In Nanxuan School and Dongli Xiaozhu, the atmosphere briefly fell into a quagmire of silence.
The north room was dark, and the south room, which was originally dark, was suddenly lit up. The dim light passed through the screen paper and vaguely illuminated the three students of Suixing Hall who were standing silently in front of the courtyard door.
One female and two male.
The female student's frail little body blocked the way of the two tall male students.
At this time, Zhao Rong's smile remained the same, but he stopped and kept his head still. His eyes turned slightly to the right to look at Yu Huaijin in front of him on the right.
I saw that this old-fashioned woman was behaving very strangely at this moment.
She walked out of the shadows in front of the door, holding a small white porcelain bowl in her left hand, lying across her belly, and a three-layered lacquer box in her right hand.
The small white porcelain bowl seemed to contain clear liquid, and there was a dim moon at the bottom of the bowl.
The paint box is dark and the specific color cannot be seen clearly.
Zhao Rong did not look at Yu Huaijin's dazzling jade-like white hands for the time being, but noticed the moon without any ripples at the bottom of the white porcelain bowl.
With a vigilant turn, he realized that this was indeed the Jiutian Han Palace that was slowly setting in the night, reflected in the bowl, and not some other weird thing.
It's just that you came to the boys' dormitory in this shape in the middle of the night. What do you want to do?
The school senior makes late-night snacks for the students to warm them up?
Zhao Rong squinted his eyes and couldn't help but glance at Yu Huaijin's expression.
The faint light from the paper window in the south room just illuminated her expressionless face, which was still as straight as during the day. She was not looking at him at this time, but looking straight ahead.
She was doing the same thing just now, without turning her head, she spoke to him who wanted to run away.
Seeing this scene, Zhao Rong returned his eyes and continued to raise his feet, walking forward with an unchanged smile.
One step, two steps, three steps.
The woman behind him didn't move at all.
He breathed a sigh of relief, then suddenly felt relieved and strode forward, as if he hadn't heard Yu Huaijin's words just now.
creak
Zhao Rong came to the door and pushed open the courtyard door.
Yu Huaijin still made no move.
Zhao Rong left.
In the courtyard of Dongli Xiaozhu.
Fan Yushu's originally somewhat gloating expression had long since subsided under Yu Huaijin's direct gaze. At this moment, he was like a dead eggplant, with his shoulders slumped and his eyelids squinting.
He raised his eyes slightly and saw Zhao Rong closing the courtyard door, and curled his lips slightly.
At this moment, Yu Huaijin suddenly moved.
She did not turn around to chase someone, but walked forward slowly with a bowl in one hand and a suitcase in the other.
Yu Huaijin came to the door of the North House where Zhao Rong lived, and gently placed the bowl of water she had picked up from the ink pond on the way here on the steps in front of the most prestigious North House in the courtyard.
He immediately turned around, opened the three-layer lacquer box, took out the white porcelain bowl containing other liquids, and continued walking in the yard.
Yu Huaijin placed a bowl of sweet wine and a bowl of white turbid wine near the door in the yard.
Then he placed the clearer light red wine in the center of the courtyard where the ceremony would be held later.
Finally, she placed the clearest wine firmly on the east side of the yard, in front of the fence that Zhao Rong had just installed not long ago.
A rough Confucian sacrificial ceremony is ready.
Yu Huaijin walked to the center of the courtyard, in front of a white porcelain bowl filled with light red wine. She glanced at Fan Yushu, who was expressionless, with an expressionless look. The latter nodded quickly after receiving the look.
The old-fashioned woman turned her head, reached out and took out an ordinary guqin from her wide sleeves.
With a slight toss, the guqin returned to its normal size and floated in the air in front of her.
Yu Huaijin faced north and softly recited a sacrificial poem.
"In the early days of ancient times, burning millet and boiling pigs, drinking from dirty bottles, and playing drums with earthen drums were still a way to pay homage to ghosts and gods."
At a certain moment, she solemnly followed the ancient rules and bowed.
Fan Yushu, who was already prepared beside him, quickly followed Yu Huaijin in saluting.
The door of the south room not far behind the two of them had been opened at some point. Jia Tengying, who was standing outside the threshold, also bent down to salute.
Because the person worshiping in the north is the most holy teacher in the Zhongzhou Confucian Temple.
After the ceremony, the courtyard was still quiet and unchanged.
Yu Huaijin stood up, stretched out an index finger, and hooked one of the strings of the guqin.
Give it a flick.
Zheng!
In the white porcelain bowl in front of her, in the middle of the calm water, there was a sudden ripple, as if something had fallen into it.
A light red water ripple, circular in shape, spreads from the center to all directions.
Inside the bowl, all the circular ripples reach the circular bowl wall at the same time, and in the next moment, they ignore the wall and come out through the bowl.
This circular ripple continues to spread, getting bigger and bigger.
Hems of student uniforms, vegetables, fences, stone steps, courtyard walls
The objects in contact with it during the diffusion process are like illusions and are ignored by the circular ripples. Or maybe it is an imaginary object.
The circular ripples left the hospital extremely quickly without any stagnation.
Yu Huaijin's eyes were lowered, looking at the water surface in the bowl that was blooming with waves, as if she was sizing up something. Her index finger that had just hooked the piano did not retract, and her fingertips were still lightly touching the strings.
