0p0 Chapter 176 Tea Ceremony Enhances Affection
Chapter 176 Tea Ceremony Enhances Affection
The more you practice tea ceremony, the deeper your affection becomes.
The celadon tea whisk swirls lightly between Su Yunlan's fingertips, and the steam rising from it is filled with glittering crackles.
The moment the spring water poured down from the bamboo spout, eight golden tea leaves on the table suddenly trembled and stood up, forming the shape of half a copper coin in the morning light.
“As expected, it needs seven parts fresh spring water.” She put the crushed tea leaves into the Jianzhan teacup, and her earlobe suddenly touched a night breeze carrying the scent of pine resin.
The azure tea leaves found in the rubble last night are now suspended in the spiritual spring space, tearing at each other with the blood-stained proverbs on the pharmacopoeia.
The lanterns under the eaves were suddenly blown violently by the wind, and the third drop of spring water deviated from the whirlpool of tea.
Su Yunlan subtly rotated her wrist, letting the droplet of water splash onto the bluestone bricks. In the rising white mist, the reflection of the eaves of the opposite house could be vaguely seen—someone was hiding in the banana leaves behind the moon gate.
"Fourth Miss, try this." When the servant boy Sun brought in the lacquered tray, he deliberately tapped the mahogany tray on the threshold to make a crisp sound.
Ink stains appeared on the mulberry paper pressed under the osmanthus cake: "Three-quarters past the hour of You (5:45 PM), at the well platform in the West Market."
Su Yunlan picked up a piece of tea cake with a tea needle and smelled the rusty smell on the pastry amidst the creaking sound of the grinding wheel turning.
This is a common method used by the Xiao family's secret guards when delivering secret messages; those dark red fragments are actually glutinous rice flour soaked in cinnabar.
While wiping her tea towel, she caught a glimpse of half a pomegranate-red skirt hanging from the tip of a banana leaf outside the window.
As dusk began to fall, the soapberry tree beside the well was shedding its yellow leaves.
When the servant handed over the bamboo tube, the clay clinging to the bottom still bore the distinctive ochre-red hue of the tea mountains west of the city. "Madam Wu has smeared the juice of *Gnaphalium affine* in your usual Tianmu teacup. Her cousin is among the judges for tomorrow's tea competition."
Su Yunlan ran her fingertips over the gold thread embedded in the crack of the bamboo tube; it was clearly the same pattern she had seen in the rough pottery jar this morning.
The sound of a mountain spring three hundred miles away suddenly boomed in her ears. She chuckled, gazing at the shimmering moon's reflection in the well water, "Could you trouble you, young man, to find me some tallow tree leaves and toad venom?"
At midnight, the Frost Pattern Pharmacopoeia in the Spirit Spring Space suddenly turned its pages automatically.
Su Yunlan pressed the tea leaves, which were tinged with blue light, onto the paper that was seeping out crimson, and watched as the golden threads seemed to burrow into the cracks of the proverb as if they were alive.
As the fragments of the map reassembled in the void, she heard the sound of Xiao Yuhan's armor rubbing against each other coming from the mountains three hundred miles away.
The next day, before the fog had completely dissipated at dawn, tea master Wu, with his fingernails painted with golden phoenixes, had already tapped on the tea table.
The Yue kiln celadon bowl she brought contained blood-red tea, while the goldfish swimming at the bottom of the bowl were drawn with the juice of the herb Gelsemium elegans.
"Sister, the tea froth is a bit too loose." Wu, the tea master, brushed her fingertips, stained with balsam juice, across Su Yunlan's tea whisk, and the fine silver needles, as thin as cow hair, pierced into the gaps in the bamboo.
The crowd watching from the corridor gasped in surprise, only to see the tea foam in the Jianzhan suddenly condense into the shape of a white crane, carrying a piece of golden-patterned tea leaf in its beak as it soared into the sky.
Su Yunlan flicked her wrist, and the tea whisk, which had been soaked in tallow tree leaf juice the night before, suddenly burst into a green light.
As the transformed white crane swooped down towards the gold hairpin in Wu's hair, the toad venom powder hidden in her sleeve happened to fall into the other's collar.
Everyone saw that Madam Wu suddenly staggered and knocked over her teacup, the spilled poison corroding the blue bricks with honeycomb-like holes.
"Fourth Sister-in-law's trick of using the crane to draw out the poison is truly ingenious." Xiao Yuhan's deep voice carried on the wind as Su Yunlan was adding the last drop of tea into the ice-cracked tea caddy.
Even without turning around, she knew that the man's black robes must be covered with morning dew from three hundred miles away, and his boots were inlaid with pebbles that could be pieced together to form the other half of a map.
As the setting sun bathed the tea table in amber hues, and Su Yunlan adjusted the grinding force for the fifth time, the shadow cast by the sandalwood screen behind her suddenly felt three times warmer than usual.
She smiled at the shimmering light and shadow in the tea soup, letting a familiar scent of agarwood linger on the tea whisk that was frosting over.
As dusk tinged the blue bricks with a dark hue, Su Yunlan's tea whisk traced the seventh concentric circle in the crackled glaze of the teacup.
The moment the spring water splashed onto the jade bracelet on her wrist, Xiao Yuhan's black iron wrist guard brushed against her sweaty nape, and he held the bamboo cup filled with warm water to her lips.
