"Don't you dare speak ill of my parents, or I won't be polite!" The Third Young Master became somewhat angry. He could tolerate anything said about himself, but when it came to comments about his parents, he lost his composure.
"Oh my, what do you want to do? Want to fight me? Come on, come on! I'm just bored anyway, and I don't mind letting you know how high the sky is and how thick the earth is!!" The Young Miss raised her small face slightly and said with some excitement—excitement probably because she found something to kill time with.
"..." The Third Young Master fell silent and made no moves.
"What's wrong? Not talking now?" The Young Miss pressed her advantage.
"Big Sister, you clearly know I can't beat you..." The Third Young Master wasn't stupid—he knew the gap between himself and the Young Miss.
"Good that you know. Some things are clearly impossible, so why force them? Take it slowly—as long as you work hard, you'll catch up." The Young Miss said earnestly.
"But..." The Third Young Master wasn't unaware of this principle; he just didn't want to disappoint his parents and also wanted to prove something about himself.
"I just want to participate in the Dragon Gate Tournament—I'm not forcing myself to win..." The Third Young Master said slowly. From this, one could see he knew his limits; at least his goal wasn't completely hopeless.
"If you just want to participate in the Dragon Gate Tournament, that might still have hope, though it's very difficult. Even if you're willing to work hard, it's still very difficult! You'd need some methods..." The Young Miss frowned. Though she said there was hope, this hope was very slim.
Not to mention in all of Qingyun City—just among the Mo family members, the Third Young Master might not even make it out of the preliminaries. Many Mo family members wanted to participate in this Dragon Gate Tournament, and each was much stronger than the Third Young Master. The Mo family's quota was his first major obstacle.
"Unless a miracle happens, I can only work hard. Rather than waiting for a miracle, it's better to just work hard." The Third Young Master said. This thinking was very practical and most useful.
"A miracle... you've already had one. Wait, Xiaoyao!!! No, that should have been a coincidence..." At this moment, Xiaoyao's face flashed through the Young Miss's mind, because the Third Young Master's miracle came from Xiaoyao. But she quickly dismissed this thought.
A miracle is a miracle—it doesn't have much connection to Xiaoyao. Besides, it happened once already; how could there be a second time.
Coincidence, definitely a coincidence.
At this moment, this was the Third Young Master's thinking too, not just because he personally felt that incident was a coincidence, but also because of what was happening right now.
"Huh? Who called me?"
Xiaoyao's head poked out from the bookshelf behind them, looking around in confusion, searching for who was calling him.
"..."
The Young Miss was stunned, then went directly over and pulled Xiaoyao out.
"Ah, Young Miss, don't pull like that! I still have ink and brush in my hands..."
"You kid, you're always appearing and disappearing like a ghost. When we look for you, we can't find you, yet you appear in the most unexpected places." The Young Miss said irritably.
This wasn't the first time. Sometimes when the Young Miss couldn't find Xiaoyao, she'd angrily call out his name, and sometimes Xiaoyao would eagerly appear and report to the Young Miss.
Xiaoyao couldn't be found because he might be anywhere in the Mo family estate, and Xiaoyao would suddenly appear because he could be found anywhere.
"Because I still have work to do." Xiaoyao said very innocently.
"Stop talking so much. Do you still have that wine you gave me last time?" The Young Miss didn't say anything else and directly stated her purpose for finding Xiaoyao.
That's right—she wasn't looking for Xiaoyao to chat or anything; she just wanted to drink.
"The wine is all in the wine cellar." Xiaoyao replied.
"Don't try to fool me! I spend more days in the wine cellar than in my own room. None of those are as good as what you gave me. Tell me quickly—do you still have that wine, and where did you get it?" The Young Miss grabbed Xiaoyao's collar and said fiercely, as if she'd make Xiaoyao suffer terribly if his answer didn't satisfy her.
"I'm not fooling you... uh, Young Miss. That wine really is in the wine cellar. All the wine we brew gets sent to the wine cellar. Do you suspect we're taking it out to sell?" Xiaoyao said intermittently, because his throat was being pulled a bit tight by the Young Miss.
"We brewed it? You're saying the wine you gave me was brewed by us?" The Young Miss was somewhat confused.
"Yes!" Xiaoyao nodded. "Where else would I get wine? At that time, I was helping brew wine at the wine workshop, so I had wine with me. It was supposed to go to the wine cellar, but you discovered it and took it..."
