Chapter 177: Destiny 23 Why?
Li Yanze froze and looked at Qi Zihong. Qi Zihong's expression clearly showed that he didn't want to stay either. But after weighing the pros and cons for a moment, Qi Zihong tilted his head and whispered to Li Yanze, "That person is no different from the emperor now. It's better not to go against him."
The man in the yard spoke, and the man who had just driven them away now guarded the door and refused to let them leave, bowing and holding out his hand: "My master invites you."
Li Yanze clicked his tongue, not liking this feeling, but he was still flexible and followed them all the way forward.
There was a lush locust tree in the backyard, with its branches and leaves spreading out to cast a thick shade. Under the tree, a figure in purple clothes was sitting sideways towards them, alone, with nothing in front of him.
Judging from the voice, she should be a very young person, but her hair, which is half-tied up with a headband, is mostly gray.
Li Yanze felt very familiar, yet very strange. For a moment, he met the empty and cold gaze of the man who turned his head to look at him.
This expression does not contain any emotion, and even looks confused. It is the same for people whose minds are drained and who are only left with a little instinct to survive.
"It was pretty good during the New Year holidays, why do you think it's worse now?"
Qi Zihong was also surprised, and after hesitating, he said something very awkwardly to show his concern.
Li Yanze instinctively felt that he shouldn't be like this, but knowing his identity, he didn't dare to say a word. Besides, he still had to find Qingluan Mountain. It was unclear whether he was an enemy or a friend, so he didn't want to meddle in other people's business.
He still had no expression on his face, as if he had not heard Qi Zihong's words at all. He just said calmly: "Aunt Yue asked you to go back and see her after some time. You have been away for a long time and she misses you."
Qi Zihong exclaimed, seeming surprised that he said this to him.
Li Yanze was left aside, bored. He folded his arms and lightly lifted his hat to watch the sunlight filtering through the leaves. For no reason, he thought of steamed buns.
He didn't know why he remembered this. It seemed that he had eaten steamed buns under the shade of a tree like this before, and then... Li Yanze subconsciously looked at the man's purple robe, as if a person wearing such clothes didn't let him eat...
The breeze blew, and his hair swayed gently. Li Yanze saw that there was a swallow embroidered on his headband, which looked lively and cute.
"Is this your friend?"
Li Yanze came back to his senses and realized that his dark eyes had been staring at him for a long time, so he quickly looked at Qi Zihong.
"He is a fellow Taoist I just met, and his magic skills are more advanced than mine." Qi Zihong is obviously his elder brother, but his words are full of unnatural distance.
Li Yanze lifted his bamboo hat, and the disguised face of a middle-aged man with two tufts of beard was revealed. He nodded and smiled.
"My humble servant greets you, sir."
After a moment, the man under the tree suddenly asked, "What's your name, Taoist Priest?"
Li Yanze smiled and bowed: "I have no name or surname, just an independent cultivator. How dare I trouble you to remember my name."
"Qi Youwei."
Li Yanze's fingers trembled slightly, and he looked at Qi Youwei in confusion: "What?"
Qi Youwei looked at him with a light look in his eyes, but Li Yanze felt an urge to leave from the bottom of his heart.
"I will tell you my name first. As a courtesy, you should tell me your name."
Li Yanze made up a random sentence: "Wang Er."
Qi Zihong tugged at his sleeve and winked at him. Your fake name couldn't be more fake, only a fool would believe it.
"Okay." Qi You nodded slightly, not smiling nor angry, just nodded calmly. "Wang Er, I'll remember that."
Li Yanze never lies. If he doesn't want to say something, he won't say it. If it's not convenient to say it, he will tell the other party that it's not convenient to say it. But when facing this person, he subconsciously says all kinds of nonsense without any burden, because he can't tell the truth anyway.
"Master Wang is Third Brother's friend, so he is also my friend. If you encounter any difficulties in the next few days, you can come here to find me."
