Chapter 53 Return to the Main House
Since he now lives in an apartment of only 50 square meters, Jingli naturally does not have a study room.
After dinner, they cleared the table. On this ordinary dining table, Jingli spread out the snow-white letter paper and took out the inkstone to grind ink.
"I haven't written for a long time." He sighed. "What era is it now? I still need to write visiting cards..."
Although he said so, Jingli still held the pen with his wrist suspended and started writing. Although Jingli always looked like a trendy young man, he wrote regular script with a smooth and graceful stroke, and his handwriting was elegant and beautiful.
Jing Li finished writing the visiting card carefully. While the ink was drying, Gu Nian admired it and praised it generously: "The handwriting is very beautiful."
Jing Li scratched his head and smiled sheepishly: "I wrote all kinds of letters when I was studying abroad. I thought I almost forgot how to write."
Gu Nian smiled and said, "It's not so easy to forget the boy's skills that you have practiced since childhood."
Jing Li folded up the visiting card and said with emotion, "Yes, I never liked old men telling fortunes because I thought it was too mysterious. Is it really accurate? Divination in the West, looking at the soul's color and calculating the outcome of events, is fine, but the Eastern yin and yang and five elements are too profound."
"However, after the natural disaster, I realized that it is precisely because of the deep fear of fate that ordinary people always want to peek into fate at all costs, even if it is only a glimpse..."
When saying this, the usually youthful Jingli actually revealed unexpected maturity and aloofness. At that moment, he actually looked a bit like... Yuejian?
Perhaps there is always some similar temperament in fortune tellers. Gu Nian thought to herself, I always feel that Yue Jian will also resonate with Jing Li's words? Unexpectedly, she suddenly thought so.
Gu Nian patted Jing Li's shoulder comfortingly: "Don't think too much, anyway, go back to the family to participate in the selection of the successor, you just need to do your best."
Jing Li smiled carefreely, "Anian is right, I will hand over this visiting card to my family today." At this point, he couldn't help but complain, "In fact, we are in the same city, but my family is very particular about this kind of ceremony. Maybe it's the sense of ceremony of a big family."
"Anyway, tomorrow is the day when the adult sons of the family return home to participate in the selection, so we just go to our family early tomorrow." Jing Li made the final decision.
Just like that, early the next morning, Gu Nian and Jing Li stood in the south of the second underground floor, near the newly built main house of the Jing family.
It was an extremely old building, which seemed out of place with the modern atmosphere of the dungeon.
At first, we drove into a private road with mottled shadows of trees on both sides. This was incredible. Even in the underground city newly built after the natural disaster, so many mutant plants could be moved in! In the underground city with only artificial light, plants that had not mutated could not survive at all.
This long tree-lined avenue shaded by green trees made Gu Nian feel as if he was not driving in an underground city where every inch of land was valuable, but rather he was returning to the mountainside mansion he had lived in before the natural disaster.
Driving along the road, we finally saw the winding white walls and the half-faded vermilion eaves, like a beautiful woman with the charm of time. On the vermilion main gate in the middle, there are coiled dragons and phoenixes, which are extremely precious. On both sides of the main gate are two side doors.
The side door was already open.
The servant at the door greeted Jingli and said, "Master Jingli, please go to Xuyuan. Your accommodation is arranged over there."
Jing left the car and walked inside, not forgetting to introduce to Gu Nian: "The residences of our family are all named after the hexagrams of the Book of Changes, and the Xu hexagram is the fifth hexagram. So Xuyuan means the fifth courtyard."
"As for this new house, I heard that the family members dismantled as much of the original old house as possible and transported everything here to restore it, so the walls you see, Anian, have a history of hundreds of years. But before, the family was built on the mountain, so when you come in from the gate, you still have to pass through several gatehouses along the mountain road before you can enter the main house area. It's much simpler now."
Gu Nian watched Jing leave the car in silence. Although the car was not going very fast, they had been driving for a full five minutes, passing through several courtyards and still driving in! Is this what they call "much simpler"?
It was not until this moment that Gu Nian truly understood what Jing Li said, that the Jing family was an ancient family with a long history.
