It doesn't matter what the lord is.

Facing my serious analysis, He Yue pulled his hand out of mine and said expressionlessly:

"I think that's a normal reaction. As a girl, I don't want you to be too close to others, but if I have to control even holding hands, it's a bit too strict."

I nodded in agreement.

In this case……

"He Yue, lend me your hand."

I took the initiative to extend my hand to He Yue, with my palm facing up. He Yue hesitated for a moment, then put her hand up as well. This time I did not hold her hand in my palm as I did before, but slid my fingers between hers, interlocked our fingers unilaterally, and then quickly pulled her back the way we had come.

Again!

He Yue was dragged by me for two more steps, and just as she steadied herself, she had already reached the edge of the backyard. This time, He Yue didn't even have time to complain, and could only hastily hold my hand and cooperate with me to perform the hand-holding method between lovers.

But Alayya still didn't react at all.

Why! !

It shouldn't be like this.

I waved my arms more and more, and was about to hold He Yue's hand and wave at Alaiya. But after Alaiya looked at us at the beginning, she had no intention of continuing to look at us. After wiping the sweat off her face, she waved her sword twice more. Not only did she look calm, but her whole head didn't seem to think in the direction I designed at all.

"Something's wrong, something's wrong."

When we got to a place where Alayya couldn't see me, I took the initiative to let go of He Yue's hand, sat cross-legged on the ground with my arms folded, and kept thinking about the reason.

He Yue sighed, stood behind me, put his hands in his sleeves, and asked:

"Lid, has Alaiya ever been in a relationship before?"

I replied:

"No. Probably not."

He Yue asked pointedly:

"Then can she clearly tell what it means to be in love?"

I looked up at He Yue and vaguely understood something:

"what do you mean……"

He Yue said:

"For someone who has no idea about love, holding hands is just a normal action. No matter how you hold hands, it won't attract her attention because she has no concept of this. Also, you must have held her hand before, maybe in Alaiya's eyes, holding hands is something that people in a good relationship would do. So you can see that Alaiya's eyes just now were flat, as if she was watching a normal scene."

I clapped my hands:

"I think so too. Then He Yue, how do you think we can make her realize the problem?"

He Yue stared at me for a while.

The atmosphere was silent for a while.

I waited quietly for a while.

As the sparrows on the eaves chirped and flew up, He Yue said calmly:

"…Please try to hug my shoulders?"

I supported myself on my knees, stood up, and walked to He Yue's side.

He Yue stood there like a log, with a calm face. I swallowed my saliva and slowly reached out to He Yue's shoulder. He Yue cooperated and moved towards me. We both kept quite silent, no one spoke, and I felt a strange atmosphere gradually spread.

When He Yue's shoulder touched me, she tilted her head slightly towards me and rested her head on my shoulder.

My hand dropped too.

This requires a lot of concentration, but fortunately I am a very strong person. However, even so, when the faint fragrance drifted into my nostrils, my heartbeat still accelerated a bit. Regardless of gender, when I thought that I was hugging someone whose appearance, figure and personality were impeccable, the mysterious joy in my heart began to overflow.

Even when I was walking through the corridor, I deliberately slowed down my pace. I didn't dare to look at He Yue's expression. I just glanced at Alayya out of the corner of my eye.

This time, Alayya looked at us for a little longer, but there was no jealousy in her eyes, but rather a hint of doubt.

Um? ?

Why is this? ?

As we walked through the corridor, I immediately expressed my doubts to He Yue.

He Yue looked at me with mixed emotions, took a few deep breaths, and said calmly:

"Lid. Is this how you usually hug a girl?"

I said:

"Yes."

He Yue held his forehead, looked away in despair, and said to me:

"It looks like we are a lot more intimate, but when you casually put your arm around my shoulders like this, it feels like the two of us... are like good brothers."

“Is that so!!”

He Yue nodded, and perhaps because she was angry with me, she stopped talking.

I thought about it and moved my arm off her shoulder. He Yue took a step to the side and no longer leaned on me.

