Wufu, without any sense of poise, stretched out her legs from under her skirt, revealing a pair of Embroidered Shoes. She looked at a white cloud in the sky and, turning her head, giggled with a "hehe": "I’m just guessing."
Ah Jiu’s gaze swept over her swaying legs. The embroidery on the shoes wasn’t very intricate, just outlined with the pattern of auspicious clouds, but the feet wrapped in white socks underneath those shoes...
She hadn’t bound her feet!
Wufu didn’t hear a response from Ah Jiu and followed his gaze downward, then quickly withdrew her feet and sat up properly.
Ah Jiu noticed her action and instantly felt he had been rash and impolite, his face flushed with heat. He hastily picked up his teacup and took a sip, but the tea was scalding hot, nearly causing him to spray it out.
"Cough, cough." He choked and coughed repeatedly.
Wufu pursed her lips and snickered quietly.
After Ah Jiu recovered, he looked towards the pavilion and asked out of the blue, "Your mother didn’t bind your feet for you?"
Wufu appeared a bit stunned, and her mind quickly conjured up an image, causing her hair to stand on end.
In ancient times, women sought the beauty of "Three-Inch Golden Lotus," and from a young age, they would bind their feet with cloth strips, deforming their feet in a very frightening manner.
"Is that something people should do?" Wufu’s voice rose sharply, her anger almost erupting.
Ah Jiu was somewhat surprised by her intense reaction, saying, "The beauty of the Three-Inch Golden Lotus is something that many women long for, isn’t it?"
Wufu scoffed, "That’s clearly the perverted thoughts of men, yet they insist it’s what women want... You don’t like that too, do you? Have you seen the Three-Inch Golden Lotus?"
"How could I? I’ve only heard about it," Ah Jiu said, frowning in his defense.
"In a farmer’s household, foot-binding is impossible, after all, they need to work in the fields. If they bound their feet so small, they’d wobble as they walk. How could they work? So, that Three-Inch Golden Lotus you’re talking about is probably only something the daughters of wealthy households would have."
The daughters of wealth, surrounded and waited upon by maids and older female servants, supported by others even when they walk a few steps, swaying with every step. Never having to soil their hands with work, binding their feet doesn’t matter to them, and it even adds to their delicate and frail beauty.
But Wufu hated that notion of weakness. In case of danger, one couldn’t even run, barely walk fast—wasn’t that just seeking death?
Ah Jiu took another sip of tea, feeling it was best not to continue this topic. He changed the subject, "You said earlier you were guessing. What did you mean by that?"
The topic shifted unexpectedly...
"The first time I saw you, you were half-dead. Either someone was out for vengeance against you, or you had just been in a fight. And then after that, more and more people started to appear by your side... your identity... let’s not delve into that," shrugged Wufu.
"Couldn’t I just be out to study?" Ah Jiu said with a laugh.
"Sure. But I didn’t know that a whole crowd would come out to study. Don’t scholars usually set out with just a servant?" Wufu looked at him and said, "Or perhaps your entourage just has to be larger?"
Ah Jiu chuckled at the sarcasm: "What if I told you that my life was fated for a deadly calamity, and I came to Nanyue on my family’s orders to stay away from the state? You probably wouldn’t believe that, would you?"
Ah Jiu smiled, "I likely wouldn’t believe it myself, but that’s actually the case." He paused, then added, "Besides, I have other business to attend to."
"I’m looking for someone, someone very important to me," Ah Jiu stated, looking at her. He didn’t give away the whole truth; rather than looking for a person, it was more like searching for an organization.
An organization that had existed for two hundred years, even before the split between Beiyan and Nanyue—Eagle Hall.