Clam Pearl

Brothers Gu Zhao and Gu Yan stayed up all night, but they were not tired at all. Early in the morning, the two brothers stood in the yard, each holding a pair of flower scissors, looking like they wanted to trim the flower branches, but they couldn't. Picking out the flower buds and cutting them with scissors, the woman in charge of the garden looked at them in pain, but she didn't dare to say anything, so she could only watch helplessly from a distance.

After tossing like this all morning, the two brothers stood in the courtyard of the main room, sighed without any shame as they saw that there was no flower in the courtyard, and then they were relatively speechless, looking at each other's eyeballs were bloodshot , but he was very energetic and didn't feel sleepy at all.

Today was Xiumu, Master Gu didn't have to go to the morning court, so he went around the yard, and Gu Zhao followed him in a small circle.

"Brother, you can't turn one, two, three, four, let's go, let's go for a stroll outside the city." Gu Zhao persuaded his elder brother.

Gu Yan nodded: "Success, walk, walk."

Just like that, the two brothers left the house together, got into the mule cart, and told the coachman to go out of Dongcheng to wherever he wanted.

Behind them, the whole family breathed a sigh of relief, the two plague gods finally went out and stopped making trouble.

This handlebar style is also an old man, seeing that the owner is not happy, he has a score in his heart, so with the sound of the whip, he pulled Gu Zhao and Gu Yan to Dongwaner outside the east gate of Shangjing.This east bend is a small stream, surrounded by beautiful scenery, and it is the favorite place for scholars. The handlebars are beautiful, and the beautiful scenery can naturally bring people a sense of relaxation and happiness, but he forgot that in February At the end, the mountains here are still bald, and the trees around the stream are so green that there is no view.

The mule cart stopped, looked around eagerly on the handlebars, swallowed and spit: "Master, here, can you take a look? If not, let's look for it again?"

Gu Yan took the lead to get out of the car, and did not wait for the handlebars to place the footstool.

He looked around and glanced over. There were several miles of open space, and there were quite large gaps between the trees. This place was safer than the secret room, and the line of sight was really good.

Gu Zhao followed and got out of the car, strolled to the edge of Dongwan and looked down.

At this time, it was the end of February, and the warm spring water washed away the thin ice on the surface of the stream. The unpolluted river was crystal clear, and the bottom of the stream was rounded by the water, and the round and simple-colored small The pebbles are covered with the bottom of the water one by one, and the breeze blows, which makes the spring water move slightly, and even the beautiful scenery at the bottom of the stream trembles.

Gu Zhao squatted down, picked up a handful of water, took a few sips, wiped his mouth with his sleeve indifferently, turned to Gu Yan who was standing there looking up at the sky, and said, "Brother, come and taste, this water has a sweet taste. taste."

Gu Yan raised his eyes to look at him, and sighed: "You can drink it anyway."

Gu Zhao smiled: "The sky is big and the earth is big, eating and drinking is the biggest, is it possible..." He stopped speaking, and said to the handlebar: "Go and park the car over there, it's far away, we want to go back, we will naturally Look for you."

The handlebars responded with a sound, got on the car with a wrong buttock, and went away with a whip.

After he walked away, Gu Zhaocai went on to say: "Could it be that, because of that matter, we both died together, starved to death, tossing ourselves to death? If I hadn't mentioned this, the elder brother's life has not been taken care of, you It's still your noble and majestic Duke, the second-rank Youcheng who is bright and bright next to the emperor, if you stomp your feet, won't you be trembling when you go to Beijing?"

Gu Yan snorted, pulled up the lower curtain of the robe, and stuffed it into his belt, then squatted down and took two mouthfuls of stream water to drink, and after drinking, shook the water stains in his hand and sighed: "Oh, Xiao Qi, you Don't you see, there is a cliff behind us, this... Once you shoot your bow, you can't turn your head back."

