Chapter 2: The Magical Pearl

  Turn on the old machine, then go downstairs to the nearby boiler room with a water bottle to fetch water, three cents per bottle, one bottle per day, and rely on this bottle of water for washing face, brushing teeth, etc.

  Spent a few minutes boiling water, and when I walked in the door, the machine had already entered the system. Casually poured myself a cup of hot water, sat down comfortably at my desk and logged onto my QQ.

  As soon as I logged onto QQ, I found a message in our university classmates' group. I opened it and found that someone was getting married and inviting us to attend his wedding ceremony on October 1st in Changyang City.

  I casually replied: It's only May, you're getting married in October, what's the rush?

  Who would have thought that just as I was about to post a bird's head image, it suddenly brightened up: Brother, isn't this a reminder for you all to pay attention to saving money? Even if people can't come, the red envelope money must be delivered.

  "I told you not to be so selfish, we're all poor ordinary people, your family's old man opened a factory and still wants to exploit us brothers, okay, brother will arrive on time"

  Bring your girlfriend along, with a smile behind.

  Don't rush to bring your girlfriend home, first put her at her mother-in-law's house for a few more years of nurturing, and then added a cool expression afterwards.

  "Here's a picture for you to see, take a look at how many people are in it. Hint: there are eleven." Along with Ju An's QQ, a picture popped up.

  At first glance, I saw three people's heads, and the rest seemed not that easy to find. After looking for almost ten seconds, I still didn't see a fourth person's head.

  At this moment, the picture suddenly turned into a gloomy and terrifying woman's face.

  Ju An was concentrating on finding a person's head, when suddenly a terrifying face appeared, scaring him to jump up immediately. He then heard two crisp sounds, took a deep breath and cursed loudly "Damn you, you son of a bitch!"

  Lowering his head to take a look, the cup on the table and the Wanli yea's bulldog that had just cost twenty big oceans were lying on the ground with their heads chopped off.

  He sat back in his chair and said with a sigh: You scared me half to death.

  At this time many people immediately returned: Haha, we've all seen it and are waiting for you.

  "Ah, okay," replied Gu Shou, "My cup and Wanli's bulldog were both smashed by me. Let's talk later, I'll go clean up first."

  "What's with the Wanli Emperor's bulldog, you little brat, don't try to cheat your old man. Do you really think your brother is a bumpkin? Did they have bulldogs during the Wanli era? When did bullfighting also start time-traveling?"

  "Let's talk about it later, I knocked over the cup and water spilled all over the floor." Ju An quickly fetched a mop from outside the house and absorbed the water.

  Then he fetched a trash can from behind the door and prepared to throw the broken porcelain pieces into it.

  It wasn't until I picked up the pieces that I realized, from such a high table, the porcelain dog had only broken into two complete halves, with its head and body separated.

  Just as I was about to throw the dog's head and body into the trash can, a glance at the corner of my eye seemed to suggest that there was something inside the dog's body. Upon closer inspection, indeed there was something - a crumpled up piece of paper-like material. The dog's head, on the other hand, was empty. I threw the dog's head into the trash can and then inserted my fingers into the dog's body to try to pull out the object. As soon as I did, the sharp edge of the ceramic dog's neck cut a small gash in my thumb. Hurriedly, I sucked on my thumb and then slammed the dog's body onto the ground, shattering it into several pieces.

  Open the paper package and take a look, inside is wrapped a dark green bead necklace with a dark red cord, the cord and beads only have a very small auspicious knot.

  At a glance, there were still words on the paper, which read: In these days, opium is poisoning our countrymen. With fellow students, I wanted to kill the opium-peddling foreign devils and intimidate the Western barbarians. Leaving this pearl with you, my last words as your father. Xuantong 2nd year, Spring.

  A few dozen nameless and surname-less words, don't even know who the murderer is, who to give this pearl to, why hide it in the belly of this ceramic dog.

  This guy is a tough man, he even dared to go to the concession and kill people during the late Qing dynasty, and the ones he killed were foreigners. Suddenly, I have infinite admiration for this tough brother.

  Pick up the bead, Ju'an carefully examines this dark green bead. Suddenly, the bead attracts Ju'an's eyes, and the entire bead emits a faint, eerie glow in Ju'an's hand, as if there is something inside.

  He subconsciously picked up the bead and held it against the light bulb, closing one eye to see what was inside. As soon as his thumb, which had been cut by a porcelain chip, touched the bead, a thread of blood quickly seeped into the bead, and the wound healed at a speed visible to the naked eye. However, he didn't seem to notice these things, as he was deeply attracted to the bead. The image inside the bead was a bit like a science education film he had seen before, showing the formation of the solar system in a fantastical way.

  The mist inside the bead slowly dispersed, revealing a small house-like thing, blurry and unclear, somewhat like a small house, but also somewhat like a small mound of earth.

  It would be great if I could go in and take a look, but the more I look, the less clear it becomes. The more unclear it is, the more I want to see clearly, making my heart itch with anxiety. Just as the thought of going in to take a look flashed through my mind, suddenly everything in front of me lit up.

  If someone saw Ju An's expression now, they would definitely burst out laughing. Ju An was still maintaining the posture of sitting in a chair, with both hands seemingly holding beads and raised above his head, only his eyes were wide open, and it seemed that two eggs could fit inside his mouth.

