Without further ado, the three of them entered the royal residence before the sun set with a huge gift of six copper coins in their arms. Yan Yueming walked second, protected by teachers and seniors. Although he was a little scared, he was still calm.
Li Heping still took the lead, taking the two copper coins he had received and throwing them up and down in his hand, with the momentum of two gold ingots. Looking at his paunchy, amiable and wealthy appearance, he seemed to be a country squire who came here to have a drink.
The moment he walked in, Yan Yueming could feel the familiar thorns on his back, but only for a moment. He quickly imitated Li Heping and threw the coin behind the door, and the feeling receded like a tide.
Yan Yueming breathed a long sigh of relief and looked around carefully from the corner of his eye. Wherever he looked, there were red lanterns and red silk, and there was a red carpet on the ground.
Because last time Li Heping entered the Wang's house, he went out directly through the exit of the Wang's house, so he didn't have time to leave the "Access Instructions" at the door, so he could only give verbal instructions.
"In such a big house, running around is the most taboo, so you must know where you are. This is the outer courtyard, and after passing through the hanging flower gate, you will find the inner courtyard. The inner courtyard is the back house, where the female family members live, but the three of us They are all men, so when you go in later, you must be careful not to be discovered."
"But how can we be considered discovered? There is no one. I can't see the other party. How do I know if the other party can see me?" Yan Yueming asked in a low voice.
Although there were teachers and seniors around, he became a little bolder, but not too much. He had already entered the alert mode, watching all directions and listening in all directions, and the volume automatically lowered.
"Although you can't see the other party, the other party is set to be a person in the house, right? Since they are people, they will have blind spots in their sight, so you have to walk in the blind spots." As he said that, Li Heping pointed forward. The shadow under the wall.
"Where the light doesn't shine? Can't see the shadow?" Yan Yueming was suddenly cheerful.
Li Ping Ruzi nodded instructively. Although this young apprentice does not seem to have a very high IQ, he has a good memory and good understanding. Although he has many questions, once he has explained them to him once, he is not very likely to ask them a second time.
For Li Heping, as a person gets older, if he has to explain a problem a second time, his life will be shortened.
"There are some other rules, such as-"
"First, don't walk near the water, otherwise you may fall in. And once you go to change clothes, something bad may happen. I have tried this myself."
"Two, don't eat any tea or food here at will, or you may be poisoned."
"Third, if you smell incense after entering the house, immediately hold your breath and extinguish the incense."
Yan Yueming was dumbfounded when he heard this, "Isn't this a house fight?"
As soon as the words came out of his mouth, he was shocked to realize that he had revealed his inner OS. Li Heping teased him, "Xiao Ming seems to understand very well. Do you usually read a lot?"
Yan Yueming shook his head solemnly, "It wasn't me who saw it, it was all my aunt who saw it."
I'm sorry, aunt.
If Li Zheng hadn't seen Yan Yueming combing the hair of that ugly little girl while watching a bloody TV series on Huayuan Road, he would have believed it. It's just that this little boy rarely lies, so it's not bad to let him deceive the teacher.
The teacher was kept in the dark and continued: "The rules of the outer courtyard are relatively simple, but one thing should be remembered. No matter what you hear, don't respond. Especially near the outer study room, even if you hear me and your senior I call you, but don’t answer, got it? Even if there are footsteps approaching behind you, don’t make any move to run away, ignore it, you have to make sure that you - nothing, nothing, hear, hear .”
Yan Yueming, who is familiar with various plots of house fights and palace fights, immediately thought of a sentence in his mind: Anyone who leaks secrets must die.
Just at this moment, night fell.
The last ray of the setting sun was swallowed up by the distant mountains, and all the red lanterns were lit up. The wind swayed the candles. Listen carefully, and there was a little more buzzing sound of burning wicks in the wind, as well as the chirping of birds and the chirping of insects. But they were all gone.