“The dew at three-quarters past the hour of Mao.” His deep voice carried the fresh scent of pine needles. As he wiped the fine sweat from her nose with his thumb, the silver python scales embroidered on his dark cuff brushed against her earlobe.
The pebbles brought back from three hundred miles away last night are embedded in the cracks of the tea table, echoing the map fragments floating in the spiritual spring space.
Su Yunlan drank the warm water from his palm, tasting the slightly sweet wild propolis on her tongue—a secret medicine for relieving fatigue among the soldiers of the Northern Frontier.
Seven cups of tea with different luster on the tea table reflected Xiao Yuhan's silhouette. From Chenshi to Xushi, this man stood five steps away behind the purple bamboo curtain, using his inner strength to keep eighteen kinds of mountain spring water warm for her.
"Look at this foam, Si Lang." She suddenly turned the tea whisk over, and the snow-white tea foam condensed in the cup into a crane spreading its wings.
Xiao Yuhan raised his sword-like eyebrows slightly, and his rusty fingertips traced the rim of the cup. The crane then transformed into fine water droplets that fell into the spiritual spring space, irrigating the newly acquired azure tea tree from the previous night, causing it to rustle.
As the water clock pointed to the hour of Hai (9-11 PM), the celadon bowl that Master Wu had used during the day suddenly emitted a buzzing sound from its nanmu wood box.
Su Yunlan used a tea needle to pry open the box lid and saw that the goldfish swimming on the glaze had faded to black, and scarlet cinnabar seeped out from the eyes of the fish.
Xiao Yuhan's sword trembled slightly in its sheath, and the white jade ring on the tassel suddenly reflected the outline of a cliff three hundred miles away—there were patterns that looked like goldfish scales.
"Tomorrow at Shenshi..." The servant Sun's hurried footsteps shattered the night. The rough pottery jar he was holding cracked, and the ochre-red clay unique to the tea mountains west of the city seeped out.
Half of the mulberry paper hidden at the bottom of the jar was soaked with sweat, and the words "Tea King Tree Gu Worm" were faintly visible.
Xiao Yuhan suddenly grasped Su Yunlan's hand as she ground tea, the lingering chill from her armor startling the golden-patterned tea leaves in the grinder, causing them to stand up abruptly.
He traced the calluses on her hands with his fingertips, then used water as ink to draw a winding curve on the tea table: "The underground river beneath the West Market leads to the Wu family's villa."
As the fifth watch gong sounded, a thick fog suddenly filled the Spirit Spring space.
Su Yunlan immersed the poisoned celadon bowl into the spring, watching the black goldfish struggle and turn into blood streaks, which then burrowed into a yellowed page of the Frost Pattern Pharmacopoeia.
The pale blue tea leaves suspended in mid-air suddenly burst into fluorescence, revealing honeycomb-like holes in the reconstructed map fragments.
As dawn broke, Xiao Yuhan pressed his dewy fingers against her wrist as she reached for the tea set.
The black iron wrist guard brushed against the celadon tea caddy, then pushed the cup filled with emerald-colored tea towards her: "Use this."
Three grains of glutinous rice, soaked in cinnabar, were sunk at the bottom of the cup; these were the poison-detecting beads specially made by the Xiao family's secret guards.
Su Yunlan's fingertips brushed against the half-blue leaf tucked between the seams of his armor, then she suddenly leaned close to his war-stained robes: "Does Fourth Brother know that this tea needs the warmth of one's heart to bring out its true flavor?"
Xiao Yuhan's Adam's apple bobbed, startling the sparrows that were eavesdropping outside the window.
As his boots crushed a blue leaf that had drifted in with the wind, Su Yunlan took his hand, which was resting on the tea table, and slowly poured warm tea into their intertwined palms.
In the swirling mist, the sound of a mountain spring three hundred miles away and the sound of a heartbeat close at hand suddenly overlapped into a roaring tide.
As the sun rose to its zenith, the gilded invitation sent by Master Wu was echoing within the spiritual spring space.
Su Yunlan used a tea needle stained with toad venom to pry open the sealing wax, and watched as the ornate calligraphy on the invitation suddenly twisted into the script of southern Xinjiang.
As the final stroke transformed into a black worm that lunged at her wrist, Xiao Yuhan's thumb, calloused from the sword, pressed precisely on her vital point.
“Watch out for the tea smoke.” His breath brushed against the still-healing blue leaf scratch on the side of her neck, and he removed his sword from the tea table between them.
Amidst the crisp sound of the sword sheath colliding with the celadon porcelain, Su Yunlan saw the map floating in the spiritual spring space suddenly display a blood-red mark—it was the cliff that Xiao Yuhan had shattered three hundred miles away last night.
As dusk tinged the seventh cup of tea with crimson, the tallow tree leaves brought by the servant Sun suddenly burst into flames in the bamboo basket.
Su Yunlan looked at the broken totem emerging from the ashes, her fingertips tracing the newly added sword marks under the tea table.
The azure tea tree in the Spirit Spring Space moved swiftly without wind, shaking its last leaf, stained with the blood of the Gu worm, into the crack of the Frost Pattern Pharmacopoeia.