HUANGYING

Ma Zicai is from Shuntian Mansion. His family has loved chrysanthemums for generations, and Ma Zicai's generation has become obsessed with chrysanthemums. As soon as I hear that there are good varieties somewhere, I must buy them, even if they are thousands of miles away. One day, a guest from Nanjing stayed at his home. He claimed that his Chinese cousin had one or two kinds of chrysanthemums that were not available in Beijing. Ma Zicai was delighted and immediately prepared his luggage and followed the guests to Nanjing. The guests sought help from many sources and obtained two seedlings, which Ma Zi then wrapped up and kept as treasures.

Halfway home, Ma Zi met a handsome young man, riding a donkey and following an oil and green car. Ma Zicai approached him to chat, and the young man introduced himself as Tao. He spoke very elegantly and asked Ma Zicai where he came from, and Ma Zicai told him the truth. The young man said: "There are no bad varieties of chrysanthemums. The key lies in people's cultivation and watering." So he talked to Ma Zicai about the method of growing chrysanthemums. Ma Zicai was very happy after hearing this and asked: "Where are you going?" The young man replied: "My sister doesn't want to live in Nanjing and wants to find a place to live north of the Yellow River." Ma Zicai said happily: " Although I have always been poor, I still have a few huts at home that I can stay in temporarily. If you don't mind being remote and shabby, please don't go anywhere else." Tao Sheng quickly walked to the Youbi car and reported to his sister. The person in the car opened the curtain to talk. It turned out to be a stunning beauty in her twenties. She looked at her brother and said, "The house is not too small, but the yard must be spacious." Ma Zicai agreed on Tao Sheng's behalf, and returned home with them.

There was an abandoned vegetable garden to the south of Ma Zicai's house, with only three or four huts. Tao Sheng liked it very much and moved in there. Tao Sheng went to the North Courtyard every day to tend the chrysanthemums for Ma Zicai. Some chrysanthemums had withered, so he uprooted them and replanted them in another place, and they always survived. But the Tao family was very poor. Tao Sheng and Ma Zicai ate and drank together every day, while his sister seemed to not light a fire to cook in the south courtyard all day long. Ma Zicai's wife, Lu, also liked Tao Sheng's sister very much and would give her one and a half liters of grain from time to time. Tao Sheng's sister, whose nickname is Huang Ying, is very talkative. She often goes to Mrs. Lu's room and does needlework with Mrs. Lu.

One day, Tao Sheng said to Ma Zicai: "Your family is not well-off, but I eat and drink at your house every day, which is a drag on you. How can you go on like this for a long time? For now, selling chrysanthemums is enough to make a living." Ma Zicai always thought of himself. Qing Gao, after hearing what Tao Sheng said, despised him and said: "I thought you were a noble scholar and would be able to live in poverty. If you say this today, you are treating the chrysanthemum garden as a market and insulting the chrysanthemum." Tao Sheng said with a smile: "Being self-reliant is not greedy, and selling flowers as a career is not vulgar. Of course, people cannot seek to get rich by any means, but they don't have to seek poverty." Ma Zicai didn't say anything, and Tao Sheng stood up and left.

From then on, Tao Sheng picked up all the bad branches that Ma Zicai had thrown away and brought them back to the south courtyard. Tao Sheng no longer went to Ma's house to sleep or eat. He only went there when Ma Zi invited him. Soon, the chrysanthemums were about to bloom, and Ma Zi heard the noise outside Tao's house was as loud as a market. He felt strange and went over to take a look. He saw an endless stream of people coming to buy flowers on the street, pulling them on carts and carrying them on their shoulders. Those chrysanthemums were all exotic varieties that Ma Zicai had never seen before. Ma Zicai was disgusted with Tao Sheng's greed for money and wanted to break up with him; but he also resented him for hiding so many good flowers in private, so he knocked on his door and prepared to scold him. Tao Sheng came out, shook hands warmly and pulled him into the garden. I saw that half an acre of the abandoned courtyard had been turned into a chrysanthemum border. Except for a few huts, there was no open space. Where the flowers have been dug out, other branches and leaves are cut off and inserted to fill the gap; among the chrysanthemums that are about to bloom in the border, there is no one that is not beautiful. But Ma Zi took a closer look and found that those were the ones he had pulled out and thrown away before. Tao Sheng walked into the house, took out the food and wine, set up a banquet beside the chrysanthemum border, and said, "I am too poor to abide by the noble precepts. In recent days, I have been lucky enough to get a meager amount of money, which is enough for us to get drunk." After a while, in the room, Calling "Sanlang", Tao Sheng agreed and walked in. He quickly brought out several delicious dishes, which were cooked very delicately. Ma Zicai asked Tao Sheng: "Why is your sister not allowed to marry someone else?" Tao Sheng replied: "The time has not come yet." Ma Zicai asked: "When will it be?" Tao Sheng said: "Forty-three months later." Ma Zicai said Then he asked again: "How do you explain this?" Tao Sheng just smiled and said nothing. The two drank heavily and left happily.