Yan Yueming looked up again and found a blood moon rising in the sky. The blood moon in the sky and the red lanterns on the ground complement each other, making the whole world covered with a faint layer of blood.
"Plop, plop..." Yan Yueming heard his heartbeat clearly. At this time, Li Zheng's calm voice came from behind, "I'm going to the study."
Li Heping turned around and made a gesture to Li Zheng. The two reached a tacit understanding silently and then split up.
Yan Yueming continued to follow Li Heping, and they went straight to the Chuihua Gate and the inner courtyard. On the way, Li Heping whispered to Yan Yueming that the piece of paper with the message was found in the rockery pavilion in the inner courtyard.
Even if Li Heping came once, he didn't dare to say that he was familiar with the road, so he took every step carefully, his face was solemn, and there was no mischief anymore.
Sure enough, they soon encountered the first difficulty - only the weeping flowers but no door.
Where the door should have been, the door disappeared, leaving only large tracts of roses hanging from the courtyard wall.
Yan Yueming recognized this kind of flower, it was called butterfly. There are many colors and ancient varieties, which he saw when he was browsing flowers online after learning about Li Zheng Flower Shop.
Flowers of different colors bloom in clusters, just like butterflies wearing flowers. They are beautiful, but unusual. Yan Yueming subconsciously looked away to prevent herself from looking too much. At the same time, Li Heping's voice reached her ears again.
"Do you see the door? It's right there," he said.
But the door isn't there? Yan Yueming was confused, and then quickly thought that this was in the gap. The so-called mountains are not mountains, and water is not people. Everything may cause cognitive errors. Colors, shapes, and everything seen with the naked eye can be cloaked in confusion. .
So the correct answer should be - what I see is mountain, what I see is water.
The crux of the problem is that Xiao Ming is just Xiao Ming and does not have such a strong self-awareness. So what should he do? He had an idea and took off his glasses.
The world became blurry in an instant, and all the butterflies wearing flowers turned into blurry colors under the night. It can be flowers, or of course it can be some insignificant carvings on the hanging flower door. In addition, the candlelight of the lantern has a hazy effect, and when the evening breeze blows, there will be double images.
"I'm fine." Yan Yueming looked at Li Heping, who gave him a big sign.
thumb, and then said seriously, "Let's go."
Two people together
As he walked towards the hanging flower door, Li Heping passed through the wall without any hindrance, while Yan Yueming let his eyes and brain empty as he walked.
He didn't think about anything but gave himself a psychological hint: there was a door in front of him and he wanted to go through it.
When he stepped through the door, he felt a little sluggish. It seemed that there was a force blocking him, and the cold breath was like the thorn of the flower, forcing him to retreat due to difficulties.
But he accepted the truth, the door was the door, how could he not let Xiao Ming pass?
He stepped with his right foot today!
Thinking of this, he was still a little angry. With this anger, he stepped forward hard, and the sluggish feeling seemed to be crushed. He regained his freedom and was inside the door in an instant.
Looking back again, the hanging flower door stood neatly behind me. It was such a big door and there was not much to say. Everything just now seemed like an illusion.
"Don't look back." Li Heping called him and continued walking forward, "In the gap, the probability of survival is higher if you go forward than if you turn back."
Yan Yueming then put away his distracting thoughts and continued to move forward.
After passing through the hanging flower door and walking into the hand veranda, they bypassed a small courtyard and came to the large garden. There is a pond here with a rockery beside the pond and a pavilion on the rockery.
Yan Yueming remembered the teacher's words to stay far away from the water and hide in the shadows. But the teacher added that the piece of paper with the message was found in the pavilion. If you want to get to the pavilion, you have to walk by the water, and there will be a section of the road exposed to the moonlight and candlelight.
The time to test Xiao Ming has arrived.
Li Heping glanced at Yan Yueming, as if asking him if he was ready. Yan Yueming took a deep breath, dug out of his backpack, took out a black fisherman's hat, and a black mask, put them all on, and nodded heavily.
