On the boundary of Xiyue in Aquarius Continent, one of the many vassal states of the Great Li Dynasty, the capital of Yuxuan Kingdom, at night, when the lights were on, there was a fortune-telling stall on the street, and the middle-aged Taoist priest lying on the table drunkenly made a fortune-telling
He was so excited that he raised his head, but he still looked drunk with a glassy eye. He picked up the wine bottle at hand and took a sip of the Huanhun Tang, which was used to relieve hangovers. Then he took a long breath and prepared to close the stall and go home. The Taoist priest reached out and took out something.
Xiu, he quietly weighed his money bag and found that he had earned some scraps of silver, and more of them were copper coins.
On the street, there are some eunuchs' children who have returned late from a spring outing. The grass is green and the willows are yellow, and many frivolous people have been killed by drunkenness. They ride horses at night and return to the city, as if their horse hooves are stained with the fragrance of spring grass.
The middle-aged Taoist priest began to pack away the lotus tubes on the table, twisting a few copper coins used for divination. The pulp was shiny from rubbing them all the time. He threw them into the lotus tubes together, and then picked up a tablecloth with the last name written on it.
, Taoist priests usually work here to read fortune-tellings, read people's hands to calculate marriage luck, do fortune-telling, and write family letters, etc., which can supplement the household income. The cost of the capital is not as high as that of the counties and counties in Yuxuan Kingdom.
It's so high that it's jaw-dropping.
As for guessing people's surnames, it was still an off-the-beaten-path "personality skill" that he learned from Xiao Heitan in his early years. It was all in the world. She still remembers one of her dreams when she was a child, which was to drag her master along with her.
Travel around the world and make a lot of money by working together! Find a thoroughfare in a busy city. She will first help beat the gongs and drums and shout to gain popularity. The master will first play a few tricks with knives, and then play the chest-pounding boulder, selling dog skin plasters and Dali pills, etc., without worrying about sales.
, she is very knowledgeable in all these trades and is extremely good at them. Of course it is a bit hard work, but after all, it is just like other people making a living in a shabby business that is not on the table and does not earn any money that is unconscionable.
Chen Ping'an smiled. It seemed impossible to hang out with the founder disciple again. Even if he was willing to be a master, Pei Qian himself would probably think it was nonsense.
This fortune-telling stall is now quite famous in this area of ​​Beijing.
But naturally, it cannot catch the eye of high-ranking officials. It is okay to deceive the common people. In the eyes of real Qi practitioners, they are no different from those who deceive and deceive people.
Apart from some scattered items, the main items are a table, two benches and a banner. The so-called table, panel and table legs are also removable for easy transportation. Behind the stall is a wooden pushchair.
Just put the tables, stools and flags on top of the cart and you can drive away. Taoist priests travel around. One person has enough to eat and everything is worry-free. The sky is vast and the earth is vast, and the four seas are home.
However, this Taoist priest still rented an abandoned house in the capital that had been neglected for a long time. It was not haunted. It was either a gloomy and haunted house, or the people who lived here often seemed to be trapped in bed by ghosts, as if they were haunted by nightmares.
It is easy to sleep poorly. Over time, the spirit will naturally become sluggish. Over time, no one will come here to spend money and suffer. It is a bit like the kind of naughty fox described in the ghost book. The owner of the house, please ask the so-called
High-level Taoist priests came to impeachment, but it was both effective and ineffective. Because they set up an altar and did it for a while, it stopped, but after a while, the trouble started again. It was really useless, not to mention that the owner of the house had a rich family and many ancestors and grandchildren.
Dairen, who specializes in leasing and selling mansions in the capital, has a large number of people on hand. He doesn't care what happens to such a mansion, not to mention that no one has ever been killed, so he doesn't take it too seriously. Then finally a victim comes, and he is a Taoist priest from outside.
, deceiving students, the rent price has not been lowered, and they are destined not to be repeat customers anyway, so they asked the Taoist priest to pay a one-time deposit of half a year, which is a big deal.
Later, the Taoist priest really suffered a lot, and he immediately became unhappy. He came to the door to make trouble twice, but was easily dismissed. The shop bullied customers? A piece of contract, written clearly in black and white, the lawsuit broke the world.
I'm the one who's right. What can you, a Taoist priest with no roots and no backing, do? What's more, the people in the capital of Yuxuan Kingdom are notoriously xenophobic. The Taoist priest wanted to find a lawyer to ask for justice from the county boss, but he was stunned.