Gu Zhao laughed: "Who doesn't want to enjoy the happiness? I used to have such a good life, but unfortunately... my eldest brother shouldn't have picked me up, and I shouldn't have known these... people in my family. I have liked myself since before. Hiding in the comfort zone, now, I want to see, Maode can support the family business, Maochang can marry a good wife, the little girl can marry a good husband, my little uncle is good under a big tree to enjoy the shade, and then Seeing our children and grandchildren live a domineering life that we like, blood relatives, sometimes we really can’t tell! No matter how ugly they are, no matter how irritating they are, we feel pity for them, and really don’t want them to be wronged.” Gu Zhao smiled and shook his head.

After laughing, he stretched out his hand, fished out a lot of pebbles from the bottom of the stream, and placed them on the bank one by one.

"What are you doing to pick up the old stones? You should be careful when your hands are cold. Your feet will be fine. You will be a pig's trotter." Gu Yan laughed and scolded. After scolding, he also squatted on the ground to pick up stones with his brother.

Soon, there were piles of pebbles piled up on the shore. Gu Zhao only picked the beautiful ones, and looked at them one by one in the sunlight. Gu Yan smiled and scolded, "What a child."

"Brother said this, some people are used to being children, no one is used to it, I am like a child." Gu Zhao continued to turn over stones, not to mention, such a beautiful cobblestone, in modern times, put a wooden support, it is You can go to arts and crafts stores to sell banknotes.

The two brothers put aside their troubles and began to turn over stones at the bottom of the stream seriously. One by one, beautiful pebbles were found out and put aside carefully. In other words, this stone interest is also a popular collection hotspot in later generations. In the past, Gu Zhao liked to watch the Science and Education Channel the most. There were often some channels that were said to be favorites. There is a saying that "stones from other mountains can be used to attack jade".

What Lingbi stone, Kunshan City, Taihu stone, the price of a good stone is not lower than jade.

Gu Zhao picked up a piece and looked at the sun for a while. The stone was blue in color with white lines in the middle. If you look carefully, you can see many shapes in this small stone, or it looks like a chicken, or it looks like a chicken. A girl with a flying skirt, or like an old woman...

"Brother, look, how many things are in this stone?" Gu Zhao put the stone in Gu Yan's hand.

Gu Yan played with this stone, looked back and forth over and over for a while, and said, "Well... there is a monk who is holding a bowl and asking for a vegetarian meal."

Satisfied, Gu Zhao pointed at the figure and gestured, "Does it look like a rooster when you look at it this way?"

"Well, Xiaoqi said so, it does seem like it."

"If you look backwards like this, it doesn't look like Hong Dan is running in the yard."

"Hey... that's right, this hair looks like it."

"Then if you look sideways, does it look like an old woman sitting?"

"Oh! This rock is fun, really, it's a small rock, you can see roosters, monks, girls, women..." Gu Zhao looked at it for a while with a smile, and whispered: "Don't worry about that kind, None of them are easy to provoke."

Gu Zhao laughed.

Gu Yan put the stone on top of his head and faced the sun and sighed loudly: "Oh! This is a miracle! You said Xiao Qi, if God put this miracle in this stone, we brothers don't have to worry ..."

Gu Zhao became wise and looked overjoyed. He reached out, grabbed Gu Yan's sleeve, stared at him and asked loudly, "Brother? What did you just say?"

Gu Yan was taken aback: "I didn't say anything!"

Gu Zhao squeezed his hands: "No, you said it, that sentence just now, just that sentence just now, you repeat it."

Gu Yan thought for a while: "I said, this stone is a miracle."

"Not this sentence." Gu Zhao shook his head.

Gu Yan thought for a while: "I said, if God puts a miracle in this rock for us, why should we worry..."

"That's right!" Gu Zhao shouted loudly: "That's the sentence, that's the sentence, I remembered it, I got it, brother!"

Gu Yan was dumbfounded: "Ah, what's wrong?"

Gu Zhao hugged his elder brother, walked around the river a few times and shouted loudly: "Brother, you are the smartest bad old man in the world! The smartest old bastard!"

After finishing speaking, leaving his brother behind, Gu Yan sat down on the ground, looking stupidly at his "crazy" brother.