After a night, Ma Zicai came to the south courtyard again. The newly planted flower branches were already more than a foot high. He was very strange and asked Tao Sheng to teach him the art of cultivating chrysanthemums. Tao Sheng said: "This is really unspeakable; besides, if you don't make a living from this, how can you use this?" After a few days, the courtyard became quieter, so Tao Sheng wrapped the chrysanthemums in mats, tied them up, packed them in several carts, and left. . A year later, when spring was almost half over, Tao Sheng came back with exotic flowers and plants from the south, and opened a flower shop in the capital. All the flowers were sold out within ten days, and he came back to cultivate chrysanthemums. The person who bought the flowers last year left the flower roots behind, but the flowers mutated into inferior varieties the next year, so he bought them from Tao Sheng again. From then on, Tao Sheng became rich day by day: he built more houses in the first year, and built tall pavilions in the second year. He built the buildings as he pleased without any consultation with the owners. Gradually, the flower beds of the past have turned into cloisters and houses. Tao Sheng bought another piece of land outside the wall, built an earthen wall around it, and planted chrysanthemums inside.

In autumn, Tao Sheng drove the chrysanthemum away again, and did not come back after the next spring. At this time, Ma Zicai's wife died of illness. Ma Zicai intended to remarry Huang Ying, so he asked someone to give her some hints. Huang Ying smiled and seemed to agree, just waiting for Tao Sheng to come back. More than a year later, Tao Sheng never came back. Huang Ying urged his servants to plant chrysanthemums, just like Tao Sheng did. With the money he earned, he entered into a partnership with a businessman and bought twenty hectares of fertile farmland outside the village, making his residence even more spectacular. One day, a visitor suddenly came from the southeast and brought a letter from Tao Sheng. When he opened it, he found that he asked his sister to marry Ma Zicai. Checking the date of sending the letter, it was the day his wife died; recalling the days of drinking in the garden, Ma Zi was surprised that exactly forty-three months had passed. He showed the letter to Huang Ying and asked her where the betrothal gift should be sent. Huang Ying refused to accept the betrothal gift. She also thought that his house was dilapidated and wanted him to live in the south courtyard as if he were a bride-in-law. Ma Zicai disagreed and chose an auspicious day to perform the wedding ceremony.

After Huang Ying married Ma Zicai, she opened a door in the wall leading to the south residence, and went there every day to supervise the servants in their work. Ma Zicai felt that it was a shame to rely on his wife to become rich, so he often asked Huang Ying to keep two ledgers in the north and south to prevent confusion. But Huang Ying always brought things needed at home from the house in the south. In less than half a year, Tao's things were everywhere in the house. Ma Zicai immediately sent people to send the things back one by one and warned them not to take them again. Within ten days, things were mixed again. This was repeated several times before Ma Zi became extremely troubled. Huang Ying said with a smile: "To show your integrity, isn't it too hard to do this?" Ma Zicai felt ashamed and stopped checking things, leaving everything to Huang Ying. Huang Ying summoned craftsmen, prepared materials, and started construction, but Ma Zicai couldn't stop it. After a few months, the terraces and houses became one, and the two houses merged into one, regardless of boundaries. However, Huang Ying followed Ma Zicai's instructions and stayed at home, no longer engaged in chrysanthemum business, and lived a better life than a wealthy family.

Ma Zicai felt very uneasy and said: "My thirty years of high moral character have been hindered by you. Now that I am living in the world, I only rely on my wife to live. I really have no trace of a manly spirit. Everyone prays to get rich, but I just pray to change." Poor!" Huang Ying said: "I'm not greedy and vulgar; it's just that if I don't get rich a little bit, people thousands of years from now will say that Tao Yuanming is a poor man who can't make a fortune in a hundred generations, so this is just to give my family Peng Zegong some credit. But, It is very difficult for poor people to long for wealth; but it is actually easy for rich people to pray for poverty. You can squander the gold and silver on the bedside, and I will not be stingy." Ma Zicai said: "It is still very shameful to spend other people's money. ." Huang Ying said: "You don't want to be rich, and I can't be willing to be poor. I have no choice but to live separately from you: the noble one will be noble, and the muddy one will be muddy, so the two sides won't harm each other, right?" So Huang Ying said. Ying built a hut in the garden and selected beautiful maids to serve him. Ma Zicai lived at ease. But after a few days, he missed Huang Ying bitterly. I asked her to come, but she refused to come; I had no choice but to accommodate her. It's a habit to come here every other night. Huang Ying said with a smile: "Eating at the host's house and staying at the west's house is not the case for honest people." Ma Zicai also laughed and was speechless, so they lived together as before.