They arrived at Xuyuan. This courtyard housed several young men from the Jing family, like Jingli.
Gu Nian and Jing Li were arranged to live in the east wing. This kind of classical wing always has several rooms, which is enough for the two of them to live separately.
Jiuwei and Lianhua also sat in Jingli's car and came with Gu Nian. In the antique room where Gu Nian lived, in addition to a large carved bed, there was also a beauty couch. Jiuwei's eyes lit up, and he lay lazily on the beauty couch and took a nap. Lianhua lay down beside the pillow of the carved bed to rest.
These two furry creatures would get sleepy for no reason. Gu Nian was used to it and told them not to knock over the furniture that looked expensive, especially to stay away from the porcelain bottles, before she put down her luggage and left.
"A Nian, let's go." Jing Li said. "Let's find a gathering place first. Those who come today will gather together first to explain the rules of the assessment."
"Where do we meet?" Gu Nian asked. When they entered the courtyard, a servant led them to the residence assigned to Jing Li, but did not tell them the meeting place.
"Ah, needless to say, by divination." Jing Li explained. "This is also a compulsory course."
Standing at the fork in the road, he took off a crystal ring from his hand and threw it casually. The ring drew an arc in the air and fell to the path on the left.
"Come this way." Jing Li waved at Gu Nian.
Gu Nian couldn't help but have a lot of questions in his head. Is it so casual? But Jing Li is the heir of a serious fortune-telling family after all. If he asked a question, would it seem like he was questioning his professional level? Gu Nian swallowed the question.
Perhaps seeing Gu Nian's tangle, Jing Li took the initiative to speak: "Actually, what just happened is a variation of the Divination Staff Technique."
"In the days before geomagnetic surveys, Western fortune tellers would make divining rods to find water sources, and later gradually used them to find people and objects, which can be regarded as a kind of crystal pendulum. Although this ring is not a proper divining rod, the inspiration of this crystal is very strong. I have been using it since middle school, so it is no problem to use it to replace the divining rod."
When Jing Li mentioned that crystals have strong spiritual power, Gu Nian thought of Yue Jian's crystal pendant. Even thinking about it carefully, the atmosphere of Yue Jian's residence is also very similar to this ancient house? Could he also be a descendant of the Jing family?
But Yue Jian's last name isn't Jing, right? Of course, "Yue" doesn't sound like a proper last name.
Tossing the crystal ring that was said to have strong inspiration, Jingli and Gu Nian walked along the winding path into the depths of the courtyard.
They finally stopped at a courtyard with a plaque at the door that read "Shengbai".
"It should be the allusion of Zhuangzi's 'empty room gives rise to whiteness'. This name is quite poetic..." Jing Li whispered to Gu Nian. He carefully looked at the plaque: "The words are also written in a free and easy manner."
Watching Jingli appreciating the calligraphy on the plaque, Gu Nian found it funny. She actually remembered that when Jingshui was a child, he not only taught Jingli divination, but also taught Jingli to study ancient texts. Otherwise, Jingli would not be able to practice the divination of Longguo at all. After all, those classic divination textbooks are all older than one! Jingli seemed to be dismissive of what Grandpa Jingshui taught, but in fact, she read ancient books with great interest. She could even be called a classical literature lover. Unlike Gu Nian, as a science student, she really had limited qualifications in this area.
At this time, people gradually gathered. Many young people who were similar to Jingli came to this place, some holding tortoise shells, some holding compasses, some holding dice, some holding lottery tubes, and so on. It seemed that they were all like Jingli, coming here to divine and find their way.
At this time, the gate of Shengbaiyuan was finally opened.
An old man in a black suit walked out from behind the door. He bowed to everyone and said, "Young masters, please come in. The master is waiting for you."
Jing Li whispered to Gu Nian, "Ahhh, I'm so nervous! This is the first time I'm going to meet the head of our family! I don't know if he's a particularly majestic old man!"
Gu Nian looked strange: "No, not a particularly majestic old man." She looked at the old man in a black suit. If she remembered correctly, the housekeeper who brought tea to Yue Jian last time she went to his house looked exactly like this old man - the same person.
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