In the thirty-eighth year of the Great Qin Dynasty.

In early June, the sun is still shining in the small city of Jianyi.

Jianyi, an ordinary small city located in the north of the Yangtze River and Huainan for thousands of years, is surrounded by a river called "Xihe" by the locals, and along the banks of this river, there are people living with blue bricks and black tiles and paved bluestone paved roads.

Jianyi is not big, it only has six streets, and there are only a few thousand households in the city, let's say small, it has four or five small market towns under its jurisdiction. The people of the town have always had an inexplicable respect for this small town, even though it is only a little larger than the market town.

This inexplicable respect is usually reflected in the fact that when people are about to go to Jianyi, they will proudly say, "I'm going to the city!" When they said this, they were full of energy, and their waists were invisibly straightened a little, as if they were going to the imperial capital. It seems that after entering the city gate that is more than a foot high, I have changed dramatically when I come out again, and I feel that I have a little more temperament of a city person.

But the people in Jianyi don't care about this, they have lived in this small city since they were children, maybe their ancestors settled here a hundred years ago, or their ancestors have been begging for a living in this city since the beginning of the city. For them, every flower and tree in this city is familiar to their hearts:

There is only one wharf, Tuifan Street next to the wharf, the only family in the city that has ever been a big official, and in the wine street, there are some dilapidated and unrepaired county offices, and there is the only teahouse in the town, which sells some melons and fruits and tea, with the babbling ventriloquist of the storyteller, but it costs ten copper plates, and you can leave people there to listen happily all day.

It is said that there was a big thief in this small city, and he was caught by the county government in less than half a day, and the residents of the city could see that there were fresh faces everywhere, and the residents of the city could see that there were no living people, even if the wine of the Chen family wine shop in the wine street changed some taste, the residents of the entire wine street could smell the smell of the wine lees.

Tuochuan Street.

"Sell melons, sell melons, sell melons! The sugar melons that have just been transported from Hexi are sweet!" The middle-aged man half-rolled up his sleeves, held a tattered pu fan, and shouted at pedestrians on the street.

"Jiang Laosi, your melon looks quite sweet today!" A wealthy man in a long satin shirt and a paper folding fan in his hand stopped at the side of the stall.

"Eh, Master Xuan, do you want melons? They were all transported from Hexi in the morning, and they are straight and sweet! The middle-aged man has always been playing a package ticket.

The rich man in the long coat stopped next to the melon stall, picked up a larger watermelon, put his ear against the skin of the melon, and patted it with a frown, until he heard a dull sound of satisfaction, and then opened his eyebrows that were about to lock together, and a smile appeared on his face, and said: "Jiang Laosi, help me hang this melon, I want it." ”

Jiang Laosi showed a businessman's smile and said: "My melon, there is nothing bad! Brother Li, you can eat it with confidence, if you eat a bad stomach, you will settle accounts with my fourth child, and my fourth child will never pay a bad account!" After speaking, he patted his chest to prove his innocence.

"I didn't say that there is a problem with your melon, I still know about your kid, and you have a very good conscience in business. The rich man called Brother Li took the sugar melon hanging by hemp from Jiang Laosi's hand, opened his inner coat and looked for it, took out two copper plates from it, handed them to Jiang Laosi, and said, "Let's go, business is always good!"

"Brother Li, go slowly!" Jiang Laosi smiled and threw the two copper plates into the wooden box under the melon stall, and continued to shout at the pedestrians on the street: "Buy melons, buy melons, just transported from Hexi in the morning, keep sweet, don't be sweet and don't need money!"

......

The miasma is steaming like fire, and time is like a car.

When there were still two melons left on the melon stall, the sun was almost setting, Jiang Laosi looked at the only two melons left on the stall and the street where there was no one, took out the kettle he carried, poured some water on a relatively clean bluestone slab on the ground to cool down, and then wiped the water stains on the slate with the rag on the stall, and then sat straight on the bluestone slab, muttering: "Why hasn't this come yet?"

"Lao Jiang, the same way, I want these two melons!" An old Taoist priest wearing a gray Taoist robe and carrying a small flag limped over.

"Okay!" Jiang Laosi saw that the old Taoist priest also immediately stood up from the ground, quickly took out the two melons that had already been hung by hemp grass and handed them to the lame old Taoist priest, and asked, "Why is it late today?"

"In the afternoon, a woman from Rong Town came, saying that the head of the family had left, and asked me to go to a ceremony tomorrow, and I would come out with forty copper plates. Although the old Taoist priest took the white matter, his tone also revealed a trace of joy, forty copper plates, which can be worth his income from two days of stalls.

Jiang Laosi was also happy for the old Taoist priest when he saw this, but it was not easy for him to say things like "business is prosperous" when he said this kind of white thing, so he looked at the sundial at the corner of the street, and said:

"It's the same today, I'll go over to listen to the book first, it is said that tonight is to tell the story of the fairy and monster, it is very good, Mr. Liu will start to talk in two quarters of an hour, I will go first! Remember to put the wooden planks on the stall in the yard and soak them in water, otherwise you will have to recruit a group of flies!"