But the next moment, I put my palms on her shoulders and hugged her body back forcefully.

I felt He Yue's body tremble again, so I asked in confusion:

“Isn’t this wrong?”

He Yue held his other arm tightly with one hand, not looking at me, staring at the ground below:

"No... that's right."

"No, no, no. Judging from your expression, it's obvious that something is wrong, right? Don't worry about my feelings. I understand that good medicine tastes bitter. Let me think... Is it because the force is not enough?"

As I said that, I hugged her tighter.

He Yue's expression suddenly became strange. She opened her mouth and said as if she had accepted her fate:

“… Never mind. Let’s just leave it at that.”

I just think this logic doesn’t make sense:

"Don't give up! If we compromise like this, all that awaits us is failure after failure, right? I understand. Is it because we're not close enough? This way? Or this way? Or -"

When I had opened my arms and held her tightly in my arms, rubbing her cheek at the same time, He Yue put her barely movable hand on my cheek with difficulty and pushed me aside without hesitation.

Then he swung his sleeves, took a deep breath, straightened his messy hair, and said:

"Just normally... just put your arm around my shoulders."

32. Weapons you want to forge

I put my arm around He Yue's shoulders and walked past Alayya.

He walked past Alayya with his arm around her waist.

He walked past Alayya holding He Yue in a princess-like posture.

Holding hands with He Yue, they danced and walked past Alayya.

He Yue and I sat in the corridor and drank from each other.

The two of them jumped back and forth on the wooden floor...

Not only did Alayya's expression not change at all, but she gradually began to become confused.

Finally, after walking past it dozens of times in the space of a dozen minutes on my back porch, I had an epiphany.

It’s not a problem between me and He Yue, it’s that Liu Shi’s method is fucking outrageous.

So I made a prompt decision and chose a strategic retreat. I went back, kicked open the door of the forging room, and went to settle the score with Liushi.

But I didn't expect that Liushi didn't seem to notice that I had entered the room. All his attention was on the finished sword in front of him. The sword was completely black, and when the firelight shone on it, you could see the dark purple pattern on it. Liushi held the hilt in one hand and a file in the other, polishing the blade in a peculiar way.

Although I was annoyed, I still moved a chair and sat down to wait for Liushi to finish.

But gradually, I found that his forging this time was different from the previous ones. He seemed to be in great pain. His eyes, which had been wide open all the time, were looking round and round. His dark pupils were quickly scanning every corner of the sword. He deftly held the file and kept moving it on the sword. Sparks splashed on the back of his hand, and he didn't even blink. Sweat kept falling down his cheeks, and his heavy breathing made me have no doubt that he could die suddenly at any time.

Finally, when he put down the file, he held the sword in one hand and swung it lightly. In an instant, a strong wind blew up in the forging room, the sword body emitted a strange light, and there was a crisp sound like bone bursting inside the sword, but then, accompanied by a deafening explosion, the whole sword instantly exploded into countless pieces.

At the moment the sword exploded, I waved my sleeves and blocked all the fragments coming towards me without making a sound, but Liu Shi was not so lucky. He was blown back by the surging recoil, and his skinny body hit the chair, smashing the wooden chair into a pile of fragments. The fragments of the sword pierced his flesh, and blood flowed.

Liushi coughed twice and spat a mouthful of blood onto the ground.

As if he had heard the explosion, Naru, the steward of Liushi, rushed in and treated his wounds. He first used the small pliers he carried with him to remove the iron sheet embedded in the flesh, and then applied ointment.

Liu Shi didn't say a word during the whole process, nor did he cry out in pain. His dead eyes were fixed on the ceiling, still thinking.

It was not until Naru had finished bandaging his wounds for a long time that Liushi let go of his hand and let the broken hilt fall to the ground.

He turned his head, glanced at me, and asked:

"…Did the blonde girl have any reaction?"

I shook my head.

