Chapter 0263 – Councilor

“Young man, first time in Beijing, right?”

After Zhuang Rui bought some gifts. Then he called a cab and told the driver the address, this middle-aged driver in his forties was quite talkative, chatting with Zhuang Rui in a Beijing accent.

“Yeah! Came to visit the elders.”

“Your address is not known to the general public, it’s almost demolished, but the courtyard left behind is worth a lot of money.”

Middle-aged driver said with an envious face, some years ago, Beijing people’s housing is very tense, a courtyard crowded with five or six families, per capita housing area of only a few square meters, and then built the Asian Games Village, Beijing people are thinking of living in buildings, the government said that the demolition of buildings to compensate for the building, all happy to the fart.

But this hutong courtyard is more and more demolition less and less, also be valued, in recent years as a cultural heritage preserved, the price is soaring, more than a dozen sets of buildings may not have the price of a courtyard worth money.

Some smart travel companies have launched a special hutong tour, all dressed in yellow vests of the manpower yellow bus driver, wearing a vest written on the front of the “Beijing hutong tour” written on the back of the name of the car company, as well as telephone numbers. Yellow buses and their service hutong tour. The yellow buses and their services are very localized, and the fleet of yellow buses travels through the streets of Beijing.

In the tour itinerary, every time you go to a hutong, those yellow bus drivers will also introduce what hutong this is, what kind of people live here, and which open siheyuan to see, so it can be seen that the siheyuan has now become a tourist attraction in Beijing.

The old man lives outside Xuanwumen, not very far from the hotel where Zhuang Rui lives, not much later, the driver parked the car at the entrance of a hutong, where it is not possible to drive further in.

Paid the fare, carrying things out of the car, Zhuang Rui to the hutong to go, narrow on both sides of the hutong, are high brick fence, looks a little shabby, in the hutong mouth there is a sign, which reads: non-open unit, declined to visit.

Zhuang Rui came a little early, less than nine o’clock, the hutong from time to time people in and out, looking at the hand carrying something Zhuang Rui, eyes can not help but some odd, well in front of each house door has a door number, Zhuang Rui accelerated footsteps, walked through three or four homes after the door. Finally found the old man’s residence.

Zhuang Rui pressed the doorbell, and after a minute or so, the heavy door opened, and a middle-aged woman in her forties poked her head out, took a look at the things in Zhuang Rui’s hand, and said, “Who are you looking for?”

“Is it Zhuang Rui? Come on in!”

Before Zhuang Rui could reply, Elder Gu’s bright and powerful voice rang out in the courtyard, and the middle-aged woman opened the half-door and let Zhuang Rui in.

Inside the gate, Zhuang Rui immediately brightened up, this yard inside and outside that slightly gloomy hutong completely different, sunlight through the yard that a large acacia tree leaves, like gold sprinkled to the ground, the yard also has a flower garden, planted with lilacs, begonias, bursts of flower fragrance into the end of Zhuang Rui’s nose.

In the high branches of the acacia tree, but also hung three or four birdcages, a few birds chirping inside.

Zhuang Rui surveyed the surrounding rooms, found that this is an east and west rooms each two rooms, the south room three small courtyard, lying brick to the top. Ridge tiled room, the courtyard paved brick plasterwork canal, connecting each room door, flower garden is interspersed on both sides of the road, each house in front of the steps, the door two, black lacquer oil decoration, the door has a pair of brass door cymbals, two are affixed with couplets.

Outside each house, there are pomegranate trees, daffodils, oleander, osmanthus, silver osmanthus, azalea and other potted flowers, in the hot summer, this small courtyard is everywhere reveals a cool atmosphere.

Old man Gu was sitting on a recliner under the tree, holding a book in his hand, an octagonal table was placed in front of him, there was a set of tea utensils on the table, as well as a few kinds of snacks, the breeze was gentle, blowing away the dense branches and leaves above his head, the scattered sunlight sprinkled on the old man’s body, as if he were a godly man.

“Xiao Zhang, bring a chair for Xiao Zhuang.” Seeing that it was really Zhuang Rui, the old master stood up happily.

“No, no, I’ll do it myself ……” Zhuang Rui handed the gift he was carrying in his hand to the middle-aged woman, and moved a chair next to the flower garden to the side of the ancient table.

