Xiongcheng has the prosperity of Xiongcheng, and remote towns also have the liveliness of small towns. This small town located in the southeast of Liyang has always been far away from the smoke of war, if it is in a peaceful and prosperous era, it is not how to feel, but there are some signs of chaos and chaos on the side of the county town of Kezhou, then it is particularly peaceful here. There are some villages named after surnames near the town, when the ancestors hang paintings, they are all amazing, and the Songjia Village is even more hung with the ancestor portrait of an emperor surnamed Song, compared to some villages that hang the founding heroes of the Great Feng or the small country of the Spring and Autumn Period, they naturally feel that they are superior. It's just that the ancestors of this Songjia Village are noble, and the few people surnamed Wen in the village can't get their hands dirty. In fact, the elders in the village, even if they have read a few days of books, even if they carefully turn over the genealogy, they also have what relationship they have with the Song Emperor, and they can't say that they are ugly, it is said that there were good people in the village who made a special trip to carry the small wooden box genealogy, and studied it to a certain old Xiucai Gong who was famous in the town, and he couldn't say why, who didn't expect that in the end it was the most unmotivated young offspring in the village, a guy surnamed Wen, who went to wander around the country for three years and then returned to his hometownAt the beginning, the Great Feng Dynasty was known as the reading seed half out of Yinchuan County, and the Yinchuan Song family was a first-class tycoon, out of many civil servants and celebrities, the ancestor who first established himself in the last years of the Great Feng Dynasty was a feudal town, and then became the ancestor of the first emperor of the Song family, it came from the partial branch of the Song family of the Yinchuan Song family, the origin of the Song family village, presumably after the collapse of the separatist forces on that side, in the famous manna south crossing, constantly migrating, and finally took root here. After the young man surnamed Wen combed through the context like this, the elders in the village more or less understood, even if they didn't understand, they pretended to understand, you listen, it is both Yinchuan Song and Ganlu Nandu, how grand this must be, it can be seen that although our Songjia Village has not even had a child in the past hundred years, but the ancestors have been rich and noble, and it must have been because the ancestors were too lucky hundreds of years ago, and the descendants of later generations had to share in peace, and they really had no chance of being rich and rich. The young descendant surnamed Wen was originally very unpopular in the village, but this time after returning to his hometown with a lameness, he was like a completely changed person, not only did he lose the appearance of hanging Erlang as a wooden sword, he did chores in the restaurant in the town, not to mention relying on his brother and sister-in-law to support him, and even sent money to his family, what is even more unexpected is that the young man also married a virtuous and moving daughter-in-law, who had set up a banquet in the open space outside the village ancestral hall before, and the little lady made many young people surnamed Song, regardless of whether they were married or not, all looked straight.

After the surname Wen married a wife, he no longer borrowed the miscellaneous room in the restaurant, saved some silver, and rented a small courtyard in the town, three rooms, except for the wedding room with red festive paper-cuts on the window, a small room was used to place sundries, and the remaining one was not empty, the bedding was brand new, and the woman who had a good family was cleaned and spotless, because her man said that there might be his brother to come to the house as a guest in the future, and there must be a place to stay, otherwise it would be too unreasonable。 She followed him, and felt that this was the reason in her heart. Although the family is not rich now, but she was born in a small family, her family background can only be regarded as solid, but in fact, she is a thoughtful woman, she insisted on marrying him, no one in the family was willing to agree to nod, and she was stunned that even the dowry did not come out, she also gritted her teeth and did not ask her father for anything, fortunately, she saw the hearts of the people for a long time, and now she wants to take him back to her parents' house, although her father will give some face, but several brothers are more or less untied to the knot, knowing that their father can't leave that face, and it is inconvenient to drink with that brother-in-law at the wine table at home, but they have been to her yard in private, and they have not forgotten to bring wine and meat, it is already like a family。 She knows that when she has a child, her father and mother will hug her granddaughter and granddaughter, and when the time comes, she will find the bottom of the steps, and she will completely lose her mustard for him. It's just that no matter how small the town is, the expenses are not small, relying on the man's livelihood as a shopkeeper in a restaurant, the two of them live a fairly comfortable life, but once there is a third small mouth at home, it is hard to say, fortunately, her female red craftsmanship is famously pretty, there are sisters who open a cloth shop at home, and her delicate small objects sewn out of a stitch and thread are placed on the counter to add to the heads of the customers who buy cloth, and the business of the store is also three or two points, so this month, how can she have a two or three taels of silver in the account, which is not much worse than the man who is in charge。

