Before reaching his room, Li Zhiyuan pushed the door open and saw Alii sitting on a small stool, intently carving wooden flower rolls with a carving knife.
He hadn’t told Alii that the black canvas was damaged, but the girl discovered it herself and took the initiative to replace the wooden flower rolls for him.
Li Zhiyuan walked to face the girl, watching her carve intently.
This scene greatly resembled the past, when the girl used to watch him read books intently.
As she carved, she would occasionally lift her eyes to look at him, just like how he used to respond to her when he was reading.
Li Zhiyuan felt that this must be the most comfortable way of interacting between friends.
No concessions, just pure enjoyment.
Just watching quietly for quite a while, Li Zhiyuan’s originally anxious heart seemed to have finally settled down.
He stood up, walked over to the desk, planning to put the winning money away first.
Upon opening the drawer, he not only found four stacks of brand new bills but also six small yellow fish.
No need to guess who had put them there.
Though he would definitely not accept the money and gold bars, intending to return them to Grandma Liu later.
But how to put it, it didn’t affect the slight corruption he felt in his heart at the moment, especially after glancing again at the black bag in his hand...
It turns out that he didn’t have to struggle so hard.
Li Zhiyuan found an empty box, put the money and gold bars from the drawer into it, and then walked over to the girl, sitting down again, seriously saying:
"Alii, thank you, I am really happy to see what you brought for me, but I cannot accept it."
Alii stopped her carving tool, looked up, and gazed at the boy.
Confusion shone in her eyes. She couldn’t understand. She saw him smiling at the money in the morning, so why didn’t he want it when she gave it to him?
And every time Li Sanjiang gave him pocket money, he accepted it happily.
After all, there was a lot of such stuff at her home.
"Alii, gifts should be appropriate, next time you want to give me something, you can ask me first. If it’s appropriate, I’ll accept it, okay?"
Alii looked contemplative, then nodded.
Li Zhiyuan was stunned; he just saw the girl nod her head, and it was a significant nod, not the barely noticeable ones from before.
"Alii, did you really understand?"
The girl nodded again, indicating she understood.
"What if you didn’t understand, how would you show it?"
The girl shook her head, with the normal range of motion like any other person.
A smile appeared on Li Zhiyuan’s face, meaning that the girl’s condition had made a big recovery today.
Although he didn’t know why.
Li Zhiyuan’s smile suddenly stalled for a moment. Could it be... because of how he was today?
Trying to dismiss the worries in his heart, Li Zhiyuan decided to talk about something joyful:
"Aunt Liu said she bought some smoked ham today, it seems to be from Jinhua, Zhejiang. We can try it tonight, Alii, have you ever eaten smoked food before?"
"It’s made by lighting this kind of wood to produce smoke, creating a special flavor... huh?"
Li Zhiyuan casually picked up one of the wooden flower rolls beside him.
Last time when making the black canvas, the wooden flower rolls were from a piece of wood he found in the woodshed, which he then cut with a plane.
This time Alii was doing it herself, which meant she had made the wooden flower rolls herself.
Yet, why were these wooden flower rolls not yellowish-white but instead glossy black with a special fragrance, quite pleasant-smelling.
"Alii, what kind of wood did you plane this from?"
Alii pointed under the table.
Li Zhiyuan bent down to look, and his eyes widened immediately, because under the table, there were three ancestral tablets!
"Grandma Liu, here, I’m returning this to you."
Inside the eastern room, Li Zhiyuan placed the box containing money and gold bars on the table next to Liu Yumei.
Liu Yumei opened the box, glanced at it, and covered it again.
"Grandma, won’t you count it?"
"It’s all returned, what’s there to count."
Li Zhiyuan also placed a fertilizer bag on the table.
Liu Yumei uncovered the mouth of the bag, looked inside, then immediately stood up, took out the three ancestral tablets from inside, wiped them, and placed them on the altar.
"Alii, Grandma will give you anything to play with, but what’s so fun about ancestral tablets? Don’t touch them again next time."
Liu Yumei was still speaking softly and gently, not scolding her granddaughter.
Then, she began counting the ancestral tablets with her fingers.
She seemed to have forgotten what she just said: It’s all returned, what’s there to count.
"Hey, why are there still some missing?"
Li Zhiyuan did not answer because the missing ones had already been carved into wooden flower rolls.
He couldn’t possibly bring over the whole bag of wooden flower rolls, and moreover, half of them were already carved by Alii.
"Xiao Yuan, did you look around again? Maybe Alii took them out and they ended up somewhere else?"
"Grandma, I looked, there are only these three."
Li Zhiyuan wasn’t trying to shirk responsibility, but he felt that Grandma Liu would definitely be more able to accept the loss of the tablets rather than their dismemberment.
Liu Yumei sighed, looking somewhat resentfully at Qin Li.
The good news was that her granddaughter who was previously uninterested in everything seemed lively now, even taking family money to give to outsiders.
But while taking money and gold bars is fine, why take the ancestral tablets?
"Grandma Liu, I told Alii that she won’t touch the ancestral tablets again, right, Alii?"