The Elixir is for You, The Poison is for Me

#396 - Stone carving

After the black cat sucked the luck from Li Guanshi, it didn't swallow it directly, but held it in its mouth. This meant that it thought this should be a "good luck" that could be transferred to Lu Jing.

However, having learned from the previous mistake of mistaking peach blossoms for golden leaves, Lu Jing had become cautious.

Although Li Guanshi was the son of the current Grand Commandant, judging from his arrogant appearance, he probably wouldn't have lived to his current age without the help of luck.

But it was hard to say whether the luck on him was the wealth or card-drawing buff that Lu Jing urgently needed.

If it was luck that increased the success rate of flirting with women or attracted bad friends, then Lu Jing would rather not have such good luck.

Unfortunately, he was busy discussing the matter of depositing silver with Taiping Qianzhuang at the time, and he didn't have time to ask Li Guanshi in detail. That guy slipped away so quickly that Lu Jing couldn't find him now, so he could only ask the black cat first.

The black cat stretched out its paw and quickly drew a pattern on the ground, but this time Lu Jing couldn't understand the pattern. He looked at it left and right for a long time before hesitating, "Is this... a turtle?"

The thing drawn by the black cat had four legs, a head, and a tail, with patterns on its back. It did look a bit like a top-down view of a turtle.

Lu Jing shuddered immediately upon seeing it. Luck related to turtles felt strange. He didn't dare put this thing on himself. He was thinking of sending it back to Young Master Li when he saw the black cat shake its head again.

Lu Jing was slightly relieved. After looking at it for a while, a flash of inspiration suddenly struck him. "Is this a tiger, no, a tiger skin?"

The black cat finally nodded this time.

Tiger skin, what kind of luck would it be?

Lu Jing thought about it. A tiger, the king of beasts, looked majestic and was indeed much better than a turtle. Moreover, tiger skin was also very expensive. It was definitely a luxury item in any era, especially a complete tiger skin. The selling price in the capital was basically over a hundred taels.

But tiger skin also had another meaning, especially considering that this luck came from Young Master Li, and this guy usually liked to mention his father, the Grand Commandant, which inevitably made him suspected of name-dropping.

However, after thinking about it, Lu Jing felt that Li Guanshi's behavior shouldn't be considered name-dropping, after all, his father was indeed a genuine Grand Commandant of the current dynasty.

After thinking about it for a while, Lu Jing didn't come to any conclusion. In addition, after wandering around today, he hadn't encountered any good luck other than Princess Fu'an and Li Guanshi. Since he was too embarrassed to take the former, he could only choose the latter.

Lu Jing scratched his head. It seemed that he could only know by trying. Anyway, if there was any problem, he could feed it back to the black cat.

However, to be cautious, Lu Jing didn't go to find Gu Caiwei, but after going around half a circle, he went to Zaor Lane in the south of the city.

Before leaving, Hanshan Ke entrusted him with two things. In addition to solving the trouble of Taiping Qianzhuang, he also asked him to go to Zaor Lane to see Old Man Hu.

Lu Jing first found a house with few people and hid the two sacks of silver notes.

Then, he asked someone to inquire about the whereabouts of Old Man Hu and walked over.

Zaor Lane was close to the pier, so the people living here were very mixed, from all over the country, speaking various dialects, and most of them came to the capital to make a living.

Especially recently, the world was not peaceful, and there were constant natural and man-made disasters everywhere, so more people came to Lintianfu to join relatives, which made Zaor Lane even more lively.

But Old Man Hu was different from most of the people living in the alley. His small courtyard was always deserted. Lu Jing heard people nearby say that they had never seen anyone from Old Man Hu's family come to visit.

Sometimes, people in the alley saw that Old Man Hu was lonely and would give him some food during festivals, but Old Man Hu refused to accept it.

As time went by, everyone gradually stopped trying to be interesting.

In fact, Old Man Hu rarely communicated with people on weekdays, with a gloomy face all day long, but it was said that his calligraphy was very good. These years, he had been making a living by selling calligraphy under the bridge.

When Lu Jing went to find him, he happened to be out selling calligraphy. Lu Jing didn't wait for him to come back, but directly climbed over the courtyard wall.

Anyway, Hanshan Ke told him that he only needed to take a look to confirm that Old Man Hu's life hadn't encountered any trouble.

And the easiest way to know whether a person's life is good or not is to directly look at his residence.

However, before Lu Jing had time to observe the surroundings after landing, he first saw a head on the wall, which was a child from the next yard, curiously looking at him, an uninvited guest, with big eyes.

Lu Jing gestured to the child to be quiet, and then put his hand into his pocket, but embarrassingly, after groping for a long time, he couldn't find any snacks or toys suitable for children.

So Lu Jing had to turn his attention to the black cat on his shoulder and said to the black cat, "Go, use your feline instincts and play with him for a while, don't let him tell the adults at home."

The black cat looked reluctant, but still couldn't escape the fate of being thrown over the wall by Lu Jing.

Seeing that the child's attention was attracted by the black cat, Lu Jing could finally look at the courtyard where he was.

This small courtyard was very simple, only a few feet in size, and the flowers and trees inside were also very ordinary, but it could be seen that they were taken care of very carefully, and each one grew very well, which seemed to be able to indirectly explain that the owner of this courtyard was not too poor, otherwise, people who were running around for a living all day long would definitely not be in the mood to take care of the flowers.

After Lu Jing looked at the courtyard, he planned to go into the house to take a look and leave if there was nothing wrong.

But when he walked to the front of the house, his eyes were attracted by a hitching post in the corner of the courtyard, no, to be precise, he was attracted by the messy carvings on the hitching post.

Lu Jing felt that the carvings seemed a bit familiar.

Soon he remembered why these carvings were familiar, because these carvings reminded him of the Jingziwei eunuchs he had just encountered on the river. The carvings on this hitching post were very similar to those left by the strange weapons like hook sickles in their hands.

Moreover, only the traces left by their evil martial arts would be so messy, but unlike those eunuchs, these traces penetrated the hitching post very deeply, making Lu Jing a little frightened. Obviously, the person who left the carvings was much more skilled than those eunuchs.