Asking questions at a stall
Tonight is silent, every family is playing flutes, and the bright moon is overhead, flying with colors and condensing its brilliance, swallowing up the starlight in the sky.
Tonight I know that the spring air is warm, and the sound of insects is new through the green window screen.
Perhaps only in ancient times, on such a pure night, could poets write such appropriate poems.
Xia Shang looked at the bright moon at the door of the small thatched house, listening to the night wind whispering to himself. A woman in a room behind him was making a bed and making a mattress, busy silently.
At this moment, everything was too quiet, leading Xia Shang's thoughts step by step to another time and space, and familiar and distant faces appeared in his mind one after another.
In a blink of an eye, it has been half a month since I came to this new world. This half-month of life is real but illusory. All kinds of new people and new things come one after another, leaving Xia Shang no time to think and reminisce.
Now, when everything slows down, Xia Shang finally has time to calm down and think.
This is a process that a time traveler must go through. He is not holding on to the memory of the previous life, but saying goodbye to the previous life.
Forget everything and never look back.
Cherish the present.
Qin Huairou stood silently behind Xia Shang for a long time. He wanted to let him go into the house to rest, but seeing that her husband looked a little strange, he waited silently behind him.
A few days ago, he made a big joke by pretending to hang himself, but Qin Huairou felt that her husband's attitude towards her had changed a lot. Today, he took the initiative to tell her the origin of the 10,000 taels of gold, and said a lot of unexpected words.
Two hats were exchanged for 10,000 taels of gold. I'm afraid no one would believe it.
But her husband really did it.
Looking at her husband's back, Qin Huairou felt that her husband had become unfamiliar for the first time. He really couldn't connect the current him with that dandy.
...
After a silent farewell to the past, Xia Shang's ancient life was becoming calm.
Every day, I go to the Sai Mansion to teach, and go home at dusk. I look after a few small workers to repair the house. Life is easy and comfortable, but money is getting tighter.
The building materials at home have been used up, and raw materials need to be replenished. The wages have to be re-paid. After careful calculation, it is necessary to add another seven or eight taels of silver. The book writing plan is in progress, and it is not the time to make money. If I force the marketing plan to change, I am afraid that there will be unexpected loopholes, resulting in insufficient income, which will not be worth the loss.
Qin Huairou also knows the difficulties at home, and once again proposes to pawn her earrings first, or borrow some from her mother's family for emergency.
How can Xia Shang agree?
In the absence of a direct way to make money, Xia Shang wants to just tell fortunes for others.
It happened that yesterday, Sai Jiangnan said that a friend invited Xia Shang to play, so Xia Shang did not need to go to the Sai Mansion to teach, so he took a set of tables and chairs, set up a white coat, and swaggered to Yangzhou City.
The fortune-teller business has a long history, and there are many Taoists in Yangzhou who make a living by fortune-telling.
There are two types of fortune-telling: one is the traveling fortune-telling and the other is the sending fortune-telling.
The traveling fortune-telling is the kind where one person walks around the streets with a flag. When he sees someone with a bad complexion, he will take the initiative to tell the other person seriously: "Donor, I see that you have a bad complexion, your blood is not flowing smoothly, your forehead is black, and you will have a bloody disaster in the near future."
The traveling fortune-tellers are mostly those who are in urgent need of money and have not learned the skills well. Because their whereabouts are erratic, they are not afraid of the people who ask for fortune-telling to come and trouble them even if they make mistakes.
The sending fortune-telling is just the opposite. You need to find a fixed location, set up a stall, put up a fortune-telling flag, and wait for the person who asks for fortune-telling to come forward and ask. In this way, the fortune-telling is free of charge. If the person who asks for fortune-telling thinks that the fortune-telling is accurate and wants to eliminate disasters or solve problems or learn more, he will charge.
The fee for delivering the hanging is high, but the requirements for the fortune teller are extremely high. If you are not sure, you must not speak nonsense. If there is a mistake, the person seeking the fortune will come to the door to pursue the responsibility and sue the government, which is a crime of supernatural power.
Xia Shang's outfit today is naturally to set up a stall to deliver the hanging.
Because he has just arrived, Xia Shang doesn't know where to set up the stall, so he chose a street with many peers.
It is also a coincidence that the location chosen by Xia Shang is not far from the Yongwang Mansion, just a corner away.
In the past, the Yongwang Mansion was called Meiyuan, and outside the Meiyuan was Meihua Street. It was originally a deserted and sparsely populated place, but because of the Yongwang's arrival, this area has become much more lively, and there are always dignitaries coming to the Yongwang Mansion to show their courtesy. The fortune teller also seized this opportunity to move the stall not far from the Yongwang Mansion, because there are many rich people coming and going here, and the price of fortune telling is naturally high.
Xia Shang was a little tired after walking all the way from the city gate with tables and chairs. He saw a sandalwood tree in front of him, so he put up a fortune-telling sign under the tree. After putting up the flag, he set up the tables and chairs, and then he could welcome customers.
Not far away on the same street, there were two fortune-telling stalls facing each other from a distance. The gentlemen who presided over the stalls were all dressed in white and Taoist robes, calm and composed, with a look of immortal style.
The words on the signs were also unique.
One read: "Seek blessings, seek disasters, seek what is not clear, understand the heavens, the earth, and the past and the present."
The second read: "Hear the Xuanyin Bagua Dushengmen above, and know the Bodhi borrowing the road to cross the world below."
Compared with them, Xia Shang's stall looked much simpler, with only four simple big words on the sign.
"Free fortune-telling."
And Xia Shang's age was also incompatible with the profession of fortune-teller. The two fortune tellers were a little worried when they saw a newcomer coming to plant the flag, but when they saw Xia Shang's age, they couldn't help but smile at each other and closed their eyes to rest.
Xia Shang hadn't waited for the person who wanted to ask for divination, but waited for another fortune teller.
"Boy, where are you from?"
Xia Shang looked up at the other person, dressed like a standard fortune teller, with a long beard, gray and white, and an old face that looked like it was covered with plaster, stiff and expressionless. Behind him was a small cart with all the tools for fortune-telling on it.
"Come out by yourself." Xia Shang replied vaguely.
"I don't care where you come from, but do you know that you are now occupying my place?"
"The space under the tree is wide, sir, please choose a place as you like. I don't mind."
"You don't mind, but I do! I have been setting up a stall here for many years, and this sandalwood tree has always been my territory."
"Oh? So there is a saying that there are boundaries for setting up stalls to tell fortunes? Then please mark the way, sir, and let's do some fighting?"
Xia Shang stood up with a smile, rolled up his sleeves, and put on a fighting style.
Although Xia Shang was weak, he was young after all. How could he be a match for an old man over fifty years old?
The old man didn't expect Xia Shang to start a fight as soon as he opened his mouth, so how could he dare to respond?
"I... I am too ashamed to waste my breath with a young boy like you!"
After saying that, a man towed a cart to Xia Shang's side, set up a stall, put up a flag, took out a pot of hot tea, leisurely poured himself a cup, drank a sip contentedly, and finally glanced at Xia Shang with disdain.
At this moment, a man came down from the tree, apparently asking for a fortune telling.
The old man quickly put down the teacup, put on an attitude of a master, stroked his beard, shook his head and muttered: "Analyze yin and yang and judge the five elements, look at the sun and moon in the palm; measure feng shui and investigate the six directions, and take the universe in the sleeve."