The town has been lively for the past two days, before and after the summer, the southeast area of Liyang has had the customs of the Midyear Festival since ancient times, and there are also some activities to worship the ancestors and welcome the autumn, although the Midyear Festival is the Ghost Festival in their dialect here, it is said that the Lord of Yama is merciful, and deliberately opens the ghost door during this period of time, so that the deceased can return to his hometown to see the descendants of the Yang, in order to comfort the lovesickness of Yin and Yang. In fact, it sounds a little infiltrating, adults and children are not taboo anything, just think it is a fun thing, monks and monks will begin to give alms, ordinary people will also erect lamps and artemisia river lanterns, especially young children, can be in the arms of their parents or stand on tiptoe on the bridge railing, or lie on the bluestone slab on the riverbank, the eyes are full of colorful lotus lanterns, happy and joyful, no less than the Mid-Autumn Festival that can eat moon cakes. Yesterday he went to the village to pick up his nephew, planning to let his daughter-in-law take the child shopping, just the daughter-in-law ingenuity, made two large bamboo baskets of river lanterns, to go to the bridge to sell, I believe that with her craftsmanship, will soon be out of the night tour of the guests to buy out. He had watched her in the yard before, weaving lanterns, with a variety of styles, flowers, birds, fish and insects, Baolian turtles and cranes, dragons and phoenixes Chengxiang, he really didn't know how there could be such a clever pair of hands in the world, so he was sitting on the bench to enjoy the coolness, anyway, he couldn't help, he could only help, he could only steal the fun. After his little nephew arrived in the town, he was a little restrained at first, and took him to the restaurant during the day, obediently listened to people in the corner, and listened to it with relish, the child followed his father's temperament, introverted and kind, and did not speak much, as an uncle, he liked and worried, what he liked was the child's real temperament, and he was worried that he was afraid that he would be too honest and would be easy to suffer when he grew up. Although most of the restaurants in the town now hire storytellers to tell the stories of the rivers and lakes, but only their restaurants, the stories they tell are always the freshest and most novel, all of which are naturally his credits, and it was he who spent several large tanks of saliva to successfully persuade the restaurant shopkeeper, don't be stingy with the storyteller to take out a sum of money to the county or even the state city, so when this restaurant first said the night of the Daxueping women's martial arts alliance master's overnight snow watching and realizing the eternal life, it was the first to say the Buddhist and Taoist debate in Wudang Mountain, the ancestral court of Taoism in the northwest, and the turbulent changes in the holy land of Wudi City, and Wujia Sword Shrine's hundred horses went to Beiliang, which can be described as a sensation in the town, after the people's tea and dinner, they were led by the nose of the restaurant storyteller, and the restaurant business naturally rose, but the business was booming, and the shopkeeper's daily progress was gold, but the surname Wen was a well-deserved number one hero, and the storyteller went to the county town to "learn from the experience" The first travel fee was secretly paid by him, and he never asked the restaurant shopkeeper for dividends, except for the copper coins that the restaurant guests rewarded after drinking high, the wages paid to him by the restaurant, how much he was on the first day he entered the restaurant, and how much it is now, not a single copper coin has risen. The shopkeeper stood behind the counter with a smile every day, watching the shopkeeper surnamed Wen always run errands diligently, watching the young man with a lively mind serving tea and wine every day, and he didn't know what this old man was thinking about.

