Song Jixin took his maidservant Zhigui to the old locust tree, and found that the shade of the tree was overcrowded, nearly half a hundred people, sitting on the benches and chairs moved by his family, and there were children pulling the elders to join in the fun.

Song Jixin stood side by side with her on the edge of the shade of the tree, and saw an old man standing under the tree, holding a big white bowl in one hand and behind him with the other, with an excited expression, and said loudly: "I just said the general direction of the dragon vein, let me talk about this real dragon, tsk, this is really amazing, about 3,000 years ago, there was a great immortal figure under the sky. I don't know why, this person just didn't deal with Jiaolong, a full three hundred spring and autumn, there was a dragon to kill the dragon, kill no real dragon in the world, then stopped, and finally disappeared, some people say that he went to the very high Taoist Zhangben land, and the Taoist ancestor sat and discussed the Tao, and some said that he went to the far West Pure Land Buddha country, and the Buddha debated the scriptures, and some people said that he personally sat at the gate of the Xudu Prefecture to prevent the charm and the spirit from harming the world......"

The old gentleman spat all over the place, and all the people in the small town below were indifferent, and everyone was at a loss.

The servant girl asked in a low voice of curiosity, "What is the three-foot spirit?"

Song Jixin smiled: "It's a sword." ”

The maid said angrily: "Childe, this old man also likes to show off his knowledge, and he can't talk well." ”

Song Jixin glanced at the old man and gloated: "There are few literate people in our town, and this storyteller is a flattering man who has thrown it to the blind." ”

The maidservant girl asked again, "What is the blessed land of the caves? Is there really anyone in the world who can live for 300 years? And the Xudu Difu, isn't it a place where only the dead can go?"

Song Jixin was asked, but he didn't want to show his timidity, so he said casually: "It's all nonsense, I guess I've read a few barnyard official history that don't go into the stream, and I used it to fool the rural villagers." ”

At this moment, Song Jixin keenly noticed that the old man glanced at him intentionally or unintentionally, although it was just a dragonfly's sight, and it quickly swept by, but Song Jixin still caught it carefully, but the young man didn't care, just regarded it as a coincidence.

The maid looked up at the old locust tree, and the fine fragments of light spilled down through the gaps in the leaves, and she subconsciously narrowed her eyes.

Song Jixin turned his head to look and was suddenly stunned.

Now her maidservant has a side face that has just begun to fade from baby fat, and she seems to be very different from the thin, small, shriveled little girl in her memory.

According to the custom of the town, when a woman marries, she will hire a blessed person who is alive and both parents and children, and ask her to twist the hair from the bride's face, cut the forehead and sideburns, and say that the face is opened, or the eyebrows are raised.

Song Jixin also heard from books about a custom that did not exist in a small town, so when Zhigui was twelve years old, he bought the best freshly brewed wine in the town, took out the porcelain vase that had been stolen, the glaze was extremely beautiful, like a green plum, and after pouring the wine into it, he carefully sealed it in mud, and finally buried it in the ground.

Song Jixin suddenly spoke: "Zhigui, although the guy surnamed Chen, according to the words of our ancestors, belongs to 'rotten wood cannot be carved, and the wall of dung cannot be built', but no matter what, he has finally done something meaningful in his life." ”

The maid did not answer, her eyebrows were lowered, and her eyelashes trembled slightly.

Song Jixin said to himself: "Chen Ping'an, people are not bad, but his temperament is too rigid, and he only admits death in what he does, so becoming a potter means that no matter how hard he works, he is destined to not be able to make a good thing with aura, so Liu Xianyang's master, that old man Yao, can't look down on Chen Ping'an's life and death, and has his own unique vision, which is called rotten wood can not be carved." As for the wall of dung, it roughly means that Chen Ping'an is a poor sour ghost, even if you put a dragon robe on him, he is still a rustic mud leg......"

When Song Jixin said this, he laughed at himself: "I am actually worse than Chen Ping'an." ”

She didn't know how to comfort her son-in-law.

Song Jixin and his maidservant, in this town, have always been the rich people of Fulu Street and Taoye Lane, and they have an important conversation after dinner, thanks to Song Jixin's "cheap father", Lord Song.

