Wife, Protect Me! - Chapter 16 - Ability Exchange

After sighing, Li Nuo finally accepted reality.
Being a laborer was better than being dead—even if it meant working harder.

He picked up a Law scripture, intending to study it carefully.

The cultivation of Legalism wasn’t particularly complicated. The first step was to diligently study the works of Legalist sages, comprehend their tenets, and grasp their philosophies. However, like Confucianism, Legalist cultivation couldn’t rely solely on rote learning.

Confucians aimed to govern the state and bring peace to the world, while Legalists focused on enforcing laws. Both schools required entering official service.

Li Nuo could skip this step. Thanks to his father’s status, he could adjudicate cases even as a commoner.

Thus, the cultivation process became very straightforward for him. He could handle cases and investigate at the county office during the day, then return home to study Legalist classics at night. In one or two years if fast, or three to five years if slow, he would truly step into the gateway of Legalism.

For ordinary people, cultivating Legalism was somewhat challenging.

Although Legalists grew stronger by adjudicating cases correctly, incorrect judgments could cause cultivation to regress rather than advance. This feedback on cultivation wouldn’t manifest immediately but would accumulate over time, leading from quantitative to qualitative changes.

Therefore, even Legalists couldn’t determine whether a specific case was judged correctly based solely on changes in their cultivation level.

Fortunately, Li Nuo was no ordinary person.

The Law Codex would immediately tell him whether his judgment was right or wrong.

Legalism governed rules. Even beginners could control some simple natural forces.

For example, the Imprisonment Art—an ability only available at the Fourth Realm of Martial Arts—differed from Martial Arts’ Object Manipulation. Object Manipulation essentially used one’s True Qi to control objects, while the Imprisonment Art touched upon the fundamental forces of nature. Such primal power could only be mastered by experts at the Sixth Realm of Martial Arts.

Of course, the scale of natural forces controllable by the two methods was vastly different.

One would need to cultivate Legalism to at least the Sixth Realm to rival a Sixth Realm Martial Arts expert.

“Implementing rule of law, reforming for strength, benefiting the present, achieving merit for millennia…” Li Nuo copied down important passages while reading to reinforce his memory. However, after writing a few characters, he noticed something wrong.

The characters on the paper, while not extremely ugly, were far from elegant.

Li Nuo recognized this handwriting all too well—it was his own original penmanship. Yet during the day, he could write in the delicate Zanhua Script resembling the female assassin’s handwriting, while at night he had reverted to his original form.

Li Nuo immediately thought of the Law Codex.

Upon summoning the Law Codex, he quickly spotted the anomaly. The portrait of the female assassin had faded significantly compared to before, resembling the difference between a color photograph and a black-and-white one. Not only the female assassin’s portrait, but also the thief with the goatee on the second page had darkened.

Among the four portraits, only Zheng Yuanwai’s concubine remained bright.

Three portraits were dim, one was bright. The difference was that the portrait of the merchant named Cui Ze on the fourth page had never lit up from the beginning.

Li Nuo fell into thought. When the female assassin’s portrait dimmed, his handwriting reverted to its original form. This indicated that the abilities he gained from capturing people were not permanent but had a time limit. Based on the timing, it was highly likely that the duration was one day.

He had initially thought it was a permanent skill, but it turned out to be a one-day trial card. Li Nuo felt somewhat disappointed.

That said, her handwriting was quite beautiful—pleasing to the eye. If only his own handwriting could be that elegant… As soon as this thought crossed Li Nuo’s mind, he saw the female assassin’s portrait light up again.

After a brief moment of surprise, Li Nuo realized something. He picked up his brush and wrote a few characters on the paper. As expected, his handwriting had transformed back into the beautiful Zanhua Script.

Though the ability had returned, Li Nuo felt little joy.

There are no free lunches in this world—everything comes at a cost.

He immediately stood up and carefully examined his body, finding no missing parts or any discomfort.

Only then did Li Nuo relax and close the Law Codex again.

His gaze inadvertently swept over the cover of the Codex, then returned to it a moment later.

“Name: Li Nuo.”
“Lifespan: Twenty-five days.”