Ma Zicai came to Nanjing on business, and it was the autumn when chrysanthemums were in full bloom. He passed by a flower shop early in the morning and saw many potted chrysanthemums on display in the shop in various shapes. He was suspicious that Tao Sheng had cultivated them. After a while, the owner of the shop came out, and it turned out to be Tao Sheng. The two were very happy and told each other about their long separation, and Ma Zicai lived in the flower shop. He invited Tao Sheng to go back. Tao Sheng said, "Nanjing is my hometown. I want to get married here. I have saved a little money. Please bring it to my sister. I will definitely visit you at the end of this year." Ma Zicai refused to listen and became more and more miserable. He begged bitterly and said, "My family is very rich. I can just sit back and enjoy myself. There is no need to do business anymore." He sat in the shop and asked his servant to negotiate the price for him. He sold the flowers at a reduced price, and they were sold out in a few days. He urged Tao Sheng to pack his bags, rented a boat and headed north. Tao Sheng walked in. Her sister had already cleaned the room and arranged the bed and bedding, as if she knew in advance that her brother would come back.

After Tao Sheng came back, he put down his clothes and urged his servants to overhaul the pavilion. He and Ma Zicai played chess and drank together every day, and no longer made friends with any outsiders. He was offered marriage, but he refused and said he was unwilling. Huang Ying sent two maids to help him sleep. After three or four years, he gave birth to a daughter. Tao Sheng has always been a heavy drinker, but I have never seen him drunk. There was a friend Zeng Sheng, whose drinking capacity was unmatched by anyone. He happened to come to visit Ma Zicai, and Ma Zicai asked him to have a drinking contest with Tao Sheng. The two of them drank to their heart's content, drinking very happily, and they both felt like they had met each other so late. From Chen hour to the fourth watch, each person drank a hundred pots. Zeng Sheng was so drunk that he fell asleep at the banquet. Tao Sheng stood up and went back to sleep. When he went out, he stepped on the chrysanthemum border and fell down like a jade mountain. His clothes fell aside and turned into a chrysanthemum, as tall as a man. There were more than a dozen flowers in bloom, all bigger than a fist. Ma Zicai was horrified and went to tell Huang Ying. Huang Ying hurried over, pulled up the flowers, put them on the ground, and said, "Why are you so drunk?" She covered the chrysanthemums with her clothes, asked Ma Zicai to leave with her, and warned him not to look. Ma Zi came to the garden after dawn and saw Tao Sheng lying beside the chrysanthemum border. Only then did Ma Zzi realize that the two siblings were chrysanthemum spirits, so he respected and loved them even more. Since Tao Sheng's appearance was revealed, he drank more indulgently. He often sent out invitations himself to invite Zeng Sheng to come and drink, so he and Zeng Sheng became sworn friends. It happened to be Baihua's birthday on February 15th. Zeng came to visit before his death. He asked two servants to carry a jar of white wine soaked in medicine, and agreed to drink it up with Tao Sheng. The wine in the jar was almost gone, and the two of them were still not very drunk. Ma Zicai secretly refilled a large bottle of wine, and the two drank it all. Zeng Sheng was already drunk and exhausted, so the servants carried him away. Tao Sheng lay on the ground and turned into a cluster of chrysanthemums. Ma Zicai was not surprised at the strange thing, so he pulled it up according to Huang Ying's method and stood by to observe its changes. After a long time, the chrysanthemum leaves became more and more haggard. Ma Zicai was very scared, so he went to tell Huang Ying. Huang Ying heard this and said in panic: "You killed my brother!" She ran to take a look and found that the rhizome had withered. Huang Ying was so distraught that she cut off the flower stalks, buried them in a flower pot, took them back to her boudoir, and watered them every day. Ma Zicai regretted it terribly and resented Zeng Sheng very much. A few days later, I heard that Zeng Sheng was drunk to death. The flower stalks in the pot gradually sprouted new buds, and in September they bloomed, with short branches and white flowers. They smelled of wine and were named "Zui Tao". Pour it with wine, and it will grow more luxuriantly. Later, Tao Sheng's daughter grew up and married into a wealthy family. Huang Ying died of old age and found no other strange things.