Li Yanze didn't want to come here again, so he didn't respond. Qi Zihong was very perceptive and quickly took over the conversation: "Sixth brother, you are busy, we won't disturb you."
Qi Youwei didn't say anything, just watched in silence as the two of them quickly left the backyard.
With a bang, the door to the backyard was closed slightly, and after the door closed, only Qi Youwei was left there.
"Wang Er, only you dare to talk nonsense in front of him like that." Qi Zihong clicked his tongue. Li Yanze successfully received the talisman this time and was busy looking for Gu Fengze.
I don’t know why he left suddenly, as if he was deliberately avoiding something.
"A big shot like him wouldn't be so petty as to argue with a small fry like me."
Li Yanze chuckled, looked at the talisman paper back and forth, concentrated on sensing the spiritual power in it for a while, and found it inexplicably familiar. If it was not something from the Imperial Observatory, he would have thought it was drawn with his own spiritual power.
"Look at his white hair now. Who would have thought that he is two years younger than me." Qi Zihong couldn't help but sigh.
"Do you believe what I said now? I saw him once at a family banquet during the New Year. His hair was not so white at that time. He was in high spirits at the banquet and he rewarded many musicians and dancers, but he didn't even look at them. He never refused anyone who toasted him."
"And his facial expression was not like it is now. He kept smiling, and I thought he was happy that his heart disease had healed. But that night, the palace was in turmoil, and the entire Imperial Hospital and the Imperial Observatory were alarmed. After that, he issued such an edict and no longer stayed in the imperial capital. He went to wherever there was news."
Li Yanze treated it as if he was listening to a story, but he couldn't help but think of the play about the pearl's mistake.
So he wanted to go to Qingluan Mountain to ask for the fairy to come back? But there were no fairies on Qingluan Mountain, only two men and a tree spirit like him, or those bean-like spirits in the flower garden.
Or maybe they were all wrong. Maybe just like the people in power for thousands of years, Qi Youwei believed some rumors and wanted to go to Qingluan Mountain to seek the elixir of immortality.
"Brother! Where have you been?"
Qi Guze walked slowly towards him with a candied haws in his hand. When he saw him running towards him, he smiled and handed the candied haws to him.
"I just saw these flat candy balls for sale. You like them, so it's rare to come across them."
Li Yanze believed it, and immediately put aside all the doubts in his head, eating with a satisfied look on his face. Gu Fengze asked him: "Did you meet anyone just now?"
Li Yanze thought for a moment and said, "I met Qi Zihong's sixth brother. It seems that he is the one who wants to find Qingluan Mountain."
There were many people on the street, so Qi Zihong's colleagues called him away, and the three of them went back to being just the two of them.
When there was no one around, Gu Fengze would move closer, his arms around him intentionally or unintentionally, and he would lower his head with a smile as he adjusted his hat, his posture calm and natural.
Li Yanze finished speaking and then casually said, "But none of this matters. They can't find Qingluan Mountain anyway, and even if they find it, they can't get in. Let them go."
"Don't you want to earn that huge fortune?"
"This amount of gold is not easy to earn. If they want to confirm the news is true, they will naturally want us to accompany them in person. We will have to go with those big shots. It's troublesome."
Li Yanze shook his head: "Why don't we set up a stall to tell fortunes tomorrow, and then take on some small jobs to earn enough money and leave."
They just turned into a quiet alley, and Gu Fengze suddenly stopped and looked at Li Yanze.
"You seem to want to stay away from that big shot, what's wrong?"
Li Yanze shook his head: "I didn't want to stay away from him. We just met by chance and parted ways. I have no fate with him, so there is no question of whether I should avoid him or not."
"Just a stranger."
Gu Fengze suddenly moved closer and put his arm around Li Yanze's shoulders. Li Yanze looked up and felt his hat being lifted up. He lowered his head and moved closer.
