Qu Yong said: "Thank you."

"Blind man... Only a fool like you can believe what a blind man can tell..." The old woman muttered something else, but Qu Yong stopped listening.

There is a very strange phenomenon in China, that is, fortune tellers must be blind, and those who open their eyes will never work. Qu Yong remembers that when he was a child, a fortune teller came to the village. He was young and fair. Wearing sunglasses, no one in the village believed that his calculations were accurate. The eighth wife even whispered to Qu Yong: This gentleman is certainly not blind at his age. Who would have thought that as soon as he finished speaking, the gentleman stepped on the wrong foot and fell to the ground. The old people were immediately happy, thinking that this was really blind, and blindness can be accurate.

The old people couldn't explain why one can be accurate even if one is blind. When Qu Yong grew up, he thought about it himself and believed that Chinese metaphysics emphasizes feelings. If a person is blind, his mind will be opened.

But without mentioning these digressions, he said that Qu Yong waded all the way through the sewage and garbage to find the house that the old woman was talking about with great difficulty. All he could see was that the grass was long and withered, and the dust was thick. The couplet at the door was posted in an unknown year. Now the red color has faded away, leaving only a few pale strips.

It seems that this blind painter changed his profession and became a fortune teller, but his business was not very good.

"Dudu..." The door of the house was just blocked by two wooden boards, which could not prevent the villain at all. However, the thief would not steal anything here, so Qu Yong knocked on the door politely.

"Cough cough cough." There was only a cough in the dark and damp room, and the sound was like a dying old dog struggling.

Qu Yong shouted inside: "Old man, can I come in?" [

"Fortune tellers ask flowers and bring their own horoscopes."

Maybe everyone knows what fortune-telling is, but when asked what a flower is, maybe most people don’t know. It’s hard to say how many things have been destroyed by our destruction of the four olds in China. This fortune-telling is also a feudal and evil spirit. Superstition is gone. You may have heard of it in remote rural areas, but it is gone in cities. I didn’t expect that there is still a trace of it in Japan.

Asking about flowers means that when everyone is born, a flower will bloom somewhere. The variety, withering and prosperity of this flower are related to the person. If one flourishes, both will prosper, and if one suffers loss, both will suffer. For example, this person's corresponding destiny If the flower is a peony, it means wealth. Whether the peony has deep roots and lush leaves means that it will be rich and prosperous for a long time. Ordinary people cannot see this flower. Who can do it? , these are the blind fortune tellers.

Qu Yong walked in. The air inside was smelly of mold. It was hard to imagine that any living person could endure it. He said in his mouth: "I'm not here to tell fortunes, nor do I ask about flowers."

"If you don't care about fortune and flowers, then get out." The old man seemed to have a very bad temper.

Qu Yong said: "What if I don't get out?"

"Huh." A wine bottle was thrown at Qu Yong's head. His accuracy was pretty good, but his speed and strength were too slow. It seemed like the old man didn't know how to do martial arts.

Qu Yong flashed his head and saw the blind old man huddled on a broken sofa. He continued: "Old man, I want to ask you about someone."

"I don't know, cough cough cough..." The old man didn't even listen, so he just said he didn't know and started coughing again.

Qu Yong refused to give up and asked: "This person is very important to me. Her name is Natsuki Watanabe. Do you know?"

"I don't know, I am blind, are you deaf?"

Qu Yong took out a wad of money and said, "Look, this is 10,000 yen. It was Hideki Watanabe who told me to come to see you, old man." He had exchanged the money in China, and there was no money left. How to use.

The blind old man shouted angrily: "What bullshit, bullshit Hideki Watanabe, bullshit yen, you just pile all Japan's gold in front of me, I don't even know, you don't count your fortune, you don't care about the flowers, get out."

The old man has a bad temper and doesn't seem to buy Hideki Watanabe's advice.

Qu Yong thought to himself: "Did I make a mistake, or...could his fortune-telling be a secret code? Watanabe didn't have time to tell me." [

He said tentatively: "I asked Hua."

"Asking flowers, birthday announcement..." The old man finally cheered up, sat up straight, and had a decent-looking dirty mustache.

"June 22, 19**, exactly two o'clock in the afternoon."

"In the year of Ji Si, the month of Geng Wu, the month of Guichou, the sun has not reached the hour." The blind old man figured it out with a squeeze of his hands. Then he didn't open an altar to burn incense to pray to the gods, and he didn't look like a ghost. He just pinched his fingers and counted quickly in his mouth. For a long time, After a while, he violently rolled his blind eyes like a dead fish, and Chong Qu Yong stretched out his trembling withered hands and shouted: "Bone...bone."

"Bone, you want to touch the bone." Qu Yong patiently moved his face towards him. He was sure to subdue the blind old man immediately before he could do anything he did.

The old man started touching Qu Yong's fontanel, and then stopped for a long time on his forehead. He touched his nose, lips, neck, hands and feet almost everywhere.

Qu Yong thought it was funny at first, but soon he couldn't laugh anymore. He found that the old man's technique of lightly clasping and touching his two fingers was very strange, like a dancing butterfly or a bat.

