In the early morning of the next day, Shen Ruoliao took the autumn breeze, followed by Yuan Hui and Nangong Qiu, bid farewell to Huandan Zhenren, and left Wudang Mountain.

They first went to Xiangyang, where they rested and played for two days to buy horses. After the three of them discussed leaving Xiangyang, they would go to Wuchang first, and then go all the way down the river to Yingtian Capital. In this way, Nangong Qiu can have a good time, and Yuan Heng is also trying to go to Yingtian to see the situation under the jurisdiction of the new emperor who has just ascended the throne. They planned to stay in the capital for three or four days, then go north, pass through Mount Tai and Jinan, visit for two more days, and then return to Beiping.

After the plan was confirmed, Shen Ruoliao was completely alive and couldn't hold back. He stayed idle in Wudang Mountain for three months, and seeing that September had bottomed out, he couldn't help but want to rush back to Beiping and see King Yan, so that his life could quickly get back on track. In the three months of Wudang Mountain, he thought of King Yan and had a gloomy headache; At this moment, he seems to have changed as a different person, as long as he hears people mention Beiping and Yanwang, he is extremely excited. He likes to listen to Yuan Heng talk about some of the current affairs of the current dynasty or the history of the previous dynasty; If he didn't listen for a day, he couldn't sit still, and he always had to find ways to arouse the topic, and then draw new stories from Yuan Gao's mouth.

They left Xiangyang and hit the road. Shen Ruoliao rode on horseback; Nangong Qiu sat in front of him, looked at Yuan Hui who was parallel, and asked curiously:

"Grandpa, why are you so worried?"

Yuan Jue was slightly stunned and said perfunctorily:

"Do I have it? It's too late for me to be happy. ”

Nangong Qiu frowned: "Grandpa, you lied." You blink as you speak. ”

Yuan Hui was really helpless: "My eyes are in the sand, can I not blink?" ”

Shen Ruoyu smiled on the side and said, "Sir, you can admit it, you can't fight her." I threw in the towel a long time ago. ”

Yuan Heng smiled bitterly: "Ruoxiao, you don't help me speak, but support her." The reason why I am sad is because of you. ”

"Because of me?"

Yuan Heng nodded. "Your heart is towards King Yan, but I don't know why, your future fortune is in Yingtian?"

"In Yingtian?" Shen Ruoxiao was slightly stunned. He thought for a moment, and smiled wisely, "What's so hard about this; I understand, it must be me who is the eyes and ears of the capital for King Yan. Therefore, the main fortune of nature is in the sky. ”

Yuan Heng shook his head, a little worried.

"It always makes me feel unconfident talking to you," he said, "forget it, let's see." In short, when it comes to Yingtian, you must be careful; It's the capital, you don't know the depths. ”

Nangong Qiu interjected: "Grandpa, you might as well give Ruo Xiao a hexagram and see what his fate is in the future." ”

Yuan Hui smiled helplessly: "This hexagram is not something that can be calculated, and if you ask for a hexagram frequently, you will miscalculate." ”

Nangong Qiu said: "It's not too frequent for us to ask for it." Grandpa-"

She was coquettish; Yuan Hui couldn't resist, so he had to ask Shen Ruoliao for help:

"Ruoxiao, what do you think of this? She has nothing to fear now, only you can cure her. ”

Shen Ruoyu smiled sympathetically: "Mr. Yuan, that's my aunt, and I can't afford to mess with her." You just make do with the nonsense and just let her go. ”

Yuan Jue sighed: "In this business, behind every word is the responsibility of human life, how can it be a matter of people." ”

Shen Ruoliao said: "Don't mind if I tell you the truth. When the fortune teller speaks, I have never bought it. So far, the only fortune teller I've ever met is the yellow raccoon dog in Chengdu, do you know why? Because he was not speaking of prophecy, but of a well-planned conspiracy. You are a well-known face master. What my fate is, you must have known it from the first time you saw me. Even so, no matter what you say to me, whether I am happy or unhappy, I will not believe it. No, I don't believe in your personality and ability, sir; I just don't believe that my life for the next few decades is a certainty from the beginning; I don't believe that all my efforts are futile, I don't believe that I don't need to try, and I don't believe that I don't have real decisions and choices. So, sir, you can say whatever you want, and you don't have to worry about the consequences or responsibilities at all. ”

Yuan Hui smiled faintly: "You don't believe in numbers and fate, but why do you believe in a shallow scar on the center of your eyebrows?" ”

Shen Ruoyu was slightly stunned and speechless.

