Chapter 107: Portrait of the Master

The scholar talked for two hours, talking about Confucius and Mencius, making Mo Ran dizzy and sleepy, but he still had to look interested, which was hard.

Mo Ran has a knack for pretending to listen.

At first there was an "oh", a frown of confusion and doubt.

When the other person has spoken for a while, he gives an "oh" and his brow spreads a little, as if he has slightly gained the way and is gradually understanding.

Remember to keep your eyes open, your gaze burning and an "oh" is essential to make sure that the person you are talking to understands that they have been enlightened and enlightened by his teaching.

Three "ohs", which he used in Chu Wanning's class.

Unfortunately, Chu Wanning doesn't take kindly to this and always looks at him coldly to shut him up.

But the little bookworm had never been treated like this before, and when he got to the end of his talk, his eyes were shining and he was jumping up and down, as if he and Mo Ran hated each other so much that there was no trace of the reserve and arrogance he had just shown.

"I see." Mo Ran laughed, "After hearing you say that, and looking at this landscape, I realise how precious the painting is, and that a thousand pieces of gold will never be exchanged."

If the little bookworm had been a living person, he would have been red in the face, but now he was not half as excited as he was blushing, and he was so happy that he didn't know how to put his hands and feet, and just laughed like a child, his thin face full of light.

Mo Ran, it's the first time I've seen a ghost do something so happy.

When it was almost time, he got up, saluted the other man and said, "It's late, so I'll look around again and find a place to stay. If sir is free tomorrow, I will come back to look for you."

The scholar, who was surprised to be called sir, was overjoyed, half terrified and half happy: "No, no, no, no, sir, I dare not be called sir, I have taken the exam many times, but I have not even won a scholarship, I am sorry."

Mo Ran laughed and said, "It's not about the profit and fame, but about the heart."

The scholar was astonished: "You, how could you say such a thing?"

"That's what my master said, just picking up people's teeth."

Bookman: "Picking up the pieces."

"Yeah hahahahaha." Mo Ran laughed and scratched his head, "Misremembered again."

Seeing that it was getting late, and that no one would come to ask about the painting today, the scholar packed his basket and pouch and said, "I have nothing to do, and it is rare to meet someone I can talk to. Although it is said that a gentleman's friendship is as light as water, it is also important to have a thousand glasses of wine with a friend.

Seeing him start to sour away his book bag again, Mo Ran cut him off with a smile and said, "Are you trying to say, I think it's getting late, why don't we go somewhere for a drink"

"Ah, yes, yes, a little drink is good for the soul, OK"

"Good." Mo Ran nodded, "Sir pay."

Bookman: ""

On a small, greasy table is a plate of peanuts, a scattering of ten or so, and two small glasses of wine, a modest half-cup full. Only one candle is lit in the restaurant, burning apprehensively and shabbily, and the sharp-tongued owner is behind the counter polishing a bowl with a gaping hole in it.

"The place is a bit shabby." The scholar looked a little uneasy, "but I haven't received any paper money either, and there are only a few shops I've been to, and this one's not too bad."

"It's quite good." Mo Ran picked up the wine glass and took a closer look, "Ghosts still eat."

"It's all imaginary, like giving an offering." The scribe smacked a mouthful of peanuts, but they didn't disappear, and he said, "Look, it's like this. Taste it."

Mo Ran put his wine down without moving, he wasn't a dead man and eating would show his face.

After the scholar had passed his third birthday, his depressed state of mind seemed to have improved, and after chatting with Mo Ran for a while, he asked, "Mr Mo asked me to help him draw a figure earlier, is he the one he wants?"

Mo Ran waved his hands, "No, no, it's my master."

"Ah." The scholar was stunned, "I've been setting up stalls in the underworld for years, and I've seen people come to ask for pictures of beauty, but I've never seen anyone ask me to draw my master. Your master treats you very well."

Mo Ran was mortified and said, "Good, especially good."

"No wonder." The scribe nodded, "What's the painting of him for?"

"Seeker."

The scholar gave another "ah" and looked surprised: "He is also in hell."

"Well." Mo Ran said, "I heard that the dead man was going to stay in Nanke Town for ten or eight years, and I was relieved to find him and keep him company."

The scholar did not doubt it, and was even a little moved. After a long time of contemplation, he finally sighed and said: "It is rare to see peach and plum love. I will do you this favour," he said, and got up to open the trunk and take the painting tools.

Mo Ran was overjoyed and thanked him repeatedly. He asked him for his name and surname and secretly took it into his heart that he would burn more gold and silver for his poor brother when he returned to the afterlife.

The two of them, you sentimental, I excited, enthusiastically laid paper and ink.

As a result, within two sentences of starting work, choking.

"My master he is, isn't he?" Mo Ran clenched his hand into a fist and tapped it several times on his knee, but still didn't come up with anything, and after holding it in for half a day, the man of barren words finally came up with, "He's a beauty all in all, you draw it."

The scribe glared at him.

Mo Ran: "Paint it."

"How is it beautiful?"

"It's not very simple, it's just beauty, painting towards looking good."

"I know it looks good, but forget about it, you say, what kind of face is he"

"What face?" Mo Ran stared, baffled, "A face is a face."

The scholar was a bit exasperated: "Melon almond wood word goose egg, you say one instead"

"I don't know about all this there and then, but it's quite handsome anyway."

Bookman: ""

Mo Ran: "Forget it, if you don't know, draw my face, we're not too far apart."

Bookman: ""

Then there are the eyes.

"What eyes?"

Seeing Mo Ran's desire to speak, he suddenly stopped him and added.

"Don't say eyes are eyes."

Mo Ran waved his hand and said, "I know what you mean, he has these eyes, how can I put it, fierce, charming, cold and gentle."

