Chapter Thirty Benefits of Fluff

  Five months later

  Li Qiu's daily life is very fulfilling. Every morning, the first thing he does after waking up is not to open his eyes, but to habitually practice his tongue exercises. Now, he can keep his tongue flat and also make it curl around to the root of his tongue, feeling pain. This exercise not only trains his throat but also makes his tongue as agile as a dragon in the river, able to perform many unimaginable movements in his mouth, such as rolling his tongue while keeping the tip moving left and right, or hiding the tip under the base of his tongue. He practices every morning, running and practicing at the same time, even incorporating dance into his practice. His tongue exercises have become a part of his daily life, except when eating, speaking, or holding his breath for training.

  After breakfast, Li Qiu came alone to the small pond in the backyard woods and began today's false vocal cord humming training. It was already midsummer, and the August weather was originally very hot. Although it was a bit cooler in the mountains, soaking in water around 60 degrees Celsius was unbearable even in winter, let alone this scorching summer. However, five months of gradual adaptation had also made his skin accustomed to this scorching heat. After taking off his clothes and wearing only a small briefs, Li Qiu jumped into the pool and began today's training. At present, Li Qiu could already feel the vibration of the false vocal cords, the airflow passing through the glottis between the vocal cords and the false vocal cords, and the sensation of the throat cavity. A month ago, he had also successfully felt the nasal cavity's epiglottic vallecula, and now he could pour air into this cavity, rotate it a few times before releasing it from his nose; at the same time, his control over his breath had almost reached the level of a master under the tempering of this training method, and he could be compared with those who had undergone many years of yoga training. Tengoku Shou also constantly praised Li Qiu's diligence when he learned about his progress. It was worth noting that Tengoku Shou had only followed him for the first few trainings, and later it was always Li Qiu himself who trained without any laziness, just diligently doing...

  "Ah! This feeling, it's really comfortable." Emerging from the water's surface, he slowly adjusted his breathing, savoring the subtle vibrations of his vocal cords. Li Qiu felt extremely happy. Half a year had passed, and Li Qiu's height had increased like a bamboo shoot after rain, adding to the half-year growth spurt at the beginning. Within this one year, he had grown a full 10 centimeters. The current water level only reached halfway up his buttocks, compared to the initial waist-high level; his body had visibly lengthened, making Li Qiu feel very happy. At 15 years old and 1.6 meters tall, he had finally escaped the ranks of short people. Although he still hadn't reached the height of a tall person, at least now he was as tall as Choi Soo-young when he first arrived in Japan...

  Li Qiu's Adam's apple had grown out, and Li Qiu really enjoyed teasing his own Adam's apple. He found it very strange, the feeling of his Adam's apple sliding around made him feel very comfortable. When doing rap throat exercises, this Adam's apple was always pushed to the top, but he liked it when his Adam's apple was pushed to the top and then slid back down to the bottom of his neck. At first, it was very difficult, and it would make his throat hurt even more when doing rap throat exercises, but slowly, he could control it. After all, what he was practicing now was how to control the muscles in his throat.

  His voice has changed, and it's clearly shifting towards the warm tone of Tōnogi Shō, which gets Riku very excited. Before, when he spoke, it wasn't unpleasant to listen to, but there was nothing distinctive about it. Now, after a year of practice, he can really feel some changes, so how could he not be excited? However, Tōnogi never lets him sing, and even making loud mouth noises is forbidden, because his voice change period hasn't ended yet. Riku has never sung before, and he's afraid that if he secretly sings, it will ruin the results of his training, and all his efforts will have been for nothing! After all, a person only goes through puberty once in their life, and if you miss it, there's no chance to change.

  ……

  "Hello, Grandpa Teng and Grandma Yamaguchi. I'm bothering you again." Choi Soo-young still had her hair tied up in pigtails and wore a crisp white dress that accentuated her long legs. She stood on the steps outside the house, casting a long shadow in the sunlight that was shining down at an angle of thirty degrees. She greeted the two elderly people who were reading inside. This month, Choi Soo-young had come over almost every weekend, and this was already her third visit. It seemed like she wanted to say something to Lee Qiu, but the first two times she came, she couldn't bring herself to speak up.