Yuan Heng got off the horse, looked at his gloomy look, sighed, took out the hexagram holder, shook his head a little heavily, walked up to the river embankment, faced the surging Han water, and said:

"Ruo Xiao, in fact, I have already said everything I should say to you. You are right, life has its own providence, but the providence is not absolute, let alone certain, just like this Han water, sooner or later it will merge into the river, but every drop of water and every moment has its own different destination, or lost in the shallows, or scattered into the wind, or trapped in the vortex. It makes no sense to speak too broadly of fate to someone like you. If you want to talk about specific and real things, the old man doesn't have that much ability, and he can't just talk about it, so he can only ask hexagrams. I just don't know what you want to ask? ”

Shen Ruoyu thought for a while: "Sir, if you don't count where I will be in ten years." Beiping, Yingtian, the Northern Desert, or whatever else - doesn't say anything, but from then on there was more suspense and anticipation, at least it was interesting. ”

Yuan Jue sat on the ground, closed his eyes, meditated for a moment, and began to shake the sticker; After a long time, a long bamboo skewer stood out and landed crisply. He stopped the lottery holder in his hand and picked up the one, but his eyes widened in disbelief, and he said incredulously:

"How so?"

Shen Ruoliao and Nangong Qiu asked in unison, "What is it?" ”

Yuan Jue raised his head, frowned, looked at Shen Ruoliao solemnly, thought for a moment, and then handed him the hexagram.

Shen Ruoyu and Nangong Qiu took it together; The long bamboo hexagram is on both sides, and it is empty. The two of them looked at each other, puzzled, and at the same time looked at Yuan Hui suspiciously.

Yuan Jue explained: "There has always been such a blank hexagram in Yuan's holder, because there are many things in this world, and many times, there is no result and no future, so there is no answer. ”

"No results?" Shen Ruoyu was incredulous: "But, after ten years, I will always be in one place, right?" How could such a thing not come to fruition? ”

Yuan Jue sighed: "Obviously, this hexagram is inaccurate. ”

"Inaccurate?" Nangong Qiu asked in confusion. "What do you mean?"

Yuan Jue said: "It's just that the hexagram failed." There may be many reasons, such as the inappropriate time and earth, or too many times of divination, and insincerity is not effective; Or, it's my problem, I can't find the state for a while, and the hand feels bad. ”

"Writing and playing the piano should have a feel; Does divination also have a feel? Nangong Qiu was amazed.

"Of course; Everyone is actually relying on their own feel to do things. Alas, it's all a joke for you, and I'll count it later. ”

Yuan Hui put the empty slip into the holder and took back his bag. Shen Ruoliao and Nangong Qiu only thought that he really miscalculated once, thinking that the masters would inevitably go wrong, they didn't take it to heart, so they immediately left this matter behind and quickly forgot about it. Yuan Hui couldn't let go; The empty hexagram jumped out at this time, as an answer to a question that could not have a clear answer, and it was placed in front of him, and the evidence was ironclad. What does that mean exactly?

He had never miscalculated; On the surface, he explained that this hexagram was a failure, but in fact he did not admit it in his heart.

This incident was like a huge dark cloud, covering the sky over his heart, and the shadow that will linger from now on.

A few days later, they arrived at the capital, Yingtian. The prosperity of the imperial capital was not surprising to the well-informed Yuan Heng, but it opened the eyes of the two teenagers. Shen Ruoyu has also traveled a lot of places, but whether it is the ancient cities of Kaifeng, Chengdu, Xiangyang and Wuchang, or Beiping, which has prospered rapidly under the governance of King Yan, they are far from being comparable to Jinling, Jiankang, the ancient capital of the Six Dynasties, and Yingtian, the capital of the Ming Dynasty. The tall city wall is as majestic as a mountain, solid as gold, which is the result of Zhu Yuanzhang's strategy of "building high walls, accumulating grain, and slowly becoming king" when Zhu Yuanzhang fought the country, and it is also the barrier support of the Ming royal family to sit on the world; Along the Qinhuai River, sixteen magnificent restaurants are lined up one after another, lively and extraordinary, this is Zhu Yuanzhang in order to accept guests from all over the world, especially to entertain foreign envoys and specially ordered to build a high-end pavilion; The handsome and elegant houses are tightly knit; The streets and alleys are full of people; Guozijian is simple and elegant, high and rigorous, which makes people awe-inspiring; In the Jiangnan Gongyuan adjacent to the Confucius Temple, tens of thousands of houses are neat and dense, as many as cow hair, breathtaking; And the palace is even more splendid, magnificent, unreachable, the city is full of guards, fluttering in the wind, although the palace gate is open, but the guard is strict, Shen Ruoyu observed, everyone who goes in and out from the palace gate must wear a waist card, when passing through the palace gate, they need to pass through the careful examination of the guards before they can be released. The people are rich and happy, and the places of interest are densely populated, and there are countless of them.

