Chen Qing left the pharmacy and went to the back street to embroider. Tong Ji Cloth Shop is also Chen Qing's old customer, and the store sells some common coarse cloth, cotton cloth, and a small number of medium-quality satins. Chen Qing's mother also took over embroidery work in this house when she was young, and she still corresponded with Tongji until Chen Qing took over.

"Ah Qing is here, the embroidery is finished?" The guy from the Tongji cloth shop greeted Chen Qing and asked Chen Qing to go into the room to talk to the shopkeeper.

Chen Qing nodded, took off the basket and put it at the door without eyesight, and then lifted the curtain with the embroidery and entered the inner room.

The shopkeeper took the embroidery and looked at it carefully, put Chen Qing's own embroidery into the upper cabinet, and the sister's embroidery into the lower grade, and the embroidery work embroidered for the eldest aunt was piled up at random, and said to Chen Qing with a smile, "Your life is uneven, it's really cumbersome."

Chen Qing touched his nose and said embarrassedly, "I'm really sorry to trouble you every time, I have to ask you to take care of our brothers and sisters more."

"Hey~ I understand, don't worry, we have known your aunt for many years, it is not easy for anyone to live, and it is so difficult for your brother and sister, it is really a sin" The shopkeeper is a middle-aged woman, her eyes are red as she speaks, and she is also embarrassed when she thinks of her sister who died early.

She is also a woman's family, and she understands the difficulty of not being treated by her relatives without her mother. Her sister-in-law was not happy with her mother-in-law's house, and she was gone early, and her stepmother was not very good to the child, thanks to her secret care, otherwise the poor would not know what life the baby was going to live.

"In the past few years, I have been taking care of you many times, and helping to hide it, otherwise I really don't know how to raise dowry money for my sister" Chen Qing sent a bag of dried mushrooms and thanked him sincerely.

Most of the money he has saved in the past few years has been earned by secretly embroidering work. If it weren't for the shopkeeper's willingness to cover it up secretly, otherwise let the eldest aunt know, he wouldn't want to stay at all.

"You baby is thin-skinned, I can help you so much, what do you always talk about? next time I'll kick you out" The middle-aged woman pretended to be angry and scolded, before accepting the mountain goods and telling him, "Don't bring anything over next time, keep it for Abi to eat, my aunt is not bad for you to eat"

"Well, I see. Chen Qing smiled and quickly admitted his mistake, and took three embroidery jobs that were not in a hurry, before he thanked him again and again and prepared to leave the cloth shop.

Although life was not satisfactory, Chen Qing finally met a few kind-hearted elders. In the past few years, with his sweet mouth and sincerity, he has also made friends with many shopkeepers and workmen, and the money has been accumulated day by day, and when Abi gets married, even if it can't be said that the dowry is rich, at least it will not be too shabby.

"Hey~ Wait" The shopkeeper stopped Chen Qing, thought for a while and persuaded, "The shops in our town are not as much as the wages given by the county, and the embroidery is not sold at a high price, I see that your craft has improved a lot, I have to go to the county to take a look, I will introduce you to a cloth shop, maybe I can give you a few more dollars"

Chen Qing is grateful for his aunt's appreciation and help, his eyes are spicy, he is not a person who does not know gratitude, this woman is not related to them but has taken care of their brothers and sisters for several years, and now she wants to help him contact a better way out, how can he not be moved?

"This baby, a young man, what kind of red eyes! Abi has also come up in the past two years, and it won't be long before the embroidery can be promoted to the top grade, your craft is a bit of a waste for me, there is a cloth shop manager in the county who is a relative of my own family, turn around and let him introduce you to you, maybe you can find an embroidery girl's errand" The shopkeeper smiled and scolded, wiped the corners of her eyes with an embroidered handkerchief, and it was not in vain that she took care of Chen Qing in recent years.

"Then thank you Auntie" Chen Qing was busy and thanked him solemnly, but he straightened up and pursed the corners of his mouth in embarrassment, what if he didn't want people to know that the thing was embroidered by himself?

The shopkeeper has known Chen Qing for so many years, can he still not know the twists and turns in his head? smiled at him, "Don't worry, you just say that you will take the job for your sister as usual, and some women will not suspect you."

Chen Qing grinned, scratching her cheeks in embarrassment, she really couldn't hide anything from her aunt.

Looking at Chen Qing's flushed face, the shopkeeper covered his mouth and chuckled, and told him to embroider carefully, and bring the embroidery to the new owner next time he came. Chen Qing agreed, and then matched Abi with embroidery thread before he went out of the Tongji cloth line.

Seeing that it was still early, Chen Qing first bought the things that the eldest aunt had explained. One jar of green salt, two catties of white meat, and two catties of net meat. Take the white meat back and boil the meat oil, the price is the most expensive, 20 yuan. The net meat is only 10 Wen for two catties, and the medicinal materials are sold for a total of 50 Wen, plus the 10 Wen given by the eldest uncle, and the 12 Wen for buying green salt, there are 18 Wen left.

Hide 3 yuan, and leave 15 yuan. The last thing Chen Qing wanted to buy was the pen and ink that Chen Ping needed, 10 pieces of straw paper for 1 penny, 1 penny for ordinary rice paper, and 5 wen for a piece of better white paper, which can be said to be ridiculously expensive.

