After being forced to leave the marriage, I became the wife of a top scholar.

Chapter 37 Red Maple Leaves

As dawn broke, the winter sun blazed fiercely.

Bai Wanqing walked lightly to the courtyard where her mother had lived. As soon as she stepped inside, she saw a figure sitting in the sandalwood chair that her mother had loved most, lost in thought.

Without even guessing, Bai Wanqing knew who it was!

"Father, what are you doing here so early?" Bai Wanqing asked softly.

Bai Chenming looked up and was momentarily taken aback when he saw Bai Wanqing's face, then slowly nodded, "It's Qing'er! You look a lot like your mother."

Bai Wanqing knew that her father had mistaken her for her mother.

“Father, you’ve only just recovered. If you keep sitting in this room without charcoal, you might fall ill again!” Bai Wanqing stepped forward and helped Bai Chenming up.

"Father is old and useless!" Bai Chenming muttered to himself, then remembered to ask Bai Wanqing why she had come here, "You've come to your mother's courtyard so early, is there something you need?"

Bai Wanqing mentioned that yesterday at the clinic, Doctor Luo discovered that one of her mother's notebooks was missing, and Bai Chenming nodded in understanding.

"The journal you're looking for is with me! Come with me to the study!"

Bai Wanqing followed her father to the study, where Bai Chenming searched the bookshelf for a long time before finally finding his mother's last handwritten note.

"Look, isn't this the one?" Bai Chenming handed the notebook to Bai Wanqing.

Bai Wanqing recognized her mother's handwriting and knew her mother's habit of taking notes. "It's this one!"

Bai Wanqing eagerly flipped through a few pages when suddenly a red maple leaf fell from the journal. "Huh? This is Mother's sticker!"

Bai Chenming glanced at the maple leaves on the ground, picked them up casually, and then he remembered something from the past.

"This isn't a sticker, it's a keepsake!"

"A token? A token of love between Father and Mother?" Bai Wanqing had never heard her mother mention it before.

Bai Chenming shook his head, "No, this was given to her by a child she once saved! She said that she could take this token to him in the future, and he would definitely repay the life-saving grace."

"I can't believe such a thing happened! Mother really saved a good child!" Bai Wanqing said.

"Yes! He was a very handsome little boy. His family was poor, and he was very ill at the time. If it weren't for your mother, he probably wouldn't have survived that winter!" Bai Chenming's lips would curl up slightly every time he thought of Kou Shi.

"That little boy should be about your age now. I wonder how he's doing!"

"Things will definitely get better!" Bai Wanqing replied, also offering this blessing in her heart.

Bai Chenming returned the maple leaf to her. She carefully tucked it back into her notebook. She decided to have Uncle Liu find someone knowledgeable to embed the maple leaf in amber so that it would never break. It was another keepsake her mother had left her.

After receiving the note, Bai Wanqing took Bai Furong to the clinic again. The clinic was very busy that day. Bai Wanqing followed Doctor Luo to learn, while Bai Furong followed Xiao Liu to grind medicine in the back room. Everyone did their job, and there was no sign of chaos.

As she watched the patients leave the clinic one by one, Bai Wanqing felt her heart was filled with joy and she felt immensely satisfied.

"What? You're so happy treating people?" Old Man Luo glanced at Bai Wanqing and said.

Bai Wanqing's eyes sparkled. "I'm so happy. So this is what it feels like to heal and save lives. No wonder my mother has never given up on it."

Old Man Luo clicked his tongue twice, "They really are mother and daughter, their words are equally nauseating!"

Old Luo went to the backyard. Most of the patients in the front hall had left, so it seemed he could go home early today.

Bai Wanqing put away the last patient record in her hand, and was about to go to the backyard to call Bai Furong when she saw Lin Yunche walk in carrying a large cloth bag.

Bai Wanqing was taken aback at first, but she didn't see the slightest surprise in Lin Yunche's eyes.

"Oh! Master Bai is here today?" Lin Yunche said, taking the large cloth bag off his back and calling out to the courtyard, "Manager Zhou! Time to collect the medicine!"

Manager Zhou hurriedly came out and greeted Lin Yunche familiarly, "It's been a while since you've been here! What's wrong, did something happen?"

Shopkeeper Zhou picked up the cloth bag that Lin Yunche had placed on the ground and hurried over to look at it. Inside were some precious medicinal herbs that were not easy to find on ordinary days.

"It's nothing, someone just took my horse and doesn't intend to return it. Without the horse, I'm naturally slower! That's why it's been so long!" Lin Yunche said, glancing at Bai Wanqing beside him.

Bai Wanqing gave an awkward smile. She did want to return the horse to him, but she didn't know where to find him!

Shopkeeper Zhou smiled and said, "Young Master Lin, please have a seat. I'll give you a price quote after I've looked through everything."

Lin Yunche nodded slightly, and Manager Zhou took the cloth bag and ran to the back room.

Bai Wanqing realized that Lin Yunche was actually a familiar medicine supplier for their clinic!
The Bai family is in the herb business, and they don't need to buy ordinary herbs from elsewhere. It seems that the herbs that this young master Lin brought must not be ordinary herbs. Perhaps they are precious medicinal materials such as ginseng or lingzhi.

