With the carriage, we arrived at Lushan Academy just in time for noon.
Lushan Academy was one of the best academies in Rongguo, with more than two hundred people from the headmaster to the master, all of whom were learned scholars, and many of them were contemporary famous scholars.
The academy has thousands of students, and seven or eight hundred of them participated in the spring examination this year. About one hundred of them passed, accounting for about 30% of the three examination results.
Qi Sheng was one of the successful candidates and was quite famous in the academy. As soon as he entered the academy, people kept greeting him.
Even his close classmates jokingly asked, "Is this little girl your daughter?"
Qi Sheng sternly reprimanded the man: "Stop talking nonsense! This is Master Yuan Qi of Fusang Temple. He is well-versed in Taoist magic and is extremely skilled!"
The others burst into laughter, and Qi Sheng then lectured those people again: "I'm speaking seriously. I'm only alive today thanks to the divine calculations of the young Taoist priest Yuan Qi, who saved me from death."
The group of classmates then took it seriously. The story of Qi Sheng falling into the well and almost dying had spread like wildfire throughout the academy, and everyone knew about it. It turned out that this little Taoist priest had calculated it. He was really amazing.
Qi Sheng's words piqued the interest of many people, and someone asked him, "What are you doing bringing the Taoist priest here?"
"Go see Bai Sicheng! Don't you think his illness is suspicious?"
Yuan Qi found Qi Sheng quite interesting. He attracted so many people with just a few words, and so many people greeted him. He seemed to have good interpersonal relationships.
Yuan Qi was a very pretty young Taoist priest. She had an oval face, double eyelids, and red lips. She looked like a cute little girl. Why did she decide to become a nun? She wore her hair in a Taoist bun, secured with a jade hairpin. Her attire was very simple.
"Young Taoist priest, look at me. Am I destined for some bloodshed?" a tall, fair-skinned man asked jokingly.
Yuan Qi glanced at him: "You won't suffer any bloodshed, but someone will be scrambling to find you a husband. You'll be getting married soon!"
"Ha ha ha ha……"
...
The fair-skinned man was extremely embarrassed. Many of his classmates were fine, but he was the one who had been chosen as a husband after failing the imperial examinations. The daughter of the chosen family was also overweight. He had barely escaped, and the news had spread, with everyone mocking and ridiculing him. Now, this little girl had brought it up in public—where could he put his face?
Qi Sheng nudged him: "Young Taoist priest is a fortune teller. Mo Yousheng, you deserve to be embarrassed for making fun of the young Taoist priest!"
However, Mo Yousheng was genuinely concerned, and he earnestly asked Yuan Qi, "Do I really have to marry this person?"
Yuan Qi snorted and said, half-jokingly and half-seriously, "You are a blessed person. Getting married is not a bad thing. That family will be helpful to your career."
Mo Yousheng's pain intensified: "But that woman is just too fat..."
"Being fat is a blessing."
Before they could finish speaking, they arrived at Bai Sicheng's room.
The dormitories at the academy were shared by two people. Qi Sheng shared a dormitory with Bai Sicheng. He watched as Bai Sicheng went from a healthy person to a emaciated, dying man in just a few days.
"Young Taoist priest, this is Bai Sicheng."
Yuan Qi walked around the room. There were two beds, two wardrobes, two desks, and some daily necessities. There was nothing special about it.
She flipped through the books on the desk casually. The books were marked with tiny, neat characters, and the desk was tidy and there was nothing amiss.
The most eye-catching thing is a landscape painting hanging on the wall. On the left side of the painting, a waterfall is cascading down, and at the bottom is a deep pool, with a river winding its way into the distance.
On the right side of the picture is a mountain peak, covered with many flowers, trees and shrubs, and an octagonal pavilion at the top.
On the hillside in the middle of the right side, there is a two-story palace with side rooms on the left and right sides in front. There are also many servants in front of and behind the house. In the center of the courtyard in front of the house, a man and a woman are painting at a table. The man has the woman in his arms and they look very affectionate.
The painting exudes a subtle, almost imperceptible, malevolent aura.
Seeing Yuan Qi staring at the painting for a long time, Qi Sheng took the initiative to explain: "This painting was picked up by Bai Sicheng from outside. It has been hanging here for five or six years. I remember that in the second month after he entered the academy, he went to the city to buy things and picked up this painting on the street. I said at the time that he was lucky to find such a well-painted painting. Later, this painting has been hanging above his desk."
Qi Sheng joked, "Bai Sicheng also said that the landscape in this painting can move, and the people in it can blink. It's a very spiritual painting. I looked at it carefully for a long time, but I didn't find anything that could move. Little Taoist priest, isn't that strange? Bai Sicheng isn't one to talk nonsense, but he's been saying that this painting can move ever since."
Yuan Qi pointed to the man and woman in the picture: "Were these two people always there?"
Qi Sheng pondered for a long time before answering, "The woman was there from the beginning, but the man seems to have been drawn by Bai Sicheng himself. What's wrong, young Taoist priest? Do you also think there's something wrong with this painting?"
There's definitely something wrong with this painting, but Yuan Qi didn't tell him.
Seeing that Yuan Qi was watching intently, Qi Sheng didn't disturb her and just stood aside waiting.
The students who followed him in also began to discuss the painting. One student who was close to Bai Sicheng said, "He would admire this painting for one or two hours every day, very attentively. He even praised the woman in the painting to me, saying that she was beautiful and talented, and even said that women are just as capable as men. But I always felt that he was talking nonsense. Isn't she just an ordinary woman? At most, she's just a little pretty."
Upon closer inspection, Yuan Qi noticed that the painting had no inscription or signature. However, the paper was yellowed, indicating that it was quite old.
The ink used for painting is top-quality Huizhou ink, and the paper is also very good Xuan paper, which is fumigated with sulfur to prevent insects and moths. Ordinary people cannot afford it.
Since it was picked up on the street, its origin is naturally unknown.
Yuan Qi watched for a while longer before sitting down by the bed to look at Bai Sicheng, who was fast asleep.
Bai Sicheng was quite a handsome man, with sword-like eyebrows, bright eyes, a nose like a hanging gall bladder, slightly thin lips, fair skin, and hands with distinct knuckles, making him very pleasing to the eye.
His breathing was barely perceptible, and he was on the verge of death. Even worse, his soul was not in his body; no one knew where it had gone.
Yuan Qi skillfully took his hand, checked his pulse, and indeed found a trace of spiritual energy within his body sustaining his life.
Qi Sheng was surprised that Yuan Qi could diagnose pulses and asked with concern, "Young Taoist priest, how is he? You must save him!"
Other students chimed in, "That's right. Bai Sicheng ranked second in the second class of the imperial examination, becoming a Jinshi (a successful candidate in the highest imperial examinations). He has a bright future ahead of him. It would be such a pity if he were to die like this."
“The soul is not here, let’s try to summon it back first.” Yuan Qi took out a soul-summoning talisman from his cloth bag.
She stood by the bed, performing a ritualistic step, holding a talisman between two fingers, and chanting incantations.
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