The old man who had fallen asleep finally opened his eyes.
An hour ago, two little boys, a man and a girl, aged seventeen or eighteen, had already entered his back hall. As soon as the girl entered, she wandered around the room admiring various antique collections, especially bronze mirrors, jewelry, etc. Rouge box and other dressing utensils, but this damn boy actually sat in front of him and stared at him for an entire hour.
The old man originally wanted to show off his "extraordinary" attitude and let these two kids get rejected, but he didn't expect that he couldn't stand it any longer.
It wasn't that he didn't want to entertain these two people, but as soon as they stepped on the threshold of the front yard door today, he knew that these two dolls were beyond his reach. But because the young man's gaze was really scary, even when he was leaning on the desk, he felt like a light was on his back, and he had no choice but to wake up from his slumber. He was very sure that if he really fell asleep by this time tomorrow, this boy would even be able to stare at him all day and all night.
At this moment, the old man had opened his eyes, and even though he was complaining in his heart, he could not get rid of these two people. He could only regret why he had not turned them away from the door in the first place.
"Sir, are you awake?" He Nan's hair was as long as a woman's, and it almost covered half of her face. One eye that was not covered by the long hair met the gaze of the old fortune teller, and he grinned slightly, with a playful look on his face.
Even though the boss in his heart was unwilling, the old man was forced to do this and had no choice. He had no choice but to clear his throat to hide his embarrassment, pretending to be just waking up from a dream and asked, "A fortune teller?"
"Foretelling?" He Nan wondered whether the old man was in a sleep state or was demented. What kind of fortune-telling did he, a man who runs an art studio, predict? His face changed, and he said fiercely, "Otherwise, it's still robbery?"
Before she finished speaking, Hongyu, who was walking around the room looking at herself in the mirror, came up behind He Nan at some point. She gently patted He Nan to signal him not to talk nonsense, then sat down next to He Nan and said respectfully to the old man. Said: "The old gentleman is the painter of this art gallery? I am not talented. I have been fond of painting since I was a child. I also have some insights into this. I am amazed when I see the old gentleman's paintings today. Please give me some paintings and give me some advice. .”
The old man was stunned for a moment before he realized that this couple was not here to tell his fortune, but to ask for Nao Shizi's paintings. He couldn't help but secretly rejoiced in his heart - since he didn't want to tell his fortune, he just took two paintings to tell his fortune. Just send them away quickly.
He was about to stand up and take out two scrolls of paintings for Hong Yu and the other two, when suddenly a hand stretched out in front of his eyes to stop his movement, "Just now I heard the old gentleman asked us in a daze when he woke up from his sleep if we wanted to Fortune telling, it seems that the old gentleman is also a fortune teller? I am also very interested in Yi Xue numerology. Since the old gentleman has already given me a painting for my wife, how about he also do a fortune teller for the two of me?" This sudden change is exactly what happened. It was sent by Uncle He Nanhe.
The old man smiled angrily and said, "Did this little brother hear wrongly? How could I..."
Before he finished speaking, the old man heard another interruption from someone behind him. It was his young disciple. This disciple was an upright and dull man. He said to He Nan and the others: "My master's art studio is actually an art studio." In fortune-telling divination halls, the rule here has always been to tell the fortune first and then give the painting. If you want a painting, you have to pay for the divination first, and the master will naturally express the result of the divination in the painting."
The old man was already secretly happy in his heart that he could do the job perfunctorily, but he didn't expect that he, an upright apprentice, would turn everything over to him. At this time, he became a little angry and suddenly got angry and said: "You can paint if you want, but you can't tell fortunes today. Not just today, It won’t work tomorrow, and it won’t work in the future either!”
He Nan's auspicious eyes suddenly changed from a playful look to a sullen expression. As a gust of wind passed by, his long hair was flying and his black robe was dancing, just like an evil ghost crawling out of the underworld. He gritted his teeth and said: "Today you have to draw my wife's painting, and you have to calculate my hexagram, otherwise..."
