A certain day of a certain year and a certain month.
The city of Bianjing is quiet and peaceful.
The half-circle moon in the eastern sky illuminates the royal doors of palaces and shabby bed and breakfasts.
Someone is murmuring in a gentle dreamland.
Some people stayed up all night.
The cold moonlight fell on the Wutai courtyard, and a hunched figure clasped his hands behind his back, looking up at the stars.
He has lived a long eighty years, and at this moment, countless memory fragments are slowly flashing through his mind.
Crunchy——
The breakfast vendor pushed a wheelbarrow and creaked as he walked forward.
He got up half an hour earlier than yesterday, confident that he would get a good position this time.
As soon as he reached the entrance of the ceremony gate, the vendor was surrounded by a huge crowd.
"Are there any steamed buns with cured meat sauce?"
“Are there any multigrain pancakes?”
“Hot and sour rice noodle rolls and rice rolls?”
“Ramen noodles hot dry noodles?”
“Do you have Shaxian noodles?”
"Xinqiu! Can't you see the Hu spicy soup sign?"
The relatively young hawker couldn't hear the accents from all over the world, but it didn't affect his ability to shake the spoon.
Facing the diners' angry looks, he also smiled and said
"Nothing but familiarity with your hands."
Everyone filled their bellies and squatted at the door, singing to the wind and making fun of the moon.
The hawker lowered his head to clear the tables, chairs, dishes, and occasionally looked at them thoughtfully, with a trace of despair in his eyes.
Many years ago, I was so enthusiastic about book business.
As the saying goes.
Whenever the sun rises, there are always people who are happy and others who are sad.
The door of the Etiquette Department slowly opened, and the clerk walked to the bulletin board with the list.
The crowd followed closely like a magnet, as if being pulled by an invisible force.
They studied hard for ten years while living in poverty, and spent their best years practicing words and sentences. Their talents and thoughts arose between pen and paper, just in exchange for being named on the gold medal list one day.
Today is the day when the imperial court will release the test results.
Among this group of scholars, there was a middle-aged man who after reading the list said nothing and tried his best to squeeze out of the crowd.
The middle-aged man was sitting on a hawker's stall, resting and quietly looking at the various living things in front of him. The hawkers around him did not try to chase him away.
The national examination is like an army crossing a single-plank bridge. If you slack off even a little bit, you will become a mere foil.
Only by entering the official admission list can one advance from a hard worker to a hard worker.
This person successfully advanced, and more candidates put down their books and became a new generation of hawkers.
Four years later.
He was born.
His father, a middle-aged man, was promoted from a local official to a ancestral minister with the help of a brush.
As working years increase, not only does the income increase, but also the house full of books.
However, he seems to only care about eating and growing up, and does not show any special talents.
I spent the entire day immersed in a pile of books, but I didn't manage to write even half of a perfect composition.
Not to mention memorizing Tang poetry at the age of three, learning English at the age of six, and sweeping the Mathematical Olympiad class at the age of nine.
He obviously couldn't keep up with the footsteps of the prodigies, so he could only grind on every word.
But maybe hard work can make up for weakness.
As long as the knowledge is engraved in the mind, it will definitely improve rapidly after learning by analogy.
His father provided careful guidance step by step, and he insisted on reading three to five pages more every day.
Eighteen years have passed and Bianjing City is still in bloom.
This day.
Before he could reach the entrance of the ceremony gate, he was blocked by a huge crowd.
Seeing that the list hadn't been posted on the bulletin board yet, I wanted to find a stall to eat something first.
There is an old man selling spicy soup in the distance. He looks to be in his early fifties. The sign on the wheelbarrow says "Century-old shop."
But before he could reach the scene, he saw two scholars getting mad at the scene.
Scholar A: “Your hands are trembling, what’s going on?”
The old man said, "I don't have him either, but I am familiar with you."
Scholar B: "My hands are so familiar that I only have clear soup in the bowl!"
The old man said, "Thank you for being a scholar, but your words are too unpleasant to listen to."
Scholar B: "Don't you think it sounds good? Look at what you have done! Please give me your money back!"
Scholar A: “Forget it, it’s not easy for him at his age.”
Scholar B: "╭(╯╰)╮, if I pass the exam, I will definitely punish this kind of profiteer!"
The old man weighed the copper in his hand and poured the spicy soup back into the bucket when no one was prepared.
he""
At this moment.
A sound of announcement sounded.
He was swept towards the bulletin board by the crowd and found his name on the list.
I almost didn't recognize these two words when I saw them repeatedly, so I tried my best to squeeze out of the crowd.
He sat on the hawker stall to rest and quietly looked at the various living beings in front of him.
The two scholars who went crazy after eating spicy soup were standing next to them to say their final goodbyes.
"Congratulations, Brother Wang, I will recommend you to the teacher right now."
"Brother Zeng didn't even pass the exam himself, yet he still wants to speak for me."
"Hey, there is no need to say anything between you and me. My master Ouyang Xiu will definitely be able to support you!"
"Then I would like to thank you here. I wonder what Brother Zeng has planned?"