Blind old man, blind bat.

The dancing of his two fingers seemed to release strange energy, which touched Qu Yong's body.

"This...this method..."

What surprised Qu Yong most was that he had experienced this technique once when he was a child. That time, when he was still young, he felt itchy all over his body, which was both comfortable and uncomfortable.

And the person who touched his bones in detail that time was none other than Jiu Ye, who had amazing arithmetic skills and had been missing for many years, and Qu Yong could not find him.

Thousands of miles away from a small mountain village in Zhejiang to the Imperial City of Japan, it is really strange that two fortune tellers have exactly the same way of touching bones.

The blind old man exclaimed: "You... you are not Japanese, you are a descendant of the Yellow Emperor."

"Yes." Qu Yong said proudly: "Of course I am not Japanese."

"No wonder... Could you tell me your surname?" After the blind old man touched the bones, his attitude towards Qu Yong suddenly changed a lot and he was polite.

"The surname is Qu."

"Qu, what tune, write it on my hand with Chinese characters."

Qu Yong followed his words and wrote the word "qu" on his withered palm.

"Impossible." The old man suddenly jumped up and said in shock: "It doesn't make sense to have a surname of Qu... It really doesn't make sense."

"My surname is Qu."

"You are not my biological child." The blind old man leaned all over Qu Yong, biting Qu Yong with a pair of dead eyes, and shouted: "You can't be named Qu, you have been deceived."

"You're talking nonsense, you're crazy." Qu Yong shook his arm, threw his zombie-like old bones back on the chair, and shouted: "I am a genuine Chinese, my surname is Qu."

"You think it is...how do you know?" The blind old man said gloomily: "I tell you, your flower is called peony, and it is a peony with burnt roots. A flower like yours cannot be kept in a small place, and the longer it stays, the more it withers. , you are going to the supreme place in the world, and only then can the land of Kyoto truly flourish."

"Thank you." Qu Yong originally thought that this blind old man had the same bone-touching skills as Jiu Ye, and could at least tell some information, but he said a lot of nonsense, and he laughed at himself for wasting time.

The blind old man also heard Qu Yong's disbelief. He laughed wildly and said, "It doesn't matter if you don't believe it now. You will definitely think of today in the future, hahaha."

"Since you don't know the whereabouts of Natsuki, I'll take my leave."

Qu Yong didn't want to continue talking nonsense with this blind old man and was about to leave as soon as he handed over his hand.

"Wait, your Excellency, please wait a moment." The blind old man suddenly spoke and called to Qu Yong.

Qu Yong held his ground and said, "If you still want to talk nonsense about me not being named Qu, please stop talking."

The blind old man seemed to be in a dilemma and said hesitantly: "I... have something to ask of you."

"Ask me." Qu Yong wondered how he could ask for each other when they were strangers to each other.

The blind old man gritted his teeth and said: "Yes, a life flower like Jiao Mudan is rare. No matter how shameless I am, I still have to ask you."

"This..." Qu Yong really didn't want to agree, because he might not have as much trouble as him even if a hundred people put together.

"I have a painting that I would like to ask you to take back to China." The blind old man said bitterly: "I have buried my knees in the soil and can count the days of my life, but this painting... it should be returned to China. I must Fulfill her wish, even if the person she loves is not me." "Oh." To him, the person in this painting is like a falling flower, and the flowing water is full of love.

"I have no friends, no relatives, nothing, I can only rely on strangers." How miserable it is to rely on strangers for help.

Qu Yong sighed and said: "Old sir, I'm going to have too many troubles. I'm afraid I'll miss your instructions."

"Hehe..." the blind old man said confidently: "These troubles of yours are just the flames that burn the peonies. The reason why the burnt peony is the king of flowers is because it has been tempered by the fire."

"I appreciate your words." Qu Yong said, "If you don't give up, I will do my best."

"Okay." The blind old man was overjoyed. He climbed up tremblingly, took out a broken crutch from behind the chair, and moved it into the back room under the blue cloth. After a sound of rummaging through boxes and cabinets, he came out tremblingly, holding it tightly in his hand. A long object.

"Please take a look." He poured the painting out of the cloth cover with gentle movements, and the dry face seemed to be exuding a kind of glory.

Ever since Qu Yong entered this room, he felt that nothing was not rotten or dirty. But now the painting that the blind old man took out was clean and tidy, with absolutely no dirt or damage.

"Okay." Qu Yong also took it carefully and slowly opened the scroll. He saw a beautiful woman in kimono playing with willow branches on the bank of spring water. She tilted her head slightly and smiled at the corner of her mouth. She looked like a woman like that. The softness is shown to the extreme.

Sure enough, it was a peerless beauty that made this blind old man never forget the painting and treasure it for the rest of his life.

This painting was painted by me more than 20 years ago. The person in the painting is... a most beautiful woman in the world... Although the blind old man couldn't see it, his fingers accurately brushed the face of the person in the painting. He said in a gentle tone: "Even if I spend nearly a month of hard work, I can never paint one-tenth of her beauty."
Chapter completed!