Chapter 389 The Eight Trigrams

Lunch was prepared with great care.

The steamed sea bass was tender and sweet, the winter melon and pork rib soup was light and refreshing, and there were two or three other seasonal stir-fries. The portions were small, but the variety was plentiful.

The four sat around a table for a meal. Yao Yao sat on a specially made high wooden chair, and Qin Fen fed her fish soup spoonful by spoonful.

Gu Zhao focused on eating, occasionally mimicking his father's actions by serving food to his mother.

After the meal, Qin Fen said, "You guys go play, I'll take the kids to take a nap."

Nan Zhiyi asked Gu Zhao, "Are you going to rest with Uncle Qin, or stay with Mom?"

Gu Zhao thought for a moment and replied seriously, "Mom, I'm going upstairs to the study with Uncle. If I'm sleepy, I'll take a nap; if I'm not sleepy, I'll read for a while."

Nan Zhiyi couldn't help but smile, thinking that her son was too good at arranging things for her.

"Good lad, you've got your father's style too, so organized at such a young age." Qin Fen held his daughter in one arm and put his other arm around Gu Zhao's shoulder. "Don't worry, sister-in-law, leave it to me."

Nan Zhiyi patted her son's head: "Go ahead."

After they went upstairs, Li Xiaoxuan pulled Nan Zhiyi to the left side hall.

"Sister Sun and Sister Xu should be here soon. Let's prepare the tea and snacks first." She said while fiddling with the celadon tea set. "You know Sister Sun well, and Sister Xu is the wife of Director Wang from the Ministry of Culture. She's also an acquaintance of Sister Sun. I was going to call Sister-in-law and Sister Liping, but they both happen to be busy today."

Li Xiaoxuan briefly described Sister Xu's personality, and Nan Zhiyi carefully took notes.

Just as the two finished brewing the jasmine tea, they heard Liu Ma's greeting and Sister Sun's signature loud voice coming from outside the door:

"Xiaoxuan, Zhiyi, we're here! Were you waiting anxiously?"

Before the words were even finished, the person had already walked in.

Sister Sun was wearing a light gray polyester short-sleeved shirt and had a big smile on her face. Beside her was a woman in her thirties, slender, wearing gold-rimmed glasses, who was presumably Sister Xu.

"Sister Sun, Sister Xu," Li Xiaoxuan greeted them, "Please have a seat, we were just thinking about you."

"Sister Sun, Sister Xu."

Nan Zhiyi greeted the two with a smile. When her eyes met Sister Xu's, the other woman smiled and nodded, her gaze lingering briefly on Nan Zhiyi's face.

"I've often heard Sister Sun mention writer Nan, and today I finally met him. It's clear that his writing reflects his personality; he writes well and he's just as handsome."

Sister Xu smiled and shook hands with Nan Zhiyi.

Nan Zhiyi said gently, "Sister Xu, you flatter me."

Sister Xu then asked, "After graduating from Peking University, where do you plan to work?"

Nan Zhiyi replied, "I plan to continue my academic pursuits and will continue my postgraduate studies when the semester starts."

Sister Xu looked at Nan Zhiyi with a serious expression, "Okay, it's good to continue your studies. We'll talk about work later."

"Don't stand there so politely," Sister Sun said, already pulling Li Xiaoxuan to sit down familiarly at the mahjong table. "We can talk while we play."

Two small tables are placed on each side of the mahjong table, with snacks and freshly brewed tea on them.

Li Xiaoxuan invited Nan Zhiyi and Sister Xu to sit down.

As soon as the four of them sat down, Li Xiaoxuan, forgetting even about the cards, eagerly asked, "My dear sister, you said you had something interesting to tell me last time, and I've been thinking about it for days! Tell me, tell me!"

Sister Sun slowly and methodically laid out the cards, deliberately keeping everyone in suspense: "What? You really don't know? The eldest grandson of the Luo family is having an event; the invitations have already been sent out."

Li Xiaoxuan pouted.

She remembered Nan Zhiyi mentioning that Luo Jianming's fiancée, Dr. Lu, was actually an old acquaintance of theirs from Jian'an, and they even had some unpleasant past.

In addition, Dr. Lu had a previous conflict with her friend Zhao Liping, so Li Xiaoxuan really didn't have a good impression of Dr. Lu.

"They've been engaged for several years, so getting married is just a matter of time."

She casually played a card, glanced up and met Nan Zhiyi's gaze. Both of them were focused on arranging their cards and showed little interest in the topic.

Noticing their coldness, Sister Sun quickly added, "Guess why they're suddenly in such a rush to hold the wedding? The Luo family had already called off the engagement, but then Dr. Lu suddenly became pregnant and insisted that Luo Jianming marry her immediately, or she would complain to the military region's political department."

Sister Xu let out a soft "Oh!" and printed out a three-of-a-kind: "Isn't Dr. Lu's father the director of a military hospital? If this causes a commotion..."

"That's right. Luo Jianming is now a deputy division commander, in his thirties, a crucial period in his life. Besides, even a fallen camel is bigger than a horse; the Lu family is determined to get married into this family. I heard several elders from the Lu family have come..."