“Master Ancient, I’ve come to disturb your purity again, I’m really sorry.” Zhuang Rui didn’t sit down, but instead bowed slightly to the old master.

“What are you saying, I live by myself. Usually it’s still too clean, don’t stand, sit down!”

Old Master Gu put down the book in his hand and poured tea for Zhuang Rui.

“That one is ……”

“Oh, Xiao Zhang is the nanny I hired, children are older, no one wants to stay in this courtyard.”

In fact, it’s not like what the old man said, his several sons and daughters are still very filial, it’s just that the old man likes to be clean, and drove the late generations out to live, but every weekend, the sons and daughters will still come back to get together.

“It’s quite good here! I feel much more comfortable than living in a building.”

Zhuang Rui said is the heart of the matter, due to live in the depths of the hutongs, outside the sound of traffic is not heard at all, a single family is very quiet, although not as big as his villa compound in Pangcheng, but it is a different mood.

“Okay, don’t say good things, take out that jadeite for me to look at it!”

Yesterday heard that Zhuang Rui solved a piece of imperial green material, the old man is waiting for the eyes of the eager ah! This kind of superb jadeite is always available but not to be sought, he immersed in the jade circle for decades. He has been immersed in the jade circle for decades, but the number of times he has seen it is only a handful of times.

Zhuang Rui took out a jewelry box from his handbag and handed it to Ancient, which was asked for in Wu Jia’s store.

Ancient opened the box, the emerald in the palm, hand picked up the table on the old glasses to wear, carefully observed, after five or six minutes, before the emerald back inside the box.

“The color is correct and not evil, the water is like a clear stream, there is not a single blemish, it is really a glass seed emperor green material, good. Really good, Xiao Zhuang, you have this luck ……”

The old man sighed, to praise Zhuang Rui a few words, but can not find the words, his nephew’s luck that is not generally good, think half a day the old man froze did not find out to describe it hand luck good words to.

“Hey, uncle, that is also your teaching good, I this jade knowledge, but also from you there to learn.”

Zhuang Rui is now a dead pig is not afraid of boiling water hot, besides, he is familiar with the gambling circle, know is not only his own this luck, every year Myanmar jadeite public market, there will be some lucky people.

“If you kid can be quiet, I can also teach you the craft of jade cutting, you can also have an additional eating craft, not right …… on your current fortune, and do not need to rely on this line to make a living.” Ancient knew that Zhuang Rui had a high level of enlightenment, but he had the intention to teach him his own jade carving mastery.

“Okay, uncle, I’m going to study in Beijing University next year, so I’ll come and learn from you then.” Zhuang Rui knew the reasoning behind the art, and immediately agreed.

“Tell me! What object do you want to carve into?” Elder Gu hadn’t carved jade for anyone for a while, and now that he saw this superb jadeite, his hand was starting to itch.

“Elder Master, do you think you can cut out three pendants, and then leave out two pairs of earrings and a ring of material?” Zhuang Rui had promised Wu Jia’s grandfather, so naturally it was not good to back out.

Ancient sniffed and picked up the jadeite for a while and asked, “Are the pendants for men or women to wear?”

“For my mom and my nieces they are.”

“Oh, men wear Guanyin women wear Buddha, three pendants no problem, just earrings and ring material, save can save out, but will not be big, are you sure?”

According to the old master’s Jingzuo carver’s habit. This piece of jadeite cut into three pendant material is just right, it will not be wasted at all, if it is according to Zhuang Rui’s requirements, the size of the pendant will be a little smaller.

“Senior, I don’t dare to hide it from you, this matter ……”

Zhuang Rui hesitated for a moment, and told the matter that Grandpa Wu Jia wanted to leave a ring face, this matter, if he didn’t say anything about it, if it would be spread to the old master’s ears in the future, it would surely make old master Gu unhappy.

After listening to Zhuang Rui’s words, Gu Gu didn’t get angry, but said with some emotion, “It’s old brother Wu! Alas, a few years ago I heard that after his son in law had a car accident, his body collapsed, I didn’t realize that he couldn’t even move the knife, our generation, too, is getting less and less old.”

“OK, I’ll take this job, but not so fast, tomorrow I’m going out, I estimate that I can only come back in three or five days, it’ll take half a month after I finish this job, right, you wait, there’s something else I want to say to you.”

Ancient stood up and walked to the main house, not long after that he came out with a red-faced book in his hand.