Today, the storyteller of the restaurant was full of spirits and spat and said a strange thing, saying that it was a kendo master named Qi Jiajie in our capital city, as the swordsman of many dragon sons and grandsons and children of the family in Tai'an City, for some reason, he asked for a peerless sword to cast a peerless sword in the Dongyue Sword Pond with high mountains and long waters, and then the people of Qi Jiajie first went to the foot of Wudang Mountain in Beiliang, a town that was not more famous than the town where they were locatedStanding proudly on the sea of clouds bordering the border of Beiliang Road and Lianghuai Road, it actually blocked the flying sword that could kill the gods! The storyteller talked endlessly, and when it came to the hearty place, the old man himself was dumbfounded, not to mention the listeners who used the story to drink and eat in the restaurant, one by one, they were stunned, stopped their cups and chopsticks, their hearts shook, and after returning to their senses, the story has not yet ended, and they have not heard the most annoying sentence "and listen to the next decomposition", of course, they want to ask the restaurant for another pot or two of wine. The nephew surnamed Wendian Xiaoer listened to people talk about books for the first time, and even more heard people talk about the affairs of the rivers and lakes, and he was even more dumbfounded, listening to the books of the sky, sitting on the small bench in the corner of the wall that his uncle moved for him, clenching his fists, pricking up his ears, and staring wide, only thinking that listening to the affairs of the rivers and lakes seemed to be more interesting than reading the books of sages.

There is always an end to the story, when the restaurant is closed, the story of Mr. Storyteller is at the end, it is night outside the building, the restaurant is almost about to close, and the shopkeeper of the restaurant who makes a lot of money is probably in a good mood today, so that the cook opened a small stove, and called the shopkeeper surnamed Wen to serve with his nephew and have a good meal. This makes the children who have not seen the world happy, but in the end it is a little scholar who has studied in a private school, and when he eats, he is quite a bit of a precarious seat, and then he is greedy, and the chopsticks are not fast, and those on the dinner table can only open the big fish and meat during the New Year's Festival, and the child does not dare to clip a few more chopsticks, but the shopkeeper of the restaurant smiled and helped the child clip a lot, piled up with rice bowls, the child was a little embarrassed, and looked at his uncle timidly, and the shopkeeper smiled and said that although he let go of eating, your shopkeeper grandfather is a good man in the town, and he is very generous. The child smiled shyly at the shopkeeper, the old man laughed, poured a glass of wine for himself and the shopkeeper, pointed to the second floor with chopsticks, and said to the well-behaved child that he would often come to the restaurant in the future, and the next time he heard someone tell a story, grandpa will help you find a place next to the patio fence on the second floor. The old man drank a glass of wine with the shopkeeper and joked that this kid is not like you, honest and pleasant. The shopkeeper proudly said that is, his temperament follows my brother, he is blessed, he is very good at reading, and he will be a talented man in the future. The child retorted seriously, Mr. said, it would be good if he could take the test as a child in the future. The old man who has the most respect for the reader in his life touched the child's head, and sighed that the county test house test is a roadblock, and the shopkeeper grandpa will talk to you here, and every time you pass a door in the future, our restaurant will give you a big red envelope. The child nodded vigorously, and said happily to the old man Uncle bought me a lot of paper and pencils, but I am not willing to use them now, or practice calligraphy by the village stream with branches dipped in water as before, and when grazing cattle, I will also make up for the clumsiness, Mr. said that the stupid bird can make up for the clumsiness of flying first, and there is always a time to write good words, and when the time comes, I will write a big plaque for the shopkeeper grandfather to hang on. Probably because it is rare to drink alcohol, the uncle of the second junior in the store joked that reading is good, reading is promising, and the guy who has read will be easy to abduct his daughter-in-law to go home in the future. The nephew, who secretly liked a girl of the same age in the village, suddenly turned red and glared at his uncle. The guy surnamed Wen and the shopkeeper of the restaurant looked at each other and smiled, drinking and drinking.

After eating, he told his nephew to go home first, and he himself had to clean the restaurant, and then meet again on the bridge in town.

The shopkeeper of the restaurant looked at the young man who was busy cleaning up the dishes, drank wine, and said with a slight drunkenness: "When I took you in, I really didn't expect that there would be such a day, at that time, I just thought that you kid was pitiful, and I thought that if I wasn't forced to a corner, I wouldn't have come to my little broken place to eat and wait for death." How could I have thought that you would help the restaurant make a lot of money. To be honest, in the past year, it has earned more money than the restaurant in the previous ten years. ”

The young man looked up and smiled: "The good man of the shopkeeper has a good reward, as he should." ”

The old man smiled and asked, "Should it be?"

The young man wondered, "Shouldn't it?"