Nan Zhiyi listened quietly, her fingers gently stroking a piece of white jade-like tile. "I won! A pure suit!"

Li Xiaoxuan peeked out and burst out laughing: "Zhiyi, what luck! Sister Sun was just getting into it, and you pull this one down!"

Nan Zhiyi smiled faintly, her gaze sweeping across the window.

She genuinely found the gossip incredibly boring, but she never expected everyone to be discussing the Luo and Lu families behind her back, making it the subject of their conversations. It was truly...

Seeing that they weren't very interested in the Luo family's affairs, Sister Sun paused in her hand as she arranged the cards, then suddenly lowered her voice and said, "Do you know about the Chen family's affairs? They're much more interesting than the Luo family's drama."

She paused deliberately, waiting for all three of them to look at her, before continuing mysteriously, "The son-in-law of Old Master Chen, the one who works at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was spotted at Tuanjiehu last week..."

Li Xiaoxuan's hand, which was about to touch the cards, was suspended in mid-air. Sister Xu adjusted her glasses, and even Nan Zhiyi turned her head slightly.

"What did you find?" Li Xiaoxuan pressed.

"She was with that young male lead who played female roles in the Peking Opera troupe, and the two of them even rented a small courtyard in Dashilan." She glanced around meaningfully. "I heard that Old Chen's daughter came to the door with a kitchen knife and chopped the courtyard gate to pieces."

"Oh dear! This is no joke."

"And then? No one got hurt, right?"

"The person is fine, but the whole alley knows about it." Sister Sun shook her head. "Old Master Chen's blood pressure soared, and he's still in the hospital. The most ridiculous thing is that son-in-law, who actually had the nerve to say that they were... that kindred spirits are hard to find."

Nan Zhiyi gently put down the cards in her hand, her eyelashes drooping slightly.

She had met the eldest daughter of the Chen family at a banquet last year. She was a gentle and quiet woman. She never expected that she would have such a bad relationship.

She suddenly remembered that many years ago in Jian'an, a similar thing had happened to the family of an old master craftsman at the yarn factory. At that time, her mother just sighed softly and said that the most unpredictable thing in the world is the human heart.

Li Xiaoxuan sighed, "These days... anything can happen."

Sister Xu seemed to be deep in thought: "No wonder I've been seeing that actress in blue so often at the theater lately, it turns out there's such a connection."

The cicadas outside the window suddenly became noisy, and even the clatter of mahjong tiles couldn't drown out the restlessness of summer.

Sister Sun played another card and sighed, "If you ask me, marriage is like playing mahjong. Whether you have a good hand or a bad hand, you still have to keep playing. But if someone is deliberately trying to cheat, then the game is really unplayable."

During the afternoon's card game, Sister Sun revealed several astonishing pieces of information, living up to her reputation as a "know-it-all".

First, the wife of a director of a department in the Ministry of Culture secretly sold her family's calligraphy and paintings to a Hong Kong businessman, only to be caught red-handed by a neighbor.

Next, it was discovered that the twin sons of a certain division commander were not biological brothers. It turned out that the babies were switched at birth in the hospital years ago and the discovery was only made by chance last year.

The most bizarre thing is that the second wife of a certain old general turned out to be his long-lost cousin.

And then there's the matter of when things are getting popular.

Sister Xu also chimed in with two stories: one about a director's wife losing several years' worth of wages in the stock market, and the other about a rising star in a cultural troupe who was actually the illegitimate daughter of a high-ranking official and had only recently been recognized by her family.

At first, Nan Zhiyi thought these things had nothing to do with her, but as she listened, she began to find them interesting.

Li Xiaoxuan clapped her hands in amazement from time to time.

"It still has to be my sister Sun," she said solicitously as she refilled her teacup. "Without you, Zhiyi and I are like deaf people; we know nothing."

Sister Sun proudly raised her meticulously drawn eyebrows: "That's right, it's also because we get along well with you. I really wouldn't tell just anyone."

Nan Zhiyi, understanding the implication, continued with flattery, her voice as gentle as freshly brewed spring tea: "Sister Sun treats us like family."

Sister Sun was overjoyed and patted Nan Zhiyi's hand affectionately: "You're the best at talking."

As dusk deepened, the card game ended.

After seeing Sister Sun and Sister Xu off, Li Xiaoxuan linked arms with Nan Zhiyi and returned to the living room, leaning lazily on her shoulder: "It's so funny, how do they know everything?"

"It is quite interesting, but let's just listen and not really listen."

"I'm not afraid to tell everyone..." Li Xiaoxuan suddenly sat up straight and exclaimed, "I was so busy gossiping that I forgot to ask Sister Sun if there were any fun places to go nearby!"

Just in time.

The sound of a jeep turning off came from outside the courtyard, followed by Gu Xiao and Aunt Liu greeting each other.

Li Xiaoxuan stopped talking about the trip and winked mischievously at Nan Zhiyi: "Your Minister Gu is here looking for his wife."