Gu Zhao took off his coat, spread the pebbles on the ground, picked up the pebbles one by one, and threw them into his clothes. After putting them in a pile, he tied them into a four-corner pocket and carried them on his shoulders, very proud of them. Turning to his brother, he said, "Brother, let's go, let's go back."

Gu Yan was quite frightened, so he said: "Brother, are you okay, it's okay if you don't do this thing, the big deal is that brother resigns and doesn't do it, let's go back to Pingzhou, don't scare brother."

Gu Zhao was too lazy to explain to him anymore, he waved his hands casually, with a look of pride: "Go! I can't tell you a native, go, go, let's go to our house, wait for two days, my brother will give you Perform miracles!"

After speaking, he took Gu Yan and went to find the driver with a bag of pebbles.

After returning home, Gu Yan asked his elder brother to draw a picture for him, no matter what to draw, just draw a palm-sized picture.His brother is not much better than him, so he drew an abstract picture for him, a human head, a matchstick, and two forked match figures. Of course, Gu Zhao’s painting would not be much better. At most it is this level.

Gu Zhao went back and told the people below that he was going to retreat to write an article. The whole courtyard was full of people, wanting to laugh or not laughing so much, Gu Zhao didn't care about other things, went to shut himself up, and started squatting in the house.

In the past few days when he was writing "articles", he had a lot of demands. He also wanted to eat hot pot in the study, and he hated the cold. The candles were not good, so I asked them to go to the street to buy them. Bi Liangli took people to more than a dozen candle shops, bought hundreds of candles of various kinds, and finally bought him all the dragon and phoenix candles.

After finally buying the candles, Qiye stopped writing articles and started painting instead. So, Bi Liangli was asked to go to the street to buy dyes for him, as well as paints for all kinds of calligraphy and painting. Everyone let him mess around. didn't say anything.

Compared with Gu Maochang's outrageous things, the little Qiye was tossing about in the room, these are nothing.

Gu Zhao was in the house, after two days of mischief, opened the door of the study, stretched lazily in front of the sun, and said to his nanny, "I said, nanny, the weather today is exceptional. That's right!"

Bi Liangli held up his thumb, smiled, and looked into the room again, tsk tsk, it's not light.

Gu Zhao smiled and retreated for a few days, seeing how the world was so fresh. He blinked his eyes and snorted a word of praise to himself: "Hey, how can I be so good!"

Bi Liang stood on one side, leaning on the wall, and stood still.

After Gu Zhao finished speaking, he told Bi Liangli: "Brother, help me burn all the things in my house. I haven't written a single word or a single painting. I will read more and write more articles in the future, eh , That's it, that... Hurry up and clean it up, don't let anyone in."

Say it and blink your eyes.

Bi Liangli felt that he understood something. In the past, Xiao Qiye was like this in the South Island, and he often locked himself up for several days.

Seeing that Bi Liangli had agreed, Gu Zhao staggered out to the courtyard, only to see Mr. Yu Geng playing Go with a strange gentleman in the courtyard.

Gu Zhao walked over and looked at the chessboard.

Mr. Yu Geng quickly stood up and saluted Gu Zhao: "Qi Ye."

"Hey, you are back, Yu Geng, how about the Chinese New Year, and how is everything at home?" Gu Zhao was still so kind.

"Well, when I came, the eldest son of the family said that he would come to Enke in a few days and wanted to live here for a while. This place is close to the examination room, which is just right. I also wanted to come to thank Lord Qi. Thank you for your pen and ink."

"It's all small things. I'll give him some good things for him to be named on the gold list in the future." Gu Zhao greeted and waved his hands indifferently.

Yu Geng introduced there with a smile: "Oh, this is Tao Wending, Mr. Ding Jiu, the old lady sent me to accompany Qiye, play chess, drink tea, and relieve boredom. Mr. Tao, the writing is so crazy, That fine calligraphy is unmatched by few people in Shangjing."

Gu Zhao was in a good mood, so he looked up and down the newcomer with a smile. This old man was not as peaceful as Mr. Yu Geng. He was 50 to [-] years old, and his temples had more white hair than his elder brother Gu Yan. , However, it didn't look very old, probably because the eyes, although not big, had a very deep background. side.