"Let's go back to the countryside and buy some piglets to raise."
"If you are not a gentleman, you don't know enough about me."
This year, he was 18 years old, and he didn't know that he would almost be tortured to death by the scholar named Wang standing next to him.
Three years later.
He was assigned as the magistrate of Jiangning County and made outstanding achievements in politics.
At that time, Wang Ding finished criticizing Fan Zhongyan's New Deal, but wrote in his evaluation column
"It's beyond my reach."
Two years later.
He was promoted to Nanjing promotion official.
A few years later, his father, the middle-aged man at the time, died of illness.
After the filial piety period expired, he went to Beijing again and was assigned to the Shiguang Pavilion as a collation.
Become a librarian with mysterious power, and you can travel in the ocean of knowledge for free at any time.
He traveled like this for nine whole years, almost unable to open the pot when he reached his home. "Historical Records" """ stayed in the hotel for nine years, serving his grandmother, mother, adopted aunt and sisters and dozens of foreigners, and married in a dark time. His wife had regular food and clothing.
Not as good as Yan Ru.''''
But as the saying goes.
Only when enough ordinary things are superimposed can the extraordinary be born.
After his father passed away, he did not abandon his childhood habits and insisted on reading three to five pages more every day.
With more than three thousand days and nights superimposed, he almost turned into a two-legged encyclopedia.
Song Renzong wanted to revise the new version of the Pharmacopoeia, but he did not draft his speech at all.
After sorting out the materials in his mind, he was appointed as the chief engineer of the project on the spot.
Later, he led his team to compile a volume of "Illustrated Book of Materia Medica" over several years.
This masterpiece, which transcends the scope of medicine, gathers together the natural wonders of the Eastern land.
Later, he went on a mission to the Liao Kingdom and was transferred to various places. After many years, he was called back to Beijing to compile history.
Twenty-five years passed by, and when he walked into the Royal Library again, the literary young man in the past had gray hair on his temples, but his beauty had not changed in the thick classics.
He summarized his two business trips and compiled "Lu Wei's Letters". Song Shenzong read it while urging him to update it. He always ranked first on the rich reward list and cast monthly votes every day.
But two years later, something unexpected happened.
The mother of Dr. Guozi Chen Shiru died and was rumored to have been murdered by her son and daughter-in-law.
However, because there was no conclusive evidence, he did not convict Lao and Chen.
However, with the promotion of thoughtful people, the matter became more and more evil, even the emperor in the palace was alarmed.
After Cai Que and other leaders of the reform faction made a big fuss, he was imprisoned in Yushitai.
His roommate next door is called Su Shi. When he saw him the first day, he asked cheerfully
"Hey, gay friend, do you know what banned words are blocked?"
Later, Su Shi was rescued by the cultural circles and was demoted to deputy envoy of Huangzhou League Training.
Frustrated, Su Shi composed a poem about braised pork, and his "Ode to Pork" became more famous than his gay friends.
He was sent to Cangzhou to serve as magistrate, and three years later he was recalled to the capital to serve.
This old man, who had been struggling for most of his life, finally ushered in the full bloom of the essence of life.
He worked hard in different positions and achieved steady promotions while creating performance.
In the same year, Song Shenzong gave birth to his eleventh son.
Song Shenzong picked up the fat baby and said sadly
Ji'er, you only have two brothers still alive.
Zhao Ji was the future Huizong of Song Dynasty.
Later, he summoned Han Gonglian to build a waterborne instrument. Hundreds of craftsmen spent seven years perfectly integrating arithmetic, mechanical astronomy, fluid power and other disciplines to create the world's first automated astronomical instrument.
Looking at the three-story instrument platform, the hands are moving in sync with the stars and the moon.
Every hour on the hour, different puppets come out to play gongs and drums.
He was worried that liberal arts students would not be able to understand it, so he specially wrote an instruction manual "New Yixiang Law Essentials", which covered various parts structures and complete diagrams of mechanical transmissions.
Later, the R&D team created a cloudy sky phenomenon, in which the water flow drives the star map to alternate reincarnations.
Starlight shines brightly above your head, as if you are in the ancient sky.
Now several years have passed, and from Scholar A to Scholar B, almost all of his contemporaries have died.
I vaguely think of the old man selling Hu spicy soup, and I wonder if there are any inheritors of the spoon-shaking technique?
Over the years, the inheritance of old and new party struggles has not been interrupted, and various forces still take the opportunity to fight each other.
However, he did not choose a camp and team, and gradually became a lonely high-ranking person.
three years ago.
He put down everything and said goodbye.
There are no temple calculations and heavy official duties, no need to speculate on the leaders’ thoughts and flattery.
A person quietly stares at the night sky and can hear the footsteps of time passing by.
The vast and deep boundless sky can heal the unsatisfactory things that are difficult to express in this life.
Put your feet on the earth and look up at the stars.
He knows that his days are numbered, and he doesn’t know how the world will judge me thousands of years from now.
And just as the old man was looking up at the stars, his old servant suddenly ran over from the back hall in a hurry
"Sir, it's not good, there's a water ghost in the well in the backyard!!!"