The old man sighed with emotion: "Good people have good rewards, and children like your nephew are willing to believe it, but I can't believe it as an old fellow." ”

The old man looked directly at the busy and diligent shopkeeper, "The guests who come here to drink, eat and listen to books all think that you kid has no temper, but I don't think it, I always think that you kid is ......."

The young man gaged: "The shopkeeper wants to say that it is not productive, right?"

The old man scolded with a smile: "Let your mother's stinky fart, I really don't know how your daughter-in-law can look down on you!"

The young man stretched out his hand and pointed to his face, and said with a hippie smile: "My father and mother made me handsome, shopkeeper, you really can't envy me." ”

The old man waved his hand, "Don't talk nonsense with you, I want to talk to you about something serious today." ”

The young man restrained his smile and stood beside the wine table with his hands tied, "Shopkeeper, if you have something to say, I Wenhua has nothing to do, but who is good to me, I remember it in my heart, I don't dare to say anything about the grace of dripping water, I don't have the ability to repay favors, but if you want to say that a favor is worth a point, even if it is not finished once, I Wenhua will have to pay it back in my life." So shopkeeper, don't be polite to me. Shopkeeper, if you weren't willing to take it in, I wouldn't know where to chop wood and burn charcoal or work as a short-term worker for a family, let alone marry a daughter-in-law, barely support myself to death, and not let myself starve to death, even if it is difficult to save money to buy paper and pens for my nephew. ”

The old man smiled, looked up at the young man with sincere eyes, and put down the wine glass in his hand, "Most of the things in the restaurant will be wrapped up for you alone, and I, the shopkeeper, are very idle every day, so the storyteller said that those floating stories of the rivers and lakes, or the talented and beautiful women and wild foxes, are all heard in the ears, some have heard it, but there are a few words, remembered, one of them, probably no one cares, but I am very attentive, called' Since ancient times, it is difficult to be kind, the more I think about it, the more this truth is, this is true for doing business, and even more so for being friends with people. So later, the silver money of this restaurant, I also rest assured that you will take care of it, at first I was not without concerns, and I did want to see if you would leave some in your pocket, the big business in the world, after all, are all accumulated one by one copper coins, but I was very surprised, from beginning to end, your kid did not take away a copper plate, the book is clear, the bottom of the book, it is also clean, this is not easy. The wine is red, and the wealth is moving, this is the normal feeling of people, so ah, you kid is a kind person. ”

The young man said in a deep voice: "Shopkeeper, this is something to say. My Wenhua can have today's stable life, it is all the kindness of the shopkeeper, if I secretly take money from the restaurant with my conscience, my Wenhua is really not a thing, I can't do this kind of thing!"

The old man nodded, " You also know, I am not young, all my life I want to go to the county town to buy a big house for the elderly, just my two pairs of daughters and sons-in-law are over there to beg for a living, although the old saying is that the married daughter spills out of the water, but where in the world there is not a good father and mother who does not miss the children, my two daughters are married so-so, life in the county town is not easy, this is not just thinking about my coffin book, I want them to be more beautiful, no need to rent a house to send people under the fence, what about me, I used to be weak, saved three or four hundred taels of silver, in the county is okay, to the county town is really not enough to see, this year thanks to your Wenhua's blessing, the old bottom doubled, small eight hundred silver, as long as it's not the kind of place where the powerful people gather in Qingtu Lane, it's almost enough to buy a decent house, and it just so happens that the restaurant has your kid there, and I've been wondering if I'm going to give you the wine ...... recently."

The shopkeeper was stunned for a moment, and said with a wry smile: "Old shopkeeper, such a big restaurant, even if I smash the pot and sell iron, I will definitely not be able to afford it." ”

The old man smiled and said: "This restaurant used to be worth about one hundred and eighty taels of silver, but now it is different from the past, how should it be valued at three or four hundred taels, you know this, of course I understand better, as for how much savings your kid has, I know better, so I thought of a compromise method, you see if it will work." The restaurant is converted into three hundred taels of silver, this money does not need you to rush out, and the annual dividends in the future, don't forget it, but the ugly words are in front, and the principal of the purchase of the restaurant is paid off after three hundred taels, and then if the restaurant is still making money in the future, this dividend, my old shopkeeper, but I still want your kid to pay filial piety every year, as for the specific amount, I don't force it, you kid look at it, in short, you take care of your own home first. ”

The young man stopped talking.

