The Night Watcher of Great Jing - Chapter 31

Zhao Li: *I saw my superior’s strange other side. Is he going to make my life difficult now?*

Shen Yan: *The woman I like saw that side of me. What do I do?*

Each stood in the garden lost in their own thoughts. Silence reigned.

The orange cat sprawled across Shen Yan’s legs finally broke the deadlock.

It raised its enormous face in confusion.

Why had the massage stopped?

After meowing several times, it butted its head against Shen Yan’s hand.

“Ahem.”

Zhao Li cleared her throat. “Taking your midday break, my lord?”

“Mm.”

Shen Yan turned around and answered without expression.

Zhao Li had excellent eyesight. She could clearly see that both his ears were bright red.

As a qualified and considerate subordinate, Zhao Li pretended not to notice.

She bent down, picked up the booklet from the ground, and said, “I happened to have something I wanted to ask you about!”

Seeing no unusual expression on her face, Shen Yan quietly relaxed.

He set the orange cat on the ground, lowered his head to brush the fur from his robe, and asked as though nothing had happened, “What is it?”

“A saber art. I wanted to ask your advice.” Zhao Li waved the object in her hand.

By tacit agreement, neither mentioned the cat.

Zhao Li was about to invite Shen Yan to sit at the stone table in the garden when he frowned at her.

“It is cold outside.”

Daoist Xuanxu had said that yin energy entering the body caused severe harm.

Even a vigorous young man full of yang energy would require a long period of careful recuperation, let alone a girl like Zhao Li.

Without proper rest, her lifespan might be shortened, and the cold lodged in her body could affect her ability to have children.

Yet the young woman did not cherish her health at all. She constantly wanted to go out and work.

Under her superior’s disapproving gaze, Zhao Li could only invite him into the main room.

The meowing orange cat rubbed against Shen Yan’s legs and followed them inside.

“Tea, my lord.”

Zhao Li cleared the clutter from the table, poured a cup of hot tea, and placed it before Shen Yan.

He carefully leafed through *Three Moon-Eclipsing Kills*.

With his experienced eye, he could immediately see how formidable the saber art was.

To Zhao Li’s surprise, he did not ask where it had come from. He merely frowned and asked, “The internal force of this saber art is sinister and ruthless. Do you truly wish to learn it?”

Zhao Li did not care whether the art was sinister. She cared only whether it was powerful and easy to learn.

Seeing her answer in her expression, Shen Yan said nothing more and lowered his eyes to the manual again.

Perhaps because Shen Yan was busy, the orange cat that had followed them magnanimously leaped onto Zhao Li’s lap, tucked in its paws, and began to purr.

Zhao Li held it while Shen Yan studied.

The room grew quiet. Only the medicinal tea on the little red-clay stove bubbled softly.

After a long time, Shen Yan finally looked up.

“Mm. I understand most of it now. Once I have fully familiarized myself with the art, I will teach you. Is that all right?”

Zhao Li stared.

He had learned it already?

Noticing the doubt in her eyes, Shen Yan arched an eyebrow.

Zhao Li immediately rearranged her expression into one of complete trust.

Shen Yan found her reaction amusing. He took a sip of the medicinal tea and frowned at its bitterness.

It was getting late, and he needed to return to the offices at the front of the compound, so he did not linger.

He rose, taking Zhao Li’s *Three Moon-Eclipsing Kills* with him, and drew two books from inside his robe to leave on the table.

“This is a secret text I found in the palace. I thought it might be useful to you, so I brought it over,” Shen Yan said before leaving.

Holding the astonishingly heavy orange cat, Zhao Li stood at the door and watched his tall, slender figure disappear beyond the courtyard gate.

Then she returned and examined the books he had left.

One was titled *The Great Way of Qingyuan*. Beneath it lay a cheap collection of supernatural travel tales bought from a street stall.

Zhao Li suddenly laughed.