The three of them originally planned to stay here for three or four days and then continue to go north, but now, Shen Ruoliao and Nangong Qiu were firmly grasped by the style of the capital, constantly playing repeatedly in every inch of land and every corner, and couldn't bear to leave. Niushou Mountain outside the city has two monuments of Hongjue Temple in the Tang Dynasty and the Second Tomb of the Southern Tang Dynasty, as well as the construction accident base of Yue Fei to recover Jiankang. The same name as Niushou Mountain is Qixia Mountain, Ying Tianren is known as "spring ox head, autumn Qixia" saying, so Shen Ruoliao and Nangong Qiu are now visiting Qixia Mountain. The mountains are dense and verdant, the winding paths are long, and the red leaves of the mountains in late autumn are as brilliant as fire, and it really seems that a large area of clouds has fallen on the mountain. There is Qixia Temple, a famous temple in Jinling, on the mountain, and there are thousands of Buddha rocks carved in ancient stone carvings in the Southern Dynasty, and the famous relics pagoda of the Sui Dynasty. There are also Beigu Mountain, Shogunate Mountain, and Swallow Rock...... All this makes the two of them overwhelmed, reluctant to give up, and feel that even if they settle down in Yingtian and play every day, they will never get tired of it.

The trip was delayed, and I didn't know when I would be able to end this trip to Jinling and continue north. This ancient capital, where culture and wealth have been deposited for thousands of years, fascinated the two young men at the first sight. A civil and military all-rounder, with incomparably lofty ambitions, was strongly instigated by the treasures of the capital, the profoundness and the heroic spirit, and the pride and ambition instantly rose to the sky, even straight to the top of the palace forbidden; The other, who is also full of poetry and books, has never been out, and has never even seen anyone, and now that he sees the real capital, it is more magnificent and rich than what is written in the book, and he is more magnificent and rich than he imagined. Ying Tianfu, in the hearts of the two people, immediately became vivid, and involuntarily integrated more unbridled and bold imagination, thus becoming the place where they weave their dreams, the place where their dreams are, and the places where their dreams will eventually come true.

New developments in the fighting in the southwest came during this period. In mid-September, Muchun, the Marquis of Xiping, who was quelling the rebellion in Luchuan, fell ill and died in the army. The new emperor ordered that He Fu, the deputy general of the left, be the former general of the conquest, and lead his people to continue the crusade against the traitors.

Hearing the news, Yuan Jue sighed:

"It's a pity. King Muying of Qianning returned to heaven in the prime of life; Now, his son Mu Chun has won a series of successes, but he died young like his father, which is the misfortune of the Mu family and the misfortune of my Daming. ”

Muchun guarded Yunnan for seven years, vigorously supported farming, opened up more than 300,000 acres of land, and dug canals to irrigate fertile land. The people of Yunnan are grateful to Dade and collectively raise funds to build an ancestral hall for him to ask for an heir; Helplessly, Mu Chun still had no children in his knees. After his death, the Marquis of Xiping was succeeded by his second brother Mu Sheng.

The Mu family of Xiping Marquis is like this, and since then he has stayed in Yunnan from generation to generation, dealing with local political affairs, appeasing the barbarian minorities, and quelling the rebellion in the frontier. The Ming Dynasty has had few worries in Yunnan for generations, relying on the outstanding talent and loyalty of the Mu family.

When Shen Ruoliao was a servant in Yao Biao's house, especially when he was a shopkeeper in the Hongjia Hotel, he could often listen to Yao Biao and listen to guests talk about the stories of these heroes and generals of the Ming Dynasty. At present, Yuan Hui explains history and current affairs to the two of them every day, Shen Ruoyu only feels fascinated, never tired of listening, and can't help but pick up the pen and write on the paper:

"When a husband is in the world, he should have a strange ambition. The text is to repair the martial arts, and the martial arts are to the text. Wendang Berwyn, Wusheng Boren. Born as a Zhongshan, died as a mountain. ”

He hid these words and never revealed them to anyone.