He took out a fire stick from his arms, and his words were full of threats, "Since the old gentleman has his own shop in this county, he must be highly skilled and well-known." He and his wife admired the old man. Why did the old gentleman kick us out after the gentleman had just finished painting? You set the rules. I think all the guests would respect the old gentleman for not breaking the rules. If you broke the rules today, don't blame He. Be merciful - first burn your house full of calligraphy treasures, and then smash the sign in front of your door!"
This speech is not without strong words to rob the truth, but even if it is a fallacy, it also takes up the word "reason". Since the establishment of the museum, the old man has made a rule of "drawing the divination text" and "predicting the divination first and then giving the painting". So far there is no exception. Even most people who seek hexagrams come here because they are attracted by the gimmick of painting hexagrams. If we really drive these two people out today, it will indeed mean that we will destroy our brand.
The old man thought about the pros and cons without saying a word. The apprentice was too frightened to speak because he didn't know what was going on. He Nan's eyebrows were filled with anger and anger. Hong Yu looked at He Nan complainingly, as if blaming him for not being so impulsive. The whole room fell into a state of confusion. In an eerie silence.
Not long after, the old man seemed to have made up his mind and shouted three times in a row, "That's it, that's it, that's it!" He sat down on his own and said to He Nan angrily: "Boy, I will settle the matter for you today. The last hexagram... do you want to tell your fortune, your future, or your marriage?"
"I've already said that we are husband and wife, so why do we need to consider marriage?" He Nan was a little unhappy, "Of course it's fate."
But the old man smiled slightly and whispered: "Are they really husband and wife...?"
The two of them each picked up a piece of white paper and wrote their birthdays and horoscopes on it. The old man took the two papers and took a look, but his heart sank.
He is a fortune teller and naturally believes in the signs of things. Early this morning, he saw dark crows covering the sky and the sun in his art studio and landing on the eaves. The crows did not make any noise, but stood quietly on the eaves in groups of three or five, as if waiting for something.
Crows are a sign of great evil and bad omen, and this great evil does not refer to the visitor, but to yourself. I am afraid that the person I am going to visit today is one of the most extraordinary people in the world. If I tell his fortune for him, I am afraid that my fortune will be ruined, so I decided to drive away He Nan and others. But the reason why he finally chose to tell fortunes for the two of them was also very simple - he was too curious. He had been studying for more than forty years and had only encountered one natural phenomenon so far - it was the cold winter at the end of the year. Heavy snow had been falling all day long, but that day the sun shone brightly, the sky was blue, and the ice and snow melted.
His friend who is both a teacher and a friend, the most famous master of metaphysics in the capital, invited him to the palace to read the fortune of a newborn child decades ago. The newborn child was beautiful, fair and rosy, with bright eyes, which was unusual. The baby cried like a newborn, but smiled, and the master of metaphysics also marveled at this baby. However, he was proficient in Yi Xue's fortune-telling and secretly remembered the child's birth date in his heart. He suddenly fainted while counting in his sleeves. After returning home, he fell seriously ill again, and his originally stocky and strong body became... He is also getting thinner and shriveled, probably because God does not allow him to speculate on the child's fate and future.
And this baby is the descendant of today’s saints...
I also encountered this kind of vision today, and the old man was naturally surprised and afraid of it. He was old, and if he forced himself to calculate today's divination, he might have one soul unsheathed and two souls ascending to heaven immediately, but he... really I want to see what kind of trouble I will encounter again.
It's just that of the two birthday cards in his hand, none of them have a fate worthy of today's vision. This little girl was born with bright eyes, white teeth, and fair skin. She is somewhat auspicious. She has been blessed with happiness, wealth, longevity, and happiness throughout her life. She can always turn bad luck into good fortune. If there is any trouble she will face, it will probably be love misfortune; and this man However, Wawa's fate was not worthy of his arrogance. His fate was very strange. He had many ups and downs in his life and was rebellious, but in the end he inevitably ended up with a bloody head.
The old man sighed, thinking that he had finally made up his mind to pry into the secret of heaven again, but what he got was a relatively ordinary fate of wealth and a fate that was so bad that it was a bit ridiculous. He even wondered if he was too old to be able to read the hexagrams accurately, and he could interpret everything as a sign.