The old man waved his hand and motioned for the young man to sit down, "Don't feel indebted to me, I'm shrewd, I know that you will definitely be able to make the restaurant business bigger and bigger in the future, with your boy's kindness, can you pay less dividends every year? ”

The young man sat back on the bench and straightened up, "Old shopkeeper, thank you for your great kindness!"

The old man made a finger twisting gesture and quipped, "Don't talk about it, you will rely on silver in the future." ”

The young man suddenly smiled and said, "Old shopkeeper, aren't you afraid that I will repay the debts in the future, and I will not be willing to pay dividends after paying off the three hundred taels of silver?"

The old man raised his eyebrows, then pointed to the young man's heart, and then pointed to his eyes, "The reason why there is this deal is because I can trust your boy's conscience, and second, I can trust my own eyesight!"

The young man and the old shopkeeper poured a glass of wine each, and after raising their glasses, "It's all in the wine!"

The two drank it all.

After the old man finished drinking, "You kid hurry up and see your daughter-in-law, by the way, go to the back of the cabinet and get a pot of green ant wine that you just entered, and I will congratulate you kid on finally having his own family business." ”

The young man got up and laughed, "Gotcha!"

The old man did not forget to remind: "Congratulations and celebrations, the wine money must be recorded in your account! This green ant wine is not cheap, it is said that a pot from Beiliang Road is less than two dollars of silver, and when you arrive at Lianghuai, you will go up to one or two pieces of silver, and then from Jiangnan Road to us, tsk, it is a full four taels of silver, where is this to sell wine, it is really about the same to sell silver directly." You kid drink it leisurely, but don't drink it and the taste will go to the bottom. ”

The young man said, "I can't afford to drink it myself!"

The old man asked curiously, "What's the matter, do you want to give it to your brother or to your father-in-law?"

The young man who went straight to the counter suddenly paused, turned his head and grinned: "No, keep it for my brother, and when he comes to my house to eat and drink in the future, I will treat him with this wine." ...... year A long time ago, when I was messing with him, he always said that this green ant wine was the most delicious wine in the world, and he always liked to take this to me at that time, and then they separated, and I once passed by his hometown alone, and I was in a hurry, and I didn't drink it, and I didn't understand what it tasted like. ”

The old man said angrily: "What's the taste? It's just that the price is expensive, and there is nothing else, I don't like to drink it, it's too strong and too rushing, it burns through the throat, and the stamina is more, in my opinion, it's really not as good as our home-brewed rice wine here." ”

The young man smiled and said: "My brother is half a Jianghu person, and when he drinks on horseback, he naturally wants to drink the strongest wine, drink that soft rice wine, and he is not a hero!"

The old man was happy, "Yo, it's still a person from the rivers and lakes, and listen to you, you kid traveled a lot back then?"

The young man scratched his head, "It's just a long way off." ”

The old man rolled his eyes and said, "I've suffered a lot!"

The young man laughed it off.

The old man sitting alone at the wine table raised his glass and drank slowly, looked at the shopkeeper who was carefully holding the wine jug, and asked for no reason: "Wen Hua, the storyteller of our restaurant, has said several times that the king of the Northwest Domain admitted that he has a brother who knows each other in the rivers and lakes, and he happens to have the same name and surname as your kid?"

The young man stood in the distance, smiling brightly, "What a coincidence, it's true!"

The old man laughed and waved his hand, "Stinky boy!

The old man who had no wine in the cup shook the wine jug, it was empty, turned his head to look at the young man who was walking towards the door of the restaurant, his body was limping, but he didn't give a miserable or funny feeling, the old man laughed coldly and asked loudly: "Wen Hua, you kid is really not the swordsman who moved the capital?"

The young man holding the pot of green ant wine in both hands slowly turned around and grimaced, "Shopkeeper, do you look like me?"

The old man smiled and did not answer, waving his hand again.

The old shopkeeper sat back in his seat, there was no wine in the pot and cup, the bored old man thought about it, looked at the door, and laughed at himself: "It's not very similar, it's right, can it be like?"

