There were still no other guests in the inn lobby.
Except for the captains from the East Factory, who were busy eating breakfast, the whole hall still seemed empty.
Shopkeeper Xu stood quietly at the counter, with his right hand on the counter, and the steaming tea bowl in front of him, as if he was preparing to drink tea and listen to music.
Xiao Chen opened the door, walked down the stairs slowly, and sat down at the captain's table opposite Young Master Ouyang.
Seeing Xiao Chen coming down, Duan Tianming, who was having breakfast with everyone, directly picked up the two buns on the table on a plate and came to Xiao Chen.
"It's very hot, have one." Pushing the bun towards Xiao Chen, Duan Tianming picked up the hot water bottle from the table next to him, turned over the tea bowl in front of Xiao Chen, and poured a full bowl.
Xiao Chen picked up a bun, opened his mouth and bit into half of it, then looked at the "Yizhou celebrity" Ouyang Xiaoke.
In his thirties, he is well dressed. His hair seems to have been carefully combed, and it is not as slovenly as Shopkeeper Xu said. Especially those seemingly dull eyes, when looking at the guqin in front of them, they are filled with emotion.
Out of infinite tenderness.
In his eyes, it was as if Xiao Chen and the others had never existed, and the old guqin in front of him was everything to him.
He slowly raised his left hand, slightly bent his index finger, stretched his middle finger forward, and pressed it on the first string of the guqin. He moved his right hand forward, and a few fingers brought out a shadow, and he didn't know what it was.
Which finger touched the strings, and a long sound of "ding..." made Xiao Chen feel empty.
Xiao Chen was shocked. Although he didn't understand the rhythm, he could instantly make people aware of the situation with a single note. Ouyang Xiaoke's guqin attainments were really impressive.
As the sound of the piano sounded, Xiao Chen subconsciously felt that his imagination of eating a big bun seemed to be incompatible with the ethereal sound of the piano, so he had to put the steaming big bun with a big bite in his hand.
on the plate.
It seems that this piano sound is also Ouyang Xiaoke's meditation for himself.
He raised his head, slowly closed his eyes, and started playing with the guqin with both hands.
The water-like piano sound melted at his fingertips and swirled in the hall. Sometimes it was soothing like a clear spring, and sometimes it was as exciting as a waterfall. The song-like piano sound was like the spring breeze blowing in the fields, like raindrops falling on the rice fields. Like the echoing sound of frogs,
It's like the waves crashing on the shore. It's like a bright moon rising in the night sky. It's like children chasing kites and laughing and playing.
Suddenly, the sound of the piano turned, and a loose and distant sound came into the ears, which made people feel a kind of ancient thoughts in their hearts. The surrounding overtones were like the sounds of nature, giving people a feeling of coldness and immortality.
Ouyang Xiaoke's hands moved like flowing water on the guqin. The subtle and long sound of the piano was sometimes like human speech and could be used for conversation, sometimes like the human heart, vague and changeable.
Perhaps because of the depth of his love, Ouyang Xiaoke actually raised his head and started singing:
Red crisp hands, yellow vine wine, the city is full of spring scenery and willows on the palace walls.
The east wind is evil, and joy is thin. A cup of melancholy will lead to a few years of separation. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
Spring is as old as ever, and people are thin and empty. The tears are red and the crocodile yarn shows through.
The peach blossoms are falling in the Xianchi Pavilion. Although the mountain alliance is there, it is difficult to entrust the brocade book. Mo, mo, mo.
Along with this song, the expression on Ouyang Xiaoke's face also changes again and again. There is joy, helplessness, sadness, and resignation.
It seemed that he remembered the lonely grave outside the city again, and that he was wandering alone in the world without any purpose. Ouyang Xiaoke's piano music became even sadder. In his mouth, he sang another song:
Ten years of life and death are so vast that I cannot forget them without thinking about them.
Thousands of miles of lonely tomb, no place to speak of desolation.
Even if we meet each other, we should not know each other, our face is covered with dust and our temples are like frost.
At night, I suddenly returned to my hometown with a deep dream. I was dressing up outside the small window.
They looked at each other without words, only a thousand lines of tears.
It is expected that the broken part of the intestines will be cut off every year, on a bright moonlit night, there will be short pines.
At this point, the sound of the piano suddenly stopped. Ouyang Xiaoke had already leaned on the guqin, crying.
No one said anything in the hall. Even Xiao Chen, the captain of the Dongchang Academy who had been licking blood from his knife all the time and trying to survive on the verge of life and death, couldn't help but feel a little uncomfortable.
I couldn't help but think of the master "old guy" who once gave me a month of warm childhood, and Wang San who risked his life to leave the palace to give me a roast chicken on New Year's Eve.
Xiao Chen didn't understand the feelings between Ouyang Xiaoke and Shopkeeper Xu's sister. But from Ouyang Xiaoke's cheerful music in the front and sad in the back, Xiao Chen could hear his joy, helplessness, longing and sadness.
This situation is caused by the general trend and big views of the entire Ming Dynasty. Xiao Chen may use the power in his hands to punish a certain person or a certain group of forces. But he is powerless against such big views that have been formed for a long time.
There is no way.
Xiao Chen couldn't do anything about this kind of thing. But the examiner who detained Ouyang Xiaoyao's test papers because he didn't use the money, Xiao Chen was interested in getting to the bottom of it.
Since the emperor did not explain anything else, but Dongchang was the most trusted supervisory agency of Emperor Chengzu of the Ming Dynasty, Xiao Chen did not mind and started a purge within the Ministry of Rites, which was responsible for delivering fresh blood to the court.
In the heart of Shopkeeper Xu, from the day the Ouyang family said harsh words at the door of the inn, he vowed not to have any contact with the Ouyang family. Including Ouyang Xiaoke, Shopkeeper Xu despised him from the bottom of his heart.
Even if his family is against him and he is unable to fight, he doesn't even have the courage to come and explain the whole thing clearly, or at least let his sister give up. This kind of person, no matter what his starting point is, no matter how good his reasons are, he just
In the opinion of Shopkeeper Xu, such a sudden disappearance is not worthy of being called a man.
Ouyang Xiaoke may be cowardly, but he is even more stubborn. After spending three years guarding the grave of an unmarried woman, he finally gained the forgiveness of Shopkeeper Xu.
Guarding his old friend's guqin and sitting in the place where his old friend grew up, for Ouyang Xiaoke now, this is his only spiritual sustenance and his only courage to live.
Looking at the sad Ouyang Xiaoke, shopkeeper Xu picked up the tea bowl on the counter, walked over and placed it next to him, preparing to leave.
"Brother Xu," Ouyang Xiaoke raised his head and stood up.
"Huh?" Shopkeeper Xu turned around with a trace of doubt on his face.
Although Ouyang Xiaoke often comes to the inn to play the piano, he only comes here every time to play the piano. The two of them have almost never communicated. What happened today? Shopkeeper Xu couldn't help but think.
"Can you give me this guqin?" Ouyang Xiaoke had a trace of begging in his eyes.
"This was originally my sister's relic. She is no longer alive, so it doesn't hurt to give it to you." Shopkeeper Xu smiled bitterly and said.
"Okay, thank you, Brother Xu." With that said, Ouyang Xiaoke gently picked up the guqin and was about to leave.
Shopkeeper Xu was stunned: "Will you come again in the future?"
Ouyang Xiaoke shook his head, and there seemed to be a kind of relief in Ouyang Xiaoke's eyes: "I won't come, and I will never come."
