Liang Youxiao was stunned.
His friend had gotten bolder.
He asked, “You want to beat him up too?”
Xi Rui thought for a moment and said snappily, “What are you thinking about? How would I have the guts to?”
He continued, “I’ve decided to run away from home. When my grandmother comes back from offering incense at the temple, she will know that my father had beaten me up and caused me to run away from home. There will be good repercussions for him. Hmph.”
Liang Youxiao uttered under his breath, I’m learning from you.
He touched his chin. “Then I’ll run away with you too.”
He had recently coaxed his grandmother and mother until they were very happy.
This time, he had to run away from home because his father had forced him to.
Let’s see how his father will explain this. Hmph.
Xi Rui smiled and put his arm around his shoulder. “As expected from my brother. Let’s go together!”
Thus, Liang Youxiao and Xi Rui made good use of their fathers’ trip to the yamen and packed up their things and ran away from home.
Just as they were about to leave the capital, they met another famous demon queen in the capital.
She knew that they were going to run away from home and were finding the founder who made a skateboard, which was very fun.
So, she joined the two of them without hesitation.
This gave Xi Rui and Liang Youxiao a headache.
On the other hand, at Xiaxi village.
Shi Qingluo did not know that Xi Rui and the others had run away from home and were coming to seek refuge.
At this moment, she was in the courtyard talking to Bai Xu, who had just returned from the county town.
This time, Bai Xu brought back a batch of sheep oil and a few carts of wool.
Bai Xu was taking credit for it. “I spent a lot of effort to pull these things back.”
Shi Qingluo was in a good mood. “Yes, yes, thank you for your hard work!”
Bai Xu was speechless. Why did she seem so perfunctory?
“What are you going to do with them?”
In the past, these were all thrown away.
Shi Qingluo winked at him. “Of course they’re very useful.
“You’ll know it when the time comes.”
Bai Xu was speechless.
This woman would always keep him in suspense.
“If you come up with something new and good, don’t forget about me!”
He already knew there was a jerk who had come to the capital and did very well in his skateboard business.
Shi Qingluo smiled. “Sure, I’ll give you a batch when I’m done.”
Bai Xu smiled. “That’s more like it.”
He asked, “Can I have some of those scooters and skateboards as well?”
He realised that skateboards and scooters were very popular in the capital.
He had paid someone a high price to research on the scooter.
When he saw the words “Nanxi” on the body of the scooter, he knew that it was definitely from Shi Qingluo.
Then, he heard that there was a very novel gambling house in the capital for playing mahjong and cards.
He also went to try, but found that it was full of people and there wasn’t any vacancy for him.
He heard that the owner of this gambling house was the same as the one who sold the scooter, and he thought of Shi Qingluo again.
It seemed like she was the only one who could come up with such novel things.
At that moment, he regretted that missing out on all these when he left Nanxi county.
Shi Qingluo shook her head. “If you want to play, I can give you a few to play with. But if you want to sell them, you can’t.
“Besides, I didn’t make them here. I left them to Liang Youxiao.”
She didn’t have the energy to open another workshop.
Seeing the disappointment on Bai Xu’s face, she reminded him, “It’s good that you want to expand your business, but it’s better to take steady steps.
“If you take too big a step, you might sprain your ankle.”
“Some things in the capital made by Liang Youxiao would still be there no matter what. If it were managed by the Bai family, it would be just a matter of time before someone swallows the business up.”
Skateboarding was such an easy thing to imitate.
If the Bai family handled it, it wouldn’t take more than ten days for someone to steal their business.
If they met someone with bad intentions, it was possible that they would push the Bai family out of the capital.
And this was just the skateboards.
If they opened a gambling house, the Bai family would definitely not end up well.
Bai Xu wasn’t a fool.
After listening to Shi Qingluo’s reminder, he had similar thoughts.
Although he had an uncle that held a fourth grade rank in the imperial court, compared to a young master of the public administrator office, he was really nothing.
“Alright then. If there’s anything good in the future, you have to take care of me.”
He added, “I’ll continue to help you collect the sheep’s oil and wool.”
Shi Qingluo had been waiting for him to say that. “No problem.”
After getting rid of Bai Xu, Shi Qingluo took the sheep’s oil and went to make soap.
Then she took the wool and went to find Mother Xiao and Xiao Baili.
She sorted the wool with them and rolled them into threads.
When Shi Qingluo was in university, knitting a woollen scarf was popular in her dorm.
She was attracted to knitting and had even gone to the Internet to learn from the videos.
However, she only knew how to knit a scarf and had never knitted anything else.
Therefore, she first taught Mother Xiao and Xiao Baili how to knit a scarf.
“Mother, Baili, try knitting clothes with this wool.”
Although she had never knitted clothes before, she had seen the videos and told them what she knew.
“You can also knit wool pants and socks.”
Mother Xiao was very skillful in this.
She smiled and said, “No problem. Leave it to us.”
Xiao Baili was also very interested in knitting clothes.
She touched the scarf that her sister-in-law had knitted.
She smiled and said, “The clothes knitted from wool are very warm, right?”
Shi Qingluo nodded. “Yes, it’s very warm to wear clothes and pants made from wool in winter.
“Now, you can take a ball of wool and play with it. I’ll go to the county town’s dyeing workshop tomorrow and get someone to dye them into coloured wool to improve the sweaters’ aesthetics.”
Mother Xiao said, “Then we’ll make more wool thread for you to dye later.”
Ever since she led others to make mosquito repellent incense and even took over the milk candy production recently, Mother Xiao had gradually become more confident under Shi Qingluo’s subtle influence.
She also became more efficient in her work.
Shi Qingluo nodded. “Alright, I’ll make them with you.”
In a twinkle of an eye, it was time for Fourth Son Shi to get married.
She had temporarily formed an alliance with the Shi family and was also their niece, so Shi Qingluo and Xiao Hanzheng also went to the Shi family’s residence.
The Shi family had evidence against their future bride, and were unwilling to spend, so Shi Qingluo came up with an idea for Fourth Son Shi to borrow an ox-cart and bring the villagers to the Wu family to pick her bride up.
This angered the Wu family.
If their daughter married off like this, how much would they be humiliated?
They could only pinch their noses and replace the ox-cart with the Wu family’s horse-cart.
This also delayed the auspicious time for marriage and made the Wu family a laughingstock.
Wu Xixi wasn’t willing to marry, but Master Wu said that if she was unwilling, he would give her and her mother a piece of white silk each to end it.
Wu Xixi didn’t want to die, so she could only agree.
When she heard that Fourth Son Shi had borrowed an ox-cart to pick her up, she was so angry that she almost wanted to run away from this marriage.
She was persuaded by the “servant girl” beside her who was still gentle and charming, even though she had deliberately concealed her appearance.
Only then did she reluctantly get on the horse carriage.
When she arrived at the village, Wu Xixi was sent to the bridal chamber after paying respects to the heaven gods as part of the marriage procedure.
When they were almost done dining at the banquet, her servant girl said in a low voice, “Miss, I’ll go out and get some food for you.”
Wu Xixi was very jealous of her beauty, but Master Wu reminded her to listen to this annoying woman after they entered the Shi family’s house.
She waved her hand impatiently. “Go.”
The servant girl smiled slightly, opened the door, and walked out.
Soon, a middle-aged man appeared beside her. “Xiao Hanzheng is going back alone. Go to the door and pretend to help Miss Wu get something. Let’s meet by chance.”
Shi Qingluo had already been tipped off and gone to her workshop.
She gave him a reassuring look. “Okay!”