“My superior seems much more interesting than I thought.” She bounced the fat orange cat in her arms. “What do you think?”

The cat replied with a rough, forceful meow.

“Come on. I’ll make you cat food.”

The secret text could wait until tonight. Zhao Li decided to enter a Side Profession first.

The courtyard where she lived already had a small kitchen built against the eastern wall at the rear.

It had not been used for a long time. Wind and rain blew through it, and the stove had collapsed.

Zhao Li had asked Matron Wan to send people to repair it.

Matron Wan never refused her requests. She simply assumed Zhao Li wanted a small kitchen where she could boil water at night.

Carrying the orange cat, Zhao Li circled around to the rear courtyard and inspected the newly renovated kitchen.

Matron Wan was meticulous. Not only had the walls been rebuilt and the roof retiled, but a new stove with two burners had been constructed.

A cauldron two feet and six inches wide sat atop one of them.

Bowls, plates, ladles, a chopping board, kitchen knives, steamers, iron pans, a water vat, strainers, and every other tool had been supplied.

When Zhao Li opened a wooden cabinet, she found sugar, salt, fermented black beans, other seasonings, and a gourd filled with rapeseed oil.

[Profession workstation detected. Enter the Butcher profession?]

Zhao Li agreed, and information appeared before her.

[Side Profession acquired: Butcher—Kitchen Wrecker.]

[Proficiency required for next level: 1/2,000.]

[Congratulations on acquiring a Side Profession. Basic Recipe ×1 awarded.]

*You’re the Kitchen Wrecker! Who are you looking down on?*

Zhao Li had lived alone since she was thirteen in her previous life. Cooking was a basic survival skill, and people had called her the Little Kitchen God.

She searched the kitchen.

Apparently, no one had expected a committed slacker like her to cook. The rice and flour bins were empty, to say nothing of fresh meat and vegetables.

Still holding the purring orange cat, Zhao Li went to find Matron Wan.

Zhao Li had an eccentric temperament, and Matron Wan indulged her. Apart from the maids who swept morning and evening and the servants who delivered meals, she usually allowed Zhao Li to remain alone and undisturbed.

Once Zhao Li explained what she wanted, servants delivered rice and grain in no time.

Matron Wan warned her not to tire herself or touch cold water, then left, still looking worried.

Only then did Zhao Li put down the orange cat curled in her arms.

It rumbled unhappily.

The cat ignored her when she called. Tail held high, it hauled its wobbling fat onto the wall and ran off on its own.

Zhao Li stopped paying attention to it and rolled up her sleeves.

With the original Zhao Li’s memories as a foundation, she successfully lit the stove and boiled water.

After some thought, she decided to make the scallion pancakes listed in the system recipe.

Two handfuls of yellowish flour and one handful of scallions.

As the first steaming pancake left the pan, the system sent a notification.

[Scallion Pancake ×1 completed.]

[Experience +0.01.]

[Butcher Proficiency +1.]

Zhao Li calculated silently.

She still needed 2,500 experience points to level up. One pancake awarded 0.01 experience…

To reach the next level, she would need to make 250,000 scallion pancakes!

Expressionless, Zhao Li stuffed the pancake into her mouth.

Perhaps she should just clean up and go to sleep.

Dejected, she put everything away neatly and extinguished the fire in the stove.

Carrying several pancakes that had charred because she misjudged the heat, she returned to her room.

She wiped her hands and opened *The Great Way of Qingyuan*, the book Shen Yan had given her.

Along with several cultivation methods of uncertain authenticity, it recorded many secrets.

These were matters that could never circulate among ordinary people, collected instead within the palace archives.

Most of the writing was obscure enough to leave Zhao Li grimacing.

Night had fallen by the time she found what she had been seeking in a note along the margin.

“In the ninth year of Longqing, east of the Kingdom of Shanshan in the Western Regions and south of Jing City, as the sun approached the horizon, a star fell to earth and scorched a thousand li of land.”