Gu Zhao returned the courtesy: "Mr. Ding Jiu, hey, you see, I am really wronged to come to me. I am... not just an ordinary ignorant person."

Mr. Ding Jiu was immediately happy.

Gu Zhao turned back and ordered Huarui to give him exactly the same treatment as Mr. Yu Geng. After giving the order, he turned back and asked: "Mr. Dingjiu, do you have other hobbies? For example, good tea, good chess, good wine, Good Danqing or something."

Mr. Ding Jiu smiled, and opened his mouth to speak a thick rural dialect in the suburbs of Beijing: "The other one is nothing, just enough pens, ink, and yellow paper."

Gu Zhao laughed loudly: "Success, enough is enough, yellow paper is nothing, if you like it, silk cloth is also enough."

"No need, that would be too extravagant, and it would break the heart." Mr. Ding Jiu refused directly.

Gu Zhao liked this old gentleman quite a bit, but at the very least, he carried all the character of a literati with him.Feeling on his body, Gu Zhao turned around and ran into the house again. After a while, he came out with a small box in his arms, holding Mr. Ding Jiu in both hands, and said: "This is the early morning. Big Brother asked me to write. I’m a blind man with my eyes wide open. If you play with me, it’s a waste. Take it and play with it, sir. I still have something to do over there, let’s go first, and the two gentlemen will continue.”

After finishing speaking, Gu Zhao walked out of the courtyard. Today is really strange, besides Xinzai and Xizai, there are four more servants behind him. In addition to carrying things, there is actually a man carrying a bird cage?

He remembered that he handed over the yard to his sister-in-law two days ago, hey, he really lived more and more depraved, and became more and more dandy.

Mr. Ding Jiu was holding the copybook, cracks began to appear on his face. He watched Gu Zhao walk away, then hurriedly put down the box, rubbed his hands on his clothes, then opened the box, took out the post, and glanced at it hurriedly Finally, I was completely shocked: "It's really Shui Yi Tang."

Mr. Yu Geng shook his head with a smile: "Could it be possible, you thought Qi Ye could lie to you?"

"No, no, old man... I just didn't expect it!" Mr. Ding Jiu waved his hand.

Mr. Yu Geng, picked up a chess piece, put it on the chessboard, the chess piece hit the stone surface, and made a crisp sound: "There are many things you didn't expect, our little seventh master is a rare good person, As long as you treat him sincerely, he will definitely treat you twice as well. He is a rare and sincere person, at least this is the only one in Shangjing, it's your turn...don't look! It's your turn!"

Mr. Ding Jiu didn't look at him at all, just bent down, looked at the scroll cherishingly, trembling with excitement.

Gu Zhao sat in a soft waist sedan chair carried by four slaves (the sedan chair with the poles lifted at the waist), followed by six servants. Along the way, the slaves and servants all bent their backs to the ninety He didn't dare to look up.

When I went there before, I was often disturbed, saluted, greeted, but I never encountered harassment. Of course, it would not leave a trace in Gu Zhao's head or heart if he encountered it. Don't mind this.

Gu Zhao turned to the main courtyard and asked, but his brother was in the martial arts hall in the backyard, so he looked all the way there. When he arrived, Gu Yan had just put down the stone lock and was putting on his coat. Gu Zhao jumped off the sedan chair and took his hand , and dragged him down to the wing of the Martial Hall.

"What are you doing in such a hurry!" Gu Yan had no choice but to follow him with a smile.

Gu Zhao looked around and saw no one was around, so he put a pebble from his sleeve into Gu Yan's hand and said, "Brother, please watch the miracle!"

Gu Yan laughed, took a cloth towel to dry his hands, and then took the cobblestone unhurriedly and looked down.

Gu Yan was stunned, this...isn't this just the man with a fork that he drew casually?The portrait is deep now, as if it grew in the stone, and there is no trace of carving on the stone. It is as if it was born in the stone.