Needless to say, heavenly doctor Ming had no reason to stop Bai Jingfei from quickly visiting home so he nodded in agreement. Soon Song Zihao walked in with the tea worth a village or two.
He placed the tea in front of each person like a dutiful wife in an ancient house, and the group silently had their expensive mountain jasmine tea.
Bai Jingfei couldn't understand why that tea was so pricey when it tasted like plain, bitter tea but bitterer to the point where it was nearly inedible.
She downed the cup in one go, and then proceeded to stick out her tongue in disgust while hiding her face. She wasn't as crass as to insult someone's expensive tea after drinking it all. That would be impolite.
Cave creatures usually are polite after all.
Unfortunately for heavenly doctor Ling, heavenly doctor Ming was nowhere near as polite and openly showed distaste for the bitter tea.
"Ling! Would it kill you to add some sugar in this stuff? Why would you pay so much for this bitter-" he ranted before getting cut off by heavenly doctor Ling's effeminate voice.
"If you don't like it, don't drink it!"
Heavenly doctor Ming instantly put his cup of tea down, refusing to take another sip of the tonic like tea. Ladder couldn't afford to be impolite as a student and drank the rest. Bai Liu had no sense of taste and finished the cup off with no reaction.
Heavenly doctor Ling called for Song Zihao again, to bring sugar this time. He personally took a serving spoon meant for rice and scooped up sugar with it.
He then dumped the sugar in heavenly doctor Ming's tea with a nefarious smirk.
Heavenly doctor Ming smiled back and proceeded to eat his tea infused sugar with a shit-eating grin. Heavenly doctor Ling could do nothing but stare in despair.
"Thank you, Ling, the tea was finally bearable. I could've done with less tea in there though..."
Within a few moments the lively discussion had died out and the group decided to part ways.
"Heavenly doctor Ming, I will bring my sister back to the Jade mountain by dark, you need not wait for her."
Heavenly doctor Ming casually waved and walked out of the nobles' market with his hand tucked into the belt of his hanfu, looking like a rogue. The other hand was on a walking stick so that sort of mitigated any strength that he could possibly radiate.
Bai Liu held Bai Jingfei's hand and slowly led her back home as she finally took the actual path home instead of crawling through the hole for the first time. It was an achievement to say the least.
Heavenly doctor Ling was left all alone at the exit of his medical hall but within seconds he turned to Song Zihao and told him off for telling the uninvited guests about his expensive tea.
Well the Bai siblings were invited, not heavenly doctor Ming and Ladder.
Meanwhile in the Bai Family mansion there was a reunion going on, full of hugs and laughter as Bai Jingfei jumped around greeting her father, the maids, the guards and every other possible person she could greet.
As soon as the greetings were over it was time for Bai Jingfei to begin her real agenda, that was removing evidence of her crimes. The whole mission was split into three tasks.
Retrieve, ruin and run.
She snuck over to the room she had found the beard in and sighed in relief when she found the beard in the same place she had left it in, seemingly untouched. That beard was soon, never going to be seen again.
She stuffed the beard into her shoes and ran to her room to retrieve the well used, or well abused, candle holder and a candle.
She snuck into her room like a ninja, darting between red pillars, not looking nearly as discrete as she imagined herself to look but it did the job. She got into her room without being spotted and finished her task.
Task one completed.
She then snuck out again, hiding behind her pillars suspiciously. One could hear the pink panther theme song play if they listened closely enough.
She reached the garden and threw the beard on to the ground and covered it in leaves and sticks she gathered from across the empty garden. She also retrieved some wooden planks from the abandoned shed nearby.
Not from inside the shed, but the planks that made up the shed.
This was going to be something she regretted in the future but there wasn't much Bai Jingfei didn't regret.
She then took the candle holder with a lit candle in it, and set the pile one fire in one swift flick of her wrist. She made sure not to damage her retirement fund candle holder though.
The pile lit up into a blazing inferno reaching up to the skies and Bai Jingfei stretched her hands out to enjoy the warmth of her bonfire when she noticed it.
It was subtle at first, and then stronger and stronger till Bai Jingfei couldn't ignore it anymore.
It was the sulfurous stench of burning hair.
The smell choked up her nostrils, clogging them and making breathing difficult. If one sniffed the charred scent there was no way they'd miss the underlying stench that came with it.
Bai Jingfei's eyes teared up and then she heard footsteps.
She rushed to the tiny little shed to hide when two guards came to the burning pile with a pail of water and dumped it all over the pile of burning wood.
"What exactly happened here?" asked one guard, while wiping his forehead with his arm after dousing the fire. He then threw the bucket aside looking around curiously.
Bai Jingfei felt her heart drop.
"I don't know," replied the other, his eyes focusing on the shed that Bai Jingfei was hiding in, "But it looks like there's something there…"