But the market price is so, pen and ink has always been higher than the people's livelihood, rice paper writing is acceptable, but to enter the painting but you have to use white paper, good people are to practice words to use rice paper, the cost is simply not ordinary people can afford.

Chen Ping spends straw paper and rice paper a year, and he has to use most of his family's income for half a year, and he has to pay two bundles to the academy every year.

15 Wen bought a total of one piece of blank paper, 5 pieces of rice paper, and 50 pieces of straw paper. Chen Qing didn't buy the ink strip that the eldest aunt confessed, even if he had money, he wouldn't buy it back out of his own pocket. The cheapest ink strip is also 30 Wen, and the eldest aunt is simply a lion's mouth.

After buying what he needed at home, Chen Qing asked for 50 pieces of straw paper, an ink strip, an inkstone, and the cheapest brush. The brush is the most common wooden rod, the tip of the pen is wool, the price is cheap and practical, most students use this kind of 5 yuan a brush for beginners.

It cost 45 wen just to buy pen, ink, paper and inkstone for Abi, and carefully put away the money that was not spent, Chen Qing glanced at a whole row of various colored brushes hanging on the counter.

Most of the brush styles are the same, only slightly modified in the part of the pen barrel, according to personal preferences, the thickness of the pen barrel, the shape are slightly surprised. The decorative materials of the pen barrel also affect the price of the brush. In addition to the common bamboo and wood poles, gold, silver, jade, ivory and other materials can be used for pen shafts.

This row of pen barrels shows different kinds of processing technology, relief, line carving, inlay, painting and other techniques, only the display of landscapes and pavilions, flowers, birds, fish and insects, humanistic allusions and so on.

There are two main parts to measure the price of a brush, one is to look at the material of the pen barrel, and the other is what kind of animal body hair is used for the pen head.

Not all animal hair can be used to make zuò brushes, the most common is the sheep hair pen, which is made of white goat hair as raw material, the breed, age and different parts of the sheep's hair grade, thickness, tenderness, and the length of the edge are selected and configured into the pen head, and the long is called Shen Feng, and the price is slightly more expensive.

Zihao pen: with a small part of the black needle tip hair on the back of the mountain rabbit as the main raw material, the surface is shiny, sharp edge, straight hair stem, moistened and pinched into a flat type fine observation can be seen Feng Ying slender, black-brown transparent. Zihao pen nibs are generally short and can only be used as small pens.

Stone badger pen: made of stone badger needle hair, the tip is white or pale yellow, and the waist and roots are black-gray with white flowers. The stone badger needle hair has the advantages of being thick and straight, strong and powerful, and sharp and slender. The surface is rough, the ink content is large, and the ink is evenly spitted, which can show a variety of effects, and is one of the commonly used brushes for painting pine, plum, landscape and other paintings.

Chicken quill pen: Use the long hairs on the rooster's neck to remove the stems and pluck the delicate short hairs to make the hair of the small Kai and other heads. It is divided into small block pens such as the North Tail Chicken Wolf Hair, the Best Chicken Wolf Hair, and the Yellow and White Chicken Wolf Hair. These chicken wolf hair is made of small weasel tail hair, purple hair, or goat hair mixed together to make the center of the pen head, and then use short chicken hair to make a coat, so it is named after all kinds of chicken wolf hair.

Wolf Brush: Made with a weasel's tail. The surface is light yellow or yellow with a slight reddish tinge, shiny, and each hair is firm and erect if you look closely. The waist is stout and the base is slightly thinner. Moisten the nib and pinch it into a flat shape, and you can see that its hair peak is translucent and light yellow.

Listening to the guy's enthusiastic introduction to the materials and benefits of various kinds of brushes, Chen Qing finally chose the sheep's hair pen, the cheapest one. Chen Qing often comes to buy some paper and pencils, and he is also a regular customer in the store, although the amount of money is small, but he has been dealing with him for a long time, and he also introduces Chen Qing one by one as a chat.

The shopkeeper saw that the guy didn't push it out for a long time, and when he saw Chen Qing dressing, he knew that he couldn't afford it, so he glared at him fiercely.

The guy smirked, and hurriedly settled the account for Chen Qing before enthusiastically sending him out.

Seeing that this guy was not a few years old with him, Chen Qing smiled and thanked him and whispered to him to accompany the shopkeeper, so as not to be punished.

The young man's grinning response has long been used to being scolded, and it is not a problem to scold more.

Chen Qing waved goodbye to the enthusiastic young man, and hurried home, he had been delayed a lot of time just now, and he had to hide his things before the eldest aunt went home, so as not to be caught.

Chen Qing already had a calculation in his heart, this brush is so profitable, and it is not too troublesome to make it, especially the most expensive wolf pen, which village of weasels does not see a few?

With the idea of making money, Chen Qing trotted all the way, first stuffed the remaining copper coins back into the clay pot halfway up the mountain, and then sneaked home to hand over the embroidery work to his sister to hide.

The embroidery sent to the Tong Kee cloth shop had to wait until it was sold to get back the silver, and the worst one got 5 copper plates. handed over the things to the eldest aunt along with 5 cents, and finally the eldest aunt also knew that this time it was her lion who opened her mouth, and saw that Chen Qing didn't buy back the ink strip and didn't say much, so she put away the copper plate and sent the paper to her son's house.

Chen Qing secretly breathed a sigh of relief, and he deliberately left 5 yuan at a loss, otherwise the eldest aunt might not be able to scold people.