79.3

"Aji," a female voice called her from the other side of the plum grove, and a woman in blue slowly walked over. The little girl jumped on the woman with a grin. The woman poked her between the brows and said, "So rowdy? You were not like this before."

"Sister Siyu, you and the master always talk about before. What was I like before?"

"Hrm. You used to be much thinner."

"Sister Siyu is making fun of me for eating so much?"

"I don't dare to make fun of you."

Siyu took Aji's hand and led her through the plum trees until they reached a rickety courtyard. It was not very spacious inside. There were exactly two rooms with a plum tree in between. Flower petals floated down and landed on a stone table underneath.

A man dressed in white and blue sat at the table reading a book. He did not seem to notice the two of them had returned. Aji ran to him, climbed onto his knees, bumped off the book in his hand with her head, and gave him a wreath she had made out of grass.

"Master, look! I made the wreath for you!"

Lin Haoqing looked at the little girl on his knee, and his mind flashed an image from the past. He could not remember how many years it had been, but she had given him the same bright smile. Lin Haoqing accepted the wreath from her.

"Does it look good?"

"Looks very good." Lin Haoqing turned his head to look at Siyu who was standing next to him. She nodded her head and said respectfully, "I checked, no one was following."

Lin Haoqing then said, "Hungry? Let's go eat."

In one meal, Aji ate fifty times as much as Lin Haoqing. The rice bucket at the table was emptied in no time and she was still hungry, so she ate Siyu's rice too. She ate and ate until her belly was round. As soon as she finished, Aji yawned and rubbed her eyes.

"Master, I'm sleepy."

"Go to your room and sleep for a while."

Aji went back to her room and did not even shut the door. She threw herself down onto a simple bed and fell asleep.

Miraculously, soon after she fell asleep, her rounded stomach began to slowly disappear. In just a while, her hair grew longer and the clothes that had fitted her perfectly now revealed her ankles and wrists.

Siyu commented while listening to Aji's even breathing, "Over the past ten days, this body formed from her inner pearl grows a head every time she sleeps. If this keeps going, I'm afraid she will no longer fit inside this house." Lin Haoqing chuckled.

"Once she grows back to her original size, she will not grow anymore." He picked up the book again.

"Right now, both the Grand Master's house and the Northlands are after me, so be careful when you take her out."

"Yes," Siyi replied and then paused. Lin Haoqing looked at her.

"What's wrong?"

"I just don't understand..." Siyu said.

"When Ji Yunhe died, why didn't the master save her right then and there? Why go through the trouble of retrieving her from the bottom of the lake?"

Lin Haoqing was looking at the book, but his mind drifted elsewhere. He recalled the day when he saw Ji Yunhe withered face in that room...

"She wanted to leave that place," Lin Haoqing said.

"I just helped her out."

Siyu did not ask any more questions. She silently retreated and stood behind Lin Haoqing. Petals of plum blossoms fell around them like rain in spring.