Chapter Fifteen: The Predicament of Blue Jade Smoke

  Li Tu finished speaking, a hint of a smile appeared on his face, and then he ignored the unreasonable girl and focused on practicing finger techniques. The bamboo building echoed with intermittent and ear-piercing piano sounds again.

  Ding Taiji watched Li Tu start practicing the piano and carefully observed his fingerings, becoming more and more surprised as she looked on. There were many fingerings that she had never seen before, and some of them seemed quite complex and difficult to use.

  How did he learn these fingerings, some of which I've never even seen? Where could a blind person have learned them from? Dantai Ji looked at Li Tu's calm expression and couldn't help but feel suspicious. Could it be that he had a famous teacher guiding him? It was very possible, otherwise how could a fifteen-year-old boy become a sixth-grade zither master, and on top of that, a blind one?

  But I basically know all the famous Guqin players from Tanxiang County, and it seems that none of them have used these fingerings before. These fingerings look a bit strange and seem to be different from what I've seen before.

  "The sum of the three palaces is fifteen, the sum of the five palaces is sixty-five, the sum of the seven palaces is one hundred and seventy-five, and the sum of the nine palaces is three hundred and sixty-nine. Wearing nine and stepping on one, left three right seven, two four have shoulders, eight six are feet, five in the center, this is the oral formula for the three palaces. I played these palace grid games years ago, knew its rules, and also knew the answers to these grids, now I can directly say out the answers, but it's not interesting like this, you come up with another one."

  Lan Yu Yan fell silent for a while after hearing the words, then said lightly, not wanting to cheat and directly giving out the answer, seemingly also having some hidden meaning towards Li Tu's previous actions.

  Li Tu did not expect that the girl in front of him had actually played all these grid games, but the girl said that her arithmetic was good, and it was not surprising to play this type of grid game. She stopped practicing piano, slightly raised her head and said: "Since you've also played grid games, I'll come up with another one like that."

  "I've said it before, I've played grid games and they're not challenging for me at all. How about you come up with a different question?"

  Lan Yu's eyes were fixed on Li Tu, did he not understand what she was saying? This type of grid game had been played to boredom years ago, and for her, it was a piece of cake.

  "Haha, really? So confident? Since you're so confident, then I'll see if you can actually do it. Is it as easy as you say?"

  "I said..."

  "Listen to me finish the question, wait for you to answer it out, and then there is no difficulty in talking to me, right?"

  "Alright, let's see what kind of grid game you can come up with. It's not that I'm underestimating grid games, it's just that I've already figured out the rules and patterns, so it's easy for me."

  "I really hope you can solve it as easily as you said."

  "It's no difficulty for me."

  "Listen up, the rules of the game are as follows: in each row, column and 3x3 sub-grid, fill in numbers from 1 to 9 without repeating any number."

  "The first row and first column is eight, the second row and third column is three, the fourth column is four, the third row and second column is seven..."

  Li Tu filled in a total of twenty-one numbers in the nine-grid, this nine-grid is the most difficult grid game he designed unintentionally, and its answer is also unique.

  He designed this nine-grid is a coincidence, purely luck.

  "The first row and first column is eight, the second row and third column is three, the fourth column is four, the third row and second column is seven..."

  Lan Yu silently remembered that the Palace Grid game not only tests a person's numerical reasoning ability but also their logical thinking ability, and has a great impact on training one's thinking.

  "Each row, each column and each palace fill in the numbers one to nine and cannot be repeated. The first row of the first grid is eight, that is, the first row, the first column and the first palace can no longer appear the number eight."

  Lan Yu Yan began to slowly tidy up, the more she thought about it, the more shocked she became. This nine-grid palace seemed to have some difficulty, not simple.

  "This nine-grid involves sorting numbers, it's easy to get confused, I need to use pen and paper."

  "There are brushes, ink, paper and inkstones in the room, you can use them as you like." Li Tu said this sentence and started practicing the piano.

  Dantai Ji looked at Lan Yuyan and was also slightly surprised, with her arithmetic skills still needing to rely on paper and pen, which showed that the nine-grid puzzle Li had come up with was not easy, otherwise she wouldn't need to use tools.

  Lan Yu took out paper and pen, sat down in the corridor, drew a nine-grid diagram, filled in the numbers Li Tu had previously mentioned, and began to ponder.

  Looking at the already drawn nine-grid painting, Lan Yu Yan was unable to put pen to paper for a long time, and didn't even know what the first number should be.

  A moment passed, and Lan Yu was still staring at the Nine Palaces Grid, frowning with her eyebrows, unable to make a move.

  "This 9x9 grid seems to be quite challenging, it's different from the ones I played before and the difficulty is higher. However, I don't believe there's a 9x9 grid that Lan Yu Yan can't solve, but it will take some time to slowly reason through."

