Chapter 63 Su Guo'er's Troubles

The Liu family mansion, a brightly lit hall.

Upon hearing his elder brother's words, Liu Zian fell silent.

Liu Zilin's expression grew increasingly confused as he listened:

"Wasn't this guy demoted because he offended the current emperor and Princess Chang Le?"

Liu Zian frowned, glanced at him, and explained impatiently:

"Demotion depends on the location; not just anyone can be demoted to Longcheng County."

He paused, somewhat puzzled:

"At first I thought he was just a bookworm who'd gone mad from reading too much. Otherwise, why would the nobles of the Wei family have allowed him to come? It's practically like they're sending him here to be their dogs."

"A respectable background, yet a bookworm and brainless—this was an option that both sides could barely agree on… But now it seems more and more like a game-changer thrown at them by the other side?"

Liu Ziwen lowered his head in deep thought and remained silent, while Liu Zilin seemed to understand but not quite.

There was silence in the hall for a moment.

Just then, two people walked out of the hall into the corridor.

A lame servant respectfully led in a plain-looking woman who appeared to be around forty years old. Her face was rather long, but she was well-maintained. She was dressed in the standard attire of a wealthy woman from the Great Zhou Dynasty, with nothing particularly special about her.

"Eldest brother, it's time to eat. Oh, second and third brothers are here too? Come and eat with us." The woman moved slowly and spoke slowly.

Liu Ziwen looked up, forced a smile, and nodded, "Thank you for your hard work."

Liu Zian and Liu Zilin immediately stood up and responded, calling her "sister-in-law".

The woman's surname was Xu. Liu Ziwen married very early and devoted himself to the Guyue Sword Shop and other family businesses. He treated his wife with respect.

The three Liu brothers lost their parents at a young age. The eldest brother was like a father to them, and his sister-in-law was like a mother to them, just like Ouyang Rong's aunt was like a mother to him.

No matter how arrogant and domineering Liu Zian and Liu Zilin were outside, they were relatively obedient in front of their elder sister-in-law. This was the norm in this era, with a strong sense of kinship and filial piety.

Therefore, no matter how busy or upset the three brothers were, they had to go and eat the dinner prepared by Xu, which was a tacit understanding within the Liu family.

The same is true today.

At the dinner table, Mrs. Xu was very considerate to her two younger brothers-in-law, constantly serving them food and asking about their well-being. She even got up to pour them soup.

In that brief moment, Liu Ziwen, who was always silent while eating, suddenly put down his chopsticks and stared intently at the dish in front of him.

"Since the magistrate says he will uphold justice, then Third Brother, go and demand justice tomorrow."

"Yes, brother!"

Liu Zilin nodded, his face showing eagerness.

Liu Zian, standing nearby, seemed not to pay much attention to his brothers' conversation. He glanced at Xu Shi's retreating figure as she went to serve soup, then buried his head in his food and ate quietly.

...

Luming Street, the Su family mansion.

After dinner.

Inside an elegant and secluded back garden.

The Jiangnan region is naturally lush with vegetation, and fireflies are already appearing in the flower bushes at night during this season.

A chubby-faced maidservant, holding a light silk fan, skipped and jumped among the flowers, catching fireflies everywhere, and kept calling out, "Miss, Miss, look, look!" and "Oh my, they're so big!"

However, occasionally a sigh of disappointment would be heard, as she looked up, pouting, and sighed as she watched the fireflies fly away.

In a brightly lit gallery in the garden, a cool and aloof young woman with newly applied plum blossom makeup flipped through a book, oblivious to her personal maid who seemed completely out of place with her demeanor.

Only when the occasional sound of wrestling was heard would the aloof woman nod slightly, without even lifting her eyelids, and say:

"If you get hungry later, you're not allowed to sneak any pastries from the living room at night, otherwise your mother will make a lot of snacks and send them over every day, thinking that I'm just greedy."

"..." The chubby-faced maid's stomach was already rumbling.

Su Guo'er shook her head and turned to another page of the poetry collection in her hand.

She is still reading Tao Yuanming's poems recently.

It wasn't because Su Guo'er was a literary fangirl who admired famous scholars.

This was due to the prophecy made by that old fortune teller through spirit writing.

The prophecy foretold that she would meet a man who seemed to be her destiny, a benefactor in her life. The old fortune teller didn't specify how "benefactor" he would be, only saying that the key was the "encounter," which would be the turning point in her fortune. Su Guo'er wanted to meet him as soon as possible.

This old fortune teller is no ordinary person. He comes from the Shangqing Sect, one of the Three Pure Ones Taoist sects in the south, and has a very high seniority. He has performed face readings for many people in the Su Guo'er family. In some aspects, he is no less skilled than the top fortune teller in the court who served Empress Wei.

Under the cover of night, a solitary young woman leaned lazily against the railing, her brows, painted with plum blossoms, furrowed slightly, her fingers gently twirling a corner of a pale yellow book page.

A hidden dragon lies in the abyss... emerging with the bright moon in its beak... serving as an official in this county and then resigning... capable of writing an ode to resignation and retirement...

Among those who meet all the above conditions, Su Guo'er could only think of one person after racking her brains.

Those were Tao Qian and Tao Yuanming, famous figures of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, as recorded in the annals of Longcheng County.

This person not only has a name that sounds very much like the first two lines of the prophecy, but he also did indeed serve as the magistrate of Longcheng County for eighty-one days. Later, he refused to bow down for five pecks of rice, served as an official and then resigned. Moreover, he was a man of great literary talent, leaving behind many poems and songs, which are still talked about by the locals.