He first made a snow-white nine-tailed fox for Hongyu. The nine-tailed fox's eyes were charming and silky, as if it had a human expression. It was lying lazily on a huge rock between the mountains and rivers to rest; the nine-tailed fox was white and white. Her tail was hanging down casually, and the tip of her tail was red. The old man was inspired by Hong Yu's red clothes. The nine-tailed fox is a spiritual beast. It gives birth to one tail every hundred years of cultivation. This tail also represents the blessings of a lifetime. And this little girl is also as quirky and carefree as the nine-tailed fox, so she made this painting. give her.
"Nine-tailed fox..." He Nan stretched his head to look at the painting in Hong Yu's hand, "You are not an old monster who has lived for nine hundred years, are you?"
Hong Yu carefully rolled up the nine-tailed fox and put it away, nodded to the old man to thank him, and rolled his eyes at He Nan: "Not to mention fortune telling, this painting technique is simply amazing... You must not do anything wrong. That's disrespectful, sir." After saying that, she went to the young apprentice in the art studio to ask for a scroll to store the painting.
Seeing that Hongyu had lost all his paintings and he still had nothing, He Nan felt as unbearable as a burning fire. He kept watching the old man draw, but he couldn't see what he was painting.
"What if the painting I gave you is different from hers - I mean what if the lives of you and your wife are completely opposite?" The old man said to He Nan when he saw Hong Yu leaving.
He Nan thought for a while and said: "It doesn't matter, I think the picture of hers should have a good life. Since you asked that, it means that my life seems to be very bad, right... The wife is a person who enjoys a happy life, so shouldn't the husband? Does it have to be a life of hard work?" Although he and Hong Yu were not a real couple, it was just a pretense, but he still thought about it from the perspective of a husband.
The old man smiled, but his impression of He Nan was not as disgusting as before: "You think quite clearly." However, his inner criticism was a bit pity - he is not just a toiler?
Not long after, He Nan also finished work on that painting. He hurriedly took it and looked at it, but he didn't know what kind of monster it was painted on - there was a beast in the painting, like a wolf and a dog, covered in blood and mangled, its two forelimbs were broken and disabled, but it still raised its head and glared angrily, grinning its teeth. .
"Your entire life is drawn on this picture."
"Old man... Bah, old gentleman." Seeing that he was being called disrespectfully, He Nan quickly changed his words and said, "What kind of animal did you draw? What's the meaning? Why does this thing look so bloody to me?"
The old man stroked his beard and explained: "This beast, like the nine-tailed fox, is also a legendary animal called 狈 - there is an idiom called wolf in embarrassment, which refers to this beast. This 狋It has the same origin as the wolf. It is said that only one Ao can be born among tens of thousands of wolves. Its behavior is greedy and cunning, its intelligence is far superior to that of beasts and it is extremely rare to have common humanity. Although Ao is smart, its forelimbs are extremely short and it cannot move freely. He lies on the strong wolf and directs their actions, so he is also called the strategist and think tank of the wolf pack. There is also a saying that Ai is not born with short forelimbs, but that the wolf with broken front legs does not have the ability to move alone, so he lies on his back. It was caused by being mistaken for a wolf mutant among his companions.”
The strategist of the pack of wolves... He Nan was very interested in this. Since I am a wolf, where are my wolves? Shanhe Mansion? still……
After a long while, He Nan realized that he was lost in thought. He had originally heard that the painter could tell fortunes, and he suddenly wanted to ask the old man to annotate another person's fate for him. Unexpectedly, he was immersed in it first.
He Nan hurriedly asked the old gentleman: "Can you please count it again? It's not for myself, but for someone else..."
Seeing that nothing happened today, the old gentleman relaxed and told him his fortune, saying: "But it doesn't matter, I just need to pay another fortune."
Based on his own memory, He Nan wrote another birthday note for someone else and handed it to the fortune teller. What people never expected was that He Nanjia's hexagram corresponded to the ominous omen that the old man was thinking today.