Liushi rested his head on a piece of broken wood and said without any emotion:

"I see. Haha... That's normal. After all, it's a stray dog ​​that was picked up. It has no right to interfere with what its owner wants to do... It's good to have a home. Who the owner has a good relationship with is none of a stray dog's business. Come to think of it, why do you have such a passionate affection for such a humble person?"

Liu Shi narrowed his eyes and said tiredly:

"Not all people in this world are attracted to the light. Many people live happily in their own dark corners. Why should we disturb them..."

I always feel that Liushi is more depressed than before.

Seeing him like this, I didn't have the energy to get angry with him. Naru helped him sit down and went to clean up the broken pieces of the chair.

I asked:

"What kind of experiment were you doing just now?"

Liu Shi stared at the bandage on his hand and replied:

"Yeah... but as you can see, it failed again."

I suddenly remembered that according to Bai Huang, Liu Shi pushed his wife into the fire pit and burned because he kept studying something. So I asked tentatively:

"You've been doing this experiment? Can you tell me about it?"

Liu Shi's long bangs covered his eyes and he said without any emotion:

"Ah... If the city lord asks, it's not something I can't tell you."

He raised his head, his eyes unfocused, and spoke slowly:

"I don't know if the Lord City Lord knows that the mainstream forging method now is custom forging. Take the sword for example. Different people use different swordsmanship and the flow of sword energy is also different, but the sword is static, so some people will be comfortable with the same sword, while others will not be used to it. Later, a blacksmith proposed the custom forging method, which is to tailor a person's realm, martial arts, unique habits, etc. to make the most suitable weapon for him. This weapon can only play the greatest effect in the hands of this person, and it can also be called a dedicated weapon."

I can understand this.

Liu Shi sighed and said indifferently:

"But in my opinion, the so-called customized forging is nothing more than a fancy trick that the upper class likes to play with. Realm, martial arts, habits, the flow and exchange of aura, these things cannot be simply told and understood. For example, just like I now know the elements of your way of speaking, personality, etc., I can't imitate you perfectly... because there are many details that you can't explain, and many things I can't understand. The so-called customization is a scam from the beginning. No one can really empathize with others, and the things made are just a bottle of less than half a bottle of clinking."

As he spoke, Liu Shi picked up a piece of iron from the ground with his bandaged hand and said:

"However, there is a method that is theoretically feasible. That is, when forging, the shape of the weapon should not be completely fixed. For example, for a sword, a certain amount of room should be left in the blade, which means that there are infinite possibilities. When the sword qi of the person who uses the sword for the first time flows through the blade, it will give the sword its final shape, and from then on, the sword will be completely suitable and perfect for him. From then on, our forgers only produce some weapon templates with strong plasticity, and what the final weapon will look like will be left to the person who uses it for the first time. Based on the initial shape, each weapon is different, and this difference is the difference in the user."

After Liu Shi finished speaking, he threw the piece of iron in his hand into the scrap metal pile and clenched his fist calmly.

The blood smudged on the gauze.

Liu Shi shook his head, unwilling to talk about these things anymore. He sat back in his chair and changed the subject:

"It doesn't matter what happens to my business... Besides, there are still many key technologies that I have no clue about. Maybe these things are just unrealistic ideas. As for the blonde girl, since the usual methods don't work, I'm afraid I can only use some unconventional methods."

33. The Queen's Spare Part

Liu Shi changed the subject and I followed his lead.

We have already had some harvest this time. This kind of thing is just like fishing, you can't be impatient.

Before this love consultation started, Liu Shi asked me a serious question, which was whether I had lived a luxurious life when I was the fourth son of Yunyang.

I answered yes, of course. At the beginning, when I was not treated as a sacrifice, my life was still okay. Or they still recognized my identity as the fourth son, and gave me the treatment I deserved. It was during that wonderful period that I had pretty girls to help rub my back when I took a bath, and there were only a few people wrapped in towels in the steamy open-air bath. I thought it was my new life, but I didn't expect it to be just a flash in the pan.

Liu Shi went on to ask the next question, which was what was the relationship between Alayya and me like during that time.