There are no big people in the town, and there are no storms, so the kiln supervisor who was stationed here by the imperial court is undoubtedly the kind of Qingtian lord in the playbook, among the dozens of supervisors in history, and the previous supervisor Lord Song, the most popular among the people, Lord Song is not like the previous high-ranking officials, Lord Song not only did not hide in the official office, self-cultivation, nor closed the door to thank guests, dedicated to studying in the study, but the firing of the official kiln porcelain, everything must be bowed to the matter, it is more like a rural person than the craftsman potter, more than ten years, this was originally full of books, the skin was tanned and shiny, and the clothes on weekdays were no different from the croppersIt is a pity that the royal porcelain fired by the dragon kiln in the town, whether it is the glaze color or the shape of large and small pieces, has always been unsatisfactory, to be precise, compared with the previous level, and even slightly inferior, so that the old kiln heads are puzzled.

In the end, probably the conscientious Lord Song on the side of the imperial court, who had no merit and hard work, transferred him back to the imperial decree of the Ministry of Officials in the capital, and finally got a good evaluation. Before returning to Beijing, Lord Song ran out of money and funded the construction of a covered bridge, and later found that Lord Song left the convoy without a certain child, and several big names in the town suddenly realized. It can be said that Lord Song has accumulated a good incense relationship with the town, coupled with the deliberate care of the current superintendent, the young Song Jixin has lived in the town all these years, and he has no worries about food and clothing, and is at ease. Now renamed the maid of Zhigui, about her life experience, there are different opinions, the locals who live in Mud Bottle Lane, said that it was a goose feather and snowy winter, there was a foreign girl begging along the road to this, fainted at the gate of Song Jixin's house, if someone didn't find it early, he would have to go to the Lord of Yama to be reincarnated. The old man who was doing chores at the government office had another statement, swearing that it was an orphan that Lord Song had bought from other places in his early years, in order to find a considerate person for his illegitimate son Song Jixin, and make up for the debt that father and son could not recognize.

In any case, after the maid was named Zhigui by the teenager, it was considered to have completely confirmed the father-son relationship between the two, because the gentry of the small town knew that Lord Song was most fond of an inkstone, and the word "Zhigui" was engraved.

Song Jixin came back to his senses, and his smile brightened, "I don't know why, I think of that four-legged snake with dead skin and face, Zhigui, you think, I threw it into Chen Ping'an's yard, and it still wants to run to our house, you said that Chen Ping'an's kennel must be so unpopular that it will be so shabby that even a little snake is unwilling to enter?"

The maidservant thought about it seriously and replied, "There are some things that also talk about fate, right?"

Song Jixin stretched out his thumb and said happily: "That's exactly the truth! He, Chen Ping'an, is a person with shallow fortunes, so he can be content if he can live." ”

She didn't speak.

Song Jixin said to himself: "After we leave the town, the things in the house will be taken care of by Chen Ping'an, will this guy be guarded and steal?"

The maidservant said softly: "Childe, won't it?"

Song Jixin smiled: "Yo, Zhigui, do you understand the meaning of self-theft?"

The maid blinked her long autumn eyes, "Isn't that literal?"

Song Jixin smiled, looked to the south, and showed a hint of yearning, "I heard that there are more books in that place in the capital than the flowers and trees in our town!"

At this moment, the storyteller was saying: "Although there is no real dragon in the world, the subordinates of the dragon, such as Jiao, Qiu, and the mantle, are still really living in the world, maybe they will ......."

The old man deliberately sold a pass, and seeing that the audience was indifferent, he didn't know how to cheer at all, so he had to continue: "Maybe it's hidden around us, and the Taoist gods call it the hidden dragon in the abyss!"

Song Jixin yawned.

A locust leaf suddenly fell from the top of his head, green and dripping, and just fell on the young man's forehead.

Song Jixin reached out and grabbed the leaves, twisting the petiole with two fingers.

————

The young man who thought about going to the east gate of the city to collect debts once, when he was close to the old locust tree, he also saw the locust leaves falling in front of him, but he quickened his steps and wanted to reach out to catch it.

Just a breeze blew and leaves slipped past him.

The straw sandals boy was in sturdy shape, and he quickly moved sideways to intercept the leaf.

But the leaves swirled in the air again.

The young man did not believe in evil, and tossed and turned several times, but in the end he still failed to catch the locust leaf.

The young Chen Ping'an was helpless.

A young man in a green shirt who skipped school in a township school passed by Chen Ping'an.

The young man in the green shirt didn't know it, and he didn't know when a locust leaf would stay on his shoulder.

Chen Ping'an continued to go to the east gate of the city, even if he couldn't get the money, it was good to urge him.

————

At the fortune-telling booth in the distance, the young Taoist closed his eyes and said to himself: "Who said that the cycle of heavenly fortune has no thickness or thinness?"