So no one dared to help write the petition. Later, the fortune-telling stall gradually became famous. The owner of the house probably felt that it was better to reconcile enemies than to marry them, so he asked his son, who had an errand in the county government office, to invite the Taoist priest to the restaurant for a drink.
After having a drink and returning part of the deposit, the matter was finally settled. But while we were drinking, the young man who was the clerk of the government office put his feet on the table, belched wine, and teased him, "You are not a demon slayer."
Are you a demonic Taoist priest, still afraid of those ghostly and dirty things?
The Taoist priest just smiled and replied, "There are different paths in the dark world, and there are different paths between yin and yang. If you only rely on the magic of the immortals to fight and kill, you will still have to deal with people and ghosts when you often walk by the river without getting your shoes wet."
It is good to do good.
After all, he was a young man who had been hanging out with the public servants for many years. He immediately found fault with his words, knocked his boots on the table, and asked Daoist Wu with a smile whether there was something behind his words. I wonder if my father and I were humans or ghosts in the eyes of the Taoist.
Is the alien causing trouble a ghost or a human?
Tonight, the middle-aged Taoist priest pushed the wooden cart back to the house. He came to the side door of the house and took out a bunch of keys. There are no steps here, so you can push the cart directly in.
The Taoist priest had just locked the door when a woman in a red dress "floated" without touching her feet and said jokingly: "Taoist Master Wu, it means that our court is not strict, otherwise a fake Taoist priest like you would never settle down in the capital, let alone settle down in the capital.
Can't enter the city."
She has a palace-like bun, skin like snow, charming eyes, tender face and long temples.
It's a pity that women are not human.
The Taoist priest immediately retorted: "Miss Xue, what you said is wrong. According to your Yuxuan Kingdom regulations, within a country, in addition to the Daolu Academy under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Rites of the imperial court, the private urns issued by various Dharma altars of Taoist priests also count.
The imperial court has always recognized the certificate. I spent a full eighty taels of silver to buy the certificate with real money. Not only Yuxuanguo, but also Dali Capital dared to go there.
This is called walking around the world with reason, and being upright is not afraid of the shadows."
It is equivalent to buying an amulet with eighty taels of silver. Without this level of identity, if a foreign Taoist priest wants to make money by setting up a stall, he may be peeled off by the subordinate officials of the government.
The woman nodded and said with a smile: "That's right, how can Xie Feng Guan not be an official?"
Her surname is Xue and her name is Ruyi, and she is a ghost, but she has nothing to do with the ferocious ghost. She can walk in broad daylight without any hindrance. Only when the powerful sound of a subordinate official's wooden stick hitting the ground is heard in the nearby county government office, she will avoid entering the house.
.
The Taoist priest took out a paper bag of flower cakes from his sleeve and handed it to the female ghost in the red dress. This was the second rent he needed to pay. After setting up the stall every day, he had to spend a small amount of money to buy some Beijing specialties to honor this
She is the "mistress" of the house, otherwise she will act like a monster and cause trouble. She won't hurt anyone, but she will make noises all night long and hang out outside the window, making people unable to relax. Taoist priests can't even hope for a peaceful sleep.
Over time, they figured out their tempers, and now they are on good terms with each other, and they can even chat for a while. The Taoist priest often asks her about the rules for ghosts to walk on the road to the underworld.
It is said that this old-looking Taoist priest Wu Di has already thought about his future Taoist name. He chose a homophonic name and called it "Wudi".
She is a Yin spirit, so she doesn't care about food. However, she has a secular neighbor in the house who must eat three meals a day. She complained a little: "Wu Di, why did you come back so late today? You are hungry. Hurry up and cook.
Zhang Hou cooks a delicious meal. He is just growing up, so he can't just make do with it casually. Zhang Hou is about to take the college examination. Whether he can enter the Pan Dynasty depends on this. If he fails to pass the exam, I will blame you.
."
Taoist priests are naturally good-tempered and have no airs. They just stay under someone else's roof. They agree to it one after another and say that they will go to the kitchen to start work after putting everything away.
This Taoist priest does not treat himself badly and likes to be meticulous. For example, when making a bowl of noodles, in addition to preparing cooking wine and various toppings, there are four or five types of spicy oil, paired with chopped ginger, onion, and garlic... just one topping
, sizzling sound, and serve it hot, the taste is amazing.
The Taoist priest went to the kitchen, and with skillful hands and feet, he quickly prepared a table of home-cooked dishes. The woman in the red dress helped "serve" the dishes to the table, and the dishes fell on the table like a suspended stream of water.
