Lucky husband

Li Chengshi and his family of four didn't think about Bai Zhiwen who passed by just now, but Bai Zhiwen stopped aside and turned his head thoughtfully. He seemed to see Brother Jin and his family just now?

Recalling Li Mingjin's bright smile in his memory, Bai Zhiwen shook his head, no matter whether he saw their family just now, he couldn't turn around and look for him now, Li Mingde was still waiting for him, he had to hurry up Go back quickly.

Because Li Chengzhi and the others still had to do business, Li Mingde's staying at the stall would not be of much help, let alone cause chaos, so the two of them agreed to go back to the village together when they left Zhang Anhao's house.

Bai Zhiwen still remembered that when he went to Mingxin Bookstore for the first time, he didn't find Li Mingli at first, because he didn't look like a scholar at the time, so the other staff in the bookstore ignored him at all.

After wandering around the bookstore, Bai Zhiwen still didn't wait for Li Mingli. Just when he was about to change to another bookstore, Li Mingli came out from the back room with a small stack of books and saw him and called him.

Li Mingli didn't know that Bai Zhiwen wanted to ask about copying books, but he knew that Bai Zhiwen had been studying with his father since he was a child, and now he didn't go to school because he wanted to keep his filial piety, so he wasn't surprised to see Bai Zhiwen in the bookstore, so he asked him Are you going to the bookstore to buy some books?

Bai Zhiwen didn't have the idea that it would be embarrassing for scholars to come out to copy books to earn money, so he directly put forward his idea like that, and asked if Li Mingli could do it.

Li Mingli has been an apprentice at Mingxin Bookstore for a while, and he knows the rules of the bookstore, so he naturally knows that the bookstore accepts hand-copied books.

Mingxin Bookstore was opened by the Qu family in Fucheng. They are not small. They have opened stores in the entire prefecture and counties of Han Province, as well as in Fuzhou and Beijing in surrounding provinces. Because there are many shops, the books sold in the bookstore are divided into two parts. There are two kinds, one is the book that their Qu family asked someone to print out, and the other is the book that the shopkeeper of each shop asked someone to copy out.

The printed books are standardized and neat, including the Four Books and Five Classics that are used in the official imperial examinations, and some popular vernacular books, as well as books written by great Confucians and famous officials. There are a certain number of books that can be allocated to different shops in the city, state and county. If some books sell well, they will be sold out in a few days, and they will not be available until the next batch of books arrives.

In order to sell more books, shopkeepers will find someone else to copy the books. Mistakes will inevitably occur when people copy books.

In addition to classic books and best-selling books that are sold out, they will be copied by others. Books written by local celebrities that are not printed uniformly by the shopkeepers and discovered by the shopkeepers will also be copied by others, such as magistrates, county magistrates, magistrates, and Tongzhi. Parents, magistrates, and general judges sometimes organize their articles and poems into books when they are in a good mood. These books are generally only sold locally and the shopkeepers are solely responsible for them, and the composers will not take care of them.

It is not easy to find someone to copy books. Many scholars can't let go of their face and are unwilling to do this. Another reason is that many people's handwriting is not good enough. Although the copied books are not too messy, they are It didn't look neat and beautiful enough, so when Li Mingli heard that Bai Zhiwen said he was going to copy the book, he immediately asked him quietly how his handwriting was.

After a little thought, Bai Zhiwen answered yes.

Bai Zhiwen's handwriting is somewhat similar to Li Mingde's but not the same. His handwriting is relatively more casual and has his own style, unlike Li Mingde's rigid handwriting, but because they usually practice handwriting, they are more inclined to use it for scientific examinations. The Guange style I got is very close to the font used for printing books, and it is more suitable among the fonts for copying books.

Li Mingde often praised Bai Zhiwen in front of Li Mingli, so Li Mingli didn't suspect that Bai Zhiwen was talking big, and directly led him to his shopkeeper Sun to explain the matter.

Copying books is not hard work, but it is a test of patience. Shopkeeper Sun looked at the boy in front of him who was twelve or three years old, and subconsciously wanted to refuse. Children of this age are lively and active, so let them copy books steadily. More likely a waste of paper.