The crystal fingertips and the dragon's tendon strings were motionless.
The old-fashioned woman waited quietly.
The courtyard was silent, except for the chirping of insects that had been heard one after another not long ago. I don't know when, but there was no sound anymore.
When Fan Yushu saw this scene, he didn't show the slightest surprise or doubt. Instead, he sighed and looked up at the sky. His eyes were dull and lifeless as he looked at the night sky where the stars and moon were dimmed, as if he was hopeless.
He sighed again, only regretting why he came to Brother Ziyu so early with a sense of luck. He had to start studying before dawn, and he was still in this dirt-filled vegetable garden.
Jia Tengying, who was in front of the south house, looked at Yu Huaijin's thin figure standing quietly while playing the piano. After thinking for a while, he walked to the vegetable garden, squatted down, and lowered his head to tidy up the vegetable patch.
At this moment.
Zheng
The strings sounded for the second time.
Yu Huaijin in the center of the yard withdrew his eyes from the white porcelain bowl, and at the same time withdrew the white index finger that he had stretched out.
She put her hands into her sleeves, turned her head to look at Fan Yushu, who was acting coquettishly, and spoke softly.
"Today, make up for your homework before going to Taiqing Mansion. If you finish it early, you can go back earlier."
Fan Yushu quickly retracted his sad expression of looking at the sky at an angle and glared at Yu Huaijin. He directly ignored the previous sentence "If it is completed early", and looked at her with hopeful eyes, "What if I can't finish writing? What should I do? ?”
Yu Huaijin thought for a while, nodded and said seriously: "Then this time tomorrow."
Fan Yushu: “…………”
Zhao Rong closed the courtyard door and strode away.
He raised his head and glanced at the sky. In the distance, there was a row of dark mountains. Where they intersected with the night, there was a ray of sky that was about to break out of its shell.
Zhao Rong raised the corner of his mouth slightly, thinking about the two women for a while, and the contact information with Lu Wan, the coachman of Chenji Car and Horse Company, in his mind. He walked out of Nanxuan School with thoughts swirling.
When Zhao Rong arrived at Jiquan Pavilion and was about to pass by, suddenly a cool breeze came from behind him.
Slightly cold.
Zhao Rong tightened his shirt and suddenly felt something brushing against his ankle.
Above his head, the night before dawn seemed to get darker.
Zhao Rong frowned slightly and looked down. His trousers were slightly wet from the morning dew. He looked around, then shook his head and continued on his way...
About a quarter of an hour later, Zhao Rong came to Jiquan Pavilion for the fourth time.
His face was heavy, and he turned to look at the pavilion next to him.
At this time, the sky was already bright, the early sun was gradually rising, and the dew on the leaves was shaking.
However, there was not a single sound of insects chirping or birds chirping.
The morning in front of Zhao Rong was as quiet as a quiet room.
At first he thought it was the tranquility of all things before dawn, but gradually he stopped thinking so.
During this quarter of an hour, Zhao Rong kept walking straight forward, but he kept walking back to Jiquan Pavilion like a ghost beating a wall.
"You've entered the battle." Gui's voice sounded in Xinhu.
Zhao Rong frowned, "What formation and who set it up?"
Gui lazily said:
"What are you worried about? What is there to be afraid of in Linlu Academy... What kind of formation, I can't tell in this state, but it is here, so it must be the formation arranged by your Confucian etiquette and music.
Well, as for who set it up, think about it and have you provoked anyone recently?"
Zhao Rong folded his hands and thought carefully for a while, then he opened his brows and in his sleeves, the red maple leaf he was twisting with both hands was put away again.
Zhao Rong turned around and returned to Nanxuan Academy.
Not long after, Zhao Rong pushed open the courtyard door of Dongli Xiaozhu with an expressionless face.
He glanced around, ignoring the three people in the courtyard, looking around the courtyard, and found the small white porcelain bowls in the southeast, northwest and other places, as well as the guqin in the center.
"It is a small sacrifice among the five auspicious rituals of Confucianism. The arrangement is simple but very delicate. It can still trap you without spiritual cultivation." Gui Cong glanced at the ajna chakra and said.
Then, it seemed to have an insight into Zhao Rong's thoughts, and it continued: "On the surface, the formation eye is the white porcelain bowl in the middle of the yard, but it is just a blind eye, maybe it is also a door to death... the dark eye is a floating eye.
The empty guqin, Confucian sacrifice, pays attention to the harmony of ritual and music, and the same is true for setting up the formation with Confucian rituals."
Zhao Rong turned around to look while listening to Gui's words.
Jia Tengying was holding a vegetable basket, fetching water and washing vegetables in front of the well in the northeast corner.
Fan Yushu sat at an open-air stone table in the courtyard, immersed in a pile of books, just looking at it, his shoulders suddenly slumped from time to time, biting the penholder, lying on the stone table, but the next second, he fell again
He straightened his upper body like a corpse and continued to write furiously, because a ruler was already dangling by his side.
Yu Huaijin stood in front of the stone table, holding a ruler and supervising Fan Yushu with his head lowered.
At this moment, she raised her head slightly and cast her gaze.