The old Taoist priest responded and watched Jiang Laosi go in the direction of the only teahouse in the city.

Tuochuan Street is a street that leans against the wharf of Jianyi Town. If the stories told by the storytellers were to be believed, this would have been Tugboat Street.

Tugboat tugboat, naturally is the work done by the slender men, here originally lived some slender men who made a living by hard work, but because of the accent here, they are all called Tuochuan, and then there is an old Xiucai who lives in Tuochuan Street, when the county government erects a street monument, it is better to change it to the word "Tuo", so it sounds more elegant, so there is the name Tuochuan.

Tuochuan Street witnessed the prosperity of the small city, and later the imperial court built post roads in various places, and even the small city between the Jianghuai River did not fall, and the water level of the river gradually decreased over the years, losing the original rich shipping value, and the small city was deserted again.

The old Taoist priest limped and dragged the melon stall cart to walk on the bluestone street, and the small felt flag that originally read "Viewing Yin and Yang, Dawn and Moon" was thrown on the melon stall behind.

Jiang Si's melon stall uses a small wooden table tied with hemp rope, and there are four wheel holes in the legs of the table, into which the pre-built wooden wheels can be inserted, and the sound of a clattering sound will be made when dragging around the stone road. With the old Taoist priest's limping footsteps, it sounds a bit rhythmic.

The courtyard where the old Taoist priest lives is not far from here, but it takes a quarter of an hour to get to the gate of the courtyard, the yard is located at the bottom of the street, and there are not many people nearby, only Lao Dao and Jiang Si live here on weekdays, the old Taoist priest is because of the difficulty of money, and Jiang Si is because of the dock to do business.

"Squeak......" The old wooden door was pushed open by the lame old man.

"Grandpa!" A childish voice came from the courtyard, listening to a little delightful, but also a little complaining. Immediately afterwards, a pair of white fat little hands stretched out towards the old Taoist, not caring about the stains on the gray Taoist robe on the old Taoist's body.

The old Taoist priest was not hypocritical, picked up the child and turned around in a big circle, and said with a smile: "Is Ah Xiao obedient today? Did grandpa study seriously when he went out?"

The child, who was about seven or eight years old, with clear eyebrows and two big watery eyes, was even more pitiful, and he broke free from his old arm and ran out of the door. The little hands dragged Jiang Si's melon stall wooden cart and said, "Of course I have studied hard, grandpa, let's drag this cart in first!"

The old Taoist priest looked at his struggling appearance, and said with some amusement: "Isn't it just that I have taken a fancy to the two melons on it, I'll drag the car in, you go to the water tank to scoop some water and put it in the basin, so as to save the flies from crawling on the car board." ”

......

The two melons were very quickly cut into slices by the old Taoist priest.

Looking at Ah Xiao, who was eating melons, the old Taoist priest stood in place a little stunned, and his eyes couldn't help but become engrossed.

"Grandpa, don't you eat it? Uncle Jiang's melons have always been very sweet!" Ah Xiao took a piece of melon and stuffed it into the old Taoist's mouth while eating.

"I've already eaten it outside, didn't I bring these back for you to keep?" Lao Dao touched Ah Xiao's head and said with a smile.

"However, Uncle Jiang said that you ...... before Ahem...!" Seeing that Ah Xiao ate too hard, and was in a hurry to talk to himself, and accidentally choked on the melon, the old Taoist priest was a little anxious, stretched out his right hand and gently patted him on the back, and blamed: "I said don't talk when you eat, and you forgot?"

Ah Xiao smiled embarrassedly, scratched his head and said, "It's all because Uncle Jiang's melon is so delicious, I didn't hold back for a while and took a few more bites." ”

When the old Taoist priest saw his appearance, he sighed and said, "Tomorrow I will go to Rong Town to help people, don't you always want to go out to play? ”

"Really?" Ah Xiao stopped the melon pulp that he put in his mouth, sat there blankly, wiped his mouth with the clothes on his hand, stood up happily, and asked the old Taoist again, "Can I really go out with Uncle Jiang tomorrow?"

Ah Xiao had never been so far away from Hexi, and he had never even been out of the small city of Jianyi. The farthest east he had been to the old wharf behind Tuochuan Street, and the farthest west was the Chen Family Wine Shop that Master had taken him to, and the wife of the owner of that house was very beautiful, and she often liked to pinch his face and ask him if he wanted to drink, and every time he was so ashamed that Ah Xiao's face was flushed.

In the north, he has only been to Granny Chai's wonton shop, and the wontons there are simply the most delicious things Ah Xiao has ever eaten, but unfortunately his grandfather always takes himself to eat it during the festival.

He has not been to the south of the small city of Jianyi, it is said that there is a school, only the sons of rich families can read in it, there is a place for the master to teach, Uncle Jiang said that the son of the county lord is studying in it, if his grandfather allows him to go out, he must go to that place to see.