Chapter 511: Chapter 264 Locust Blossoms and Elm Seeds_1
Toward midnight, she craved a pinkish tint.
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"Willow Flute?" Shen Qian took the willow flute, looking at it curiously. He had never seen such a thing, not even heard of it. He didn’t know how to play it.
By now, Lian Manman had already whittled another willow flute.
"Watch me," Lian Manman told Shen Qian, "You’ve seen people play flutes before, haven’t you? It’s the same."
As she spoke, Lian Manman put the willow flute to her mouth and blew a note to demonstrate for Shen Qian. Shen Qian laughed and put the willow flute to his lips to give it a try. Crisp and pleasing flute notes started to echo one after another.
"This is so much fun, it’s magical," Shen Qian said, his chubby little face flushed with joy, "Manman, you know so much."
At home, among his relatives, and even among the servants who attended to his family, there were quite a few children his age. But in Shen Qian’s eyes, all of them put together couldn’t compare to Lian Manman in front of him. And it wasn’t just because Lian Manman knew a lot and could play; it was also because she made him feel different.
Those children were either scared of him, fawning over him, envious, or jealous; almost all of them presented the same face to him. It was like the mask his Sixth Brother had once bought for him to play with, painted with an unchanging smile.
But Lian Manman was different; she was neither afraid of him nor did she fawn over him. Envy and jealousy were even further from her. The genuine and friendly Lian Manman made him feel most at ease and comfortable when he was with her.
Of course, Wu Lang and Xiao Qi were also different. It seemed as though only after he got to know them did he actually have real playmates and friends for the first time.
"Do you want to try making one?" Lian Manman handed two uncarved willow flutes and a small knife to Shen Qian.
"Sure, sure," Shen Qian was eager to try and imitated Lian Manman’s method, carving out the mouths of the two willow flutes. Then he let Lian Manman pick one and kept one for himself.
Willow flutes of different thicknesses and lengths produce different sounds.
"...It’s only in this season that willow branches can be made into willow flutes. In a few days, when the branches thicken, it won’t work anymore," Lian Manman explained to Shen Qian, "Besides willows, branches from poplar trees can also be made into flutes right now."
"What about other trees?" Shen Qian looked eager to learn and even knew to think by analogy.
Teacher Lian Manman felt quite gratified and a sense of achievement.
"Other trees don’t work," she said.
Lian Manman informed Shen Qian and then walked over to a poplar tree, selected a branch, snapped it off, and made a poplar flute. Shen Qian followed her lead and snapped off another branch as well.
Poplar branches are generally thicker than willow ones and their bark is also thicker, so making poplar flutes is easier to succeed than making willow flutes.
Shen Qian finished making a poplar flute and blew it a couple of times.
"It’s different from the willow flute," he observed.
"Of course," Lian Manman nodded.
The sound of the poplar flute was deeper and more rugged and couldn’t compare to the crisp and pleasant sound of the willow flute. Therefore, the children of tenant farmers loved the willow flute the most and only resorted to making a poplar flute if they couldn’t successfully make a willow one.
Wu Lang and Xiao Qi had finished giving Little Yellow Ox a drink and had driven the small ox cart up onto the pathway along the bank, with all the children getting on board.
Lian Manman looked back, perhaps feeling reassured about them after playing with them for half the day, and also because there really didn’t seem to be any danger by the small river, so the four people following Shen Qian weren’t watching them so closely anymore. The two younger servants even imitated Lian Manman and Shen Qian by snapping willow branches to make flutes for themselves to play with.
The ox cart turned a corner, and they could no longer see those four people.
Lian Manman’s eyes twinkled, and she pursed her lips in amusement.
Shen Qian, who had been watching Lian Manman, saw this and his eyes lit up; Manman surely had a fun idea in mind.
Indeed, Lian Manman pointed at a locust tree and had Wu Lang stop the small ox cart.
"There’s something yummy... but I can only give you a little," Lian Manman whispered to Shen Qian, then stood up on the cart, tiptoed, and picked two small clusters of locust blossoms from the nearby tree.
It was still some time before the season when locust flowers would bloom en masse; only the sunniest parts of a locust tree would have a cluster or two. With her sharp eyes, Lian Manman noticed them and wanted to let Shen Qian have a taste of the novelty.
"They smell good, are they edible?" Shen Qian immediately scooted a bit closer to Lian Manman and sniffed. The snow-white locust flowers emitted a fresh and sweet fragrance that Shen Qian liked very much.