"Impossible! The wine we brew ourselves is very poor quality. It's fine for casual drinking, but it's not presentable—it definitely wouldn't reach the standard of what I drank." The Young Miss immediately denied Xiaoyao's statement, though why would Xiaoyao need to lie?
"Young Miss, why would I lie to you? There's no benefit in it. This wine really was brewed by us. There are still several jars in the wine cellar now, dated ten days ago. You can take them out and try them!" Xiaoyao said with some exasperation.
"Fine, I'll go try them. If you're lying to me, I'll skin you alive!" The Young Miss said fiercely.
"..." Xiaoyao was speechless.
The Young Miss disappeared like the wind, and after tasting the wine, she immediately knew Xiaoyao hadn't lied to her. This wine really was brewed by their own family. These few jars being casually thrown here proved this point.
If it were expensive good wine bought at high prices, there would be a special place to store it, not casually placed like this.
Over the following days, the Young Miss was constantly drunk, finishing all those jars of wine. This made her mood very pleasant. She didn't save any for later because since it was brewed by their own family, why cherish it? Just have them continue brewing.
However, when the second batch of wine came out, the Young Miss's expectant face immediately turned green, because the taste was completely wrong. She suspected the wine workshop people were cutting corners, so she had them redo it.
But when the subsequent wine came out, though it was a bit better, it still couldn't meet the Young Miss's requirements. The Young Miss had it all dumped, leaving two words—"Continue!!"
But no matter how hard they tried, they couldn't reach that standard. Even with the Young Miss personally supervising, it was the same. This left the Young Miss very puzzled—she suspected someone had made a mistake before.
However, after confirmation, those previous wines were indeed brewed by the Mo family wine workshop, and during that period, no one in the Mo family had brought in any wine.
So why was this happening? Why was that batch of wine different?
Looking at the ingredients and methods, everything was exactly the same, but why was there a difference, and such a big one.
Everyone felt very puzzled but couldn't find the reason!
Actually, if they had looked not just at materials and procedures, but also checked who was part of the brewing team at that time, they might have discovered the reason.
Because during that brewing session, there was one person among the brewing team members—someone often habitually overlooked, who worked temporary jobs everywhere: Xiaoyao.
And at that time, it wasn't that no one thought of Xiaoyao being there, but those who did think of it felt whether Xiaoyao was there or not shouldn't matter. Besides, finding Xiaoyao at that time wasn't easy—it seemed Xiaoyao was doing something, something that no one in the Mo family dared to disturb.
"Xiaoyao, will this method really work?"
"It'll work, of course it'll work."
"It better work, or I'll make your life worse than death!"
The Second Madam said fiercely to Xiaoyao, then quickly changed her expression when looking at her son, with a somewhat pained look, because at this moment, her son was suffering.
That's right, suffering—true suffering!!
The Third Young Master was in a large vat filled with medicinal liquid, with flames beneath the vat. The flames kept the vat at a certain temperature, like brewing medicine.
"..."
Xiaoyao was very helpless. He originally didn't want to get involved in such troublesome matters. Now he blamed himself for being too talkative, and also blamed the Young Miss for calling him for no reason.
It was because of that day in the Library Tower that Xiaoyao began today's affair.
That day, after the Young Miss ran off to get wine, Xiaoyao resumed his work—copying books and repairing books.
Though the Library Tower prohibited servants and outsiders from entering, it needed people for maintenance: organizing, airing books, repairing books, and copying/replicating them. These tasks needed people to do them.
Xiaoyao was almost the dedicated servant here, because he worked most carefully and meticulously, and his craftsmanship was first-rate. He had once restored some difficult-to-repair books, which made the Library Tower manager very fond of using Xiaoyao, almost exclusively.
Speaking of this matter, it was also a coincidence. Xiaoyao was conscripted to help out, originally just to assist, but he ended up restoring damaged books completely. This surprised people while confirming his skills.
After so many years of effort, Xiaoyao had basically finished repairing all the books in the Library Tower. During this period, he had also read almost all the books here, though not many people knew this.
Not to mention that he had read the Library Tower's books—even the fact that he repaired, copied, and maintained these books here wasn't known by many people. After all, this was just a small matter, a minor skill, at least from the Mo family's perspective.
Regarding Xiaoyao's access to the manuals in the Library Tower, the tower's management didn't pay much attention. These things required talent to understand anyway. Since Xiaoyao had already been exposed to quite a few during repair and copying work, what difference would a bit more make?
Copying meant taking old copied versions to store or destroy them and copying new ones, to ensure the originals wouldn't be lost if something happened.
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