"Miss Bai, don't you have anything to say?" Lin Yunche looked at Bai Wanqing with a nonchalant attitude. "Yes! If it's convenient for you later, Mr. Lin, come with me to the Bai family to pick up the horse!" Bai Wanqing said.

"That's it?" Lin Yunche asked loudly.

Bai Wanqing turned to look at him, "Then is there anything else, Young Master Lin?"

Lin Yunche pursed his lips. This Bai Wanqing was really boring and uninteresting. He wanted to tease her, but she didn't react at all.

At this time, Manager Zhou had finished taking inventory of all the goods and returned to the front hall with the silver.

"Young Master Lin, here is the payment for the goods. The price is quoted according to the usual practice. Is that acceptable to you?"

"Of course, no problem! We've been working together for so long! I trust you!" Lin Yunche took the silver and walked out.

Bai Wanqing told Ruixin to go find Bai Furong, and then chased after Lin Yunche, saying, "Young Master Lin, have you forgotten!"

Lin Yunche slapped his forehead. "Oh yeah! How could I forget that? Let's go, I'll go to the Bai family with you."

The two kept a certain distance apart, one in front of the other. Bai Wanqing led him to a side courtyard closer to the stables. "Young Master Lin, please wait a moment."

Lin Yunche nodded. He wandered around aimlessly, but the Bai family was still too boring for him. He got bored after only a short while.

Fortunately, Bai Wanqing soon brought out the horse, which was his precious darling! He had wanted to ask for it back for a long time, but he had been too embarrassed to ask for it after learning about the trouble the Bai family had gone through.

Now his precious darling is back in his arms, and nothing could make him happier today.

"Thank you, Young Master Lin!" Bai Wanqing handed the reins to Lin Yunche, thanking him again for his rescue that day.

"It's nothing! It's nothing!" Lin Yunche's eyes lit up as he looked at his BMW, completely ignoring Bai Wanqing.

Bai Wanqing took out another silver note, "Young Master Lin, please accept this!"

Upon seeing the silver note, Lin Yunche finally looked up at Bai Wanqing. Without any hesitation, he took the silver note directly and said, "Alright! Let's consider our previous grudges wiped clean and we'll be even."

Bai Wanqing smiled faintly and nodded slightly.

Lin Yunche turned around, mounted his horse, glanced back at Bai Wanqing, and then whipped his horse and rode away.

As soon as Bai Wanqing returned to the courtyard, Uncle Liu came over with a maple leaf. "Miss, there's something I need to confirm with you."

Bai Wanqing let Uncle Liu in, and Uncle Liu handed the maple leaf to Bai Wanqing. "Miss, look, there are words carved on the stem of this leaf!"

“The craftsmen in our Huai’an County said that if it were made into amber, their technology might not be able to transmit enough light, and the words on it might become invisible. So they asked me to ask whether we should still make it?”

Inscription? She had never noticed that before. She held the maple leaf in her hand and looked closely at the stem. There were indeed words carved on it, two characters for "wood" carved on it.

Bai Wanqing could tell that it was carved by a child, the strokes revealing their immaturity. She smiled and said, "In that case, let's not make this amber for now! We can make it again when we go to other places and find better craftsmanship!"

"Thank you for your hard work, Uncle Liu. You've been running around all day for my sake."

Uncle Liu shook his head. “Why do you say that, Miss? These are your leaves, and they are also the leaves of the former Madam. I am happy that I can still do something for the former Madam.”

When Uncle Liu mentioned the Kou family, he looked very sad. Bai Wanqing comforted him for a few words and then told him to go back and rest.

Bai Wanqing examined the leaves carefully again, and a thought flashed through her mind: Could this child be from Linjia Village?
Lin Yunche sneezed on his way back. On a night like this, who was thinking of him?

The next day, Bai Wanqing had just finished breakfast when she heard a commotion in the front yard.

A moment later, Furong came running in in a panic, "Big sister, big sister, Master Huang has come knocking on the door!"

Master Huang? Could it be revenge for his father driving him away that day? Or revenge for being schemed against by Bai Qinglian? No matter which one, he probably doesn't have good intentions.

Bai Wanqing was worried about her father's health, so she followed Furong to the front hall. There were many people in the front hall. Chen Shi and Bai Chenming were sitting at the head of the table, their faces so dark that they looked like ink could be squeezed out. To their left sat Master Huang, whose face was not much better. And to their right sat Young Master Du. Why did he also have such a bitter and resentful expression?

Only Bai Qinglian was kneeling in the center, her lips pursed, looking pitiful as if she had suffered endless humiliation.

"What exactly is going on?" Bai Wanqing wondered to herself.

When Bai Chenming saw Bai Wanqing and Bai Furong arrive, he initially wanted them to go back, but Master Huang and Young Master Du said, "This matter also concerns the reputation of the two young ladies, so why don't we let them stay here as well?"

Only then did Bai Chenming allow them to stay.

Bai Wanqing and Bai Furong did not sit down, but stood next to Bai Chenming.

Master Huang gritted his teeth and said to Bai Chenming, "Master Bai, many people saw your second young lady forcing herself on me today. What else do you have to say?"

(End of this chapter)