Li Nuo shuddered, his face filled with disbelief. Wait, hadn’t he just had twenty-six days left? How had one day suddenly vanished?

It wasn’t even midnight yet—the sky outside was still bright!

Hold on… Could it be that reigniting the female assassin’s portrait and regaining her calligraphy ability came at the cost of his own lifespan?

Although only one day of lifespan was lost, for Li Nuo, who had less than a month left, this was still a heavy blow. What use was beautiful handwriting? Moreover, it was highly likely that the one day of lifespan he exchanged only granted him a one-day trial of the calligraphy skill—a pure waste of life.

It took Li Nuo a quarter of an hour to recover from the heartache.

He could only console himself: trial cards had their advantages too. At the very least, he wouldn’t have to worry about unconsciously picking pockets and getting caught red-handed someday—that would be utterly humiliating.

However, the portrait of the concubine’s secret lover had always remained dim. Did this mean he had no noteworthy abilities or talents?

As for Zheng Yuanwai’s concubine, although her portrait was lit, Li Nuo had no idea what ability he had gained from her. The Codex provided no hints about these matters—he would have to figure it out on his own.

Li Nuo shook his head, took a deep breath, and temporarily set these thoughts aside to continue burying himself in his book.

Steward Wu stood outside the window, watching Li Nuo study diligently, a relieved and joyful smile spreading across his face.

He had always known—how could the master’s son possibly be a fool?

Compared to the young master of before, the current young master truly resembled the son of Li Xuanjing, Minister of the Court of Revision. He had watched both the master and the young master grow up. Over the past two days, he finally saw the shadow of the master’s youth in the young master—they were equally intelligent and quick-witted, equally diligent and studious, and even their appearances were similarly handsome beyond compare.

People often said the young master was unworthy of the young madam, but now it seemed the two complemented each other perfectly—one excelling in literary pursuits, the other in martial arts—a match made in heaven.

As these thoughts crossed his mind, a figure entered from outside the courtyard. Steward Wu saw her and promptly bowed. “Young Miss…”

Li Nuo was reading in his room when a knock came from outside.

He opened the door to see Song Jiaren standing there, feeling somewhat uneasy. Could she be here about the purse he had stolen?

Watching her raise her hand, Li Nuo instinctively shielded his head.

Song Jiaren tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear and said, “Get ready and come with me…”

…

As dusk fell, an ornate carriage departed from the Li residence.

Inside the carriage, Li Nuo realized that his wife hadn’t come to settle scores with him earlier. Today was the sixtieth birthday of the Song family’s matriarch, and as her granddaughter, Song Jiaren needed to return to the Song residence to offer congratulations. As her husband, Li Nuo had to accompany her. Originally, Li Nuo should have gone during the day, but he had been at the county office all day and was now running late.

Li Nuo had heard from Steward Wu that the Song family was a military household of Great Xia. During the founding of Great Xia, they had followed the first emperor and made great contributions. Though not as powerful as in their prime, they remained an aristocratic family in Chang’an.

The Li family, on the other hand, came from humble origins. It was only in his father’s generation that they entered officialdom, making Li Nuo a true second-generation official of the Li family.

It was said that Li Nuo’s father and Song Jiaren’s father had been close friends in their youth. When both of their wives were pregnant, they made a pact: if both children were boys or girls, they would become sworn siblings; if one was a boy and the other a girl, they would marry. Thus, the current situation came to be.

This made Li Nuo sigh with emotion. For a promise made over a decade ago, the Song family was willing to marry their outstanding daughter to a fool. The ancients truly honored their commitments.

If your father weren’t so powerful, just you try.

However, the Song family didn’t come out completely shortchanged.

From a personal perspective, his wife marrying him was like a toad eating swan meat—a fine cabbage fed to a pig.

But from a family standpoint, the Song family’s marriage alliance with the Li family was like climbing a high branch.

Even Song Jiaren’s uncle, the current head of the Song family, was only a fifth-rank military officer.

Whereas his own father was a third-rank senior official in the court—a full two ranks higher, with vastly different power and resources.

Looking at it this way, he was actually the fine cabbage…