Chapter Twenty-One: Sending Her Back to Her Room Hua Ling drew several sheets, but none of them quite satisfied her. She felt she had not drawn them properly, so she threw them all away and started over. Only when she reached the sixth drawing was she finally satisfied, and she handed it to Mu Yelei. “Take a look. What do you think?” As she spoke, Hua Ling let out a huge yawn.
Mu Yelei took Hua Ling’s drawing. On it was an enormous wheel, fitted with bamboo tubes. The mouths of the bamboo tubes all faced the direction in which the wheel advanced—that is, the downstream direction of the current. There was a wheel at the top and another at the bottom, the lower wheel half-submerged in the water. Between the two wheels was a belt, and fixed to the belt were many bamboo tubes about a chi long. The flowing water struck the lower waterwheel, causing it to turn, and the bamboo tubes would fill with water, carrying the river water upward from below and pouring it out at a higher point.
In the blank space at the bottom of the paper, Hua Ling had also written a few lines: Note that the mouths of the tubes should form a forty-five-degree angle with the axle of the tube waterwheel. Otherwise, when pouring, the water will not fall toward the side of the wheel, which is where the trough can catch it. The wheel should be submerged in the water to a depth of about two and a half to three chi. About three chi behind the axle of the tube waterwheel, install a water trough; the height of this trough should be slightly lower than the top of the wheel.
How could Mu Yelei have expected Hua Ling to draw it in such detail? The notes she had added beside it were even more important. His face filled with pleasant surprise, and he was just about to thank her when he looked up and saw that Hua Ling had already fallen asleep, sprawled over his desk, her face full of exhaustion.
At that moment, Mu Yelei suddenly felt a pang of heartache. He picked up the cloak hanging on the clothes rack nearby and draped it over her. Looking at her small, thin body, he truly could not understand how her mind could know such things. Ordinary girls were supposed to learn poetry, songs, and the Three Obediences and Four Virtues. Why had she learned these things instead?
Ever since the day she had come to his study and caused a scene, her figure had remained in his mind. Today at Zuixiang Tower, he had never expected to run into her. He had originally intended to greet her, but under the provocation of her open mockery and veiled sarcasm, he had flicked his sleeves and left. Yet at the entrance, he had heard her witty explanation to the commoners, and in that moment, his doubts about her had deepened even further.
In his memory, Xia Ziying had always been timid and cowardly. Sometimes, when she saw him, she could not even speak a complete sentence. Yet she would always look at him with that following, yearning gaze, which filled him with disgust. Because of that, he rarely spoke to her and rarely met with her. Even when they did meet, they did not talk; at most, he would give a nod and brush past her.
But the Xia Ziying of now seemed as though she had become an entirely different person. Her whole being was full of vitality; she spoke smoothly and vividly, her words clear, her thoughts well-ordered. Now she had even come up with such a method for irrigating paddy fields. It truly astonished him. This version of her was unfamiliar to him, but he could not deny that he was being drawn to her, little by little, slowly moving closer.
That was why he had wanted to see her tonight. But when he truly did see her, he had not known what to say, and could only lower his head, pretending to read the memorials. Not until she began provoking him did things change. Yet when she stopped his body from kneeling, he could not tell whether what he felt was gratitude or regret.
The current her was like a rose covered in thorns, both fragrant and prickly, yet fatally captivating to him. Mu Yelei was somewhat bewildered. He could not figure out what he himself was thinking.
But there was one thing he was certain of now: he could not watch Hua Ling sleep in this cold study, and sprawled over the desk at that. It would be terribly uncomfortable, and she would easily catch a chill. Once again, Mu Yelei did something he would absolutely never have done before: he picked up the sleeping Hua Ling and carried her toward Yinlü Pavilion.
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