Madam Pan was inconsolable when she heard that Jing Yi already wasn’t available for her niece anymore. This wasn’t what she had planned! If she had known that something like this would happen, she definitely would have spoken to Jing Yi’s parents before they left and made sure that things were secured. Now, her niece wouldn’t have any chance of getting together with Jing Yi. In other words, she would need to have a look around to see which of the boys wasn’t too much of a letdown. She couldn’t let her niece get stranded with a good-for-nothing!

Before she went to go and accomplish this hard task, Madam Pan went to soothe her pained heart though. Or in other words: She went to tell everybody about what she had just found out.

Seeing that Madam Pan had already gotten around to spreading the story, Mister Pi couldn’t help but feel that he was missing out. Or rather, it was the other people that were missing out. Obviously, he was able to tell this news much better than Madam Pan. So if she went and told them alone, then these poor people wouldn’t be getting the whole truth. He had to make sure that they knew!

Thus Mister Pi bade farewell to Jing Yi and Qiu Ling even though he would have liked to converse with this Daoist Master for a longer time before he hurried away. Anyway, since this young man was going to marry Jing Yi, it was likely that he would stay around for a while, wasn’t it? In that case, he could speak with him some more when the circumstances were better.

Mn, come to think of it, it might be a good idea to have a little welcome back celebration for Jing Yi. That way, everybody would have an opportunity to look at the Daoist Master that the boy wanted to marry. This would certainly open the eyes of quite a few people that had doubted his words in the past.

With that thought, Mister Pi went on to spread his interpretation of that day’s events.

Jing Yi watched the two of them with mixed feelings and then turned back to Qiu Ling. "Well, those two were Mister Pi and Madam Pan. They are both from the same village as my family. Do you want me to introduce you to the others?"

Qiu Ling nodded happily and grabbed Jing Yi’s hand, pulling him up against his chest again. "Of course, my love!"

Before Jing Yi had the chance to actually say something, he pulled him over to the other villagers. Anyway, these people loved spreading gossip. Since that was the case, he might as well join in and tell them a very juicy piece of gossip right from the get-go.

With that thought, Qiu Ling smiled brightly at everyone and just introduced himself. "Hello everyone, I’m Qiu Ling, Jing Yi’s fiance. He has brought me here to show me the place where he grew up and introduce me to all the people he knows."

Jing Yi gave a strained smile and nodded at the people that were looking over. This wasn’t quite what he had imagined but … well, it might also be good to have things out of the way. Then nobody would need to make any assumptions about who they were and what they were doing here. Even though he wasn’t actually Qiu Ling’s fiance, that was the story they were going with for now. Thus he just greeted the other villagers with some embarrassment still lingering on his face and introduced them to Qiu Ling. Afterward, he pulled him away in the name of showing him around the place even though he actually just wanted to escape the inquisitive looks that he got.

Qiu Ling, on the other hand, was happy though. Whatever the reason and whatever they did, as long as they were together, he naturally wouldn’t complain. Thus the two of them first walked through the village and then looked at the rice fields and the forest close by.

Jing Yi couldn’t help but stop at the shrubs where he had met his grandfather for the first time. He sighed thinking back to that day, as well as the many others he had come here to talk to him later on.

Qiu Ling could imagine more or less what was going through Jing Yi’s head. "You seem … sad."

Jing Yi nodded and motioned at the shrub with his chin. "I don’t think I told you yet but that day in the Long mountain range when you went to go get more firewood and didn’t come back for a long time … I met my grandfather."

Qiu Ling didn’t quite know how he should react. Was this the moment he had waited for? The day when he could finally give some explanation for his behavior and make his beloved forgive him? Ah, he should’ve thought about it some more! What kind of excuse should he use?

Jing Yi sighed again. "Actually, he isn’t my real grandfather. He’s just a … well, friendly old man. Or at least that’s what I thought. He also told me he was a Daoist Master. But right now, I feel like everything he told me were lies."

Qiu Ling still hadn’t found a good excuse but he knew that this was the cue for him to pop up. "Why that?"

Jing Yi tightened his lips. This … was a little embarrassing to admit, wasn’t it? "Well, I found out that he lied about some things to me. So now I’m wondering if the rest of it was the truth or not. Maybe it was all just lies, you know?"

Qiu Ling gave his beloved a deep look. "It doesn’t necessarily have to be. What was it that he lied about?"

Jing Yi tensed up and his face, as well as his ears, flushed red. "That … anyway, it’s not that important. I can show you the house!" With that, he turned around and rushed back to the village, leaving Qiu Ling with no way to implement his great plan.