The female ghost went to call the young scholar named Zhang Hou in the house next door. The reason why she lingered here was because of a certain sworn alliance to take care of each other's descendants.
As for the important place in the capital, there was only a County God's Temple nearby. Why she chose to turn a blind eye to her involved a secret suggestion from a certain superior in the City God's Temple.
Just across the street from the house is one of the two county offices in the capital. There is a government temple behind the office.
At the dinner table, the Taoist priest was showing off his close relationship with the county government's salt house clerk and how well-informed he was. He said that an internal meeting was held in the government office's temple yesterday, and there would soon be a few people who would not change their ways and violated the house rules.
"White Book", in a few days, the county government will be expelled from the county government in anger. Of course, they can change their names and enter a certain house to make a living, but they don't have to spend thirty or fifty taels of class rules and cases.
Fei, don't even think about negotiating matters at the Yashen Temple...
Zhang Hou was a man who didn't listen to what was happening outside the window and only focused on reading the books of sages. Every time he heard Wu Di talking about these things, the young man would become impatient, but he just kept silent.
In addition to the six rooms of a county government office, there are also four rooms of salt, warehouse, Cambodia and responsibility, for a total of ten rooms. The clerks and government servants who work here are divided into those who are registered and those who are "not registered". The so-called "not registered" is just
Compared with the imperial court, there were actually two types of officials, one in the hands of the official office and the officials in each house. Therefore, there were so many government officials, often hundreds of them, that even a county magistrate who could be considered extremely diligent could not figure out the exact number.
, but even according to the quota set by the imperial court, the official scribes who "eat the emperor's food" cannot be said to have any status, let alone those members of various houses and classes who all belong to lowly professions. It is no wonder that the young man is tired of these scraps.
Useless gossip.
The woman in the red dress noticed the displeased expression on the young man's face, and she immediately glared at the Taoist priest, hinting him not to mention these boring things that would bring disgrace to the scenery.
The Taoist priest raised his glass and took a sip of the wine, and said with a smile: "For a person like me who travels around the world, news is the way to make money, so he will inevitably have to deal with the three religions and nine streams. Having said that, Mr. Zhang and you, the scholars who have studied the books of sages, will naturally run to the world.
To manage the world and benefit the people, I will pursue my ambitions in temples and official circles in the future, but it would also be a good thing if I knew more about the ways below. If I really succeed in the imperial examination someday, I will be named on the gold medal list and become an official, and I will not be ignored by those around me.
The staff master and the subordinate officials just fooled around, otherwise they would be separated from the common people outside the yamen. It seems that they are separated by a door, but it is a world of difference. As a local official and an official who is close to the people, how can we truly understand the sufferings of the people?
Woolen cloth."
She rarely nodded and agreed: "Wu Di, apart from being able to do the three-legged cat kung fu of ghost-drawing talismans, he is a fake Taoist priest. He probably even has a fake name, but these few sentences still have some true knowledge and insights. He is not overwhelmed by his many skills.
It's the same principle as not being too tight when you have more money. As Wu Di said, if you know more about the inside story of officialdom, even if it's not a good thing, it's not a bad thing."
To be honest, she has stayed in this street for hundreds of years, and sometimes she feels bored. She occasionally goes to "listen in" to the internal discussions of the Yamen Shrine or the City God's Temple. But the real internal affairs of a county's officialdom are, I'm afraid,
She doesn't know as much as this foreign Taoist priest.
The young man remained silent and just lowered his head to eat. Apparently he didn't listen. He just felt that the Taoist priest was chatty and wanted to teach others.
The Taoist priest didn't take it seriously and raised his glass with both hands, "Let's not talk about troublesome things at the wine table. Miss Xue, let's go one by one."
The young man left after finishing his meal and said goodbye to Sister Xue. He was about to take the college examination for the abbot of Xuezheng himself, which was quite stressful.
When the Taoist priest was clearing away the dishes, he asked with a smile: "Miss Xue, do you think Zhang Hou didn't like to listen to my truth because he thought I was a charlatan, or did he sincerely think that what I said was unreasonable, so he didn't listen to me?"
, or for someone who is successful and famous, the truth is the truth?"
She frowned, but quickly relaxed her brows, pretending to be nonchalant and wrote: "Zhang Hou is not an old man like you who travels around. The young man has a simple heart, how can he think so much."
The Taoist priest smiled and said: "Simple two words can cure all diseases."
She suddenly became unhappy.
To be continued...