The ink fragrance of the Minister's Estate mingled with the scent of pine. Moli stared in dismay at the Painting of Farming and Reading on the plain silk. Beside the impoverished scholar's candle stand, there should have been books, but on a whim, she had painted a small figure holding an abacus bead. The bead's eyes were fixed on the candlelight, bearing unmistakably the carving style of Huwa.
"Is Sister Xiao painting me?" Huwa's head poked out from under the drawing table, holding a newly carved "candle-guard figurine." The little figure used an abacus bead as a candle stand, and a stub of a candle wick was actually stuck in the bead's hole. "Brother Fan says a poor scholar's candlelight is more precious than gold, so I carved a little goblin to guard it—guaranteed not to blow out!"
Moli's wolf-hair brush gently dotted the scholar's coarse cloth garments, where extremely fine green-ox patterns were hidden within the folds. "Does Huwa know that the scholar in the painting is called Chen San? He gathers firewood every day to exchange for money, yet saves his steamed buns for his blind mother?" Huwa's carving knife chipped out a tiny figure holding a firewood chopper at the edge of the painting frame, the abacus bead's eyes fixed on the firewood burden on the scholar's shoulder. "Then I'll carve him a 'firewood-guard goblin' so that even thorns will give him a wide berth!"
Chapter 91