final number of survivors was less than ten thousand.
Currently, some of these people were driving excavators, digging for Chen Kun's savings here.
Others went to the Temple of the God of Wealth to find that fifty billion.
A group of merchants had arrived to collect the bodies.
They called it: contributing to the cause of human evolution.
According to custom, the money from the sales would be distributed by the Qi and Ling families to the relatives as compensation; in the final tally, the two families would even make a small profit.
This was the Kindling Federation, an orderly yet incomparably dark world.
(It's better to keep up with the novel as it's released, otherwise you won't know what you've missed.)