After the young man left the restaurant, he walked briskly to the small bridge, and along the way along the banks of the river, the river was full of lit river lamps and stars, like the starry sky on a summer night. According to the folk saying, after a person dies, those wandering ghosts who have nothing to rely on, if they can find the river lantern with their name written on it, they can be reincarnated. He heard his brother who was digging the rivers and lakes together say that Buddhism has a way of holding a lamp to reincarnate, especially the unjust souls and ghosts that cannot be liberated in the underworld, with the lotus lantern on the river in the yang world, you can be at ease. One of the guiltes of his life is that he and his brother can only afford one person to study, and his brother gave him the opportunity, but he doesn't like to read, and he doesn't know how to cherish it. So now he likes to talk to the nephew more than his brother and sister-in-law, and wants the child to study hard, and the paper and pen he purchased for his nephew are the most expensive and best in the town, he does not hope that his nephew will have to get fame in the future, not a glorious lintel, but he thinks in his heart that the boy reads, reads full of knowledge, writes well, and does not need to ask for help in the Spring Festival couplets every year, or if he has a child in the future, he can go to the book to name the child, which is always a great thing.

If you want to practice swords, if you want to practice to be the first in the world, there is only one person in the world after all. Harder than fists, there are always martial arts masters with harder fists in the rivers and lakes. However, the truth that the scholar reads from the books is by no means the truth that the emperor will say by the ministers and dignitaries, and it will definitely be greater.

When he arrived at the familiar bluestone slab bridge, his daughter-in-law had indeed sold two baskets of river lanterns, and his nephew held the last one in his hand.

She waited until he approached, and asked softly, "Why do you want me to keep one?"

He smiled and said, "The Xiao Nian I told you about, he is from the Beiliang clan, and now there is a war in the west, so I want to help him pray for blessings." ”

The three of them walked down the bridge together, and when they came to the shore, he bent down and gently lowered the river lamp into the river.

The three of them simply sat side by side on the shore, he rubbed his nephew's head, asked the child to help hold the pot of green ant wine, looked up and smiled at his daughter-in-law: "If you have the opportunity to meet in the future, if that guy calls your brother and daughter-in-law, don't agree, you must call your sister-in-law." ”

Her eyes were crooked, and she smiled narrowly: "You two are also fighting for this kind of thing." ”

He smiled happily: "There are other things that can be argued, but this is the only one that must not be compromised!"

She blushed slightly, and said helplessly: "Then you still want to become in-laws with him in the future? You said that you set a baby kiss at the beginning, and they agreed?"

He said in a heroic tone: "Does he dare to agree?!"

His daughter-in-law smiled, for some reason, his man didn't care about anything, and only when he talked about his brother, he would be extra proud and proud.

Sometimes, she even has a little jealousy.

She didn't know what her man and his brother had gone through together back then, so she couldn't let go of her man like this.

And she knows better than anyone that this man surnamed Wen Minghua can actually afford to take anything and put everything down, even the face that a man should care about the most, and he will let it go.

He looked at the river and said softly: "Daughter-in-law, don't worry, I'm not thinking about the rivers and lakes I walked through back then, I'm just thinking about my brother." ”

Then he turned his head and grinned, "No way, I know that the rivers and lakes without me, no matter how well he mixes, he will feel that it is not interesting." ”

Look, listen, it's this tone again.

She gave him a blank look.

He snorted and said: "Daughter-in-law, don't believe me, who am I, who is my brother, our brothers walked the rivers and lakes back then, that was ......"

Suddenly seeing his daughter-in-law looking at him with a playful smile, he immediately changed his words and said: "That's definitely full of righteousness! Well, of course, it's a bit miserable, full and hungry." ”

She pursed her lips and smiled.

He bowed his head to his nephew and said, "Your cheap uncle always likes to recite a poem, let me tell you to listen, have you seen it in books? The wild man was angry and saw the injustice, and wore out the ancient knife in his chest. ”

The child who had just studied in the village school was naturally confused and shook his head vigorously.

He raised his head again and looked at the bright water filled with river lamps, the breeze blowing on his face, and his face was serene.

He seemed to say to himself: "The green ant wine will help you keep it, and the house at home will help you keep it, Xiao Nian, if I am a brother, you won't die outside Liangzhou Pass." ”