The warm wind blew through the piles of green flowers in the garden. The petals of various colors flowed with the wind and fell on the stone slabs, in the garden pavilion, on the Chengxin Lake, and on the Fengshui Pavilion. The footsteps sounded briskly on the stone slabs. The garden suddenly became more alive.
Cheng Ting and Mo Lingfeng walked side by side and kept asking: "I remember there was a big elm tree here, why is it gone?"
He came to play when Mo Lingfeng was one year old, so he remembered it.
"It was struck by lightning." Mo Lingfeng raised his hands high, "Suddenly, the fire burned so high."
Cheng Ting sighed angrily for the elm money tree. Following Mo Lingfeng as he walked forward, he turned around and asked, "Where is this place?"
He opened his hands widely: "Why is such a big Guanyin statue gone? I heard that my aunt hired it."
Mo Lingfeng replied: "My brother doesn't believe in Buddhism, so he sent him to Xiongshan Temple to worship him."
The three of them passed by the lake and took a detour through a bluestone path behind the water pavilion to exit the garden. The scenery gradually changed, with no flowers or grass in sight, only a few ancient trees with connected crowns, blocking the sky and the sun, casting cold and heavy shadows.
In this huge, dark green shadow, sits "Jiusixuan".
Wu Jin stepped on the bluestone under the shade of the tree and immediately felt a chill coming from under his feet. He couldn't help but lower his head to look - the bluestone under his feet was very oily and not a deserted place.
He stopped shivering and followed Mo Lingfeng as he walked in. In the middle was the three-wide main house, which was also swallowed up by the umbrella-like tree crown. The door was covered with Korean paper as bright as satin, and the door opened to both sides. Lit up, the situation in the house can be seen at a glance.
In the front there is a black lacquer incense table, a statue of Confucius, a rose table and chairs, and in the middle there are three black lacquered flat tables with rows of writings on them. There are pens, inks, paper and inkstones neatly placed on them, and there are green cushions on the ground. .
The light was dim, and everything inside seemed to be covered with a layer of gray gauze. The servant stood inside, fixed, like a puppet.
After Wu Jin crossed the threshold, he saw the "puppet" moving and quietly lighting up the three candles in the room. The room suddenly burst into light, illuminating the portraits hanging on the wall.
Mo and Cheng worked together to drag the big yellow dog in, pull the cushions on the floor, put them together, and push away the pens, inks, papers and inkstones on the flat table, which was used to spread the snacks brought by Cheng Ting.
Mo Lingfeng turned his head, patted the cushion on the ground, and said to Wu Jin with a bright smile, "Wu Jin, come on!"
Her crumbling tooth was gone, but she couldn't help but stick out her tongue and lick her gums - a small tooth popped out.
The silent old house suddenly came to life, with oil paper packages opening and closing, rustling, chewing sounds intermittent, mixed with voices and the sounds of the big yellow dog struggling.
The sudden movement startled the mountain babblers that were living in Jiusixuan. A group of mountain babblers fluttered and circled, making a sharp "dedede" cry.
When the babbler cries, all the birds in the garden also sing in response, making a long and noisy sound.
In front of Jiusixuan is the Mofu study room.
Mo Qianlan was most afraid of this kind of noise. All his screams turned into thin and long needles, piercing into his brain and giving him a headache. Every time he had epilepsy, he had a headache for several days, especially this time. Violently, the slightest movement made my mind become a mess.
He closed his eyes, and after a while he calmed down and listened to Mo Lingfeng's nanny talking.
"Last night I was so excited that I just fell asleep. This morning, I woke up at midnight. I put on the new clothes I just made. I didn't eat anything. I just asked the kitchen to make 24-color wontons. I said I would wait for them all to come. We ate together, but we didn’t know when they would come, so we waited at the back corner door before dawn.”
After hearing this, Mo Qianlan's head started to hurt even more.
Zhao Shiheng sat below and asked the nanny to step aside first. He smiled and said, "Girl has grown up and wants to make friends."
Mo Qianlan's face looked like an imprisoned winter melon, turning blue and white in turns, his eyes were gloomy, and he was gritting his teeth, not knowing whether he was enduring the pain or not feeling angry.
After a moment, he struggled to say: "I can also be her friend. She has so many little maids who can all be her friends."
"You are an old man, and the maid is a servant," Zhao Shiheng said mercilessly, "You can't even be her friend."
Mo Qianlan snorted: "Two brats."
Zhao Shiheng laughed and felt like he was drowning in Mo Qianlan's river of vinegar. He stood up and stretched: "I'm going to try the twenty-four flavors of wontons. It's rare to eat them. Once I'm full, I can go Do you want to work hard?"
Mo Qianlan slumped in his chair: "I can't eat it."
He was so angry that he still had a headache, and all the medicine he took seemed to be thrown on stones, and it was of no use at all.
The plaster Li Yi Tie sent was at hand. He thought about it for a long time, but he still didn't put it on his temples.
The birds kept chirping, and the fight in Mo Mansion gradually stopped when Wu Jin and the other three finished their wontons and sat down together to eat sweets.
After the big yellow dog had a good meal, it no longer frowned, but with a drooped face. It kept the farthest distance from Cheng Ting and stretched the dog's leash long and straight, as if they were a pair of enemies.
Mo and Cheng temporarily lost interest in dogs. They tied the dog leash to the table leg and munched on peanut cakes while showing off their poor handwriting.
Wu Jin spread out a piece of paper. The paper was flat and thick, so there was no need to press corners. He took the ink stick and slowly ground it.
Cheng Ting first took a pen, dipped it in ink and wrote, leaving a long string of ghostly drawings on the paper: "Look, I can write in cursive!"
Just scribbles, not written.
Not to be outdone, Mo Lingfeng pulled the paper and snatched his pen: "I can write big characters."
She did know how to write, and the words got bigger and bigger, so big that they couldn't fit on a piece of paper.
One of the two wrote "cursive script" and the other wrote "big characters". After writing several sheets, they became tired and asked Wu Jin to write.
Wu Jin could only write in block letters, so he picked up his pen and wrote a piece without anything new.
As soon as I put down my pen and arrived at Beacon Hill, I heard a servant outside the house calling him "Mr. Zhao."
Wu Jin quickly stood up and wanted to clean it up, but he saw everything was in a mess and had no idea what to do. He had to rush to the door, where he went to greet his husband as a servant. He bowed and lowered his hands to open the curtain for Zhao Shiheng: "Sir, please come in."
"Yeah." Zhao Shiheng glanced at him and stepped into the house.
The big yellow dog was unexpected. It frowned at Zhao Shiheng, shook its head and tail, and was very enthusiastic.
Wu Jin looked at Zhao Shiheng carefully.
Zhao Shiheng was wearing a valley scarf and a soap-colored shirt. He was thin, but not thin. He had single eyelids, a high bridge of his nose, and a short beard. He did have a slight limp when he walked. He walked to Mo Lingfeng's desk and stood there, using only one foot. Support your body.
He bent down to pick up the words they had written, each finger showing a careless aloofness.
Cheng Ting was not at all afraid of the lecturers in the Prefecture School, but when he saw Zhao Shiheng, he felt as if he was overwhelmed by the mountain. He sat back with the cushions and did not dare to speak easily.
Wu Jin also walked in, placed the pen, ink, paper and inkstone gently, put away the oil-paper bag spread out on the table, sent it outside, then untied the dog's leash and let the big yellow dog go out.
After everything was put away, he sat down at the flat table next to Cheng Ting in a dignified manner.