  Looking incredulously at everything in front of me, an ancient Chinese wooden house, a circle of fences, the fences were covered with green vines, and the fences just surrounded a small courtyard in front of the house. In the middle of the small courtyard, there was a huge well, and from the mouth of the well, a dark green big tree stretched out, its canopy completely covering the entire small courtyard. The funny thing is that in the middle of the yard, there was also an iron cabinet-like thing about half the height of a person, which completely destroyed the serenity and tranquility of the small courtyard.

  With a thud, Ju An suddenly fell to the ground, rubbed his knees hard for a moment, maintained the horse stance for two minutes, and ended with both hands raised to heaven in the "Embracing Yang" pose.

  Rubbed his eyes hard and pinched his thigh at the same time. Ouch! It wasn't an illusion.

  Get up and habitually pat the butt. Then cast your gaze outside the small courtyard, only to see that outside the courtyard is a vast expanse of greenery, it's actually a large lawn, with white misty fog shrouding in the distance, not far from the courtyard is a pond, and there are even fish jumping out of the water.

  She looked up and saw a vast expanse of blue above her head, without a single cloud or sun in sight. The entire space was bright but not dazzling.

  Ju An stood in front of the small hut, carefully sizing it up. The small hut was not big and its shape was a bit like the annex building of Jiangnan Institute that he had seen before.

  According to the rough estimate of Ju An, it was about 10 meters long, with a green tile roof and four wooden pillars supporting the eaves. On the half-high brick wall were windows, each covered with white paper.

  Gently push open the door, walk into the house, the room is dark and gloomy inside. Just coming from the bright outside, my eyes are very uncomfortable. Rubbing my eyes, waiting for them to adapt to the indoor environment.

  On the window frame of the discovered room, there was a bolt-like thing. Walking over and lightly turning it with one's hand, the window opened, and four or five windows were opened together. The whole house brightened up.

  The floor of the house is paved with large square green bricks, a bed about ten centimeters off the ground, several tatami mats, and a small table that is slightly higher than the knee, which was seen in the TV series "Three Kingdoms". On the table are placed several bamboo slips. What's this thing? Isn't it just bamboo slips?

  Walked to the side of a small case, pulled out a rush cushion, and sat on it with five or six people. As soon as he opened the bamboo slips, he was stunned. The characters on them were all unrecognizable, curved and twisted. Not giving up, he opened several more volumes in succession, but An still couldn't recognize any of the characters. In total, there wasn't a single character that could be recognized among the several volumes of bamboo slips.

  After reading books for over a decade, I've still become illiterate. Living in comfort and throwing away bamboo slips, he thought to himself with indignation.

  There's nothing much to see in the house, and it's all so dull. I thought of reading a book, but I don't recognize the characters, how boring! Suddenly I remembered seeing fish jumping out of the water in the pond earlier, so I quickly ran out of the house.

  Standing by the pond and taking a look, oh my, the water is so beautiful! The entire pond is sparkling, with a pale green color, clear to the bottom. Clusters of long aquatic plants like seaweed in the ocean are swaying back and forth. Large and small carp are swimming around in the pond.

  After a few minutes, Ju An saw several big green fish over one meter long swimming leisurely in front of him. Watching them made Ju An's mouth water.

  After looking at the pond, I returned to the yard and only then discovered that it wasn't a large well, but rather a circle of earth about half a meter high surrounding the tree trunk. Inside the earth circle there was still water, and the roots of this big tree were actually submerged in the water, who knows how the tree grew like this? This tree didn't look ordinary either, its entire body was a deep green color, just like a jade stone carving. I touched the tree trunk with my hand, and a warm, cool sensation spread throughout my body along with my palm.

  "Good tree! Good tree!" He praised the big tree a few times and patted the trunk.

  In front of the iron cabinet, turned around in a circle, several big locks locked the iron cabinet, nothing to see, and don't know what's inside.

  After messing around for half a day, Ju An suddenly thought of it and didn't know how to get out. Recalling the scene when he came in at that time, Ju An thought to himself: I want to go out. Sure enough, after a flash of black and white, Ju An returned to his rented house again.

  In and out, back and forth, playing with great relish. After going in and out a dozen or so times, when I finally came out, I found that the bead had become quite ordinary-looking on the outside. Now it just looks like a red wooden bead with a big tree carved on it - even the house is gone.

  It's better this way, can be carried around. If it was in its original shape and hung around the neck, who knows when I might lose my life? Haven't you seen reports of people being hacked to death for their mobile phones?

  Put the beads around her neck, lying comfortably in bed, thinking to herself, hmm, tomorrow go to the street to buy a net pocket, scoop up fish, and then think about it, how to eat this fish after scooping it up? Not even a pot is available, can't eat it raw, right? And she's not a little ghost who eats raw fish slices.

  Put the fish aside for now, tomorrow go buy a big plier to deal with those locks, and then take a look at what's inside that cabinet. The door isn't even locked, but that rusty iron cabinet is still locked up.

  Almost forgot that I'm going horseback riding tomorrow. As soon as I thought of it, I casually picked up my phone and called a few colleagues to tell them that something unexpected came up and I won't be able to go tomorrow.

  Riding a horse is fun, but where can you find such a wonderful place? No matter how beautiful it is in your heart, three rooms and one hall are nothing to brag about. Comparing with brother, no, this thing nobody can say, even if they kill me, I won't say. Just thinking like this, I fell into a dream.