Yi Cheng told everyone that there is no night ban in Red Candle Town, and there is a market in the west of the town. Knowing that Chen Ping'an and his party were going to buy the items needed for the study tour, Yicheng Cheng Sheng offered to be the guide, saying that it could save a lot of trouble, at least those merchants did not dare to ask for a price, Chen Ping'an looked at Ah Liang, who had come to Red Candle Town once, and the man in the hat nodded, saying that he was only familiar with the scenery on both sides of the river, and had never been to Fang City.

Yi Cheng looked at Ah Liang, the two old men, and smiled.

Nearly 100 large and small painting boats in Fushui Bay will sail out of the water inlet every night, follow the river into Red Candle Town, and return to Fushui Bay after a circle, during which men will continue to board those painting boats, both drunk and laughing.

In Red Candle Town, the boatman girl and other Qinglou girls in Shishuiwan are all lowly members of Dali, but the former has always been directly responsible for the management of households by the Beijing Education Division, and even the county magistrate, who is the official of one of the parents, is not qualified to change the identity of the painting boat woman from cheap to good. Therefore, there have always been rumors in Red Candle Town that the ancestors of the five surnames in Shishui Bay were the royal children and meritorious families of the Shenshui Dynasty.

Under the guidance of Cheng Sheng, Chen Ping'an and they went to the market in the west of the town, the farther west, the more crowded the streets, and learned that Red Candle Town went south by boat for more than 200 miles, and there were town post stations along the way to replenish, Chen Ping'an gave up some ideas, did not buy too much rice, cured meat and other food, but in a pharmacy, added a lot of ointments and medicinal materials to deal with small illnesses such as wind cold, heat stroke, and bruises. When it was time to spend money, Chen Ping'an knew that it was similar to his hometown town, and a whole silver ingot was a rarity, so he converted the two ingots of snowflake pattern silver into Dali general copper coins, Tianhua ingots, because the hand was the best quality silver, and the premium alone was as high as two hundred yuan, which made Chen Ping'an very grateful to the Xiuxiu girl in the blacksmith shop.

Because of Cheng Sheng by his side, everything is going smoothly, in the county and town, don't really treat the officials as officials, especially Cheng Sheng, who often deals with the gentry and giants and detention officials all year round, in the eyes of the people in the town, it is a big man with hands and eyes. Therefore, Chen Ping'an and every shop they walked into, all shouted to Master Cheng diligently, eager to worship this Lord Yicheng as a Bodhisattva.

Along the way, Li Huai was very restrained, almost daring to hide behind Ah Liang, probing his brain, Ah Liang joked that he was timid and would only be in the nest. Li Huai just opened his voice to fight with Ah Liang for 300 rounds, but when the curious eyes were cast around, Li Huai immediately drooped his head, followed behind Ah Liang sickly, and made Ah Liang so happy, he slapped Li Huai's head from time to time, and the child dared to be angry and did not dare to speak, and he was very aggrieved.

Lin Shouyi is still a cold appearance that has nothing to do with himself, and it is estimated that the young man is now walking on the royal road in the capital, which is also this virtue.

Only Li Baohua was carrying her green bamboo box, like a crab running rampant, tilting her head and puffing up her chest, eager to pull someone on the side of the road and tell him that her little bookcase was made by Uncle Xiao himself.

Fang City is composed of two north-south streets, after shopping Guanshan Street, Chen Ping'an and they are about to go through the alley, go to the next Guanshui Street, but pass by a bookstore in the alley with a deserted business, Cheng Sheng who led the way went straight forward, Chen Ping'an stopped, said hello to the Yicheng, and smiled at Li Baohua and the three people: "One person can buy a book." No matter how expensive it is, it's no problem, as long as we can afford it. ”

The shop is very small, the door is not more than two feet wide, after entering, there are two rows of high book walls on the left and right, and at the innermost part of the store, there is a young man in a black robe, sitting on a small bamboo chair, crossing Erlang's legs, closing his eyes and recuperating, holding a folded fan in his hand, gently tapping his palm, humming a small song.