Li Mingli had been with shopkeeper Sun for a while, and he could see what shopkeeper Sun meant. No matter what Bai Zhiwen's level was, he quickly helped to speak: "Shopkeeper Sun, Brother Bai's handwriting is very good, and he also has a good handwriting. Be patient, just let him try it once."

In the past six months as an apprentice at Mingxin Bookstore, Li Mingli has not had any major troubles. Shopkeeper Sun is very satisfied with him. Hearing what he said, he gave Bai Zhiwen a chance—one book plus three sheets of paper, let him He wrote it on the spot to see.

Because of his own experience, Bai Zhiwen's mentality is much more mature than his peers. He sat down and read the contents of the first few pages of the book, and only started to write after he understood it.

Shopkeeper Sun was watching from the side, nodding inwardly when he saw the young man's calm and calm appearance, and saw that he picked up the pen and copied the words on the book with smooth movements, and he almost finished writing a page in one go, which was a little more Interested, thinking that he didn't seem to have seen such an outstanding young man before.

After Bai Zhiwen finished writing the first three pages, Shopkeeper Sun picked up what he had copied and looked at it. There were no mistakes on the three pages, and every word was round and full.

Shopkeeper Sun immediately made a decision and decided to let Bai Zhiwen copy books for their bookstore, and the money would be calculated according to the number of words, [-] Chinese characters per thousand, and he was asked to hand in the books he handed over in the future to be as good as the ones he copied today.

Fifty thousand characters is considered a very high salary in the book copying business. The shopkeeper Sun gave this price because he thought that the words copied by Bai Zhiwen were really good, and secondly, he wanted to make a good relationship. Great fortune.

The person he recommended was affirmed by shopkeeper Sun. Li Mingli was also very happy, and privately told Bai Zhiwen a lot of tips about choosing books.

After Bai Zhiwen paid the deposit and took away a book and a small stack of blank brochures, shopkeeper Sun asked about Li Mingli, Bai Zhiwen's situation.

The matter of the Bai family is not a secret in the village. Li Mingli probably talked about it, meaning that Bai Zhiwen was still observing his filial piety so he did not go to school to study. After a while, it became the matter of Mr. Zhang Lao's disciple.

After listening to shopkeeper Sun, he felt that Bai Zhiwen was unusual. They are shopkeepers who have to learn to look at people, what kind of people can make things happen, and what kind of people are not capable. It is beneficial to make friends with capable people in advance.

From then on, Bai Zhiwen began his experience of copying books in his youth, and he copied books at a fixed time every day—the time when his mind is clearer and the sky is brighter after taking a nap.

When he first started copying books, Bai Zhiwen was not used to it. After all, the requirements for copying books are to be error-free and beautiful, and not to be distracted at all, because once the mind is distracted, it is easy to write differently, and it is easy to write crookedly.

Fortunately, the weather was still hot at that time. Bai Zhiwen got up after a nap, moved his hands and feet and then washed his face with cold water. Usually, it was enough to wake him up. Sleepy, distracted.

It's easy to control not to distract yourself, because Bai Zhiwen has always been very focused on doing things, but his poor memory caused trouble for him to copy books.

After reading a book a few times, Bai Zhiwen can almost remember the content above. Although he would write a sentence and read a sentence to be on the safe side when copying the book, he almost wrote down a few times when he wrote it after reading it. In one sentence, fortunately, when I put pen to paper, I felt that something was wrong, so I quickly changed it.

The first book, Bai Zhiwen, did not take too much care. What he took was a [-]-word book. He copied half of it in one day, finished one in two days, and finished five in ten days.

After accumulating books for a month, he went to Mingxin Bookstore all at once, and exchanged the thirteen books he had copied for one tael and three hundred cash. There were two other books that he didn't take because of mistakes in the copying process. come over.

When Bai Zhiwen returned home with the money, Bai Yao knew that his son had quietly taken over the job of copying the books. He couldn't stop crying, and his mood was mixed, sad and gratified.