Many of the place names and street names in Longcheng today are derived from stories related to this famous person.

Over the years, Su Guo'er also discovered that the relevant county records show that this person did indeed write a poem about resigning from office and retiring before he resigned, and the title seems to be... "Returning Home".

However, this poem has been lost and has not been passed down in its entirety.

Finally, the only slight deviation that she regretted was...

This is a figure from the Eastern Jin Dynasty, four hundred years ago!

Could he be a long-lived, top-tier Qi cultivator?

Even the most skilled Qi cultivators would find it difficult to survive to this day, unless they have reached the pinnacle of the mythical Dao lineage, some unknown rank? But... is that even possible?

She felt it was unrealistic.

The aloof young woman put down her poetry collection, leaned on her scooter, and stared blankly at the silly maidservant in the flower bushes, leaving only a faint sigh in the evening breeze:

"I will return home... and you will give me the bright moon... and you will give me poems..."

However, in recent days, Su Guo'er's somewhat stagnant mood has become more lively again because of some things she heard from her roommate, the Xie family's older sister.

Some stories about the newly arrived young county magistrate.

This trend seems to be a little different...

The old fortune teller's prediction clearly indicated that this destined person would become the magistrate of Longcheng County. Therefore, Su Guo'er had carefully searched through the archives and records beforehand, but found that no magistrate of Longcheng County in the past fifty years had voluntarily resigned, except for those who died in office due to illness or during the mourning period.

She had also looked at the new county magistrates in recent years, but to her disappointment, they were either incompetent or muddle-headed, and they had no interaction with her during their terms of office, let alone any gifts or presents.

When Ouyang Lianghan took office a few months ago, Su Guo'er visited him with a ribbon, but there was nothing special about him. He didn't seem like the kind of noble person described in the prophecy who deserved the evaluation of "a dragon in the abyss".

What's even more ridiculous is that on the very day Ouyang Lianghan took office, he announced his plan to control the floods, only to fall off the bridge and drown...

How could Su Guo'er not be disappointed and disheartened? She was already quite discouraged and no longer willing to believe in fate.

She might as well place her hopes on Tao Yuanming from four hundred years ago; what if he were really alive today?

At present, although she finds a certain young county magistrate increasingly interesting, Su Guo'er does not have high hopes. As for Tao Yuanming, with whom she has already invested a lot of time and energy, she will not give up easily.

"I wonder if Sister Xie can help me find that hidden poem."

Su Guo'er spoke softly.

She silently gazed at the night sky for a while, when suddenly, out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of a familiar figure in the distance. Su Guo'er immediately got up, left the gallery, and went to meet her.

"Sister Xie is back?"

"Little sister of the Su family." Xie Lingjiang turned around and greeted her.

As she approached, Su Guo'er slowly stopped. She noticed that there was another woman following closely behind the Xie sisters. It seemed that this was the first time the Xie sisters had brought someone into the Su residence. Even her senior brother, the county magistrate, had never brought anyone back before.

Su Guo'er glanced sideways.

This was a tall woman from the Hu region, with deep-set eyes, a high nose, brown hair, and a pair of unusual blue eyes. She seemed to have been brought to this unfamiliar environment. The Hu woman lowered her head timidly, not looking around, let alone making eye contact with her.

"Oh, right."

Xie Lingjiang seemed to be in a good mood, and introduced with a light laugh:

"Her name is Zhiying. She was originally a Hu dancer at Yuanming Tower. Sister Su can call her Yingniang."

"Then what does Sister Xie mean by..."

Xie Lingjiang's eyes shone brightly as she took Yingniang's hand:

“Yingniang has a hard life. She was sold to this foreign land by a heartless foreign merchant. I hit it off with her at first sight. Recently, I used a pearl to help her redeem herself. However, after leaving Yuanming Tower, she had nowhere to stay for a while, so I brought her back. I was thinking of letting her share a room with me... I hope my sister won't mind?”

Su Guo'er shook her head, unconcerned, and said, "It's alright. There's no need to squeeze into one room. I'll have Cai Shou clean another room."

Xie Lingjiang patted Yingniang's trembling hand gently, offering comfort:

"Don't be afraid. Sister Su may seem cold, but she is sincere. She won't bully you like those people in Yuanming Tower before. From now on, we're like sisters."

Yingniang seemed to calm down a bit and called out softly, "Hello, Miss Su."

Su Guo'er nodded, but she obviously had more important things to do at the moment and didn't have time to pay attention to a little Hu girl. When Cai Shou arrived, Su Guo'er instructed Cai Shou to take Ying Niang away and make some changes.

After everyone was taken away, Su Guo'er turned to Xie Lingjiang and asked directly, "Sister Xie, did you find any information about 'The Song of Returning Home' in the county government's archives?"

Xie Lingjiang was not surprised and nodded slightly:

"In the past few days, besides being busy with the things my senior brother asked me to do, I also did some research and found some things. In a certain edition of the county annals in the warehouse, it is recorded that the famous scholar of the Eastern Jin Dynasty did indeed leave behind a poem at the end."

"As for its whereabouts, it was only mentioned briefly above. Before leaving Longcheng, Tao Yuanming gave it to his friend and abbot of Donglin Temple at the time. It is just unknown whether Donglin Temple has preserved this poem in its collection."

Su Guo'er's pretty face lit up with joy at first, but then she froze, though her expression finally relaxed a little. She whispered:

"It's good to have news. Donglin Temple..."

(End of this chapter)