It was at this time that Li Heping discovered that Yan Yueming was wearing all black today, with only the T-shirt under the jacket being white. At this moment, he zipped up his coat and put on a hat, and his whole body almost blended into the night.
This little apprentice is quite prepared.
Li Heping immediately made a "go" gesture, and the two headed towards the rockery pavilion. After walking a few steps, the shadow disappeared, and the dark Xiao Ming was forced to be exposed to the bloody moonlight. The back of his neck felt cold and his scalp was numb.
He didn't dare to stop and kept running forward.
This time one after another, the roots of his hair were soaked with cold sweat, especially when he was passing by the water, his feet suddenly slipped while he was treading firmly. Fortunately, Li Heping gave him a hand and led him to run quickly and finally arrived at the rockery pavilion.
Although the rockery pavilion is ventilated from all sides, the shadows of trees and railings cast a shadow for easy shelter.
There is a stone table in the pavilion. On the table are pens, inks, paper and inkstones, as if someone is sitting there writing. Yan Yueming looked towards the table and saw the message written by Li Heping on the top piece of rice paper.
[If I were really the protagonist, then I would curse it, possessing bad luck, and always being out of touch at critical moments. 】
This line of writing was written with a brush, and the font is crooked. It seems that the person who wrote it is not used to using a brush. The characters are in simplified Chinese and there are punctuation marks. There is no doubt that he is a modern person like them.
At this time, Li Heping took off the paper again, revealing the paper underneath.
There is a painting on the paper below, and it is the scenery beside the pond. It's just that this person's painting skills are average and unremarkable. There is a signature in the lower right corner, and the signature is a single word: Lan.
"This person can put this pile of things in the rockery pavilion in the backyard and sit here to paint the scenery. He must not be a servant. Look at the style of these things and the paper... is it rouge stained? Is it a female family member?" Yan Yueming analyzed.
"It should be the concubine. I saw the lady's memorial tablet last time. There was no sign of the new lady moving in in the master bedroom. There were a lot of concubines. The back room should be occupied by the lady, but it was also empty. This house is indeed There is only one son." Li Heping said.
Yan Yueming nodded, indicating that he understood. Why did my concubine come to paint in this drafty pavilion? Without him, it's just a regular operation of Zhai Dou.
"Then the wanderer who is suspected to be the protagonist happened to come here and found a pen and paper, so he left such a line?" Yan Yueming asked.
"It should be. So we have to look around to see if this person is somewhere else and has left any other words so that we can confirm his (her) identity." Li Heping said.
Of course, Yan Yueming would not forget the purpose of his trip. He looked around and looked at other parts of the house.
This rockery pavilion is not high, but in small mountain villages where one-story buildings are common, it is tall enough. Standing here, he could not only see other courtyards in the house, but also see beyond the courtyard wall to see a little bit of the situation outside. The mountain village is quiet at night, and the distant mountains are like crawling monsters with rugged backs.
Above the monster is a blood moon.
On the other side, the bloody moonlight shines through the paper window into the outer study.
There was an oil lamp on the desk, and Li Zheng stood in front of the desk, flipping through the books by the light. Suddenly, there was a "squeaking" sound from behind, the door seemed to open, and a slight wisp of wind blew across the back of his neck.
How light is the wind?
Just enough to blow up a hair.
"Senior?"
"Senior?"
Yan Yueming's voice came, timid and a little breathy.
Li Zheng turned a deaf ear and his expression did not change at all.
The lamp flickered, and the voice came again, implying grievance and pitifulness. If Li Zheng looks down, he will find that the shadows on the ground are also swaying. Listen carefully, and there seems to be rustling footsteps in the wind blowing from behind.
Can not look.
Can't listen.
Unable to respond.
So he picked up the pen on the table and wrote two big words on the rice paper: unpleasant.
Well, he just wrote two random words to practice his calligraphy, so it wasn't really a response.