Bai Yao is gratified that his son is sensible, and at such a young age, he is considerate of the family's difficulties and trying to earn money, and it is more difficult than his husband's early death. The 12-year-old son has to shoulder the burden of the family, and the age when he should study hard is forced Get distracted and do other things.

When Bai Yaoshi was crying, Bai Zhiwen repeatedly emphasized that his copying would not affect his homework, and he would immediately tell the teacher about it, before Bai Yao finally reluctantly agreed to his son's continued copying.

But Bai Yao kept an eye out, from that day on she would quietly observe whether her son was reading or copying books outside the house from time to time, and found that his son really only copied for a while at noon, she gradually let go of her heart.

Bai Zhiwen did as he promised, the next time he went to Zhang Anhao, he told Zhang Anhao that he was copying books to make money.

Zhang Anhao thought for a while, and only asked his disciple what book he copied, and then asked him to arrange his time reasonably, so that the homework assigned could not be delayed, and he had no intention of objecting to his copying.

Zhang Anhao's parents died young, and he endured a lot of hardships in his childhood to become what he is now. He doesn't think that a boy is worthy of pampering at a young age, but thinks that his disciple is very good.

Retiring from the position of Minister of the Ministry of Household Affairs, Zhang Anhao didn't say that his family was rich, and supporting dozens of children like Bai Zhiwen to study and take the imperial examination was like a drop in the bucket to him, but he didn't help the situation of his disciples. He was more happy to see Bai Zhiwen develops an independent and self-reliant character, because no one can help you for the rest of his life, only himself can be relied on.

From then on, Bai Zhiwen began to copy books when he was young, and then went to the bookstore every month to bring home sample books and blank booklets.

He went to the bookstore this time to send the book he had copied in the last month of the lunar month. It was a book with about [-] characters. He had copied a total of fifteen copies. The speed of copying the book has improved a lot compared to the beginning Less, and basically no more mistakes.

Fifteen books, after checking and confirming that the contents were correct, shopkeeper Sun ordered out two taels of silver and [-] cash to Bai Zhiwen, and then gave him a new year gift wrapped in red paper, which contained festive wishful cakes.

Ruyi cake is made of glutinous rice and red beans. After the glutinous rice is boiled, it is pounded into a rice cake and spread on a flat layer. Then, it is covered with a layer of red bean paste, rolled up and cut open. The incision is in the shape of Ruyi. To prevent sticking, Ruyi There is also a layer of fried soybean powder sprinkled on the outside of the cake, and the aroma can be smelled through the red paper bag.

This annual gift was prepared by shopkeeper Sun himself. He would give a copy to every scholar who copied books for the bookstore for a long time. The difference was that he gave Bai Zhiwen a little more.

Because he had heard from Li Mingli in advance, Bai Zhiwen was not pretentious. After thanking Shopkeeper Sun, he put on money and presented the New Year gift before leaving Mingxin Bookstore.

Shopkeeper Sun looked at the young man's upright figure when he left, and he was looking forward to Bai Zhiwen's demeanor standing among the crowd after he passed his filial piety.

With the money he just got, Bai Zhiwen first bought enough coarse cotton cloth for the three of his family to make spring shirts at a passing cloth store, then went to a grocery store along the way to buy some snacks and peanut oil, and then went to the rice noodle stall to find Liming. Germany.

When the two went back to the village together, Bai Zhiwen took the initiative to mention his visit to the bookstore today during the chat, and then took advantage of the opportunity to ask Li Mingde if Uncle Li and the others came to the county today. He seemed to see their family on the way, but at that time There were so many people on the road that he couldn't confirm it.

"My third uncle and the others seem to have indeed come to the county today. I heard from my parents just now." Li Mingde didn't notice the slightly unusual attention that the person around him paid to his younger brother. After answering the question, he turned around and started talking about it. Other things, "Although the teacher said today that he would give us a few days off for the New Year, but the old man gave us so much homework before he left, we still have to study hard every day during the two holidays, and we can't relax at all."

When it was said that it was hard work, Li Mingde's expression was not too bitter. Bai Zhiwen patted him with a smile, and the two began to discuss the homework assigned by Zhang Anhao.

Author's Gossip: Thank you for your support)