Chapter 464: The Name Must Be Fresh
I asked, “How many years has this hotel been built?”
Long Yuan's partners rushed to answer, one saying ten years, the other eleven. I didn't care whether it was ten or eleven years, and continued:
"The owner who invested couldn't continue the business and sublet it. The owner who took over couldn't continue the business either and sublet it. In short, no matter who owns this hotel, it's a loss."
Long Yuan said, "Yes. When I took over, the hotel was already dirt cheap. I took it over because I thought I had a lot of friends."
Shaojie and I clinked glasses, took a sip, and slowly said, "Looking at the terrain, this should be a development zone, but it hasn't been successfully developed."
Shaojie said: "That's true. At that time, the government was ambitious, but problems arose with the county leader, and the next leader ignored the mess and shifted the focus to northward development.
The leadership changed again two years ago, and I heard that they consulted a Feng Shui master before deciding to expand southward. Of course, I just heard that from hearsay.”
I said, "This is a good thing. First, the Eighth Lucky Year is over, and the Ninth Lucky Year is here. The Ninth Lucky Year benefits the south, so developing the south is the right thing to do. Second, this hotel can't be built because the north side is empty. In feng shui, it's called having no support, being isolated and helpless. Now someone's building a residential complex out back, with 18 floors, which is great."
Long Yuan asked: "Is this important?"
I nodded without explaining, because this was a fact proven by countless facts.
Long Yuan asked: "Is there anything else we should pay attention to?"
I said, "The hotel's name needs to be changed. 'Yuan' means a place where emperors used to raise animals and plant trees. Nowadays, people like to use 'Yuan' all the time, which shows they're uneducated."
The court is where the emperor discusses state affairs. The court is where ministers are summoned in the morning to discuss state affairs. It is extended to mean the ruling body.
"You're a small hotel, and you're calling it 'Yuan' and 'Ting'. It's like a clown becoming a leader. Your virtue is unworthy of your position. How can you be both a 'Yuan' and a 'Ting'?"
Long Yuan said, "So that's how it is."
I said, "Besides, the four characters don't conform to mathematics. The character 'Nan' has nine strokes, 'Yuan' has eight strokes, 'He' has eight strokes, and 'Ting' has six strokes. That adds up to 31 strokes. 31 divided into two numbers and then added together equals 4. It's an odd number."
Shaojie said, "Is there so much to pay attention to?"
I said, "Feng shui isn't just about the direction. It includes the mountain in front and the back, the size of the front door, and even the name of the store. Some half-baked masters only care about the front and not the back, and their half-baked knowledge is so high that it harms people."
Everyone felt guilty after hearing this, because in their understanding, Feng Shui is just about looking at the feng shui.
One of the partners asked, "Master, what else are there? Please point them out."
"The door is fine, but the bar can't face the door. Move the bar to the left side of the hall. Who designed this?"
Long Yuan blushed and said, "I don't understand. I acted on my own."
I said, "Change this immediately."
Everyone nodded in agreement.
"There are no other opinions."
Everyone applauded.
Long Yuan asked the waiter to heat up the rice. I said, "Come on, let's eat it all with Master Tan."
Tan Shaojie and I clinked glasses, and after we finished, the waiter brought us a bowl of steaming hot rice. I scooped a spoonful of soup and ate a bowl of rice.
After eating, he stood up and said, "Everyone take a rest, I want to take a nap too."
The partners left, and Long Yuan and Shao Jie accompanied me upstairs. I said to Shao Jie, "There are two beds, you can take a rest too."
I always felt a little tired, so I washed my face, went to bed and fell asleep.
I was woken up by Long Yuan, who said, "It's half past three."
I got up and saw Shaojie was already awake, sitting on the sofa, looking at his phone. I smiled apologetically, washed my face, and said, "Let's go."
There was already a car waiting downstairs. Shaojie sat in the passenger seat, and Longyuan sat with me in the back seat.
Shaojie said, "Let's go."
After driving in the county town for about ten minutes, the car drove into the suburbs. Five minutes later, it stopped in front of a four-story building.
After we got out of the car, Shaojie introduced me to his cousin, who was driving the car. I nodded.
