Power Up, Artist Yang!

As Yujia thought about what she could do for Zixu's birthday, numerous ideas popped into her head. 

In modern times, because of the globalization of culture, cakes and candles were widespread practices for celebrating birthdays. But in this time and era, birthday cakes were not yet a thing. Instead, foods such as peaches and long noodles existed as birthday traditions. Nevertheless, a priority was placed on the birthdays of the elderly and the young. For someone at Zixu's age, a big birthday celebration would be quite inappropriate.

Regardless, Zixu would definitely get a bowl of long noodles to wish him longevity, no? Yujia briefly considered learning how to make noodles for him, but she didn't want to stuff him with yet another bowl of noodles if he already had one before.

She did like the idea of making him a birthday cake, the problem being that she had no idea how to bake. His birthday was coming up in a week, and she highly doubted that she could learn how to bake a cake in a week. Her knowledge with baking was near zero, after all. Baking was also a rather western concept, something the people in this era weren't entirely familiar with. Traditional pastries were all steamed.

Of course, there was also the fact that Zixu once told her that he didn't have much of a sweet tooth. It was his younger brother Ziyang, he said, which led to his many visits to pastry shops. Thus, a cake might not have been the best idea either.

Did salty cakes exist? No, that was just bread.

Then… did birthday bread exist?

The idea sounded ridiculous in her mind already. In fact, most of these ideas sounded ridiculous. If only she had more experience with cooking before. Why wasn't she a chef in her past life? Yujia clutched her head in frustration.

The two did agree to share a jar of wine that they had buried beneath the white plum earlier on in the year. Except that didn't feel exactly like a gift. Yujia wanted to do more for him.

When she set her hands back down, the water in the bath splashed. She tilted her head back, staring at the tall wooden ceiling of the bathroom. 

As a late birthday present, Zixu gave her two seal stamps made of jade. He had tried carving wooden ones himself, but "failed" by his terms— though Yujia still pocketed one of the wooden ones he made before, since she thought it looked perfectly fine. In a way, it was like how he called the hairstyle he made for her with the hairpin "lopsided", when it was nearly perfect the moment she checked in a mirror before undoing it. 

Still, there was so much thought behind his act of choosing the seal stamps, considering that they were essential to painting and she hadn't had very personalized ones before.

Yujia wondered if she could do something like that. Food was her first response for birthdays, but now that she thought about it, someone like Yu Zixu probably never lacked food. Besides, food, although carrying great sentiment, only lasted until it was eaten.

What would make a good permanent gift? She figured that he probably didn't want her paintings. Except, other than art, what else could she do? It felt like she had no useful skills when approaching the dilemma of a birthday.

A wild idea suddenly appeared in her mind. 

The previous owner of this body, the Fourth Miss, was rather skilled at embroidery, according to her information sources. Was it possible that those skills carried over to her current self? How well did muscle memory work?

She never tried embroidery ever since she transmigrated. There wasn't an exact reason. Perhaps it was simply because embroidery seemed so daunting, and she never had any real use for it.

Though now that she thought about it, and it seemed like it could have an actual purpose, Yujia was a tad bit excited. It would be incredible if she could just embroider beautiful scenes without having any actual practice.

Yujia quickly got out of the bath. She wanted to give this a try. Surely, even if she stumbled a bit in the beginning, she would get the hang of it quickly?

…

Yujia s.u.c.k.e.d at embroidery.

She discovered this after running to Yufeng, asking if Yufeng had any materials for embroidery on hand. Then, sitting by candlelight, needle, thread, and cloth in hand, Yujia proceeded to carry out her attempt at embroidery. 

Needless to say, it didn't turn out exactly like how her imagination expected it to be. Once she learned how to tie a basic knot for her needle, the process of dipping the needle back and forth through the front and back of the cloth felt familiar. Muscle memory indeed played a factor there, helping her familiarity with these motions. The difficult part was the formation of an actual picture. 

Having no experience with embroidery, Yujia's mind wasn't familiar with the various stitches and patterns. And thus, her quick hour-long attempt at embroidery turned out to be a jumble of thread and a variation of shapes that didn't resemble a picture.

Under Yufeng's observations and words, Yujia seemed to "know what she was doing yet simultaneously know nothing at all", which was, in fact, exactly what Yujia felt like.

It was an odd sensation. Her fingers knew what to do. They knew how to grip the needle. Completing basic stitch patterns under Yufeng's rusty guidance were also motions that felt smoother than ever. Yet when it came to piecing her brain with these memories of the hands, it all fell apart in a chaotic mess.

At this rate, it didn't seem like embroidery was a viable option for a birthday gift either. 

Zixu was a perfectionist. Yujia was less of one compared to him. Yet when it came to something like a birthday gift, she did want it to turn out perfect, not a messy, half-done one.

Embroidery was quickly crossed off her list. Cooking, still…

It was still an option?

Yujia figured it would be best to talk with Chef Hong about this tomorrow. As the resident chef at Lingxin, surely, Yujia could receive some good advice by looking for her.

With a sigh, Yujia stuffed her ruined embroidery in a corner and prepared to go to sleep. Considering how late it was, sleep should've came easily to her, yet it was anything but that. These past few days, sleep had always been difficult. Ever since the encounter with bandits, the blood and bodies were all she could think of whenever her mind had a chance to be free. On a rickety carriage, this made sleep even more impossible on the trip back. Yujia was under the impression that once she was back and sleeping on a warm bed, it would make sleep easier, even if just by a bit.

It didn't.

Turning in her bed, she pulled the thick blankets over her head, burying her face into her pillow— as if that would do anything to stop the sounds, the smells, and worse, the images.

…

When morning came, it was a blessing.