Li Yanze didn't try to avoid him, he just lowered his head and approached him: "Well. Senior Brother..."
Behind his back, Gu Fengze pinched a secret talisman paper that was stuck on Li Yanze's shoulder. The flame ignited and turned into ashes between his fingers.
Seen from behind, the tall man held the man in green clothes' shoulders tightly with one hand and pressed him heavily towards himself, and he bent down as if he was impatient to push him into this remote alley, and got into his hat to kiss him wantonly.
But in fact, Gu Fengze just pinched Li Yanze's lips and pinched off a piece of syrup.
Gu Fengze let go of him, straightened up, and teased him for eating so much that it spilled all over the place.
The breeze passed around his fingertips, taking away the last bit of remaining talisman ash.
The leaves were blown by the wind. There was only one person left sitting under the locust tree in the backyard of the Imperial Observatory. The smell of burnt talisman paper lingered in the air. After the wind passed, the talisman ashes on the stone table in front of Qi Youwei were also blown away.
Qi Youwei lowered his head as if he was still looking at the talisman, and his hand on the table was pale and motionless. After a moment, a few drops of bright red blood fell on the hand, and Qi Youwei seemed to come to his senses and reached out to wipe the blood from his nose.
"Stranger." He muttered in a low voice as if chewing something, his gray hair hanging down on the side of his face, and it was unclear whether there was an expression of pain or numbness on his face.
"Fate brings us together and fate separates us..."
*
Li Yanze has always been very active. In the afternoon, he and Gu Fengze went around to find a place, and went out to set up a stall the next day.
Li Yanze talked about both the good and the bad. Most of the people here were ordinary people with lucky times and unlucky times. Occasionally, if he saw some families violated some taboos, he would also make a few remarks.
This is how all living beings are, busy in this world, striving for money, power and power, and all kinds of causes and effects are natural.
Li Yanze had just sent away a scholar who was asking about his marriage. He counted with his fingers and decided not to be greedy, so he lowered his head to collect his things.
A shadow stopped, Li Yanze pinched the copper coin and put it into his purse, without raising his head: "Let's not count it today, the destined person will come another day..."
A gold ingot was pushed in front of him. Li Yanze immediately decided to defy fate and put it into his purse.
"I'll make an exception for once. Someone wants to ask for divination... ah, it's you..."
Li Yanze saw Qi Youwei, dressed in purple, slowly bending his long legs and sitting in front of his stall in an inexplicably obedient manner.
Tao follows nature, so we shouldn't be greedy for more.
"Do you still need me to calculate for you?"
As Li Yanze spoke, he had already taken out the gold from his purse and was ready to return it. He had the entire Imperial Observatory to help him tell fortunes, so it was not his turn.
"Only you can help me figure this out."
Qi You lowered his eyes slightly, reached out to pick up the copper coin that fell on the ground, with a look of nostalgia on his face. He rubbed it and returned it to Li Yanze.
"If you ask me something that no one in the world knows, I won't know it either."
Qi Youwei insisted: "It's something that no one in the world knows, but you know."
Li Yanze became interested and picked up the copper coins and put them into the tortoise shell: "What exactly does the noble want to ask?"
"I once had a destined person. Now, I want to know if there is still unfinished fate between him and me."
Li Yanze looked at Qi Youwei and felt an inexplicable tightness in his heart. Finally, he avoided his gaze and told fortunes for him, with the sound of copper coins falling to the ground.
Qi Youwei then lowered his eyes to look at the table, and Li Yanze's little finger trembled, and the last copper coin actually knocked against it. Li Yanze subconsciously pinched it, and when his fingers touched it, he was stunned for a moment.
"Why?"
The copper coin in Li Yanze's hand broke into two halves, and nothing happened.
The fortune teller can only predict others, but not himself.
Qi Youwei sat there, looking quietly at Li Yanze's trembling eyes and smiled bitterly.
"Why?"
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