Cousin Shaojie led us into the house, opened a door with a key, and turned on the light. Wow, half of the house was covered with stones.
Shaojie said, "I've sorted them according to your selection. I threw away the useless ones and washed these with water. What do you think of my taste?"
My cousin Shaojie brought me a small stool and I sat down to look over the stones. Shaojie and Longyuan squatted on either side.
I have to say Shaojie has a great eye for art. The stones he selected each have their own unique characteristics. He really followed my method of selection. Some are distinguished by their shape, some by their patterns, and some by their designs.
I said, "It's impossible to see them all. As I said before, the key is naming. If you get the name right, you're halfway to success."
Shaojie said: "Then please give a few examples."
I rummaged around and found a smooth pebble, showed it to them, and asked, "Based on the pattern on this stone, what name do you plan to give it?"
Brother Long looked at it and said, "It looks like a river. Is it named 'Gurgling Flowing Water'?"
Shaojie looked at it for a while and said, "It flows east to the sea."
I laughed and said, “It should be ‘You Live at the Head of the Yangtze River’. This way, the vague pattern upstream looks a bit like a house. When you write it this way, people will think of the poem - You live at the head of the Yangtze River, I live at the tail of the Yangtze River, I miss you every day but I can’t see you, we drink the water of the Yangtze River together.
The more you look at this little pattern downstream, the more it looks like a person sitting by the river, right?
The two of them leaned over to look at each other, and Long Yuan exclaimed, "It really looks like it, and it looks like a woman."
Shaojie also exclaimed: "Yes, it's a woman."
I laughed and said, "That's called the method of suggestion. You use a line of poetry to suggest a certain mood. Originally, it doesn't look like a house, nor does it look like a woman. But because the poem reminds you of these things, the more you look at it, the more it resembles them."
This is the story of the ancients, "Neighbor Suspects an Axe." A man lost an axe and suspected that his neighbor's son had stolen it.
So he observed the man carefully and thought that the way he walked was like that of an axe thief, his face was like that of an axe thief, and his words were like that of an axe thief. In short, everything he said and did was like that of an axe thief.
For artworks, we need to divert attention and use suggestion to extract the artistic conception of the pattern."
The two suddenly realized.
I found another rock and asked them to name it. This time, they came up with something more meaningful. Shaojie said, "We can call this pattern 'High Mountains and Flowing Water'."
Long Yuan said: "Yes, high mountains and flowing water."
I shook my head. "For a stone like this, nine out of ten people would choose 'High Mountains and Flowing Water,' but that's worthless and a common name."
Shaojie said, "There is a small bridge below, but the flowing water doesn't match the mountain. The mountain is very obvious."
I said, “For this kind of stone with a very obvious main pattern, we have to ignore the main pattern in order to be different from others.
Look, there are mountains, canyons, and a small bridge. A more sophisticated take would be "Visiting the Hermit, Not Meeting Him," or even more sophisticated, "Secretly Crossing Chencang."
There is a special force that cannot be seen in the painting. They built a bridge in this high mountain valley, and they crossed the river secretly here. Isn't it more artistic?"
They both picked up the stone and looked at it head-on. They slapped their thighs and exclaimed, "It's amazing! The more I look at it, the more it looks like a soldier's felt hat."
I said, "Yeah, I'd rather keep it. I have to think of ten names for each stone and choose the best one before I put it up for sale online."
Shaojie smiled bitterly and said, "If I think of ten names, my head will break."
I laughed out loud. "Don't you have a group of friends who get together regularly and bring ten stones each time to think of names. If anyone is chosen, you give him 10% of the sales. Wouldn't that be a good way to pool ideas?"
Shaojie thought for a moment and said, "We can't rely on them. Let's call some friends who are teachers."
I said, "That's fine."
Shaojie said, "When you came, Teacher Wan, and gave me on-site guidance, I was really enlightened. It's great."
Long Yuan said, "Send Teacher Wan back to rest, and we'll go prepare the show."
Shaojie's cousin drove us back to the city. In the car, Longyuan called his friends and asked them to come to the hotel quickly.
Shaojie said, "Teacher Wan, why don't you just stay? We may be a little poor, but we are very happy."
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