“Here, this is for you, take a look for yourself ……”

Zhuang Rui took the red-sided book only to realize that it was a letter of appointment, wrapped in red silk, only to open it, Zhuang Rui was dumbfounded, pointing to the words above, stuttering, “Old master, you …… you …… You are not joking with me, right?”

The letter of appointment written on the top of the “hereby employ Mr. Zhuang Rui as the director of this association” several words, let Zhuang Rui suspected in a dream, and then look at the following steel seal red seal and signature, but it is the Jade Association’s seal and the three words of Gu Tianfeng.

“Uncle Gu, this I can not dare to be ah! In case if someone says that you are practicing false publicity, then it’s all my fault.”

Zhuang Rui and carefully looked at the appointment letter, yes, is to their own, and hastened to speak out to excuse, he asked himself in addition to betting up a few pieces of jadeite, other and jade nothing related to the ancient master how to think up to give him a whole such a name, which makes Zhuang Rui some fear.

“You kid excited about what strength ah! The director is not the chairman of the board of directors, just hang a name, there are more than 30 directors in the association, Song Jun that kid can be mixed to a director, what are you afraid of?” The old man saw Zhuang Rui’s terrified expression and laughed on the side.

“What? More than thirty councilors? Brother Song too?”

Zhuang Rui froze, originally thought it was a big pie falling from the sky to hit himself, but this also made him feel at ease, he is still young, can’t afford too heavy burden well!

“You also do not take this seriously ah! Tell you, although the Jade Association belongs to the civil institutions, but the subordinate jade testing center, for the identification of jade is still very authoritative. And after you have this identity, you will not need a special invitation to participate in various domestic jade bidding meetings, even if it’s a few jade-producing countries, this thing is still somewhat useful.”

The old man gave Zhuang Rui such an identity, is to let him later in and out of those gambling venues a little more convenient, besides his age is not small, after this year I’m afraid to resign in the Jade Association’s position, but also can be regarded as retired before taking care of Zhuang Rui a bar!

“Uncle, thank you.”

Zhuang Rui heard the words of the old man, only to be considered to understand his meaning, with this thing, in the future want to bet on the stone is indeed a lot more convenient, and even if it is to go to Burma, there is also a name: academic exchanges!

The old man waved his hand, this thing for him, is nothing, mention a name only.

“By the way, you want this object in a hurry? Is the first to return to Pengcheng, or waiting in Beijing ah?” The old man will be out for a few days, so he asked Zhuang Rui.

Zhuang Rui also some hesitation, this hot days back and forth, is not very comfortable, but if you stay in Beijing, but also too lazy to go out in the sun to visit those places of interest, a time some indecisive.

Ancient saw Zhuang Rui’s appearance, opened his mouth and said: “Let’s do it this way! If you have time, go out with me, three or five days will be able to come back, but also to gain some insight.”

“Elder, where are you going this time?”

Zhuang Rui asked with a bit of curiosity, running outside in this hot day, even a young man like him can’t stand it, not to mention the old man.

“To Xinjiang, Hotan.”

This name is something that anyone who is Chinese would probably have heard of, and Zhuang Rui is no exception, for the birthplace of sheep’s fat jade, he has also been longing for it for a long time.

“Alright, Senior, I’ll go with you, I’ve long wanted to see some soft jade.” Zhuang Rui agreed with his mouth full, to be able to follow the old master’s side and see the objects, naturally they are all good things.

“Well, you were staying at the hotel yesterday, right? Go pack up, stay here at night, tomorrow we have an early morning flight, right, I’m going to have someone book a ticket for you.” Ancient explained Zhuang Rui a few sentences, went into the house to make a phone call, his ticket was booked a few days earlier, bringing Zhuang Rui there was just a whim, I don’t know if there is still a ticket.

Zhuang Rui also took out his cell phone to the home to make a phone call, told his mother to play a few days back, Zhuang mother on the phone to urge a few sentences, did not say anything more.

Just hung up the phone, the phone rang immediately after, Zhuang Rui looked at it, the number is unfamiliar, did not think much, pressed the answer button.

“Hello, you are Zhuang Rui, right? I’m Ouyang Jun.”

“Ouyang Jun?”

The voice on the phone was unfamiliar, and Zhuang Rui was also certain that he did not recognize such a man called Ouyang Jun.