"Seeing that you and Alii can play Go, I dug this out for you guys to enjoy. You can take it back to your room later."
"Alright, I’ll temporarily keep it at my place then."
Yu Mei nodded with satisfaction, ready to see off her guest, but then heard Li Zhiyuan speak again:
"Grandma Liu, since I am often sick and frail, I’d like to exercise and build up some strength with Uncle Qin."
Yu Mei glanced at the boy before her. Although he was indeed pale and delicate, which didn’t match the image of sturdiness, she couldn’t make out the look of someone who often fell ill.
However, she soon grasped the boy’s intention. In the past, she might have brushed him off without hesitation, but now that she had just asked for a favor herself...
Well, it’s just teaching some martial arts, not against the rules, and it’s not like it’s teaching anything else.
"Okay, I’ll speak to your Uncle Qin."
"Thank you, Grandma."
"Come, let’s play a game."
Being manipulated by a kid made Yu Mei somewhat uncomfortable. She hadn’t planned on playing Go, but in the end, she couldn’t resist the urge to play a game.
Then, she regretted it. Midway through the game, she felt that she had already lost the upper hand.
Li Zhiyuan initially thought that since he had taken advantage of Grandma Liu, it was only fair to let her vent her frustrations on him, assuming that Qin Li’s Go skills must have been taught by Grandma Liu, and he certainly couldn’t beat the old lady.
But as the game went on, he suddenly realized that Grandma Liu’s Go skills were not as good as his own.
He, relying on his mental calculation and strategic thinking, could barely qualify as an amateur expert, while Grandma Liu was at best an average amateur player.
"Grandma, I’m sleepy. Maybe we should not play anymore?"
"Mhm, then go to sleep."
Li Zhiyuan stood up, picked up the go pieces, and then took the board back to his room upstairs.
Yu Mei walked into the house and into the bedroom, where Qin Li was obediently asleep, just as the boy had told him.
A loving smile appeared on her face.
Alii was starting to exude more and more of that young girl’s aura.
"Our Alii’s illness will surely be cured, definitely."
Arriving at the second-floor terrace, he saw the Grandmaster just finishing peeing at the edge, in the process of shaking off the last drops.
"What’s that you’re holding?"
"Grandma Liu’s Go board that she lent me."
"You still need to focus more, read more books, study hard."
"I know, Grandmaster."
"Hmm, there has been an incident at Yingzi’s family home, she won’t be able to come for a while, you need to work hard on your own."
"What happened to Sister Yingzi’s family?"
"Her Grandpa Nan and Grandma Nan both fell ill, they’re lying in the health clinic. Yingzi and her mother are taking care of them."
Sister Yingzi’s Grandpa Nan and Grandma Nan must be her maternal grandparents.
Li Zhiyuan then understood why Sister Yingzi hadn’t come to tutor him recently; regardless of how slow her comprehension might be, she should have finished reviewing the previous questions already.
"Should we go visit?"
"Visit my ass, her mother’s family is at Jiwei Port. Even by bus, it takes several transfers. Besides, if things are really bad, it’s your grandfather who should visit, what am I going to look at."
"Go to your room and get some sleep early."
"Grandmaster, do you have a magnifying glass here?"
"Magnifying glass?" Li Sanjiang contemplated for a moment. "Check in the stove’s recess, there might be one. I thought about using it for starting a fire, but it turned out matches were better. What do you need that thing for?"
The print in those two sets of books was really small.
"Is reading so hard for you that you need a magnifying glass? How about I take you to the town’s glasses shop and get you a pair of glasses?
Forget it, the glasses shop in town probably won’t be up to standard. I’ll take you to People’s Hospital in the city to get fitted instead."
"No need, Grandmaster. I just want to look at some pictures. I’m not nearsighted."
Li Zhiyuan first went into the bedroom to put down the Go board, then ran downstairs to the kitchen, where he indeed found a dust-covered magnifying glass in the stove’s recess. After cleaning it, he went back to the bedroom and turned on the desk lamp.
The first thing he took out was "Yin Yang Face Reading," in eight volumes.
Flipping through, there was no introduction or preface, not even a title for the first Chapter, it just started with the content.
Li Zhiyuan earnestly read through with the magnifying glass.
After finishing three densely packed pages, front and back, Li Zhiyuan sensed something was amiss.
These three pages contained a large number of words, all talking about one thing—eyebrows.
From the direction, density, length, and color of eyebrows—almost a thousand types were discussed.
Starting from the fourth page, it began talking about eye bags.
Li Zhiyuan didn’t continue reading but flipped forward two pages to confirm that two full pages were devoted to discussing eye bags.
Next, it started talking about eyelids.
Vaguely, Li Zhiyuan had a guess... although it didn’t mark the first Chapter, what it discussed initially must all belong to "eyes," right?
But he had already procrastinated for so long, and it was still just part of the "eye" category.
Li Zhiyuan flipped to the last page of the book and found it was discussing crow’s feet... still eyes.
Then he took out the second book, looked at the beginning, and flipped through to the back, yes, the first three pages were all about earlobes.
Flipping to the last page, it discussed the back of the ear.
For the third volume, he picked it up and quickly confirmed using the same method, that’s right, it talked about the philtrum, the area between the lips and the nose.
So, the first four books discussed: eyes, ears, mouth, and nose, respectively.
Logically, facial features refer to eyebrows, eyes, ears, nose, and mouth; this text grouped eyebrows and eyes together as one volume without dedicating a separate volume to eyebrows.
It was still quite good.
Bypassing basic concepts, Li Zhiyuan took out the fifth volume and seriously read the first page... he didn’t understand it.