The young shopkeeper had a handsome and feminine face, without the copper stench of the previous shopkeepers.

After the girl Zhu Lu saw it for the first time, she was stunned, probably because she didn't expect to meet such a temperamental romantic character in the market of Red Candle Town.

After the land lord of Qidun Mountain got rid of the shackles, he resumed his identity as a god, and changed from a short old man in white to a noble son in Yushu Linfeng, but in the girl's heart, for Wei Yan, it was more of that sloppy and unbearable image. But the first impression of the son in front of him is too distinct.

Even Zhu He was suspicious, could this person be the son of a wealthy lord in the middle of the family, right? Compared with his own two sons, he was not bad at all.

The young man didn't open his eyes, and said lazily: "There are no counteroffers for the books in the store, and whether you make a profit or a loss when you turn around depends on the eyesight of the guests." ”

Yicheng Cheng Sheng said softly to Zhu He: " This shop is well-known in our Red Candle Town, most of the readers who pass through here like to come here once, but the shopkeeper has a strange temper, all the books sold are far higher than the market price, and who dares to open his mouth to bargain, he dares to pick people on the spot, with a high temperament, not familiar with general affairs, there was once a micro-service private visit to the household official master, he stayed in the villain's pillow station, the old man fell in love with a price of three hundred taels of silver what kind of lonely book, but it was a counteroffer of fifty taels of silver, and he was driven out of the shop, and did not leave any face, so angry that the official returned to the post station and did not extinguish the fire, almost let the county government seal this small shop, it is estimated that the reputation is not good, so that this shop escaped a catastrophe. ”

Zhu He knew in his heart that he was mostly a rotten Confucian who did not understand the world, and he was the kind of person that his second son liked to ridicule the most. The second son smiled and said that he couldn't say two hundred years, and we Dali would be the same.

Therefore, Zhu He has always had a bad impression of the readers outside.

After the post road of Red Candle Town, one of the three main post roads leading to the capital on the southern border of Dali, the small rich and noble businessman Jia Shieun, if he goes north to the important town of Dali Beijing, choose this road, because the other two post roads are wider, but almost every post station along the way is crowded, there is no sufficient amount of government survey, soldier fire card, not to mention staying, even the gate does not want to enter, every year there are many officials and gentry who do not know this way, so they lose face.

The southern scholars who entered Beijing to take the exam, because they did not yet have an official body, liked to choose this post road, often in pairs of threes and twos, which could not only take care of each other, but also visit the immortals together.

The officials who belittled the south were depressed and unwilling, and liked to write poems on the walls of post stations and hostels, and also liked to take this road to the south. Coming and going, the walls of the pillow post in Red Candle Town are full of poems about the detention of literati and rioters.

Li Baohua tilted his head and began to look for a book, glanced here and there, all depending on the mood, occasionally pulled out a book, opened a few pages casually, and put it back if he was not interested, the little girl finally found a landscape travelogue with a price tag of three hundred yuan, a little distressed, but I really liked it, so I turned my head to look at the little uncle, Chen Ping'an smiled and nodded.

Lin Shouyi's gaze slowly swept over the book wall, orderly, from right to left, from top to bottom, every time he pulled a book and flipped through it, it must have started from the title page. The boy finally took a fancy to a feng shui book that was not signed by the author, with a price tag of 400 yuan. Lin Shouyi looked at Chen Ping'an, who still nodded.

After Li Huai arrived at the store, he finally lost the hustle and bustle on the street, and immediately returned to his stubborn nature, just like a wild horse, he was the youngest and the shortest, and he had to sit on Ah Liang's shoulder to pick up a book, Ah Liang agreed, but threatened that if Li Huai didn't choose one, he would leave him on the street when he got out of the shop. As a result, Li Huai stubbornly picked a brand-new book at the highest place, with a price tag of nine taels and two yuan, and when he saw the price, he was so frightened that Li Huai was about to throw the book over, but he was in a hurry, and the book was not successfully stuffed back into the bookshelf, but fell to the ground.

