My Wife Is A Sword Immortal
Chapter 330 - 248 Zhao Rong, Why Not Live Off Her?

Chapter 330: Chapter 248 Zhao Rong, Why Not Live Off Her?

Zhao Rong first returned to his seat.

He didn’t take out paper, ink, brush, and inkstone to prepare for the next class like the other students around him. Instead, he bent down to wrap his guqin in a plain white cloth, packed up his belongings, and then turned to leave with decisive steps.

Zhao Rong’s contrarian actions attracted quite a few glances.

Fan Yushu asked curiously, "Ziyu, where are you going?"

Zhao Rong casually replied, "I’m not feeling well today and am going to ask for leave."

As he spoke, he didn’t wait for Fan Yushu to ask anything further and walked toward Yu Huaijin in the distance.

The open space where Shuaixing Hall was holding today’s class was an abandoned ancient ferry crossing named Lanzhou Crossing.

The legend was that the Confucian Saint who first brought his disciples to this remote edge of Wangque had disembarked from this very old crossing to establish Linlu Academy.

Although Lanzhou Crossing was no longer in use, the ferry’s wooden walkway that extended from the shore into the river still remained.

At this moment, many students from Shuaixing Hall were queued up, walking on the walkway to scoop water from Li River for ink grinding.

Yu Huaijin was standing at the entrance to the walkway, behind a long narrow table to one side.

As Zhao Rong approached, he observed closely.

Yu Huaijin looked calm, her head bowed in concentration on grinding ink.

Her hands, pale as snow, clutched a long, black ink stick, which shone brilliantly against her skin and attracted the attention of many students who passed by to fetch water.

After grinding the ink, Yu Huaijin moved to the other side of the table, continuing her tasks without pause, her face still expressionless and focused.

Zhao Rong watched for a while.

This table faced the students’ seats in the open area and would be used by Teacher Zhu later on. As the senior student chosen by Shuaixing Hall, Yu Huaijin could have delegated these miscellaneous tasks to others. However, in Zhao Rong’s memory, it seemed that Yu Huaijin always insisted on doing these things herself, just as now.

He narrowed his eyelids slightly and walked straight over.

He bowed and said, "Senior Yu, I’m feeling a bit unwell and would like to ask for leave for one class. I hope you can grant my request."

Yu Huaijin, who was arranging a brush washer at the time, paused briefly at his words before continuing her task. She did not turn to look at him nor return the gesture.

Zhao Rong kept his gaze intently on her profile.

There was a brief silence between them.

After hanging up a brush pen, Yu Huaijin nodded lightly but said nothing. Concentrating on tidying up the table, she paid no attention to Zhao Rong.

"Thank you, Senior."

Zhao Rong, noticing Yu Huaijin’s expression, roughly understood some things, but he didn’t explain. Expressing his thanks, he turned and left, departing Lanzhou Crossing under the watchful eyes of his Shuaixing Hall classmates.

Yu Huaijin, with her back to Zhao Rong, discreetly shook her head after hanging up a brush pen.

The students queuing for water witnessed this recent scene, including Xiao Hongyu. She turned to glance at Zhao Rong’s retreating back and said with a frown, "Huaijin, don’t bother with that lazybones. He’s not worth getting upset over."

Yu Huaijin didn’t respond, merely looking up at the position of the sun.

Not far behind Xiao Hongyu, Wu Peiliang had been paying attention to this scene for a while, and now he nodded with a smile,

"Hongyu is right. At least Fan Yushu, that straggler, is obedient. But this Zhao Ziyu is useless. Senior, you really shouldn’t..."

"Time’s getting on; everyone speed up a bit," interrupted Yu Huaijin suddenly, cutting off Wu Peiliang’s words.

She calmly glanced toward the entrance of Lanzhou Crossing, "The teacher should be arriving soon."

Before long, the busy students of Shuaixing Hall settled down, sitting in their places, quietly waiting for a certain Confucian-robed woman to arrive.

...

Zhao Rong had thought Yu Huaijin would stop him, but she let him go so easily.

He shook his head and chuckled to himself, "Zhao Ziyu, you really have no shame."

Zhao Rong quietly cursed himself.

Then he looked up at the sun.

It was still early, and after briefly considering, he decided to visit Teacher Yan in the morning and ask for a few books to read.

However, regarding certain matters, Zhao Rong felt he needed to be proactively shameless.

Like the one who he had passed by once: Zhu Weirui.

The upcoming class at Shuaixing Hall that morning was this woman teacher’s calligraphy class.

Because of the poetry paper on which she had copied his calligraphy.

Zhao Rong was admittedly somewhat afraid of her, in various senses of the word.

If possible, better to avoid meeting her, though what gave Zhao Rong some consolation was that, so far, she didn’t know who he was.

After all, during their first brief encounter at the Academy, Teacher Zhu had not even glanced his way and had hurried past, leaving Zhao Rong struck by her aura. It was from asking his senior about her out of curiosity that he learned of her identity.

But Zhao Rong also worried, should he skip all future calligraphy classes by finding excuses?

Once or twice might be excusable, but if it happened too often, always like this, he suspected that even someone as conscientious as Yu Huaijin would eventually become disappointed and give up on him, right?

And if he didn’t skip classes, there would probably be more trouble...

Zhao Rong furrowed his brows, but then they relaxed after a moment.

Forget it, he’ll figure out a solution later. For the time being, as long as he can avoid meeting her, unless this Teacher Lan, who was reportedly popular among the male Confucian scholars at the Academy, would personally go to Nanxuan Academy to seek him out by name or wait for him outside Shuaixing Hall during other teachers’ classes...