  Ding Taiji looked at Lan Yuxiao and was surprised that she still hadn't solved it within a minute, as in her impression, there were rarely any difficult problems that would take Lan Yuxiao a whole minute to solve.

  Time passed bit by bit, one o'clock, two o'clock...

  Half a time period has passed, and beads of sweat have appeared on Lan Yu's forehead as she stares intently at the Nine Palaces diagram in front of her, but the pen in her hand still can't fill in a single number.

  "The first row, second column, can only be one of the three numbers: 1, 2 or 4, but it's impossible to determine which one. It would take a lot of time to verify each one individually. But half an hour has already passed and I still can't fill in a single number, how is this possible?"

  Lan Yu Yan wiped the sweat from his forehead and, hearing the jarring sound of the guqin beside him, became somewhat displeased. "Can you please be quiet?" he said. "This will seriously affect my reasoning and interrupt my train of thought."

  Li Tu heard this and was taken aback, looking up at the girl he said: "Let me remind you, perhaps you've forgotten where you are right now."

  "Can't you just stop for a moment?"

  "You forgot that I was already here practicing piano before you came, it's you who disturbed me, and also forgot who is the master of this bamboo building. Moreover, this is my practice time. If you think my piano sound disturbs you, you can leave and find another quiet place."

  "You're so petty."

  Lan Yu's heart skipped a beat, but she couldn't refute it, and secretly became angry.

  "This is my piano practice time. You came over without reason to disturb me, and I didn't say anything to you. Now you're actually saying that I'm the one who's wrong? Is there anyone as unreasonable as you?"

  "You..."

  Lan Yu Yan had never been treated this way before, from childhood to adulthood, wherever she went was warmly welcomed and admired by the crowd, but now she felt a bit stifled, with a surge of anger in her heart that couldn't be expressed. The blind man was indeed blind, not understanding how to cherish and appreciate a precious gem, but deep down, he could only feel this way.

  "Since you're so insistent, I'll let you have your way." With that, Li Tu also stopped practicing the piano and sat quietly.

  Lan Yu Yan felt an urge to vomit blood when she heard Li Tu speak, what's the point of you being so arrogant, I'll just let you have your way. What kind of person is this? Especially his tone of voice, it's the most disgusting and unbearable, making her feel like she's been forced into a corner.

  Hantai Ji, sitting cross-legged beside Lanyu Yan, also looked at the two of them with some speechlessness. These two people seemed to be competing in a staring contest, but Mangzi appeared to have the upper hand, leaving Lanyu Yan stifled and unable to retort.

  However, in this half-hour, the finger techniques that Li Tu practiced were more and more astonishing to her. She saw over 300 kinds of finger techniques, some of which she had never heard or seen before, looking quite strange and also much more complicated.

  How can he have so many finger techniques? Even she only knows over a hundred kinds of finger techniques.

  Another half past, Lan Yu smoke in the nine palace grid painting filled with a few numbers, but the following number is not sure, this need to spend a lot of time to one by one proof.

  Blue Jade Smoke has now realized that this Nine Palace Grid is not something that can be solved in a short period of time, and the answer can only be obtained by spending a lot of time.

  But before that, her words seemed to have been said a bit too much. Now thinking about it, my face feels a little hot. Now I can only grit my teeth and slowly verify, reasoning one by one, hoping to solve this nine-grid puzzle in the shortest time possible.

  It's been another quarter of an hour, and Lan Yu Yan is already covered in sweat, but after two quarters of an hour, she still hasn't figured out the answer. At this moment, her face feels like it's on fire, and she doesn't dare to lift her head. Li Tu is sitting quietly with his eyes closed as if he's fallen asleep, not making a sound, so she can only continue to rack her brains.

  Dantai Ji had already seen the predicament of Lan Yushan, but she was not interested in numerology and did not know how difficult Li's nine-grid puzzle was. However, from Lan's current predicament, it could be seen that the difficulty was very high. So she spoke up: "The sky is getting dark, we should also go back. Today I came uninvited, please forgive me for the disturbance."

  "It's getting dark anyway, so I won't see you off." Li Tu said calmly as he stood up with his guqin in his arms.

  Lan Yu Yan heard Dan Tai Ji's words as if she had been granted a great amnesty. She had long wanted to escape this place and didn't want to stay for another moment. Her previous words were too full, leaving no room for herself, resulting in lifting a stone to hit her own foot, with bitterness that cannot be spoken. But as soon as she heard Li Tu's sentence "the darkness is just right", she immediately felt a surge of silent anger. What does this mean? Is it sarcasm?

  As a proud daughter of heaven, admired by all, when did Lan Yuyan ever receive such ridicule.