  "Hey, Xiuying, just wait a bit, Xiao Qiu is training in the back of the house and will be back in about five minutes. When he gets back, I'll have him take you out to play. Today, I'm giving him a day off." From the large amount of materials that Yamaguchi Mireiko brought from outside, there was also information on Choi Xiuying's Route 0 combination, which made the two elderly people roughly guess the reason why Choi Xiuying came all the way from Tokyo to Kurashiki. Of course, this was something that Fujimori Shou had initially guessed from Choi Xiuying's tone of voice.

  "Thank you, Grandfather Fujiki." Choe Su-yeong bowed to the two elderly people, her voice very calm, a stark contrast to her mischievous personality of old.

  Choi Soo-young smoothed out her crisp white dress, sat properly on the stone chair in the courtyard, and gazed at the small path that wound its way from behind the house. The green grass on the path swayed gently in the mountain breeze, and with each slightly larger movement, Choi Soo-young's heart skipped a beat. But the figure she longed to see never appeared. Five minutes, three hundred seconds - it seemed like a short time, but as she waited, it felt like an entire season...

  At last, a figure emerged from the green grass on the small path. His head was covered with a white towel, and only a few strands of hair that came out from the side could imagine his fine and smooth hair. He wore a simple white short-sleeved T-shirt and simple sport pants, it was Li Qiu who had just finished the hot spring pool hypoxic training.

  "Brother Autumn." Cui Xiuying's voice wasn't very loud, she just stood up and softly called out, it was as gentle as the hem of her dress fluttering upwards when she got up.

  "Su-Young, is it weekend again?" This was Choi Su-Young's third visit this month. The first time she had burst into the cabin, only to be met with a shocking sight: Lee Chiu emerging from the water, naked. Both of them were stunned for a long time, until Lee Chiu realized his situation when he felt the hot water evaporating off his upper body. He quickly dove back into the water, leaving only his head exposed as he stared at Choi Su-Young, who was standing by the pool with a flushed face. Due to this incident, they didn't say much during that meeting.

  In the second week, Choi Soo-young came again, seemingly with something to say, but ultimately didn't say it. For a whole day, she accompanied Lee Qiu in the study room reading books, her quiet demeanor and the feeling of the two being at home were completely different from before.

  "Ah, it's the weekend." Yes, another week has passed, time really flies. Choi Soo-young's face clouded over for a moment, and her eyes, which had sparkled when she saw Lee Qiu, also dimmed. Her hair, tied up in pigtails, was blown by the mountain wind, scattering strands onto her shoulders, with a few stray hairs quietly lying on the cuff of her dress...

  Inside the house, Tengmu let out a sigh. This little kid is so nagging, what's wrong with just saying it out loud? "Xiao Qiu, today you should accompany Xiuying well, take a rest today."

  "A break?" Upon hearing Tonomori Katsu's words, Li Qiu was taken aback. Having studied here for a year, this was his first time having a break. In the past, when Choi Soo-young and BoA came, Tonomori Katsu only let him suspend training for a few hours. After BoA and Soo-young hastily left, he would resume training again. He had never truly taken a day off...

  "Go ahead, go ahead, I said rest so rest."

  "Oh." Li Qiu pulled down the towel covering her hair, shook her still slightly damp long hair, then turned around to face Cui Xiangying, stared blankly for a moment, but didn't know what to say, and finally managed to squeeze out a sentence, "Xiangying, wait for me, I'll go change into a new set of clothes."

  "Mm." Choi Soo-young's voice was still soft, one hand rubbing her long hair tied in two ponytails, head lowered, silently responding with a single sentence.

  Very well, Li Qiu changed into a casual outfit and walked out of the house, looking at the quiet Cui Xiangying, thinking for a moment, still asking first, "Xiangying, what shall we do?"

  "I don't know, Brother Qiu, you say."

  "Hmm... how about we go on a picnic instead? A mountain-top picnic seems fitting for this weather." This was her first time coming this month, and he hadn't expected it. He thought it would be too awkward with just the two of them in the cabin, so he had Choi Soo-young not speak all day, accompanying him silently as they read books in the study; but when she came for the second time, things seemed off. She was still quietly accompanying him in the study, speaking little and seeming like she wanted to say something but couldn't bring herself to do so, until she left in the evening without saying what she wanted to say; today was no different...

  "Alright!" Li Qiu suggested going to the mountaintop for a picnic, which finally brought some vitality back to Cui Xiangying, and her calm face finally revealed her bright smile again.

  "Shall we go prepare something to eat together?"

  "Hmm!"

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