The scholar slammed his brush down and said angrily, "I'm not going to draw anymore.

"Don't," Mo Ran said, pulling him back, "the others don't draw as well as you do."

The scholar held back and glared at him, but seeing Mo Ran's face full of sincerity, he said stiffly, "Then speak properly, and answer whatever I ask."

Mo Ran was also aggrieved. He thought to himself that he had just given a good answer, and that he had answered whatever was asked of him, but there was something soft about begging, so he nodded obediently and clutched the spirit guide lamp in his arms miserably.

The scholar said, "Or is it the eyes. Is he leopard-eyed, three-white eyed, almond-eyed, phoenix-eyed or"

Mo Ran, dizzy from hearing it, shook his head and said, "Wouldn't the slit eyes be small, no, his eyes go up, I don't know what they're called, anyway they just uh, they just fly up and they're kinda pretty"

"That's the phoenix eye."

Mo Ran opened his mouth, but when he saw the scholar's unhappy face, he shut up again, "Fine, if you want to sew up the eyes, then sew up the eyes."

The scholar then asked, "Is the nose tall or short?"

"High."

"Are the lips thin or thick?"

"Thin."

"Are the eyebrows thick or light?"

"Thick."

"Coarse and fine"

"OK eyebrows I know, should be sword eyebrows."

"Good." The scholar adds a few more strokes and asks again, "Is there a mole mark on your face"

Mo Ran tilted her head in thought, but blushed as she thought about it and mumbled, "Yes."

"Where."

"By the left ear." Mo Ran said slowly, "A tiny bit, quite light in colour, and then"

Then there is extra sensitivity when you kiss him here.

The scribe raised an eyebrow, "And then"

"Nope." Mo Ran's head shook like a rattle and her face reddened even more, "No then."

The scholar gave him a rather strange look, but fortunately the light was too dim to see the blood on his face. He moistened his ink with the tip of his pen and asked again, "Kanryu's attire"

"He likes to wear white. Bound with a green jade crown, or a high ponytail." Mo Ran thought for a moment and added, "Sometimes draped, too, and when draped, especially"

"Stop saying it looks good," said the scholar, who could not stand it any longer.

"Well, handsome it is then."

Bookman: ""

After half a day's work, the painting was finally finished. Mo Ran blew on the ink and held it up for a closer look. He thought it was not as handsome as Chu Wanning's, nor did it look very similar, but it was barely usable. It's quite good."

"I only came close to painting Pan An Fan Li and Xi Zi Miao Cicada."

"Hahahaha." Mo Ran was happy and said, "When I find my master, I will thank you again."

Mo Ran was carrying Chu Wanning's portrait, and according to the scholar, there was a building in Nanke Town's Fifth Street called the "Windy House", which was dedicated to the newly arrived ghosts.

He was ready to check it out.

Outside the Shun Feng building, a red sign flutters, with a black snake totem painted on it. Mo Ran pushes the door inside and sees a long counter spanning the hall, behind which sit a dozen or so ghosts in ochre-red robes, all wearing wooden masks that are not visible in their true form. In front of these masked ghosts, a long line of dead people, each with a different look and a different agenda, snaked around.

Hundreds of white candles float at the top of the building, overlapping shadows of the lights shining on the overlapping dead. The ghosts come and go, and it is a very busy time.

"Little Master, can you help me find out where my brother is? His name is Zhang Bayi, a native of Gusu, and he was twenty-one years old when he died."

"Is there a portrait?"

"No, no."

"You can find it without a portrait, the cost needs to be ten times more expensive."

"Big Brother"

The masked man coughed, his voice clear.

"Oh, I'm sorry, it's my sister. When I died, my family told me that she would never remarry, but I've been watching her and my brother having an affair for a long time.

"Check the yang matter, the price is this, you see it first."

"In my last life, I liked a girl, but she was too precious to look up to a scholar who did not have a good education. I was too timid to reveal my feelings to her. When she got married, I was happy for her. I was happy for her, but she was entrusted to a man who was already married. But then something happened and she was one step ahead of me. So I want to find out two things, firstly, where she is now, and secondly, what our destiny will be in the next life."

"Come and cause trouble, you can check, but no money or two will be charged. It needs to be exchanged for life expectancy. As for where the girl is, I beg the gentleman to give his name and present his portrait."

"Oh, well, well. The portrait is there, here it is. The girl's surname is Yao, and her single name is the word Lan"

In front of every cabinet are chirping ghosts, their bodies are becoming rotten, but their obsessions are still in place.

Mo Ran walked around with the lamp in her arms, and found that there were all kinds of people asking for money or for their lives.

He had no money, and if he let them collect his life expectancy, he would be perceived as an undead person who had infiltrated the underworld. He was so anxious that he cursed Master Huai Zui for not having the presence of mind to slip some banknotes into his pocket in advance.

But looking at the price, it didn't seem too expensive to ask the man. Mo Ran ran back to the restaurant and managed to catch up with the scholar. He borrowed some money and went back to the Shunfeng House.

After waiting in line for half a day, it was easily his turn.

Mo Ran said urgently, "I seek someone. Here is the portrait."

He handed Chu Wanning's portrait to the other man and was about to go on. When the man looked at it, he laughed lightly, closed the scroll and asked, "What do you want with him?"

"Ah," Mo Ran was stunned, "you know where he is just by looking at the painting."

"Yes. But first you tell me what you seek him for"

"He's an old friend of mine."

The other man glanced at him again, then said, "Wait a minute." And then leaned over and whispered a few words to a fellow officer next to him. When he turned back again, his tone was much kinder.

"Since you are an old friend of Mr. Chu's, the money and two will not be charged." The man rose and waved him over, "Come with me upstairs."