The young shopkeeper who tapped on the folding fan opened his eyes, looked at the book that fell to the ground, and said angrily: "Buy it and leave, a copy of the latest edition of "Broken Water Cliff", nine taels and two dollars." ”

Li Huai didn't dare to talk back to the stranger at all, so he had to cry and look at Chen Ping'an cautiously, and the latter asked, "Will you see it if you buy it?"

Li Huai nodded vigorously.

Chen Ping'an smiled and nodded: "Then buy it." ”

Ah Liang asked, "Chen Ping'an, don't you buy one yourself?"

Chen Ping'an, who was paying for it, hurriedly shook his head and said, "I haven't read all the words yet, what are I doing when I buy books." ”

Zhu He turned his head and asked his daughter, "Do you have any books you want?"

Zhu Lu always stood at the door of the store without moving, glanced at the book wall, and shook his head.

The young shopkeeper who was about to collect the money stood up, tied his hair with an ebony hairpin, held a snow-white folding fan, his eyes swept over the little girl in the red cotton jacket and the cold boy, and finally looked at the child who was timidly holding "The Broken Water Cliff", smiling playfully.

Ah Liang grinned.

Leaving the bookstore and walking towards Guanshui Street, Zhu He's heart moved, and when he looked back, he found that the good-looking young man was leaning against the doorpost, watching them leave, and after seeing Zhu He, the man smiled and nodded.

Zhu He turned his head, frowned, and after leaving the alley, he walked quickly to the side of the man with a hat, "Senior Ah Liang, is the owner of the bookstore weird?"

Ah Liang helped the hat and said something really weird, "Compared to this guy, the real trouble is still to come, but it has nothing to do with you." ”

————

The flow of the Chongtang River is the most turbulent, there are many reefs and shoals, there are strange scenery famous in the court, one of the sections of the river, the size of the stone pillar protrudes more from the water surface, known as the mushrooms after the rain, only a leaf flat boat can shuttle through the gap between the stone forest, the big boat is difficult to cross, even if it is a boatman who grew up on the riverside and is familiar with the water, he does not dare to easily take the boat into the water, unless it is a literati who comes to admire, spend a lot of money to hire, will travel. Therefore, there is a white paper boat Tie Gong said that every year, there will be boatmen and outsiders who die in the stone forest waterway of the Chongshan River.

It's just that there are a lot of tourists in the Chong River in the twilight tonight.

A man with a bare chest and belly sat on the top of a stone pillar and gently threw an empty wine jug into the river, with three unopened wine jugs beside him.

In the distance, there is a red light getting closer and closer, it turns out that there is a rickety old man carrying a big red lantern, with the stone pillar as the steps to wade through the water, dragonflies point to the water, and sweep over.

Suddenly, a majestic figure fell from the sky, stepped on the top of a stone pillar, the solid stone under his feet was overwhelmed, and instantly turned into powder, and he stood in the river like that.

In the middle of the river, there is a woman with the posture of a middle-aged woman swimming upstream, strolling leisurely, three feet above her head, suspended a fist-sized snow-white bead, shining brightly, reflecting the bottom of the river as bright as day.

The woman said lazily and boredly: "I have walked more than a hundred miles of waterway, and I can't pick up half a treasure, who told me that there are flower heads under the Chong River?"

The drinking man sitting at the top of the stone pillar looked at the bottom of the water and said indifferently, "Your Excellency is already in Red Candle Town." ”

The old man waved the bright red lantern and said with a hoarse smile: "My lord actually went out in person? What else do you need the four of us to do?

The man took a sip of wine and said in a deep voice, "I hope so." ”